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E277: How a Rosary Podcast Beat Joe Rogan w/Fr Mark-Mary | E277 Lila Rose Show | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

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I've come across some folks who have the deepest of father
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wounds. They couldn't address God as
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Father, but they could talk to Our Lady and I think that is a
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mercy of God. Rosary in a year and this
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podcast hit top of the charts. It's a little bit vulnerable on
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my end. I'll say this.
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Like actually, the success of the rosary in the podcast was by
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isolating. What's the origin of the rosary?
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Because it's not like Jesus handed all his 12 disciples or
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rosary. I'm an active proponent of
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online dating. I just encourage people to have
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like a line in as many places as possible.
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Abuse is real. There are situations where you
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need to separate. If you're in a marriage and that
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doesn't, you're violating your marriage or your faith.
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Almost everyone is like under affirmed and under celebrated.
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If we're going to make a mistake, I would make a mistake
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towards celebrating people and the good things that are
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Father Mark Mary, welcome to the podcast.
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Good to be with you. Thanks for having.
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Me. I love your name.
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Yeah, it's great. Me.
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Too. I appreciate that 2.
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Ms. You got Mary in there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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That made you pick Mark Mary? So my full religious name is
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Mark Mary Maximilian SO3MS, which which is kind of cool and
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we can kind of touch on that for a second.
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Just kind of do a lot of media work in Saint Maximil and Colby
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is like the patron St. of that and I had no idea of I had no
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plan on doing any media work. I had no, that wasn't part of
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it. So it just felt kind of like a
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little providential thing. But I am I'm baptized Mark.
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So I'm baptized Mark Daniel and we have a traditional become
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Friars of taking a name and you can kind of pray about it.
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And Long story short is I just felt like like God really used
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Our Lady in some specific ways to bring me about here.
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And so like that this is now like Mary's Mark like, so
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there's just like what, what what God has done through Our
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Lady to bring me to this place. Like and so so that's that's the
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idea is, is Mark Mary with like just this emphasis on
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ingratitude of like what our Lady's done for me.
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You're all over Father. You're.
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I've got multiple podcasts, not just one.
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We were talking before we sat down about just the sheer
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workload of it. Rosary in a year was like hit
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the top of the charts, I mean. It did for a couple days, yeah,
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an. Amazing thing to see the rosary
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at the top of Apple podcast charts.
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I was like, that's very cool. And then you are traveling the
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country, you speak, you're going to be speaking at Sikh in a few
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weeks. You're also running social media
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for the CFRS. So you're a very outward facing
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CFR Franciscan and you're very productive.
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It's a lot. It is a lot.
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And it's controversial because I think today there's in the faith
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community, the Catholicism, especially Mary in the media
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space is being, I think, brought up more than I've ever seen in
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decades. And you were at the tip of the
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spirit with that, with the rosary of your podcast.
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Yeah, but I'm kind of doing it my way, which is like my focus
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is, is helping people make the next best step in like their
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spiritual life, right. And so like the rosary of your
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podcast, it's not an apologetics thing.
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Like we're not talking, it's not, it's not argumentation,
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it's not this or that. It's just it's helping people to
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kind of to pray and to enter into relationship better with
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her. And, and like for those who have
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questions, you know, the invitations like, hey, just come
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check it out, come and see. And I think you'll actually find
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it to be a lot more beautiful and helpful and less scary and
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less controversial than maybe you might think.
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But but I get it. There's a.
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There's a lot there. Yeah, I do know a lot of
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Protestants who are praying the rosary or who carry rosaries
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with them. Do you know what?
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What do they say? Usually they say that they note
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that the rosary is scriptural. A lot of it anyways, that is the
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first half of every Hail Mary, the our Father Scriptural, the
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glory be a scriptural And they, I think they feel a connection
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to the beads. It's a way to pray.
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I mean, there's something very obviously human about having a
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prayer guide like that. You know, it's like a tool like
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that. I the, the part about praying to
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Mary is where there's a little bit of a struggle, I think, for
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a lot of people. I know for myself, I was raised
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Protestant and that was a question mark.
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What does it mean to pray to Mary?
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I thought Jesus is the only mediator.
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Yeah, yeah. And like the, you can let me
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know if this like makes sense to me, part of, because like, the
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question is like, why would I talk to Mary when I could just
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talk to Jesus, you know, And, you know, I can imagine if
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you're married, if you're like, you're with your husband in some
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space, whatever it is, like when he goes and like has like a
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relationship with somebody else, you love, like, that's actually
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like a gift to you, you know, And so like, like you're with
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Jesus and you're like, you got, you're, you're with Jesus and
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you're hanging out and, you know, the kitchen or whatever,
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like that. And then you go and like, love
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and like, are attentive to his mom.
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Like it, it actually is a gift to him as well.
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You know, and I, and I get it 'cause people like, are
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protective of Jesus and they love Jesus and, and they don't
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want to, they don't want anything that's going to take
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away from his glory. OK, We, we get that.
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And I, I just think that actually loving Our Lady as it
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actually glorifies him more. And and it is even like a it's
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just a sweet gift to Jesus as well when we love Mary.
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I think a lot of people think that at least non Catholics who
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are Christians think that praying to anybody who's dead
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except for God, whose can't be dead, He's, you know, Jesus died
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as a man, but obviously he resurrected.
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He's God is unbiblical. And so maybe they're like, yeah,
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we should respect and Revere Mary more.
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That's fine. She is the mother of Jesus who
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is God. But praying to Mary is a step
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too far. Yeah, yeah.
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I just like Jesus has kind of showed himself to not to be a
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God of like of, of, of abundance and over abundance, right?
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And like if you look at creation itself, it's like way more than
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was necessary, right? And true, you know, and this,
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this is a little bit revelatory of the heart of God.
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And so Jesus, like I, I kind of look at I love the beauty of how
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he gives himself in the most Holy Eucharist to the form of
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bread and wine. And like, I kind of see bread is
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like, like the staple that which is necessary.
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And he does, he gives us that which is necessary.
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He gives us life, he gives us salvation.
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And then like the wine, like wine isn't strictly necessary.
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There's like this added sweetness to it.
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And that Jesus doesn't just give us only what's necessary.
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He gives us more than he gives us like a sweetness of joy in
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this life. And I think that with like with
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Our Lady and, and even in all the Saints and the beauty of
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their example in the beauty of ways we can connect to them,
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there is this like, yeah, God is 100% enough and he is over
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abundant in himself, but also he has like all these ways in which
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he wants to bless us and care for us through, for example, the
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Saints and the angels. And, and maybe just like 1.
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There's also like a bit of a practicality to it is.
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Practicality to praying to Mary or the.
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Saints to to Jesus giving us Mary and and and and and us
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having like capacity for relationship with her.
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I've just I've like come across some folks who have like the
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deepest the father wounds. And when they started to kind of
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come back to the faith, like they couldn't address God as
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Father and they couldn't talk to to Jesus because of like their
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maleness or the masculinity, like the maleness of Jesus,
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right? But they could talk to Our Lady.
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And I think like that is a mercy of God, and that's beautiful.
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Meaning to get started in their journey back to God, Mary LED
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them. Back to the.
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True Father, after they've been so betrayed by their earthly.
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Father yeah, but and so and and that's exactly what happened is
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she came into she came all the way back, you know, but like
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Mary was like a kind of a safe starting spot that and I guess
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yeah, I would say a safe spot. And then slowly she did bring,
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you know, this, this this woman I'm thinking of to, you know, to
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fullness relationship with the most Holy Trinity.
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What's your relationship like with Mary?
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And I'm going to guess it's connected to you becoming a
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Franciscan and a priest. Yeah, yeah, like it's always
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developing and ongoing and and I think the I'll maybe kind of
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like part of the Mark Mary thing is when I was like I had my all
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in for Jesus, like my conversion when I was a freshman in college
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and this this thing started happening that like.
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Sorry, were you were you raised Christian before that?
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So I was Catholic, yeah. But you were you kind of weren't
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practicing in high school or. Well, I would just say I was 1
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foot in, one foot out. And so, so like I had this thing
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that I wanted to be dynamic, which meant you like, you go to
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Mass on Sunday, you can go to the youth group, you can work
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with the poor, but also like, kind of like with like the
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social stuff, like the party stuff, you kind of do what
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everybody else is doing. And it was freshman year of
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college where I realized what I thought was dynamic was like
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hypocritical and that I believe and it needs to affect my whole
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life. And we can go into that if you
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want. Cuz it was like was that random
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door party while having a conversation with an atheist and
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drinking boxed wine out of a diet Pepsi bottle that my whole
9:35
life. Changed Why?
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Why diet wine in a diet? Why wine in a Diet Pepsi bottle?
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To disguise it. I think it was just, no, it was,
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it was, it was, it was practical.
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I mean, I was 18, so I like it wasn't legal, but it was like
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boxed wine and so and like I would just put it into the from
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the box into the Diet Pepsi bottle.
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Probably tasted gross if there's like Diet Pepsi in it.
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I mean it was empty. I'd already drink mid diet
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Pepsi. I'm not supposed to reuse this?
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It wasn't correct. You're like this is not as fun
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dynamic as I thought it. Wasn't it was not distinguished
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by by any stretch. Like when you say you were
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partying, there's good Catholic partying, there's good Christian
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partying that doesn't include any sin.
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You know, the wedding feast at Cana is this ultimate party,
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Jesus's first miracle. So were you, were you involved
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in a life, a certain sin? And then you're like, I got to
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just cut the sin out or more. You were just the lukewarm.
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It was more I was probably it was ignorance more than anything
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and I never like I have a very, very good family, very, very
10:37
good foundation and I actually kind of cared about and and a
10:42
phenomenal youth ministry that like changed my life and is what
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I like. It was my social group through
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high school. So like the the partying was
10:50
like occasional like weekend drinking, nothing more than
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that. But also like I even I think
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really after my conversion immediately happened, I don't
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even think I knew like drinking to get drunk was a problem.
11:03
So you kind of see it all over the place.
11:06
And so again, like I wasn't doing anything crazy.
11:09
I was I was committing moral sin, but it wasn't more than
11:13
kind of weekend drinking. That's an interesting
11:15
observation. A lot of people don't know that
11:16
getting drunk is a moral sin. Yeah, yeah.
11:18
So yeah. You got to go to confession
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before receiving Holy Eucharist and repent of it.
11:24
So so, but you were saying you're drinking, you're having a
11:27
conversation with an atheist. This is before your onset of
11:29
really a deeper relationship with Mary and God first and
11:32
foremost, and you're discussing an atheist.
11:35
You're drinking the boxed wine in the Pepsi bottle.
11:37
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.
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And then? And then like my experience is
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God, God had a plan for me and he came after me and he, he kind
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of like picked me up. And so there's just a lot of
11:50
things that happened with my my conversion and vocation that are
11:53
like AB like they're not normal. But yeah, so I'm there and I'm
11:57
having this conversation with this, this, you know, other
12:00
college student. She said she doesn't believe.
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And I just start like defending the faith.
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How can you not believe? It's the word God this and that.
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And I just like, it was a Saint Paul.
12:07
Like I just got rocked my core And, and what I just heard
12:11
basically is like, I believe in it needs to affect my whole
12:13
life. And it was, yeah, like I like, I
12:17
like this was like it just came to light and I ended up going
12:20
and I just, I had a pretty powerful moment just like a
12:23
couple days ago where I was actually yesterday seen
12:26
everybody from this, this time again for the first time in like
12:29
a long time. But I, I like, it was like the
12:31
middle of the night and I called this woman Don who it was kind
12:35
of part of the youth ministry. She come to me.
12:37
And and so I get called her and I'm like crying and tell her all
12:39
the stuff that's happening. And not everything changed, but
12:43
the, the like the trajectory of my life completely changed.
12:45
And I kind of like everything is on the table for Jesus and, and
12:52
I'm going to like, I'm going to like, yeah, I'm going to give
12:54
him a blank check and then do whatever he asks and go, go
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wherever he invites me, etcetera.
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And so it like it was a random unique setting, but the the
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grace like really did just change my entire life.
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And and did you have any idea up until this point that you would
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become a religious priest? Was that even on the radar for
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you? No, no, I never thought about
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it. We don't like, I wouldn't have
13:20
known the word religious. I would have thought religious
13:22
meant somebody who cared about religion, like the idea of
13:25
consecrated people. I had no idea really about it.
13:28
Not. Yeah, I kind of knew about nuns
13:29
loosely. But growing up, I grew up in
13:31
Anaheim Hills. Like, there's just nothing like
13:33
this there. And we're very close with my
13:36
like we work very close to my pastor, but I never thought
13:41
about it. What was an example of something
13:44
you said? All these things that were not
13:46
normal started to happen or you experienced.
13:48
So, so like that, like so that's like a kind of unique, unique
13:52
grace. And it was like an interior
13:54
voice almost in your heart, like.
13:56
It, it was like an epiphany. It was like coming to light.
13:58
It was like, I like, I believe it was, it was, you know, grace
14:01
is like a theological virtue. Grace is something given.
14:05
And it was almost like I kind of got this like special like
14:08
infusion of faith and of grace and of like seeing what was true
14:12
and what was true for me and that I believe that needs to
14:15
affect my whole life. And so it was, it was like a
14:16
experience of a conviction more than like a, a whispering or a
14:20
voice. So that was like a thing I
14:25
learned about the I got my vocation to the CFRS at In-n-out
14:28
Burger. So like.
14:30
Great spot. Yeah, like.
14:31
In California here. Yeah, yeah, over an imperial
14:33
highway. Is it still there though in
14:35
it's? Still there?
14:36
Yeah. Yeah, still.
14:37
Gotta go back for a burger this trip.
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The most controversial thing I'll say here is that like, I'm
14:42
not the biggest in and out guy. After all, it's.
14:45
Done. Even though it gave me my this
14:47
beautiful gift and vocation. I'm not opposed to it, but it's
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not like. Hamburgers then.
14:52
It's not well, you know, it's fine.
14:55
It's good. It's good.
14:57
I just got sorry, sorry. Side note, I made burgers last
14:59
night for dinner because we're trying not to eat out too much.
15:01
It's, you know, expensive and gross and whatever to eat out
15:04
typically. So I'm making the burgers at
15:06
home. Not a hard meal to make.
15:07
OK, Anyways, I made, I had like the spread and da, da, da.
15:10
We're all sitting down and I'm like, my husband's like, this is
15:12
so delicious. Thank you.
15:13
Thanks, love. I'm like, how is it, guys?
15:15
And then I just was like, what do you like better, these
15:17
burgers or In-n-out to my kids who are 5 and 4, the dupe boys.
15:21
And they're like, oh, in and out is way better.
15:23
And they weren't even trying to be mean.
15:24
They're just like, and I'm like, yeah, they are.
15:26
They do taste better than. These burgers, Yeah, yeah.
15:29
And so does that you don't want to eat my burgers is what I'm.
15:32
Trying to say a mom's heart when because I was with some friends
15:35
of mine who have a bunch of boys and she just made some cookies
15:38
and one of them who's like my godson was like 6.
15:40
Like, I don't like these. That's just part of the.
15:43
Job. It's honesty.
15:44
I actually value that. As long as they tell me they
15:46
love me, give me hugs and kisses, they can tell me they
15:49
don't like my food there. You go.
15:51
There you go. I didn't even like it.
15:53
I mean it was I made it for them because they like burgers.
15:55
But clearly can husband and wife do in and out?
15:57
Give each other feedback on that.
15:59
You know, that's an interesting and controversial question.
16:02
OK. I mean, I would be fine if my
16:05
husband critiqued my cooking. I really would, because I don't
16:07
take it very personally. But he doesn't I because I think
16:11
he's sincerely grateful that he like when I make him meals,
16:15
which is a blessing, but I don't think it would be like wrong.
16:17
I I have asked him like, Hey, do you like this?
16:19
And and if I coax it out of him, he will give me feedback.
16:22
He's a very like, you know? Yeah, it's probably the.
16:26
Modest man and very, you know, wise and just so he's not going
16:30
to throw out his requests or requirements.
16:34
He doesn't really have requirements, but if he'll give
16:36
me like like potatoes, he likes them crispy.
16:37
Like I'll be like, hey dude, he'll like, you know so.
16:41
OK, Yeah, Yeah, it's probably I'm sure sure in all the all the
16:45
marriages navigate those things a little bit differently if.
16:48
You're married to an Italian. They're like, do you like, isn't
16:50
this delicious? What I made?
16:51
That's how I grew up with my mom cooking.
16:53
And she's like, isn't this so delicious what I made?
16:55
And you ought to be like, yes, it's so delicious.
16:56
And it was delicious. Yeah.
16:58
I'm not. I don't think it's.
16:58
I'm as good as a cook as my mom, as the thing.
17:00
So. Yeah.
17:01
I went down we I can get, I'll get back to the the in and out
17:04
the the the in and out thing. But like, when I was down, I
17:06
was, I, I, I've grown with this great love of Louisiana,
17:11
particularly Lafayette, LA. And when I went down there for
17:13
the first time, I went to Broussard, which is right next
17:16
to it. Like the priest had to like,
17:17
give us like a little lesson on how to react to food because
17:20
like, it's very important that it's like very expressive and,
17:23
and you can't be like, Oh, that's good.
17:24
You have to, like, you have to let them know, you know, over
17:27
the top how much you love it and all this sort of stuff.
17:30
So I, I, I had to get some coaching on it, which is
17:32
probably what, you know, your mom would.
17:34
Appreciate it. Like crawfish, right?
17:36
And that like very heavily flavored.
17:38
Yeah, I liked it. Oh, you didn't.
17:39
I mean, I would say crawfish. I love the experience.
17:42
I'm a I'm a crawfish boil fan. Big time.
17:45
It sounds like it's not your favorite thing.
17:47
I've never got into it now. OK, I like the beignets I had
17:50
when I was in New Orleans. I had the beignet shop or
17:53
whatever they do the doughnuts with the dust on them.
17:55
That's pretty safe. To say I like, you know, the
17:58
doughnut type of thing. The fancy doughnut?
18:00
Yeah, no, I like it. And I love, I mean, part of what
18:03
I love about South Louisiana is like they actually have a real
18:06
culture that they care about and they're proud of.
18:08
And it's very Catholic. And it's very Catholic and it's
18:11
very Catholic. So I, yeah, I love it down
18:13
there. I love it down there, but I'm
18:15
not very, I'm not a big foodie. And so it's not.
18:18
That's why you don't like in and out.
18:19
It's it. Maybe that's why I'm.
18:20
Fine. That could that could very much
18:22
be why that could be very. Much you like McDonald's.
18:25
I do like McDonald's. You do.
18:27
I mean, I like, I mean, I'm not proud of it.
18:29
I like all fast food you like. McDonald's better than in and
18:31
out. Be honest.
18:33
Do I like it better? I definitely like the French
18:35
fries better. Oh, McDonald's French fries
18:39
aren't even real potato. Look up the ingredients.
18:41
There is. Haven't you seen these studies?
18:43
You can leave a McDonald's French fry in like a hole in the
18:46
ground for like a decade and you come back and it's still there.
18:49
Beautiful that's great. You know, if you ever lose it,
18:52
it's still good. I I like too.
18:55
I I overreacted too far to some because again, I'm Orange
18:58
County, whatever, like some of the like hyper like organic food
19:03
world. I revolted against a little bit
19:07
and was like, give me the processed.
19:09
I want everything. The more processed, the better.
19:13
I used to say that in high school, I used to eat really
19:16
clean and I thought it was clean and it what I would have a Diet
19:19
Coke and a protein bar every morning on on the way to to
19:22
school. And people are like, I don't
19:24
think eating clean is like what you think it is, But I've come,
19:29
I've come intellectually, I've had a conversion of the space
19:33
and I value healthy food and things like that.
19:36
But the, the process we eat like because we cook for ourselves,
19:40
we eat like a home cooked meal every day and we never eat fast
19:42
food stuff. So it's always kind of a.
19:44
Treat I see all right, I know we got we're going to hear about
19:46
the conversion story at in and out and we're going to get to
19:48
the merry. But now I've got to ask you
19:50
because you told me before we sat down that you cook once or
19:52
twice a week for the five brothers you live with in New
19:56
York. Yeah, and I've got to ask, what
19:58
do you make? So whatever me, I'm whatever's
20:03
easiest. Like is is that frozen meals
20:06
from the no. No, there's no frozen meals.
20:08
There's nothing like that. There's no frozen meals.
20:09
That's doing great. We.
20:10
Have doing better than 1/3 of American families.
20:12
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's The thing is we generally
20:17
we can eat pretty decent and pretty like healthy.
20:20
Like I think like probably like because everything's donated.
20:23
So probably like the, the maybe like the ground beef, probably
20:27
on the cheaper end, which is probably, you know, like higher
20:29
fat to whatever content. We're not getting specialized
20:31
anything. But we do, we do, we do pretty
20:34
good. But so I live with, so I'm the
20:37
only priest my house it's me. And then there's 4 fryer
20:39
seminarians. And but in the fryer we all take
20:43
turns cooking. And so sometimes it's once and
20:46
it's twice a week. But and then also like we, we
20:49
cook meals and serve them at the door to like some of the
20:52
homeless and some like day laborers.
20:54
And so the the guy who cooks for the fryers also cooks for like
20:57
our neighbors at the same time. That's beautiful.
20:59
Yeah, that's so. So is it when you're doing the
21:03
food at the door. When you cook for the household,
21:05
you sometimes put the meals on at the door as well for people
21:08
passing by. So we, we, they, they ring the
21:10
doorbell and we like, we like go out and, and serve them, like
21:13
dish it up and serve it to them and stuff like that.
21:15
Yeah. And it's pretty, I mean, it's
21:17
pretty like it's, it's a lot of, it's like beans and rice and
21:20
like tortillas and stuff. Like, so it's like, it's not
21:23
fancy, but, and for a lot of the guys who we work with, like
21:25
that's kind of what they prefer even more than we used to have
21:28
like a pizza donation. And I think the beans and the
21:30
rice and coffee and stuff is, is great.
21:34
But, and then yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so I, I, I'm not, I'm not a
21:39
great cook. I don't, I don't like I'm.
21:43
I don't I because I don't care. I don't think people go to you
21:45
for food. I guess some do.
21:47
I guess some do and you're like the day laborers or the
21:50
homeless. But your average person is going
21:53
to you for the rosary in a year or your very insightful YouTube
21:57
videos and. Other stuff, Other stuff, yeah,
21:59
yeah, we have a couple guys like one of our brothers is like
22:01
he's, he's a French, he's from France or France, but he's like
22:04
a very good cook. And they have a very different
22:08
relationship to food than we do and I can probably a much more
22:13
healthy way. Yeah, that's why they're all
22:15
like in, in shape in grants, like the obesity rate compared
22:17
to here. There's night and day.
22:19
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23:52
All right, so sorry I. Thank you for letting me on a.
23:54
Culinary exercise here, but back to in and out.
23:59
That's when you discovered your vocation at in and out.
24:01
Yeah, so I was I was a freshman at call.
24:03
Everything happened super quick. So I had my like all in, I'm
24:06
like all in for, for for Jesus. About maybe a month and 1/2 into
24:12
and they have this and this actually we can connect us to
24:13
Our Lady very naturally. Like about a month and 1/2 into
24:16
my freshman year of college. And then I was coming back to
24:21
Anaheim Hills quite a bit from like LA basically.
24:24
And after like some young adult meeting, we went in and out and
24:27
there's a guy there who I only met him that one night.
24:29
I don't remember, I don't even remember his name.
24:31
He said, there's this group of Franciscans in New York or
24:35
hardcore and sleep on the ground.
24:36
And that's that's all I had. That's all I knew, that's all I
24:39
heard. But for me at that point, I've
24:41
been on a little bit of a journey and I was kind of
24:43
leaning towards I wanted to work with the poor and I thought
24:45
maybe I want to be a priest. And so this was like the most
24:48
all in intense way to follow Jesus that I've ever heard of.
24:51
So I went home that night and did like a Google search, like
24:54
it was like monks New York, like Gray, like just and and I found
24:59
the CFRS website and I read our constitutions, which is like our
25:03
way of life. And it was like it was all my
25:07
desires on like a piece of paper.
25:09
Wow. And so it's like, if this is,
25:11
this is, if this is true, this is everything I'm looking for.
25:14
And so that's like, that's like I hadn't met most, like I didn't
25:16
meet a fryer. Nothing happened.
25:18
And it's just like this is I had like clarity and conviction that
25:20
this is what I want to do and what I'm called to do just.
25:24
Because a guy at In and Out said that to you just because.
25:27
Well. Because the guy at the in and
25:28
out said this thing about the hardcore for Jesus thing,
25:30
whatever. But then what I read on the
25:31
Constitution's is like they pray that they work with the poor,
25:34
that the poverty and like being being pro-life and doing
25:37
pro-life work is like explicit in our constitutions all like
25:41
all of it was like, this is, this is exactly what I want.
25:44
And so that like for me, God made where he wanted me to go
25:48
super clear and obvious. And I think cuz like there was
25:52
going to be some like friction. My life here was great and
25:56
beautiful and it was really hard to leave, you know, And so like,
26:01
but but I had this like this conviction that like, actually
26:05
this is where God's calling me and this is what I deep down
26:08
want the most. What was the pro-life piece?
26:11
Were you already passionately pro-life?
26:14
I didn't, I wasn't like super well catechized.
26:15
I like, I didn't grow up in like a really profound Catholic
26:19
culture. And so like, I, I was convicted
26:23
of like the value like that pro-life, of all the realities
26:27
of being pro-life and the importance of it.
26:29
I wasn't, but I wasn't like actively doing stuff with it.
26:31
But the fact that it was something that from the very
26:34
beginning, the Friars have said that this is something that
26:36
we're, it's an essential part of our work.
26:38
Yeah. So you read the Constitution?
26:41
You'd never met ACFR before, Yeah, and now you're on the hunt
26:45
to try to go meet them. What was the next step?
26:47
No, that's again where it's kind of weird.
26:48
Like these are some of the things that are like not
26:50
recommended. I didn't have a spiritual
26:51
director, so I didn't have any guidance.
26:53
And it was just like, I knew I was going to finish college, but
26:58
I and I knew that was where, where I wanted to go.
27:01
And so I like like I changed my major to philosophy because if
27:03
you want to be appreciative to study philosophy, like I did all
27:05
of this stuff knowing that that's where I was going to go,
27:07
but I never like reached out and talked to ACFR so.
27:13
I have a quick question about that.
27:15
Did you have other friends who had spiritual directors at the
27:17
time that wasn't like a thing. I, this is my observation is
27:21
people, if they are around other people who don't approach the
27:24
spiritual life with that kind of intentionality and it's not out
27:27
of a lack of goodwill. It's just a formation thing.
27:30
Then it's like a foreign thing like, oh, a spiritual director
27:32
that I meet with like weekly or at least monthly and I like bare
27:35
my soul to, you know, that's, that's very unusual for a lot of
27:38
people. They're like, oh, like, but if
27:40
you have friends that do it or mentors that have encouraged you
27:42
to do it, it's a different dimension and it's so fruitful.
27:46
Oh my gosh. Like if having a spiritual
27:48
director that you bare your soul to regularly, the same guy, you
27:52
know, because you can like switch it around and no one
27:54
really knows you, but the same person that you are lurk looking
27:59
for guidance from to get closer to God, right?
28:01
That's the whole game name of the game.
28:04
You know, the spiritual life. It's transformative, but if
28:07
people don't have it, like, they kind of can wander.
28:09
Yeah. And yeah, I have a variety of
28:12
thoughts about it. Certainly the demand for
28:17
spiritual direction is trending towards it feels like an all
28:20
time high. But.
28:22
Why do? You say that.
28:24
Because I think that's true. OK, you just see you've you've
28:26
observed it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:28
And I agree. For example, like a lot of like
28:32
young adult missionaries, like the focus missionaries,
28:33
whatever, they're all kind of like expected trying to have a
28:36
spiritual director. There's a lot of people who want
28:38
it. It's one of the most common
28:39
requests we get through our like website.
28:41
Is is a Friar available for spiritual direction?
28:43
It's awesome. The difficulty is the, the, the,
28:48
the demand in the supply aren't necessarily on the same page.
28:50
So there's just a lot of people who want it and there's, there's
28:52
not a ton of in this like folks who are able to offer spiritual
28:56
direction, you know. And so I think that's kind of
28:59
there's going to be probably more and more there is more and
29:01
more spiritual direction schools that are forming in a training
29:06
of lay spiritual directors, which overall I would say is a
29:10
positive thing and a good thing and a helpful thing.
29:16
But that's like the the priests were like, I don't know any
29:19
priest who's available to take on more directives.
29:22
Really. I don't know any.
29:24
How many priests do you think you know?
29:26
A lot. I mean I know all like.
29:28
You know. Yeah, I mean, I probably know.
29:30
Probably know over 100. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:33
I probably know. Yeah, maybe 500.
29:35
You don't. Know 500 priests and none of
29:37
them are available. But I don't know, no, I would
29:38
say like I, I, so to, to clarify, none that I know are
29:42
available. All of the 500 priests, I know
29:45
most of them, I don't know their schedules, you know what I mean?
29:47
But of the CFRS, like of the guys who I live with and work
29:50
with, I don't know a single one who has space for another
29:55
directee. They might be willing to like,
29:57
take on like make the space for it, but.
30:01
Well, I mean, my observation is anybody who's good at anything
30:05
was going to get a lot of requests and that's normal and
30:08
good. But if you really want spiritual
30:10
direction, you've got to make a lot of requests yourself to get
30:13
good spiritual direction. And so I, I like my sort of
30:16
advice when people are like, how do I find a spiritual director?
30:19
I'm always like, you're not going to knock on your door and
30:21
be like, I'm here to be your spiritual director.
30:23
You have to treat it like a, like a job, like it is a job.
30:26
It's your spiritual life. You know, you put intentionality
30:28
into anything else in your life put into this.
30:31
And so you got to like knock on doors and you might get people
30:33
who are not available, not out of hardness of heart, but
30:36
they're busy. Keep knocking like, and it could
30:38
be the parish priest. If you think he seems wise, you
30:41
know, you, you respect like his, like his homilies, like knock on
30:44
the door. Or it could be the Norbertines
30:46
or it could be Opus Dei priests or it could be Franciscans, but
30:49
just knock. It could be a nun, it could be a
30:52
layperson. You know, I've had lay people
30:54
my, my actual besides the priest that brought me into the faith.
30:57
My first spiritual director was a a laywoman.
31:00
She was a celibate lay woman. So she dedicated her life to
31:02
direct direction. But she gave me like such a head
31:06
start in figuring out who I was, what my issues were, you know,
31:10
how to work on my virtues, everything, my vices, I should
31:14
say, and and. Like, I think like the, the
31:16
culture society is different than it used to be, right?
31:19
And, and you don't necessarily, I think like, I mean, we're
31:23
going way back, but like there would be a time where like there
31:25
was like a huge amount amount of like mentorship and wisdom
31:28
accessible to people just in their day-to-day life.
31:31
And now you kind of have to like find it and initiate it.
31:35
And so like, I'm a, I'm a big advocate of, of like, of
31:39
counseling and of people seeking out like therapy and, and having
31:43
professionals that, and that's like, and I would say like
31:46
that's like, yeah, there's a professional and that's like
31:48
super important. And like, I think spiritual
31:50
direction isn't necessary for everybody, but having like
31:56
mentors and having people who have like wisdom and who are,
31:59
you know, a few seasons into life ahead of you who can help
32:02
accompany you. I think that's actually
32:04
something that's like, like a general human good that we all
32:07
like want to have and probably should have.
32:10
And so sometimes right now, because we don't have that sort
32:13
of mentorship in our day-to-day life, we try and sort of
32:16
supplement that with spiritual direction and things like that,
32:20
which I think is good and important.
32:21
But it is just like, I live in the reality of there's just a
32:27
lot of people who want spiritual direction and it's hard for us
32:29
to like provide that. That's actually a very important
32:33
point you just made now that we're on this topic because and
32:36
I, you know, because I was like, everyone needs to pressure knock
32:39
on every door. But a lot of the times your
32:41
needs are just wise counsel or you have emotional or even
32:45
psychological or trauma or wounds that you need to talk
32:49
through or you just very stressed out.
32:51
So you need a good friend. You know, sometimes you just
32:53
need a good friend that's trusted that you can just talk
32:56
through your problems with. Because I do think a lot of good
32:58
priests I've over I've I've I've observed or I understand based
33:02
on, you know, limited things. I've I've heard they are
33:05
sometimes sort of the dumping grounds for like the young
33:09
woman's, you know, woes, dating woes.
33:12
And so the priest is sitting there like, and she's doing this
33:14
so that I was like, the priest will, you know, very lovingly,
33:16
let's pray like da, da, da. But these are things she could
33:20
have shared with a good friend or even a therapist if she has
33:24
anxiety that should be navigated instead of the priest sort of
33:28
having to fulfill the role of friend, mentor, therapist, which
33:33
is really not the the job of the spiritual counselor.
33:36
It's really not. But I think we, we, we blur the
33:38
lines on that. Yeah, and that's, and that's
33:40
like you can recognize it without like overreacting to it
33:44
'cause I think we use spiritual direction now like pretty
33:47
broadly that's true. When maybe like what it like is
33:49
that it's like, it's like you kind of how you explain it where
33:54
they're like you kind of like it's obvious that you kind of
33:57
like are doing it and like a a very particular way you're
33:59
focused on the spiritual life. There is a pretty radical
34:01
transparency and it's not just like pastoral counseling.
34:05
It's not just like here's what's going on with like I work with a
34:09
lot of young people. It's like, yeah, we can talk
34:11
about your dating life and that kind of stuff.
34:12
That's not 100% the primary focus for spiritual direction.
34:16
We want you to talk about God and what God's doing.
34:19
But like I, I think we, I use the language of some of us use
34:21
the language like it. You got to build your team.
34:23
And so we want, we like everyone, like we're not
34:25
supposed to be doing this alone. We got to make sure we have our
34:27
team. And for most people, if they
34:29
have a regular prayer life, if they have like a regular
34:31
confessor, if they have some sort of like discipleship group
34:34
that they're walking with and like a mentor to, they probably
34:39
have what they need for their spiritual journey, you know, But
34:45
unfortunately a lot of people are like on an island by
34:47
themself and they have, they have YouTube and they have, you
34:52
know, you know, the priest who's at their parish who's just like
34:55
swamped, you know, So I, so it's hard.
34:58
I think that's a very, I love that team concept.
35:01
That's a really good one. And I think if people just did
35:03
that, you said prayer as a a discipleship group of some kind
35:07
of confessor, like go to regular confession, ideally the same
35:10
person. So you can like have a brief
35:11
conversation about where you're working out with virtues or
35:14
vices and then having, you know, some mentors in the picture, at
35:17
least one good mentor. That's game changing.
35:21
I have also noticed in the cat like we're very, I'm very
35:24
interested in the shows. We're interested in the world of
35:25
like young singles and newlyweds and just how to have stronger
35:29
families and, you know, strength of strength of vocations, Da da
35:32
da. And I have noticed too, a
35:34
tendency among those who are in the dating space, who are pre
35:37
marriage to sort of especially I think of young women.
35:41
And I was tempted to this a lot as a young woman before I got
35:44
married of like having the priest, like trying to like
35:46
solve my, my love life problems, You know, I don't know if you've
35:50
experienced this, but like young pious Catholic women, like, and
35:54
then like, should I marry him? Should I not father?
35:57
And of course there's a spiritual component that's
35:59
incredibly important to these discernment, but a lot of it is
36:02
not like the priest can't tell you who to love or how to love.
36:04
I mean, and the priest can only direct you back to prayer, you
36:07
know, and I think sometimes we want our priest to like, tell us
36:09
like, should I marry him, you know?
36:12
And we're. Like consulting the priest on
36:14
every little decision of our dating life.
36:16
It was like the poor place. Right.
36:17
And a lot of us like and, and, and for me, the tension isn't
36:21
investment or interest or concern or care, of course,
36:24
it's, it's availability and capacity.
36:26
And so with that stuff, it's like, hey, if, like if we need
36:30
to go, then this is where we're at right now.
36:32
Cool. But there's also a lot of other
36:34
people who can speak into that and maybe even with like more
36:39
wisdom than I have, right? So like in those conversations a
36:42
lot of time, like would like, what'd your mom say there?
36:45
You go, you know what I mean? Because actually, like your mom
36:48
knows you a lot better than me and she knows this sort of stuff
36:50
and she's kind of been there, right?
36:51
And so like, yeah, OK, if you, if you need to bring it to
36:53
father, especially like the the thing that that comes the most
36:57
to me is the the lack of the relationship.
37:00
And here's this desire and here's where I feel kind of like
37:03
abandoned alone with it. And, and I do think it's very
37:08
appropriate and something I, I, I to go there as a priest and to
37:13
bring God into that and to like let them be seen and loved and
37:16
cared for there. I value those was like really
37:19
privileged opportunities. That's beautiful.
37:21
Thank you. Thank you for being such a good
37:23
priest. Yeah, yeah, I yeah, I try.
37:26
I try. No, it's such a gift.
37:28
And yeah, I don't mean to be too harsh about it because I was
37:31
definitely in those shoes. It's easy to like talk about the
37:34
big game about it when I'm gratefully married, you know?
37:38
But I do think I do just want also their hearts to be full for
37:42
those who are not married yet or figure out their vocations.
37:44
And you can fill your heart. And good friendship really helps
37:48
a lot. Like when you're not lonely,
37:50
when you're painfully lonely pre like pre discovering your
37:52
vocation, it can just be like the the worst.
37:55
And today we're so isolated, so a lot of people just feel like
37:59
alone. And then I think that gets kind
38:01
of hyper spiritualized when it's just like your animal needs are
38:04
not met of like and not and not just animal, but your soul needs
38:07
are just communion in the day-to-day.
38:08
Yeah, yeah. And it's hard.
38:11
I, I feel, yeah, 'cause if your deepest desire is to be, it's
38:14
particularly the women who are bringing this in and for a
38:18
couple of reasons. But if your deepest desire is to
38:20
be a wife and a mom, and that's not happening, and if you will
38:24
like it, there's not a lot of signs of hope for it, That's
38:27
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40:20
Yeah. Yeah, Sacred spark, guys, check
40:22
it out. What is that?
40:24
You haven't heard a sacred spark.
40:25
No, no. No, that's the app.
40:26
So I'm an advisor and partner I love.
40:28
It's my dear friends Emily and Daniel who sound I don't know if
40:32
you're familiar with Emily Wilson, she's amazing, but and
40:34
Daniel, her husband, but they launched this new dating app
40:36
that's like designed to be more human for Catholics and or
40:39
Chris, I mean, you can anyone's welcome, obviously to join, but
40:42
it's very cool. I'm a matchmaker on the app, so.
40:44
OK, what does that mean? That means that you can pair
40:47
with somebody who's looking for love and then you can help them
40:52
like look at profiles and suggest you can talk to other
40:55
matchmakers and suggest to getting people connecting people
40:57
together are. You actually like talking to
40:58
them face to face, no question. Do you have?
41:00
Their like their information. Yeah, yeah.
41:01
It's like. I feel stressful.
41:03
I was a little stressed. I, I kind of said it.
41:05
I signed on because they, Emily and Daniel were here.
41:07
And so I was like, oh, let me be.
41:08
And so another girl who's here, who's lovely, who's on the app,
41:11
I was like, you know, she was like, you could be my
41:13
matchmaker. So I'm on and I kind of did it a
41:15
little bit was like, hey, I think I'm getting hang of this.
41:17
And then I set it aside for a week or so and I was like, oh
41:20
shoot, I'm not helping out. So he went on.
41:22
I was with my husband and were like, I was like, this is like,
41:25
it's a little bit fun because like we're on a hunt, like
41:27
connect people. But it's also a little
41:28
stressful, like you said. But if I'm feeling a little bit
41:30
stressed, she's probably feeling very stressed just because
41:33
you're in the wild, right? You know, And it's not, these
41:36
are human beings. You're a human being.
41:37
It's not like just a fun like, you know, Tetris game.
41:40
It's like real people. OK, what's it called?
41:42
The Spark. Sacred Spark.
41:43
Sacred Spark. But what's cool is they designed
41:45
it so that's not just a constant swipe game.
41:47
And then they have people be able to put like little audio
41:50
voices to introduce themselves or little video.
41:52
So it's not just like you click on, you immediately judge
41:55
someone by immediately how they photograph.
41:56
So they have these different pieces and it's very diocesan
41:59
based to try to connect people within the diocese.
42:02
So they have these different elements that make it more
42:04
human. Is is the idea.
42:05
Yeah, I'm, I'm there's some, there's some like disclaimer I
42:09
could put around it, but like I'm a pretty big I'm I'm an
42:12
active proponent of online dating.
42:15
Not yeah, not hook up, you know, stuff, but like just the idea of
42:19
like, hey, I, I just encourage people to to fish to have like
42:23
a, you know, a line in as many places as possible, you know,
42:26
And so I, so I get for a lot of reasons, like if again, if I
42:29
have somebody who's like, you know, 28 year old hasn't lives
42:33
with the same people, blah, blah, blah, this and that
42:36
haven't like there's nothing happening here.
42:39
We got it like, how are you going to be meeting some people?
42:42
And so there's a lot of different ways you can do it.
42:43
One of them I do think is online dating.
42:46
And like there's still like a little bit of like a, some
42:48
stigma towards it of like if it feels less, it just, it's not
42:53
how things used to be, you know, but we live in the real world in
42:57
reality. And it's like, so I just
42:59
encourage folks realizing there's some of it's hard, some
43:01
of it's difficult, all that sort of stuff.
43:03
So I'm like one of my, a couple of my proudest accomplishments
43:06
are encouraging people to like do online dating for like Advent
43:11
or something like that. And then they ended up like
43:13
meeting somebody and getting married.
43:14
And so I'm like. You crushed it.
43:16
I'm like, you know, you got to do what you Yeah, yeah.
43:20
I'm just very like, I'm going to be in your corner.
43:22
I'm going to support you. I'm I'm just going to encourage
43:25
you to put yourself out there. You.
43:27
Know Do you keep track of how many marriages you helped
43:29
inspire? I mean, it's it's 2.
43:31
So it's like I'm able to keep track.
43:35
Yeah, but like from the. Dating for those people doing
43:37
the dating apps. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
43:38
But it's like my I'm like very proud of it because it's like
43:41
you kind of have to convince them.
43:43
But that's one of my from we do. I do a podcast some other Friars
43:46
and one of the things I was like poco poco poco.
43:48
Yeah, I was encouraging it and like this woman ended up meeting
43:51
somebody and they're engaged. I don't know if they're they're
43:53
married yet, but it's like right around the corner.
43:55
Don't celebrate to the marriage. OK, well I have their picture in
43:58
my office. OK, so.
44:00
It's not over till it's over. It's not over till it's over.
44:03
I feel like. I feel like all right, fair
44:06
enough. No, I'm just you can celebrate.
44:08
Of course you celebrate. I am.
44:09
I'm still celebrating. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:11
But I bet they and yeah, we got, we couldn't go.
44:13
But they, they they could be married at this point.
44:15
But I'm very proud of that. That's cool.
44:17
Yeah, that's cool. Well, now you have a new tool in
44:19
the tool belt. It's funny, like I just, I'm in
44:24
a in an OK healthy way and an expected way.
44:25
I'm a little bit in a bubble. Like I, I, I live and work with
44:29
priests, seminarians, Friars and like young adult missionaries.
44:33
So I don't have a ton of like sense of like what the secular
44:38
dating world is like. One of the things that I most
44:40
desire in life, like and actually like this is much more
44:43
something that like I care about than like the media stuff is we
44:49
the charism is called like encouragement, but creating a
44:51
safe place for people to be like totally honest and seen and like
44:55
share themselves and be like loved and cared for there.
44:59
That's like my deepest desire and deepest passion is to do
45:02
that, to provide that space. And so a lot of it is just
45:06
people can come and share the hurt and it's, and just to like
45:11
receive them and to kind of like just, it's a lot of it isn't
45:15
like, yeah, it's the kind of stuff where it's just like, I'm
45:18
just going to be here with you in it, you know?
45:21
And so just to walk with people who are suffering like that,
45:24
that's, that's like my favorite thing.
45:26
That's beautiful. Yeah.
45:28
So a lot of tears get shed around.
45:29
A lot, yeah. Yeah, like.
45:31
A tear collector. I yeah, yeah, yeah.
45:34
I got to have tissues in my spaces, you know, and like the
45:38
world get the word gets out. And so I, I've got a little bit
45:40
of like a, what do they call it, like a girl priest thing, you
45:44
know, because guys are less guys will do it.
45:47
But it's, it's less common of a thing is I just need to come and
45:49
cry and share everything. But like for the women who have
45:53
really hard stuff happened, there's a little bit of a
45:54
network and I they, they send me.
45:57
Do you get a lot of abuse victims?
46:01
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a.
46:04
Big problem, not you getting abuse victims and and counseling
46:08
them, but the fact that there are so many.
46:11
I mean, we're going a little bit sideways.
46:13
So which is fine if people expect this with the show, but
46:17
so we're going to get back to Marian Rosary in in a year.
46:20
But this is a topic that we don't discuss on the show a lot.
46:24
Actually, we've been planning to do more episodes on it because
46:26
it is such an issue and people have asked, but it is abuse in
46:30
the church. And I don't mean priestly
46:32
scandals of abuse, but I mean abusive marriages and family
46:36
dynamics and how to manage those or deal with those as a faithful
46:39
Christian. It would be helpful to to like
46:43
define the term real quick. We've touched this on the
46:46
touched on this on the show and we've had a lot of psychologists
46:48
on the show who who actually have defined it a little bit
46:50
differently. Like we had Doctor Ray
46:52
Garandigan, A psychologist and father of ten adopted kids and
46:55
gives a lot of parenting advice. He says you can't be abused
46:58
emotionally unless you permit it, which was what he says,
47:03
which is a pretty hard line to draw.
47:05
We've had other guests on the show who say, you know, talk
47:09
about narcissism or personality disorders and how those can
47:12
flare up in relationships and ultimately, you know, are
47:16
abusive and inherently towards the other person and how to
47:19
identify it and avoid it or try to heal from it.
47:23
So I, but I think that is a debate.
47:25
What is abuse and what constitutes abuse?
47:29
Yeah, obviously I'm not like an expert or I'm not like a like
47:34
I'm, I mean, there, there, there's definitely a line to it.
47:38
It's I think it's, it's obviously be pretty subjective
47:41
and like the subjective experience of The thing is kind
47:45
of what we're going to have to like trust and get behind.
47:47
So if it, yeah, if it, if it again, like for the like they're
47:53
like, like we do all this like safe environment training stuff.
47:59
And you know, like one of the questions is like, hey, you
48:01
know, my boss asked me to come in on time and to do my job and
48:08
I feel like he's abusing me. It's like, is this abuse?
48:10
It's like, no, it's not abuse. Like there is, there can be some
48:13
of that. Do you think we make too light
48:15
of abuse in the church or do we make too much of it?
48:18
Would you say one way or the other?
48:20
I don't know that you you can can make too much of it.
48:23
If, if, if it's responding to abuse, if it's real abuse.
48:26
Yeah, yeah, I don't think you can make too much of it.
48:30
I think we're getting better at like treating and taking it much
48:34
more serious and, and being much more informed about it and
48:37
having a lot of better like resources and structure and
48:39
training around to help people. Yeah.
48:42
So I think we're trending very positively in the right
48:45
direction. I think so too.
48:48
I am a concern sometimes when I see people say we actually were
48:52
just we actually were discussing this before we started the
48:54
interview just about the space of faith media and then sort of
48:58
political media and sort of where the two can intersect.
49:02
And I think in the conservative political space, sometimes there
49:05
is a sort of like message of like, you know, abuse
49:08
allegations are fake. You know, me too, anti me too
49:11
type stuff. Therapy is like wonky and woke
49:15
and people are over therapies or therapeutic.
49:18
There's overly reliance on the therapeutic.
49:21
You go to therapy to stay sick. You know, like there's this kind
49:24
of like this, like blow yourself up from by the bootstraps sort
49:28
of mentality among conservatives today.
49:31
Not all, not all, but some, especially some like in the
49:34
media space that are kind of talking about this stuff.
49:36
And so I think sometimes people might, like, judge harshly
49:39
people who are suffering, quite frankly, and how they're
49:43
handling their suffering. Yeah, I mean it like my hope is
49:48
that that mindset gets less and less.
49:51
It's extremely unhelpful. So we are, I am very pro therapy
50:00
and very, very encouraging of it.
50:02
And I would love for like the threshold that someone feels
50:06
like they have to like the struggle they have to feel like
50:08
they're experiencing that like pushes them over to get into
50:11
therapy. I keep, I'd love to keep like
50:13
actually lowering that bar again, because we just don't
50:15
have a lot of the resources that's maybe we're made to have
50:20
for people to accompany us. And so if you're all alone in
50:23
something and there's some difficult things, certainly like
50:25
like real serious stuff, it's great to have a professional.
50:28
But if there's a lot of other stuff that like you just don't
50:30
have no one to walk with you in it and you can find like a good
50:32
and trusted counselor, like like go for it, you know, like we I
50:37
again, like I'm all for building the team.
50:40
Yes, I love that. And for a lot of especially
50:42
again, the cultures not healthy and the effects of it are real.
50:46
Yeah, I, I think how can you be post sexual revolution in
50:49
America in the postmodern era, with abortions happening 3000
50:53
times a day virtually and 1/5 now of people identifying as
50:57
LGBT or up to 1/3 and all the traumas and confusions that come
51:02
with that and the hookup culture and, you know, and, you know,
51:06
divorce rate, right? And then not think that there's
51:08
going to be a lot of people who are wounded who need help.
51:11
Yeah, like it's just like, use your use your reason to
51:15
identify, OK, these are the cultural ills that are
51:16
objectively a reality. So there's going to be a lot of
51:20
hurt people out there. And if they're not getting
51:22
intentional help, then what's going to happen to them?
51:25
I mean, some maybe will like deal with it and maybe not be as
51:30
scathed as others, but most people are going to be pretty
51:33
touched by that. Yeah.
51:35
Or wounded by it. Right, right.
51:37
And yeah, it's just that the and like it, the brokenness of the
51:44
culture and its effects are just very real.
51:46
They're very real and so. Can I ask you another question
51:51
about how you handle abuse in your in your spiritual
51:55
counseling and you hear abuse cases you say you speak to with
52:00
a lot of women. So let's say this is
52:02
relationship abuse where they're being abused, but they're trying
52:06
to hold it together. They don't want a divorce.
52:08
Maybe there's kids involved. They're ashamed, they're
52:10
confused. I know people like this, friends
52:12
who've gone through this. Do you like your I'm sure you're
52:18
a listening error. You encourage them.
52:20
How do you deal with like reporting?
52:23
How do you deal with helping connect her or how can you even
52:28
connect her to like external support to sort of extricate
52:31
herself and her family or kids, maybe from like extreme abuse or
52:35
from like legit abuse. And again, I'm not talking about
52:37
like, oh, he said something mean to me, right?
52:39
I'm talking about relentless destructive behavior and and and
52:44
harm. Yeah, the, the most honest
52:49
answer is that all the details matter.
52:51
So it's it's a little, it's just a little bit of a difficult to
52:53
give like a like an answer. I'm going to feel awesome about
52:55
in like the theoretical space. Personally, I would say like the
52:59
when I'm when abuse is being brought to me and it's not like
53:02
an on, it's not an active thing. It's a previous thing.
53:05
So something that happened when they were they're now they're
53:08
they're 30 and it's something that happened when they were six
53:10
or seven. Or 8.
53:11
And so this thing is happening that's affecting this.
53:14
And so, so, so like we, if it is sexual abuse, especially sexual
53:18
abuse of a minor, like like that's like a mandatory
53:21
reporting thing, right? And to help them do that or to
53:24
kind of just make sure that happens.
53:27
And then with the other stuff, it's like we're going to, we're
53:28
going to like, we're going to build a team, we're going to get
53:30
the resources, we're going to tap into all the wisdom
53:32
available. So like if there's like, and you
53:35
know, again, if there's if like in a marriage space, if there's
53:38
some sort of like aggressive, like emotional abuse, stuff like
53:40
that, we're going to definitely like advocate as highly as
53:43
possible for like a counseling space and to get the, the
53:46
professional like, like feedback on it and then make the best
53:49
judgement we can with the details that are there.
53:53
Yep. You know, it's a very measured
53:55
answer, but it there, like you said, every case is going to be
53:58
so different. There's no there's no unlike
54:00
even we're using this term abuse.
54:01
We have yet to like define exactly what it means.
54:05
And I think the the bottom line is like, it depends on what kind
54:08
of abuse you're talking about too.
54:09
Is, is the definition because there's different kinds of it
54:11
and different degrees of it, like you said.
54:14
But I think people listening, I think maybe maybe the to put a,
54:18
put a ribbon on what you're saying and you can share your
54:21
thoughts on this for people listening is abuse is real.
54:24
There are situations where you need to separate if you're in a
54:26
marriage and to protect yourself and or your kids.
54:30
And that doesn't mean you're violating your marriage or your
54:33
faith. That means that you are actually
54:35
honoring the dignity of yourself, your children, and
54:38
even the abuser by removing them yourself from the position where
54:41
they can continue to abuse you. And I think there's some women
54:45
and men, but mostly it's women who are caught up in these
54:48
cycles who just under no circumstances feel they can
54:52
separate themselves because they're afraid.
54:55
And that's where we just say you need you need help.
54:57
You deserve help. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
55:00
Yeah. And I think I, I love the way
55:02
you said it. I think that speaks into it.
55:03
Like you deserve help, you know, and if you're living in a, in an
55:09
abusive situation and, and of like great injustice and all
55:12
that, sort of like you're just not like that's not what God
55:14
wants. And God's invitation isn't just
55:17
endure it and offer it up. You know, if we're talking about
55:21
real abuse, it's like it's actually healthy and, and right
55:24
and just to respond to it and, and, and, and try and remedy the
55:29
injustice and the abuse. Yes, yeah, Thanks for letting me
55:34
ask about that. I'm always, I'm always
55:35
interested in how priests are handling it because it's like,
55:38
it's such a chaotic space out there sometimes.
55:40
And again, I don't mean to like always emphasize the bad stuff
55:42
happening because there's so much good happening, but you're
55:44
dealing with the like the dregs of what people are experiencing.
55:49
And so you have to. That's a lot to navigate.
55:52
Yeah, and, and spiritual abuse is real too.
55:54
And that's something that like, I think we're trying to do a
55:57
better job of as a church, you know, church organizations
55:59
handling. What is spiritual abuse?
56:02
I don't know how to define it, but I would just say like what?
56:06
What I'll say is this, like when you have, when you have this
56:08
value, you have these like these two values of the eternal
56:13
salvation of souls. OK, So like, how do you, how do
56:17
you like, measure anything against that?
56:19
And then you have the, the Catholic worldview of the power
56:22
and the reality of like sacrifice is sometimes somebody
56:26
can be asked to make sacrifices that aren't healthy and aren't
56:29
appropriate for in the, in the name of, you know, the salvation
56:34
of souls or whatever, or in the name of like offered up in the
56:37
with the cross. And it's not actually something
56:40
that you should be suffering or offering up.
56:43
That would be an example of the spiritual abuse.
56:45
And that's, that's like when people come into very religious
56:48
spaces with these values, they're, they're they are quite
56:51
vulnerable, especially as a young person.
56:54
And so to help them discern, yeah, that is a sacrifice.
56:58
But actually maybe it's not a healthy and good sacrifice that
57:01
God's asking you to make and that like, and that that's OK.
57:05
There's like a good amount of like giving people freedom in
57:09
that space. Does that make sense at all?
57:11
No, it does make sense. Well, I think about orders where
57:13
there were like, you know, young recruits which were fresh blood
57:18
for the order. And then they didn't respect the
57:20
freedom of the young recruit. And they sort of like, laid it
57:23
on thick in terms of, like, you got to join us.
57:25
You know, I've heard these stories.
57:27
And some of these priests are religious sisters end up leaving
57:30
afterwards because they realize, Oh my gosh, like I didn't freely
57:33
choose this vocation. It was sort of like spiritual
57:36
blackmail a little bit. Like if I don't do this, I'm
57:39
like rejecting God's call and hurting my soul and other souls
57:42
as opposed to, you know, it's a freely offered gift.
57:44
And, and maybe you weren't even offered it.
57:46
You know, they just wanted a fresh blood in their order that
57:49
they wanted to shore up, you know, so it's a it's a tricky
57:52
thing. Yeah, and that's a real thing
57:54
that hopefully I think we're doing a better job of
57:56
addressing. There's like there's a new order
57:58
of sisters. I don't know a ton about them.
58:00
They were so I can't say a bunch, but I think this like
58:03
their their, their new women's order with this particular
58:05
particular desire to respond to like abuse in the church and and
58:11
that's like, yeah, that's something that we need.
58:14
Do you think spiritual abuse can exist in a marriage?
58:18
Yeah, yeah, without a doubt. What, like, what are you
58:23
thinking? Like why wouldn't it be a
58:26
possibility? I mean, I agree.
58:27
I agree. I think in the more traditional
58:31
pockets of Catholicism where people are very intent on, I
58:35
want to be traditional, whatever that is defined as, because a
58:38
lot of the times the traditions of very traditional Catholics
58:41
are not as traditional as they may think.
58:43
Maybe they go back to like 17th century France, but they're not
58:46
sure like the whole of Christian, you know, Christian
58:48
history. And they're certainly not
58:49
necessarily prescribed by the church for our souls.
58:52
But anyway, so there's a tendency I've seen among some
58:56
people reacting against the like laissez faire, anything goes
59:00
totally rottenness of our culture to really gravitate
59:04
towards very clear boundaries, clear lines around everything.
59:08
And so they like to know this is obedience.
59:10
I'm going to be obedient. And in a marriage they want to
59:13
they want to do this like radical, I'm going to obey my
59:16
husband. Submission means total obedience
59:20
means I don't, I mean, I might even maybe I'll express an
59:23
opinion, but no matter what he's doing, I'm not going to question
59:27
engage like I'm just going to be 100%.
59:32
I mean, someone, some might call it a doormat, you know, but then
59:36
they like wag their fingers at people that are saying that's a
59:39
little extreme and how you're presenting this because, you
59:42
know, they say, well, that's feminism.
59:44
Like for you to say that, you know, you don't have to agree
59:47
with your husband and everything, or, you know, you're
59:49
persuading your husband to go another way or you even say your
59:51
husband's doing things that are bad.
59:52
Like that's called feminism, which is anti Catholic.
59:55
And then this becomes this whole debate.
59:57
And again, this is not mainstream debate necessarily,
59:59
but this is a debate, I think, happening among some parts of
1:00:03
our Christian community. To be honest, I think like this
1:00:09
is an area where common sense goes a long way, you know, And
1:00:12
it's. Hard to find that today, Father.
1:00:14
And you can sort of like over spiritualize into like out of
1:00:17
common sense. That's so tricky yourself, but
1:00:19
it's like, you can just like, like I, I don't know, the like
1:00:23
you can look at some of these dynamics and be like, well,
1:00:25
obviously that's like not healthy and good.
1:00:27
And there's no way that's like what God intended.
1:00:30
You know if there is some sort of like again, some sort of
1:00:32
abuse thing or like. I think what happens is like men
1:00:36
who like are excited by this sort of approach, like really
1:00:40
are prone to an over overt like to reject feminism or like
1:00:45
demasculized men masculinity. That's like this overt like
1:00:50
obsession with my authority as a man.
1:00:52
So I've even tweeted before or like said to women before, if
1:00:55
he's obsessed with his authority as a man and the submission of
1:00:59
women, if that's like his game or his goal in a marriage, like
1:01:02
I want a submissive wife. Like if she needs to submit to
1:01:04
me, if that is his focus instead of I want to love you and be
1:01:08
loved by you freely, then you should stay away because that's
1:01:13
somebody. And, and similarly, if for men,
1:01:14
if there's a woman who's all about like, I just want you to
1:01:17
pay my bills and I don't have, I don't want to have to work
1:01:19
anymore. Like it's like, is that really
1:01:21
what marriage is about? Like, no, you're supposed to
1:01:22
work in marriage one way or another, you know, to avoid
1:01:26
using people and the role, like becoming this oversimplified
1:01:29
version of what it means to be a Christian husband or wife and
1:01:31
then objectifying the person instead of like, loving them
1:01:34
subjectively and personally. Yeah, yeah.
1:01:38
And like so I like I am a religious superior, so I am the
1:01:42
superior of a Friary. So I have authority in a context
1:01:48
where men have taken a valve obedience.
1:01:50
And when we're going to do something like at a house
1:01:53
meeting, I come to the guys and I say, hey, what do you think
1:01:57
about this? You know what I mean?
1:01:58
Like that's just like, it feels like a common sense way of
1:02:01
leadership. This is my order.
1:02:03
No, no. And it's just like it wouldn't
1:02:06
and, and you could do that and like call it like you can put in
1:02:10
all sorts of like spiritual language and packing and like
1:02:13
that would be like an abuse of authority.
1:02:14
And that's just like not healthy.
1:02:16
And it's like, it's weird. It's weird.
1:02:19
And, and so it's like if, if a husband or wife is doing that to
1:02:21
1 of themselves or if they're doing it to their kids, like
1:02:24
obviously it's a little bit there's like there's more space
1:02:28
for that towards your kids because you do have like wisdom
1:02:30
and authority in it. Say mom says because, yeah, they
1:02:33
can't always be reasoned with. I mean, they're children.
1:02:36
They're still developing their faculty of reason so.
1:02:38
Yeah, yeah. But if like, so like, you know,
1:02:39
like again, we'll use the husband example.
1:02:41
The husband says like, I want, you know, spaghetti and
1:02:43
meatballs for dinner and he's like making menu every night and
1:02:46
is never like, hey, what do you want to have to dinner?
1:02:48
What do you want to go to eat like that Doesn't that just
1:02:50
doesn't make sense. Yeah.
1:02:53
Or how can I help? Great.
1:02:54
I mean, I've heard about men who like, tell they're in dating.
1:02:58
They're like you're not allowed to work.
1:03:02
OK, Yeah. And which in one sense, it's
1:03:04
like, oh wow, are you going to really pay all the bills?
1:03:06
Like what's the quality of life going to be for this one who's
1:03:08
not allowed to work? And, and the heart behind it,
1:03:10
which is good, is I want you to be, you know, the good element
1:03:14
here. It could be, I want you to be
1:03:15
able to be a present mom and be able to not worry about work,
1:03:19
but then making it a command. You're not allowed to work.
1:03:21
What does that even mean? You know, she can't have
1:03:24
hobbies, she can't like make income as there's, there's,
1:03:26
there's something there's nothing fundamentally wrong with
1:03:27
work for money. Like there's nothing
1:03:29
fundamentally wrong or unchristian for a woman or
1:03:31
mother or wife to do it. So like having that as a
1:03:34
standard is an UN again, common sense.
1:03:36
It doesn't pass the common sense threshold.
1:03:37
It's one thing to say I don't want you in an office 50 hours a
1:03:39
week or 40 hours a week when we have kids.
1:03:41
Like, of course, like that's a very reasonable concern, but I
1:03:44
think it gets these things become extremes.
1:03:47
Totally, Yeah. Yeah, and I don't.
1:03:50
I don't know that they like hopefully don't the extreme
1:03:52
isn't mainstream. Like I think that these are
1:03:54
exceptions. Like I don't think it's the most
1:03:56
common thing in the world. Hopefully not.
1:04:00
But yeah, like to go back to my example, like and there's like
1:04:05
there's there's just like this, this dynamic that I think is
1:04:10
super real. Like I have I have like
1:04:14
authority, but I'm but I'm like, but I'm constantly trying to
1:04:19
like not just lean on like the technical authority I have like
1:04:25
in my Friary, but I'm trying to like care for the guys and love
1:04:28
the guys and win the guys over and have them sort of like trust
1:04:32
and respect my guidance, like freely, not because they have
1:04:37
to, you know, and so like, I don't know, like I think I, I do
1:04:41
think there's something I don't have like it's certainly not my
1:04:44
specialty there. There is something to like
1:04:46
authority in the church and there's something to like
1:04:49
authority and in marriage, etcetera.
1:04:51
But like what that what that means can kind of get misused
1:04:54
pretty quickly. And I, I don't think it applies
1:04:57
to you own like, I don't, I don't want to say like, yeah,
1:05:03
it's there and it's real, but like you should almost like not
1:05:05
know it's, they're real because of how you like use the
1:05:08
authority. Like, so for us, like the like,
1:05:12
like in a, in a meeting, like it's kind of expected authority
1:05:14
guys going to like list to the most listening and speak like,
1:05:18
the least like that's I think good leadership and good use of
1:05:20
authority. And so like, if I were married,
1:05:22
I would want my authority to be in, in this kind of a Christian
1:05:25
thing of like service of taking the lowest place and pursuing
1:05:28
the lowest place as much as possible.
1:05:30
And, and like to promote the other and lift up the other and
1:05:35
celebrate the other and, and favor the other like as much as
1:05:38
possible. Like I think like to be the to
1:05:43
have the authority in the first of love in the 1st and choosing
1:05:45
the lowest place I think is a great way to use authority in
1:05:50
relationships. Servant leadership.
1:05:53
Yeah. Jesus Christ as our model.
1:05:56
Totally. Yeah, Yeah, I.
1:05:58
Came to serve. Yeah, yeah.
1:06:00
Do you know, do you know, do you know who Jocko is?
1:06:02
Yeah. DACA willing.
1:06:03
Yeah, his all his stuff. On the show Jaco.
1:06:06
All his stuff on leadership is like.
1:06:08
It's amazing. He's got the wisdom.
1:06:10
I love it. Yeah, he gets it.
1:06:12
He's like, because it's. I love it because I love
1:06:15
obviously like he's he's he works for a space of like high,
1:06:18
like we're going for like a high output high, like we're, we're
1:06:20
going for it. Excellent, great.
1:06:22
But also there's like, there's just a lot of wisdom and
1:06:24
understanding how leadership really works.
1:06:27
And, and this language he uses like leadership capital of like,
1:06:30
you don't want people to follow you just because technically
1:06:32
they have to, but you want to like build their trust and win
1:06:35
them over, etcetera. So for all the leadership stuff,
1:06:37
he's like, he's the man. There was a, a book someone
1:06:41
recommended to me on the leadership team at Live Action
1:06:43
Actually, gosh, what's the name? Trying to remember, but it said
1:06:46
there's three characteristics of a good leader in this analysis.
1:06:50
It was saying that one of the characteristics was unreasonably
1:06:54
high demands, like they, they want more for you than you could
1:06:58
want for yourself, want more for themselves than you could want
1:07:00
for yourself. I think the other one was
1:07:03
belief. Belief in the person and
1:07:05
yourself and the organization. We can do this.
1:07:07
And they're like the number one cheerleader.
1:07:08
We got this guys. And I think the third one had to
1:07:12
do with accountability. They weren't afraid to have the
1:07:15
tough conversation, whether it was a good one or a bad one.
1:07:19
Like they would be very much quick to celebrate the goods and
1:07:22
the winds, but also quick to not make a big deal out of it, but
1:07:25
like address the issues. Something like this.
1:07:26
I noticed this is an issue what's going on here and not
1:07:29
like shoving controversy or conflict down the line, like
1:07:33
kicking the ball down the can down the line, but addressing
1:07:35
things quickly, concisely, which I found in leadership.
1:07:39
Again, I'm always a work in progress with leadership, but
1:07:42
have addressing things as they come instead of letting things
1:07:45
you know, get a ruminate or you know, kind of muddy the waters
1:07:49
is actually for the good of the person, the good of yourself and
1:07:52
it's and it's part of leadership.
1:07:54
So how does like how now taking all this, which is like, how do,
1:07:57
how do wisdom and prudence fit into all of that?
1:08:01
You mean knowing what people can take and what others?
1:08:04
Yeah. Well, I think this is a pastoral
1:08:06
difference because I think when you're building.
1:08:09
So this was a book written by someone about how to build the
1:08:11
highest performing teams. Is the idea for like, you know,
1:08:14
changing the world or like building the biggest whatever
1:08:16
missions, whatever. And I think that's different
1:08:19
than a pastoral mission to meet people where they're at and help
1:08:22
them take a little bit of a step forward.
1:08:24
Because I think when you're a boss, you still need to have
1:08:27
room and understanding for the weaknesses of both yourself and
1:08:29
other people. You can't like have such, your
1:08:31
standards can be very high, but you can't have this high
1:08:33
standard where people make a mistake, they're out, you're
1:08:36
over you, I don't care. Like you need to let people make
1:08:38
a mistake and then learn and grow.
1:08:40
But I think if you want to build a high performing team, you need
1:08:43
standards. And that's very different maybe
1:08:45
than a role of a priest who's like literally opening the door
1:08:48
to anybody. The standard is you are a human
1:08:51
being, you know, and I love you for it.
1:08:54
And so it's also like an adjustment of the role.
1:08:57
Yeah, yeah, it's fun. Yeah.
1:08:58
Yeah, there's a lot. To it like you're never going to
1:08:59
fire anybody. I mean, that's not true.
1:09:02
You're never going to fire anybody in the count in the
1:09:04
pastoral setting, right? Unless they become, I guess,
1:09:06
abusive towards you or something, right?
1:09:09
Well, what is that? Maybe I maybe I should.
1:09:10
Maybe I should. Meaning, like if you're a boss
1:09:12
and you're building an organization, whether it's a
1:09:14
nonprofit or for profit, you need to be willing to let people
1:09:19
go. But if you're a priest, in a
1:09:22
sense, you never give up on people.
1:09:23
You never give up on people, correct?
1:09:29
But also like, sometimes a pastor needs to fire somebody.
1:09:33
That's true. You know that's hard, huh?
1:09:35
That's I. Think have you ever had to do
1:09:37
that? Yeah, yeah, I've had to.
1:09:43
On the social media. Team move on to new teams I work
1:09:46
with a lot of teams and we. Work with Ascension which
1:09:48
Ascension is one of the biggest Catholic companies in the world.
1:09:51
Yeah, I work with a lot of teams.
1:09:53
I I like. I work with Ascension.
1:09:55
Our one of our podcast is with a group called Spirit Juice
1:09:58
Whenever. Whenever they're great, yeah.
1:09:59
Exactly. When I do our our our general
1:10:02
social media, there's another team who does that.
1:10:06
I'm trying to think what other I can't fire a fryer.
1:10:09
So if we're working with a fryer, we got to figure it out.
1:10:12
But like with with and it's it's it's like it's a funny dynamic.
1:10:15
If be like in a parish setting. What's what's hard is that
1:10:23
actually like it's, it's messy and I don't have to do it, but
1:10:26
like pretend like one of your employees at the parish,
1:10:30
whatever isn't doing a very good job.
1:10:32
But also, but you're there as like priest and you're there as
1:10:34
boss. And sometimes actually, we
1:10:36
probably need to raise accountability and standards
1:10:39
and. You know Pat Lindsey and.
1:10:42
Long. Yeah, of course.
1:10:43
Yeah, yeah. As a whole, like don't just be
1:10:44
the nice church lady. Like tell people the truth.
1:10:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah. With wisdom and kindness and all
1:10:49
that sort of stuff. You never berate someone you
1:10:52
know or yell at someone. Like be kind, but be direct.
1:10:55
I mean, I think, I honestly think it's a form of unkindness
1:10:58
to not be candid. Like I want people to be candid
1:11:02
with me when people are some people maybe could be more
1:11:04
candid. But you know, I think that's a
1:11:06
good thing. It's a virtue.
1:11:07
Now, that doesn't mean you be mean or you be nitpicky or you
1:11:10
do it up. But wait, so you have had to
1:11:14
fire people? Yeah, yeah.
1:11:16
But usually I just, I do it in a way where I'm moving on to
1:11:21
another person or another team and, and I, I kind of like do it
1:11:29
a little bit softly like that, like they know that we're we're
1:11:34
not going to be working together, but they may not know.
1:11:36
I have experienced that is being fired.
1:11:39
But but just to be clear, it's not like you were their full
1:11:42
time job and then they lost their job.
1:11:45
It's more that they were working with you adjacent to like they
1:11:47
were a contractor or they were like.
1:11:49
We would be like a client, not the only client.
1:11:52
I see. Yeah.
1:11:53
So they were contractor, they meaning because I think it is a
1:11:56
uniquely challenging thing. I know it's like some of my
1:11:59
least favorite things I've ever done is when the person has a
1:12:01
full time job and you have to let you have to let them go and
1:12:05
you're like you, your entity is there living.
1:12:08
Yeah, yeah, I, I might be awful, but I kind of get it and I can,
1:12:14
I can be OK with doing that. I'm going to call you and make
1:12:17
my. Yeah, I can be OK if it's.
1:12:20
The right thing. Like, yeah, sometimes it's going
1:12:23
to happen, you know? And I've always noticed like
1:12:26
every time we've done it or I've had to be part of doing it or
1:12:29
done it, it's always been, I've never regretted it.
1:12:31
And it's they've been better off.
1:12:33
We've like it's always worked out for the best.
1:12:35
It's not like some like moment of passion and you're like, get
1:12:38
out of here. You know, it's just it wasn't
1:12:40
the right fit like. It's actually funny.
1:12:41
So my dad's an attorney, he's a trial attorney.
1:12:43
And one of the questions, one of the questions he'll ask to
1:12:45
jurors in the jury selection process if is have you ever had
1:12:48
to fire somebody? And because like in the old
1:12:53
days, OK. But you know, they had a, you
1:12:55
know, that this was supporting their family and all this stuff,
1:12:56
and you still did it. And it's like, OK, well, why did
1:12:58
you do that? Because it's the right thing to
1:12:59
do, this or that. Because sometimes, yeah, like
1:13:02
you have to the right decision. Sometimes it's a hard decision.
1:13:04
And sometimes, like, so for him, he's a he's a he's a defense
1:13:08
attorney. And so there's a certain
1:13:09
situation where something bad has happened and it's like he's
1:13:12
trying to find somebody who's going to say the right thing,
1:13:15
even though it's like a hard thing for this person who got
1:13:17
hurt. But like, I believe in a big God
1:13:22
and big possibilities. And it's like, OK, yeah, this is
1:13:25
this was something that and like, not to be dismissive of
1:13:29
how important, you know, this work was to somebody.
1:13:32
For me, actually, the the way I'm most in this space is in
1:13:35
dealing with young men in formation.
1:13:38
And we like, I'm, we have like guy, like we have a whole
1:13:41
process where guys are not in a lifetime commitment and there is
1:13:43
some evaluation of is this the best fit for them or not?
1:13:46
And, and we try to do it as limited as possible, but there
1:13:49
are times where we have to encourage somebody to kind of
1:13:51
pursue the Lord outside of the Friars.
1:13:54
And if it can feel like firing, it can feel like that, but it's
1:13:57
like, hey, there's a big church and God can use you and then you
1:14:00
can have a big beautiful life outside of this community.
1:14:03
So really the closest thing I get to firing or to having those
1:14:06
types of conversation is more of like in the formation space than
1:14:10
an actual business professional space.
1:14:12
Yeah, that makes sense. But those can maybe pack a
1:14:14
bigger punch because if they're, like, in love with the
1:14:17
Franciscans, God's calling me to be Francis.
1:14:18
And you're like, no, he's really not.
1:14:21
Yeah, I mean. That can really be tough for
1:14:23
somebody. Yeah, and that's what.
1:14:26
Like we're booting you from the mother house.
1:14:29
And that is? Like let me stay.
1:14:31
That's one of the things I, I, I have a good amount of experience
1:14:35
with and I feel called to it is getting no from a religious
1:14:38
order, especially again, it's, you know, especially for women
1:14:43
with a female religious order because like there's these women
1:14:46
that you love and you, you kind of like, I'm just going to use
1:14:51
the word I lies, but like not a weird science, but like you just
1:14:53
really respect and Revere and look up to and you want to give
1:14:56
your life to Jesus. You want to give your life to
1:14:58
the church. And they sort of prudently say
1:15:00
this doesn't feel like it's a good fit and it feels like being
1:15:04
rejected by God and it feels like being rejected by the
1:15:06
church. And it's like it's really
1:15:10
hurtful. These are these are women who
1:15:12
are personal so. What happened?
1:15:15
Yeah, happens to women quite a bit, you know, happens to the
1:15:16
men too. I think they we feel things a
1:15:19
little bit less intensely, but. Oh, yeah.
1:15:23
So like if a woman's rejected from a religious order, she gets
1:15:26
really. It's been a lot of the tears
1:15:28
that have been. It's really.
1:15:29
Hard, It's really hard and it's hard to like, like I would think
1:15:34
this is like a somewhat I'll come to our order now.
1:15:37
Probably from the men who reach out to us to the men who make
1:15:41
final vows. It's probably about a 300 to one
1:15:44
ratio. So the it's it's, it is, it is a
1:15:49
very specific fit. Wait for every 300 men who reach
1:15:52
out about being ACFR. Yeah, about 1 is going to end up
1:15:55
making it to final vows, which is a number of years down the
1:15:57
road. But there there's like there's
1:16:02
and this isn't, I wouldn't say totally unique to us.
1:16:04
There's a lot of interest and a lot of people out there.
1:16:07
But what actually is going to work and fit is is quite
1:16:10
actually specific. And what's hard is that a lot of
1:16:12
us have this idea of like anyone should be able to join any
1:16:16
religious order. And it seems like it just seems
1:16:20
like a sure thing. And actually it's like it's it's
1:16:25
not super. Yeah.
1:16:28
From your first call to the to the idea of you making fun of.
1:16:30
I was like, it's, it's not a sure thing, obviously.
1:16:34
Yeah. And so that's just like, there's
1:16:37
a lot of that in and a lot of encouraging guys.
1:16:39
And cuz some of it is like, you know, they see some music video
1:16:43
and it's like, do you want, do you like, do you want like, what
1:16:47
do you want to do? I was like, I want to be a
1:16:48
teacher. I was like, do you?
1:16:49
And like, we don't teach. Like, do you want to work with
1:16:51
the poor? And they're like, no, I don't
1:16:52
really want to work with the poor.
1:16:53
Like, well, maybe this isn't a good fit for you.
1:16:55
A lot of it is that basic, but some of it is more kind of like
1:16:58
foundational life stuff. But it sounds like it's harder
1:17:01
to get into the CFRS your order than it is to like, get into
1:17:04
Harvard. It's.
1:17:07
I mean one one out of every 300 is a pretty what is that .333%
1:17:13
right? Yeah, I mean kind of.
1:17:15
I mean, there's only 150 of us, 100 and.
1:17:18
There's only 100 and. 50 CFRS I. Didn't realize it was that
1:17:21
small. You guys have a big imprint for
1:17:23
a? 150 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
1:17:26
yeah. Which is kind of like a
1:17:27
beautiful God Franciscan thing to use a small thing for a big
1:17:30
thing. But yeah, it's, it's not
1:17:36
because, but it's not like, again, it's not like you have to
1:17:38
be smart enough or strong enough for this thing that it's just
1:17:39
like, it's a pretty specific call and mission with particular
1:17:42
stresses. And there's just a lot of things
1:17:45
that make this life not healthy and fruitful for somebody.
1:17:50
Are you guys actively looking for recruits?
1:17:52
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, very much so.
1:17:54
There's whole locations, team and all that 100%, but we're not
1:17:59
looking for numbers, you know what I mean?
1:18:02
And. That's a rarity today.
1:18:05
Yeah, and that's just, that's something that is always, it was
1:18:09
always appealing to me, even as a young man, is that you didn't
1:18:11
feel like the Friars were recruiting you.
1:18:14
And you always felt like when you're having a conversation
1:18:16
with us, we're like, OK, we're going to try to find out what's
1:18:18
best for you and what's God's will for you.
1:18:20
And we're very happy for it to be somewhere else.
1:18:24
Like there's there's, there's a little, there's not like a yeah,
1:18:27
we'd love for a lot of great guys to come and join us.
1:18:29
But mostly, we need you to find what God wants for you.
1:18:33
Yeah. Have you ever had a Franciscan
1:18:35
defect? ACFR defect.
1:18:37
What does that like? Leave like they they are, they
1:18:40
did their final vows and then they're like.
1:18:42
Yeah. You have, but probably not
1:18:45
often. It happens.
1:18:50
Yeah, yeah. It's human nature.
1:18:53
It's not, it's not often. It's a little bit sensitive
1:18:57
because it's like I know the people, but like we, we, we've
1:19:02
also grown in good discernment as well and like the resources
1:19:07
that we made available to men back in the day versus what we
1:19:10
make available now is quite different and so.
1:19:16
The discernment resources. Yeah, like somebody.
1:19:19
And this is like, it's as a young man, like when I was
1:19:23
joining the Friars and for the young Friars, it's really,
1:19:26
really, really hard to wrap your hand around somebody leaving in
1:19:29
front of house because it's like, like, like, what do you
1:19:34
like when you made a lifetime commitment?
1:19:35
Like, does this even mean anything?
1:19:38
I would say this like the church in our wisdom does allow
1:19:40
dispensation from final bowels for a reason.
1:19:43
And there's just stuff where it's like somebody can just have
1:19:46
this, like this is a trick. Like they have this idea of this
1:19:49
is how I follow Jesus and that's how I give my life to Jesus.
1:19:52
And, and they, they lack of freedom because they, they don't
1:19:55
know that you can also follow Jesus other ways.
1:19:57
And then they, they, they might make final vows from this like
1:20:01
interior stress. And then they, they have some
1:20:04
sort of healing and growth and freedom.
1:20:05
And they're like, oh, I made, I don't want to do this.
1:20:07
I, I, I, I forced myself into this.
1:20:10
And even though everyone had all the questions about freedom and
1:20:12
this and that, I couldn't recognize it and own it.
1:20:15
And I made like a huge mistake. And actually I shouldn't be here
1:20:20
like that. Can that can happen?
1:20:22
Do they end up getting married usually afterwards?
1:20:25
Or maybe order joining other? Most guys do.
1:20:27
And that's where it's like definitely not fair for men and
1:20:30
women because like, there's just a different, like guys can, you
1:20:35
know, guys can leave and get married pretty quick.
1:20:40
Oh, meaning if there's like a an ex nun at 50 who gets correct,
1:20:44
who gets Yeah, what's the what's the term for you being layer
1:20:47
sized as a nun? But it's like for.
1:20:48
Legitimate. You could be dispensed from your
1:20:49
vows. Defense.
1:20:50
And it's not out of. It's not because you did
1:20:52
something evil, it's because of a discernment error.
1:20:55
It could because you did something evil.
1:20:56
Oh, OK. All right.
1:20:57
Yeah, but or it could just be a discernment error.
1:20:59
It's not necessarily that you did something wrong if you're
1:21:02
dispensed from your vocation as a nun.
1:21:06
No. But you're just saying if you're
1:21:08
a 50 year old nun, it's going to be harder to maybe.
1:21:10
Marry I would say like if you are because like what's what's
1:21:15
what's hard for these types of contexts is that I don't have
1:21:19
control. I don't of my audience right
1:21:22
now. You know, like I'm speaking to a
1:21:25
broad range of people and I want to be sensitive to that there.
1:21:29
Somebody can be leaving in final vows who is in that moment
1:21:34
making the right decision. But I would say just something
1:21:39
that might be the right decision and going through it in the
1:21:41
right way with the church. But probably to get to that
1:21:43
point, something wrong happened at some point.
1:21:46
Something wasn't picked up, so something wasn't addressed
1:21:49
previously because you like you, it's not a yeah, people
1:21:54
shouldn't be leaving in final vows.
1:21:55
And like, if everything goes right, something, something's
1:21:58
gone wrong, even though in that decision that might be the right
1:22:01
thing to do, which is it's really, it's just, it's just a
1:22:07
lot messier than people want it to be.
1:22:09
Well, I think about annulments, marriages that were not ever
1:22:13
valid, they weren't actually in a marriage and how messy that
1:22:16
can be. So it's just that it's like the
1:22:18
whole human condition. But I think what's beautiful
1:22:20
though, is that there is there's structure to all of this.
1:22:24
There's God's plan and there is so much.
1:22:28
There's so much, I guess, allowances for the weakness of
1:22:32
the human condition so that people can still find their
1:22:36
feet. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:22:39
And. There's a lot of mercy.
1:22:41
I think it's just. There's a lot of mercy and one
1:22:45
of the one way in which people can experience safety in the
1:22:50
world is very clear rules and very clear expectations.
1:22:54
And and so when we talk about some of this and incorporate the
1:23:00
mercy and the wisdom and some of the the allowances that allow
1:23:04
God has mercy to respond to like fallen human situations, it
1:23:09
makes people uncomfortable. And like again, like you'll have
1:23:12
a young Friar see her about somebody being dispensed about a
1:23:15
bowels and their question is like they feel like a safety is
1:23:17
like, like again, when I do this doesn't just mean anything
1:23:21
because like I want it to mean something.
1:23:23
I wanted to give my life, and now it feels like it's been
1:23:25
compromised in some way. But God and the church are
1:23:28
extremely wise and extremely merciful.
1:23:31
And sometimes it is perceived and misinterpreted as a
1:23:35
relaxation of of conviction or a watering down of the gospel.
1:23:42
But it's just wisdom and mercy, you know?
1:23:48
Yeah, it's messy, but God is so big.
1:23:52
God is so big and he has, he has a divine resourcefulness and we
1:23:57
freak out. And he does not freak out
1:23:58
because he can deal with and bring up like respond to and
1:24:01
bring about good about everything.
1:24:03
And so we like, we'd have to place our trust and our
1:24:05
confidence and our safety and our security and our hope in him
1:24:09
and not in a clear black and white this and that, whatever.
1:24:13
Like we can just look, we can kind of try to find safety in a
1:24:16
lot of things. And we got to make sure it's
1:24:17
always in God. And our trust in God is our hope
1:24:19
isn't in him. And he's, he's big.
1:24:24
Yeah. Amen.
1:24:25
Makes me think of Doctor Sean Tobin.
1:24:29
He has a book out called Big God, Little Devil.
1:24:33
OK. Yeah, yeah.
1:24:34
Yeah, it's all about the bigness.
1:24:35
Yeah, yeah. It's funny.
1:24:36
I lived with Sean for we were both in the same like household
1:24:39
together at Zoomville. That's awesome.
1:24:42
And so I've seen him out here. The OG Sean, was he the atheist?
1:24:45
Wasn't he an atheist at one point?
1:24:46
Yeah, I think so. Is he?
1:24:47
The atheist at the party. No, no, no, no.
1:24:49
Different. Different college, different
1:24:50
point in life. Oh, you're right.
1:24:51
Because that was the LA college. That was Chapman.
1:24:53
That was, that was LMU. Oh, LMU, OK.
1:24:55
I did make a stop at Chapman first semester.
1:24:57
And then you ended up at Steubenville and.
1:24:58
Then I graduated in symbol. Yeah, I love it.
1:25:01
OK, Rosary in a year on Mary, that was great too.
1:25:07
I mean, there's so much more we could talk about about all of
1:25:09
the things we're discussing, but this podcast hit top of the
1:25:13
charts. I mean, Father Mike Schmitz,
1:25:17
obviously Bible in a year, but it's like, Oh my gosh, you know,
1:25:19
it's amazing. Such a so talented ascension
1:25:22
press. I'm very impressed with they
1:25:24
constantly create this content. How can you how can you do
1:25:26
another Bible in a year and then all of a sudden you've got
1:25:29
rosary in a year and it's like top of the charts.
1:25:31
And then who's this Father Mark Mary showing up with the rosary?
1:25:33
You know, so I'm curious how this where this idea originated
1:25:39
and then I want to hear more about your journey with Mary.
1:25:44
And then we're going to get a little bit into the rosary
1:25:45
itself because I think there's, you know, you have a whole year
1:25:48
of content on it, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:25:50
And so I think like as rightly so, shout out Ascension, shout
1:25:55
out Father Mike. Also, we got to shout out the
1:25:57
Dominicans because they, they, they have spent centuries
1:26:00
promoting the rosary. The reason the rosary year was
1:26:03
popular is because of their work.
1:26:05
So me as a Franciscan, I need to it's, it's right to make sure,
1:26:08
you know, do honors is paid to them as well.
1:26:12
Rosary in a year. I'm going to say 1 interesting
1:26:15
detail and then I'll get into that if that's OK is.
1:26:18
Interesting is great. Great, great.
1:26:20
And this is something I didn't realize actually until doing the
1:26:22
rosary in the year process is the Pope John Paul the second he
1:26:28
he instituted the the year of the rosary back in October of
1:26:33
2000. No, back in it was October of
1:26:36
2003 and it ended in October of 2004.
1:26:42
And I had my conversion moment in this party in October of
1:26:45
2004. And so I month.
1:26:48
Of Our Lady, right? Yeah, Month of Our Lady.
1:26:49
And so I like I. That's so fun.
1:26:51
I can't help but think because there's such a unique grace that
1:26:55
I really got to think that the grace for my conversion came
1:26:58
from all these people praying the rosary over that year.
1:27:01
That gives me chills. Yeah, and it's like when I first
1:27:03
went like when the lights came on, I'm like, whoa, is because I
1:27:06
already the Rose in the year guy.
1:27:07
And there's just like a real sense in which getting to do
1:27:11
this rosary in the year was like again, a through that prayer and
1:27:15
a chance for me to like, like, say thank you for the grace, you
1:27:19
know, which was pretty awesome. And it's to be how God
1:27:23
orchestrated all that. It's pretty cool that's.
1:27:26
Very beautiful. I mean, I do think the little
1:27:29
ladies and gentlemen playing, praying the rosary after the
1:27:32
Mass, kind of those prayers are kind of holding up the church.
1:27:35
Yeah, yeah. And you know, like.
1:27:37
And and the world. Yeah.
1:27:39
And you go to, you know, there's the Feast of the Most Holy
1:27:44
Rosary is very much tied up with like this.
1:27:46
What was the Feast of Our Lady of Victories, which is where
1:27:50
there's this, this Battle of the Ponto, which you know, the the
1:27:55
church kind of attributes like a miraculous victory to a bunch of
1:27:58
people praying the rosary. Can you briefly trace that
1:28:00
history for us? Yes, For people that might know
1:28:02
nothing about this, what is the history of successful prayers
1:28:07
around the rosary in Christian history?
1:28:11
I, it's, I'm going to, I can probably do one off the top of
1:28:17
my head. Well, or, or moderately OK.
1:28:21
And that would just be the battle of Lepanto.
1:28:22
Cause so this is, I think it's the year 1571.
1:28:26
And it is like the Ottoman Turks are, are kind of going through
1:28:29
Europe and then they're making their way down to Rome and
1:28:31
their, their sights are set on conquering and taking over Rome
1:28:34
and Italy. And sort of like, you know, the,
1:28:36
the, the European forces are going to like fight back and.
1:28:39
They're Christians, right? The Christians.
1:28:40
The Christians. Christians, yeah, yeah.
1:28:42
And I think it was this is where like, I don't have all the, the,
1:28:46
the details off the top of my head and wish you had Father
1:28:49
Gregory on here. He would, he would Father
1:28:51
Gregory Pine. He knows his stuff.
1:28:53
You'd rattle it off. You'd rattle.
1:28:54
It off. But anyway, there's the, you
1:28:56
know. They were hugely outnumbered.
1:28:57
Yeah, yeah, the Holy Roman Empires, like we got to fight
1:28:59
back, blah, blah, blah, this and that.
1:29:01
They're hugely outnumbered. And the Holy Father, I think it
1:29:05
was Pius. We can look up who it is made
1:29:07
Pius the 5th or 6th like that calls for everyone to be praying
1:29:10
the rosary to do public sort of like processions in honor of Our
1:29:14
Lady this and that for the intention of this battle, this
1:29:17
sea battle. And again cuz of the the the the
1:29:21
Christian troops are greatly outnumbered.
1:29:24
And my like what I remember of it is all the soldiers are
1:29:28
supposed like on the boats praying the rosary the night
1:29:30
before this and that, like everyone was given a rosary and
1:29:34
that like the moment of the battle.
1:29:35
There's this huge shift in like the wind and it greatly,
1:29:40
greatly, greatly supports and helps out the the Christian
1:29:44
soldiers and they have this like miraculous victory where they
1:29:47
were greatly outnumbered and stop this, this movement towards
1:29:50
that would have, you know, taken over Rome and change the
1:29:53
trajectory of Christian Europe. And so that the Holy Father
1:29:57
again, who had called for the praying of the rosaries,
1:30:01
attributed the victory to to the praying of the rosary.
1:30:05
And he he made there actually a feast day that was called Our
1:30:09
Lady of victories in honor, specifically of the victory from
1:30:12
our ladies intercession of this battle.
1:30:16
And then this words like a little bit foggier.
1:30:17
There's also like this was like 1 set date.
1:30:21
And then there was like a there was a feast day of Our Lady of
1:30:24
the Rosary that was a slightly separate date and they ended up
1:30:28
overtime just becoming one feast day, which is October 7th.
1:30:31
What's the origin of the rosary? Because it's not like Jesus
1:30:35
handed all his 12 disciples or rosary.
1:30:38
I mean, Mother Mary was still there.
1:30:39
So they could have just been like, hey, Mary, help me out
1:30:41
here. You know she hadn't gone to
1:30:43
heaven yet, so. Yeah, there's like a very, very
1:30:46
remote like and like ongoing development within Christian
1:30:51
spaces that led to the Rosary. And, and I'll comment, I go
1:30:56
through that somewhat briefly. There's something that happened
1:31:01
with Our Lady in Saint Dominic. So a lot of the Holy Fathers and
1:31:04
all this like there is this, this this tradition of Our Lady
1:31:08
appearing to Saint Dominic in the 13th century and giving him
1:31:11
the rosary, which is why the Dominicans were so active in
1:31:15
promoting the rosary. You can say that and hold that
1:31:19
to be 100% true while also understanding that there was
1:31:21
some like previous development and post development of that,
1:31:25
whatever that I specifically was.
1:31:29
So like, I, you know, again, I'll go somewhat like you go,
1:31:33
you go back to like the early, I don't know, 2nd 3rd century.
1:31:36
And there was like these desert monks who are out in the desert
1:31:39
and they, they do this thing worth like one of them, I forgot
1:31:42
his name is like he, he said 300 pairs a day and to count them,
1:31:46
he would pick up 300 rocks. And so he would, each time he
1:31:49
said one of his prayers, he would throw the rock on the
1:31:51
ground. And then when he was like he was
1:31:53
done for the next day, he'd go pick up 300 more.
1:31:56
So there's like this idea of like saying prayers and sort of
1:31:58
counting them. Well, eventually they start to
1:32:00
think like, OK, there's actually an easier way from throwing and
1:32:03
having to pick up 300 rocks every day.
1:32:04
We can like put them on a bead and count it.
1:32:06
You know, it's just a very practical thing.
1:32:08
So this is happening. So there's people praying and
1:32:10
they're counting their prayers and they're putting beads or
1:32:12
rocks, something like that on some sort of string, which isn't
1:32:15
unique to Christians. Like it's in a lot of different
1:32:17
spaces and religions. So this is happening.
1:32:20
And then there is the this development of, and I'll talk
1:32:24
somewhat quickly of like, so there's like the praying of the,
1:32:27
there's like 150 Psalms, right? So this praying of the Psalms
1:32:30
and this is something that monks are doing.
1:32:32
The Jewish, I mean Jesus as a Jew, would have memorized the
1:32:35
Psalms and did. And all of the Jewish peoples
1:32:37
memorize the Psalms. Yeah.
1:32:38
And it, and it became like, and we've, we've taken that and like
1:32:41
really, really valued the prayer of the Psalms and made it a real
1:32:45
particular way of prayer of the Church.
1:32:47
And so these the monks. Liturgy of the Hours.
1:32:48
Yeah, exactly. And that's what's happening is
1:32:50
like the monks are making a commitment.
1:32:52
So I think it was like praying all the Psalms in a week.
1:32:54
So they're praying 150 Psalms and that and then lay people are
1:32:57
coming and they're like seeing what's happening here and they
1:32:59
they're like inspired by it. But like books are expensive and
1:33:04
you know, most people can't read and so they can't afford it.
1:33:06
And so there's, there's some way of them sharing in the
1:33:08
spirituality of, of now saying like a certain number of prayers
1:33:13
because they couldn't say the Psalms.
1:33:14
And so, so it's like the praying of the 150 Psalms, kind of
1:33:17
indifferent. Again, there's, it's not like a
1:33:19
super linear development. There's a lot of things that are
1:33:21
happening. Eventually people are praying a
1:33:23
certain number of our fathers, you know, for each of the
1:33:26
Psalms. And then then people are
1:33:28
starting, it develops into people praying Hail Marys.
1:33:31
And so like, you know, it goes back to like, there's this
1:33:33
prayer of the church in the ways the monks are praying.
1:33:36
And then there's the there's the desire for the laity to kind of
1:33:40
share in this, in the spirituality some way, in a way
1:33:42
which makes sense to them. It's slowly but surely over
1:33:45
time, we kind of get the form of of the rosary we have now with,
1:33:49
you know, now with like the 20, you know, praying, you can pray
1:33:52
a lot of different ways, but like with the 20 decades and all
1:33:54
that sort of stuff. But what I like it's like, I
1:34:01
think one of the reasons the rosary is so popular is because
1:34:04
of of the centuries of development that make it the
1:34:09
highest form of prayer is the sacrifice of the Mass.
1:34:12
The rosaries like a perfect prayer, though, It's like so
1:34:15
human, it's tangible, it's clear.
1:34:18
It's like the right amount of time.
1:34:21
It's just like, yeah, it's just the popularity of the rosary,
1:34:25
like didn't come out of nowhere. And it is something that the
1:34:27
church has developed kind of organically for for centuries.
1:34:31
People just love it naturally. People, I mean, are they kind of
1:34:35
both ends? That's true.
1:34:36
It's like hard for a lot of people that don't love it, but
1:34:38
it's so human in that 20 minutes or 15 minutes you're it's a
1:34:42
repeat like you're saying the audible prayers.
1:34:45
It's mostly the Bible like inspired the sacred scripture.
1:34:49
It's in recession for prayer from Our Lady.
1:34:52
It's, you know, on the Holy Spirit and the Trinity.
1:34:55
And then it's also the life of Christ that's meditating on
1:34:59
these gospel scenes. So in that sense, and we had
1:35:01
Gabe, Gabe Castillo on the show. You've you've probably seen his
1:35:05
stuff and he, you know, did a beautiful job just being like,
1:35:08
he's like, it's the most perfect prayer.
1:35:10
He like loves the rosary so much and so beautiful, but just you
1:35:13
know, him sharing how his life was transformed.
1:35:16
Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. You go in any church, any
1:35:18
Catholic Church, you're waiting confession line, people are
1:35:20
praying the rosary. The first thing people do are
1:35:21
praying the rosary. But like, what I'll say is like
1:35:24
my, my, I'm, I'm much more of a coach than historian, You know,
1:35:32
I mean, like, I couldn't tell you that like the history of
1:35:34
basketball or whatever, but I can like I can tell.
1:35:36
You how to play it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:35:38
And so like that's like right Rosary in the year again, like
1:35:39
the the the point of the goal of it was like helping people pray
1:35:43
you. Know you're not going to tell
1:35:44
them about Lepanto. Well, like you do at the very
1:35:46
beginning to kind of because I think the.
1:35:48
Get them excited. The reason that Lepanto is so
1:35:50
important is that the print, the, the, the, the faithful
1:35:53
united and pray in the rosary change the trajectory of like
1:35:55
history, you know, and so like as a sign of help, hope and
1:36:00
reminder about like the tides against us in the world.
1:36:03
And we can feel sort of all the difficult things like you do,
1:36:06
like one of the things that we can do is to pray the rosary.
1:36:08
And this has been an instrument of grace, an instrument of, of,
1:36:12
of victory and of, of, of again, a radical changing of the tide
1:36:16
before. And so we can we can do it
1:36:18
again. And you've got one on you,
1:36:19
right? I do.
1:36:19
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got one right here.
1:36:21
It's a big one. I met a couple of homeless
1:36:24
people when I was walking over here today and one of them asked
1:36:27
if I could give this to her and I had to say I couldn't do that
1:36:31
so I. That's a that's a beautiful.
1:36:32
So can you just hold it right? So this is obviously a large
1:36:34
one. Most rosaries or pocket.
1:36:36
You can put them in your pocket. Correct.
1:36:37
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you guess you could
1:36:38
technically in this one. Nice one.
1:36:40
But you've got it. Yeah.
1:36:42
So you start with the cross. What do you pray on the cross?
1:36:44
So you're going to pray on each bead, right?
1:36:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great.
1:36:47
So so like the first prayer that so we make the sound of the
1:36:49
cross, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and then we are going so like
1:36:51
the dimensions are going to do a slightly different just so you
1:36:53
know, but the way most. People.
1:36:56
The way most people are praying the rosary is you start with the
1:37:00
creed, so the profession of our faith, right?
1:37:03
And then there's going to be an Our Father, three Hail Marys and
1:37:05
a glory bee. Often you'll offer the Our
1:37:08
Father for the health intentions, the needs of the
1:37:11
Holy Father. And then 33 Hail Marys again,
1:37:14
often asking for an increase in the virtues of faith, hope,
1:37:17
charity, and then a glory bee. And then and then we have like
1:37:22
what we call like the decades of the rosary decade because each
1:37:25
of the five sections is 10 prayers, right?
1:37:28
And so the bones of it are going to be like the the the skeleton
1:37:32
of it is going to be in our Father 10 Hail Marys and then a
1:37:34
glory be almost always. Now people are adding what they
1:37:38
call like the Fatima prayer. Oh my Jesus.
1:37:41
Exactly, exactly. And then you, you, you pray
1:37:44
through the whole thing and then you end up, you know, generally
1:37:46
praying like a hail holy Queen, right.
1:37:49
So that's kind of the, the, the bones of it, the structure of
1:37:51
it, if you will, like the, the skeleton of it, like the flesh
1:37:54
of it, then it's going to be like when we are praying the
1:37:58
rosary, we're trying to do a combination of one of three
1:38:02
things is the like an awareness of who we're praying to.
1:38:08
So the, the, the first thing I would say the most important
1:38:10
thing about praying the rosary is trying to, to be actually
1:38:13
like connected to the Lord and to know that you're with him and
1:38:16
that he sees you to be connected to Our Lady, to know that she's
1:38:19
with you and she sees you, right?
1:38:20
That's like, that's, that's praying the rosary is not just
1:38:24
knocking out Hail Marys, right? To be praying to be connected to
1:38:28
the Lord or have the intention of being connected to the Lord.
1:38:30
And then we're going to be paying attention.
1:38:31
You can certainly pay attention to the words of the prayers or
1:38:35
or we we talk about like the meditations on the mysteries,
1:38:39
mysteries of salvation history, principally what God, what Jesus
1:38:44
has done in coming to save us. And then, you know, and, and so
1:38:49
we're going to what we're going to journey through the life of
1:38:52
Jesus from his, from his nativity to his public ministry
1:38:57
and the luminous mysteries to his passion to his, you know,
1:39:00
his glorious, you know, resurrection, ascension, descent
1:39:02
of the Holy Spirit. And then the way in which he he
1:39:05
honors Our Lady for her, her special roles as his mother and
1:39:08
her assumption and coronation. So you're, you're, you're coming
1:39:13
into a closer relationship with our Lord and Our Lady.
1:39:17
You're meditating in the life of Christ.
1:39:21
What about intercession? I mean, you're asking, I mean, I
1:39:24
found the rosary to be very powerful where people are like
1:39:28
every decade they're meditating on a mystery and then they give
1:39:30
that decade for a particular intention or at the beginning of
1:39:33
the rosary be like, these are all of our intentions and
1:39:35
there's like 50 of them. Conversions for people, people
1:39:38
getting health, people getting houses, people getting convert,
1:39:41
you know, conversions obviously I think already said that, you
1:39:44
know, just all kinds of material and spiritual goods that people
1:39:49
need or in Thanksgiving like. Yeah.
1:39:53
In Thanksgiving for our marriage, we're going to pray
1:39:54
the rosary. Yeah, so, so the the rosary is
1:39:57
what we call devotional, which is different than liturgy.
1:40:01
Liturgy is given to us and and we are to celebrate liturgy the
1:40:06
way the Church envisions this and asks to and you can't.
1:40:09
You can't just do. What you want?
1:40:11
Tweak it with. There's a lot more freedom with
1:40:12
devotionals. And so with something like the
1:40:14
rosary, there's a ton of space for you to customize it and
1:40:18
personalize it. And the adage of praise you can
1:40:21
not as you can't is like appropriate for the praying of
1:40:25
the rosary. I say that because like for the
1:40:27
Friars, it's not primarily like an object of like a prayer of
1:40:33
intention like so it's not like it.
1:40:34
That's not a huge part of what we're doing with the rosary.
1:40:36
We're not having everyone bring intentions.
1:40:40
Is that because you're more meditating on the life of
1:40:42
crisis, More just about like, yeah, contemplation.
1:40:44
Yeah, Yeah. It's more about that, but also
1:40:50
like there's a healthy it is appropriate to bring intentions.
1:40:54
Again, we talked about the the intention of the battle of
1:40:57
Lepanto totally, 100% appropriate.
1:41:00
And if that's people, how people want to come to it and they want
1:41:02
to pray and I'll have a a decade, etcetera.
1:41:06
The but you want to have like the the word that comes to mind
1:41:11
and it's not like necessarily sensitive, like you don't want
1:41:13
to be weird about it. And you need to understand that
1:41:16
like God is God. And so you don't there's, there
1:41:20
can be a lot of like fear driven.
1:41:22
I need to, if I don't say something, if I forget something
1:41:25
like God's not going to take. Care of it.
1:41:27
If I don't pray this rosary for this intention, I'm not going to
1:41:29
get the intention. Or if I if I don't say it's.
1:41:31
Like transactional, it's a. Little bit transactional and
1:41:33
it's a little bit of like, again, it's like I need to do it
1:41:35
for all these 50 things all the time.
1:41:38
It's like, OK, just so you know, some like there is space for
1:41:42
discernment of a particular intention of focus that you go
1:41:45
to consistently. Also you can have the freedom to
1:41:48
know that if you give something to God, God like you can give it
1:41:51
to him and he's going to hold on to it.
1:41:53
So like sometimes there is like this adding up of intentions
1:41:55
that's kind of like a little bit fear driven.
1:41:57
Like if I need to do this and if I don't do it, this bad thing's
1:42:01
going to happen. If there's like stress and lack
1:42:04
of freedom and anxiety towards it, like we're probably off and
1:42:06
probably the invitation is like, OK, God, here's my, here's my
1:42:09
mom, here's my sister, here's my this or that.
1:42:12
I'm like, I'm I'm giving it to you now.
1:42:14
And I'm, I'm going to trust that actually you can take care of
1:42:16
them today and tomorrow and I don't have to have this like
1:42:18
constant bringing of things like that.
1:42:22
So that would be, and sometimes you can just kind of have the
1:42:25
intention of like this would be how I generally do intentions.
1:42:28
There's certainly space and prayer for particular people and
1:42:31
needs, intentions, etcetera. But also there's just like I
1:42:34
give like a general, like I give you all the people who've asked
1:42:37
for my prayers. I give you all my family, all
1:42:40
this sort of stuff. And you don't have to
1:42:41
necessarily like name everybody every time.
1:42:44
What is been the most surprising response to The Rosary Annie or
1:42:47
podcast for you? The most surprising response, I
1:42:57
don't know that I kind of had a sense of where like what I was
1:43:00
getting into. So I wouldn't say there was like
1:43:02
a wildly surprising response or something that like was totally
1:43:06
unexpected. Certainly like the demographic
1:43:12
of people who who know me and feel connected to me is quite
1:43:15
different and it's a little bit broader.
1:43:19
So that's like, I think I have felt, I guess I've been in some
1:43:25
spaces where I'm doing something at a parish or church or
1:43:27
conference and I've felt very, very loved by people.
1:43:32
And like that was, that's like deeply moving.
1:43:36
That's so beautiful. You don't usually hear that with
1:43:39
media. Yeah.
1:43:41
Yeah, it's beautiful. Yeah.
1:43:43
I mean, you do hear that, but you also hear people that are,
1:43:46
you know, in the more political space, it's less about love and
1:43:50
more about triumph and fight and all the other stuff.
1:43:55
I think the biggest push back against the rosary and concern
1:43:59
from our non Catholic Christian brothers and sisters is you are
1:44:02
idolaters for asking for Mary's intercession in this way and
1:44:07
including her in these in this prayer.
1:44:10
Which like, and maybe I'm I'm like off like that doesn't like
1:44:15
if someone says you're an adult or I'm like, OK, I get why you
1:44:18
think that I'm. Not you're not personally
1:44:20
offended. No, no, Somebody's like, I don't
1:44:21
like his voice, you know, It's like whatever, you know his.
1:44:26
Don't like Grey His. Reflections are stupid.
1:44:28
It's like, OK, well, I don't get a ton of that, but the like, I'm
1:44:32
going to stay in this pocket and ask you a question to see it's a
1:44:37
little bit vulnerable on my end. I'll say this, like actually the
1:44:40
success of the Rose in your podcast was like quite isolating
1:44:44
and surprisingly isolating because like it's, it's just
1:44:49
like my like my experience of it is I've thought of like, I feel
1:44:56
like there's like the, the multiplication of the loaves in
1:44:58
the Gospel. And there's this little lad who
1:45:00
has his loaves in his fish and he like gives them to Jesus and
1:45:04
then Jesus like multiplies them and feeds all these thousands of
1:45:07
people. And then it's just like, like
1:45:09
you're, you're like humanly speaking, like this like crazy
1:45:13
profound thing just happened. And it was like your loaves and
1:45:16
your fish and Jesus chose them. And it's like, and so in my,
1:45:21
like, in my prayer of that, like, could you imagine?
1:45:23
Like there's all the chaos and all the people going about their
1:45:25
day. And I like, I imagine like Our
1:45:27
Lady or, and Jesus like coming to him at some point and being
1:45:30
like, like, yeah, yeah. Thank you.
1:45:33
Yeah, this happened like this was like we used you were love
1:45:35
and you were fish and like seeing it just because like
1:45:37
there's. And I say that and I think that
1:45:39
you can speak into it. It's just like it's really weird
1:45:42
and uncomfortable to celebrate some sort of success in a in a
1:45:46
Christian Church space. And so it's like, I feel like
1:45:49
this really profound intimate thing happened.
1:45:52
But somehow, because it's kind of like popular and even like a
1:45:55
secular sense, I feel like I don't want to, like, celebrate
1:46:00
it because I don't want to be, like, proud and I don't want to
1:46:02
be misinterpreted or misreceived.
1:46:05
It's just like, it's just like a really unique and sort of
1:46:07
interesting, complicated thing to like, have some sort of
1:46:10
success with a Christian thing and not really know what to do
1:46:12
with it because like, yeah, I don't know, like, does that
1:46:19
resonate at all? Does that make sense?
1:46:21
I get that when you're dealing with works of grace where God's
1:46:27
showing up and you're a part of it, you're a vessel for it even,
1:46:33
which is crazy when God allows us to be vessels for, you know,
1:46:36
help with his grace in the lives of other people.
1:46:39
Dealing with success, when it shows up as a success, it's not
1:46:43
the cross. It's like an actual success.
1:46:44
Like, oh, everyone got fed today on 7000 loaves like you just
1:46:47
said, instead of like, oh, we're going to get crucified today,
1:46:50
You know, we were like, yay, you know, yeah, it's, it's a, it's
1:46:54
an interesting thing to wrestle with as our, as we are weak,
1:46:57
finite, flawed human beings. We're like, should we be all
1:47:00
excited and exuberant? Should be like, no, no, it was
1:47:02
all God. It was all God.
1:47:04
Should we just ignore it and keep going and not like not have
1:47:06
the champagne or whatever, you know, the celebration is like
1:47:09
should we tell other people it was a success?
1:47:11
You should listen to, you know, there's, there is a menu of
1:47:13
options and depending on your own interior struggles or senses
1:47:20
or feelings or convictions, any one of those options might be
1:47:22
appropriate. That's the thing.
1:47:24
I don't think there's one appropriate way or option to
1:47:27
always pick. Sometimes we should celebrate
1:47:30
and be exuberant. Other times maybe we should be
1:47:32
more restrained. We should always point it back
1:47:34
to God, which you do, of course, beautifully.
1:47:39
I think for me, my biggest struggle is more like my
1:47:41
mistakes. If I make a mistake, which I
1:47:44
will like, like may he humble me and, and but mercifully so, you
1:47:49
know, and then like, if good, good God can do good, great good
1:47:53
Lord do abundant good. Like, you know, 1000 acts it for
1:47:58
your glory for souls. And if I'm part of that, here I
1:48:02
am 100% use me. But whatever you see fit, you
1:48:04
know, like the total abandonment thing, both the abandonment of
1:48:09
my weaknesses and abandonment of of all of me to the will of God
1:48:12
is really the only kind of anchor.
1:48:15
Yeah, like in your in your family, like if you know your
1:48:20
kids have some sort of achievement, you'll like
1:48:23
celebrate it, right? Yes.
1:48:24
And I'm sure between husband and wife, like you publish your
1:48:27
book, it does really well. Like you do, you do something to
1:48:30
like, celebrate. That's kind of a sore spot for
1:48:33
me. OK, I'm sorry.
1:48:34
No, it's totally fine. I actually like I believe in
1:48:37
what I wrote in the book, of course, but I wasn't like a big
1:48:39
fan of my own book. OK, I don't have ever shared
1:48:42
that with podcast. You guys should still get it.
1:48:44
But I mean, actually I don't even like recommend it that
1:48:46
much. It's still I think it's a decent
1:48:48
book and it has like beautiful meditations in there.
1:48:51
I think some good meditations, but I don't think like this is
1:48:55
like a amazing book that everybody should read.
1:48:57
You know, I don't know, that's an interesting like, I guess, I
1:49:03
mean, I guess I have heard feedback personally that people
1:49:06
say you need to celebrate more. You don't, you don't celebrate
1:49:10
enough. I think I tend on the spectrum
1:49:14
more towards the self doubt. So I think it also depends on
1:49:18
the person and their struggles. You know, I don't know.
1:49:21
Yeah, but also maybe some of the anecdote to the self doubt is in
1:49:25
the celebration, you know? Yeah, yeah, do you, you you
1:49:28
probably need to celebrate more a. 100% yeah.
1:49:30
That's why I'm why I'm. I'm keenly.
1:49:31
Aware of it, I'm keenly aware of it and I live in an I kind of
1:49:35
what's emerging because I live in an all male space and men,
1:49:38
first of all, like I'm surrounded by guys doing heroic
1:49:41
things all the time, like like radically heroic things.
1:49:48
And sometimes we just don't do a great job of like, celebrating.
1:49:51
We're acknowledging it. Because we're all kind of like
1:49:53
busy. We're all getting after it.
1:49:55
But I do think it's a very healthy thing.
1:49:56
Often it's like tied in white. And again, like, yeah, like,
1:50:00
just that we don't have like we have brothers that we live with.
1:50:02
We don't have like you don't live with your mom and your wife
1:50:05
or something like that, you know, like who are generally
1:50:07
people who would be like better at celebrating something.
1:50:09
But like, 'cause I'll have like, like, like my some, some of the
1:50:13
women who work with Ascension or whatever be like, or, or friends
1:50:15
of mine who are kind of like, you know, like, like sister
1:50:18
figures, mentors. But like, hey, you like, oh,
1:50:19
your book came out. Did you like, you got to make
1:50:21
sure you do something to celebrate.
1:50:22
It's like we don't do anything, you know?
1:50:24
I didn't. I mean, I had a COVID book.
1:50:26
I guess so. But I think, I think, I don't
1:50:28
think that's like. It's not a good thing.
1:50:30
As yourself, I don't think so. I agree with you, it's not a
1:50:32
good thing. And I think there's there's like
1:50:35
it's funny, 'cause. I saw a joint book party, but
1:50:37
what was your last book? When was it?
1:50:40
Yeah, what was it? It was on the Beatitudes.
1:50:42
They. And you didn't have a book
1:50:43
party? No.
1:50:43
I didn't have a book. Party.
1:50:44
I didn't have a book party for mine.
1:50:47
Cheers to our we can have a a book party right here.
1:50:49
I don't. Congratulations.
1:50:52
Good job. I bet your book, well, anyways,
1:50:57
I'm not going to compare rosary in your podcast.
1:50:59
Hit the top of the charts. This show hasn't hit the top of
1:51:01
the charts. Wow.
1:51:02
So let's do Rosary in the year. Congrats, Father Mark, are we
1:51:06
doing nice? Thank you.
1:51:09
But like, and I kind of like I enter into this space, I'm
1:51:12
starting to enter into it a little bit more of like bringing
1:51:14
up this conversation around celebration because I think
1:51:17
there's a lot of fear around it and I think.
1:51:20
Among the pious. Amongst the pious, yeah.
1:51:23
And I'm grateful for the experiences that I've had to see
1:51:27
where there's like some imperfection with how we respond
1:51:29
to some of this stuff to help kind of like recognize it,
1:51:31
experience it, respond to it. But because like, again, like
1:51:37
the the God being a father's like super important and like,
1:51:42
like when something happens, yeah.
1:51:43
Like, like, like, even like in like Catholic spaces, we have
1:51:48
this language of merit, which is like, like, like, so almost like
1:51:51
a reward for, for the yes that we give.
1:51:53
And we have the celebration of the Saints.
1:51:56
Like, like, like we celebrate and honor Our Lady and she's a
1:52:00
human being and creature in all his grace.
1:52:02
But we do this and it's right to do it and church tells us to do
1:52:05
it. And like, and so there's a way
1:52:07
in which like we're just so, like there's so much fear around
1:52:11
like celebrating and like this, like, like, well, if God did the
1:52:15
whole thing, I don't want to take anything from him, but it's
1:52:18
like, there's like there's a, there's a human good in
1:52:20
celebrating and being celebrated.
1:52:24
That also applies to like pious spiritual things or, or to
1:52:30
Christians in general. And almost everyone, I, there's
1:52:35
almost nobody who's like overly affirmed, almost everyone's like
1:52:38
under affirmed and under celebrated.
1:52:40
And we, if we're going to make a mistake, I would make a mistake
1:52:42
for celebrating people and the good things that are happening.
1:52:45
What a. Great word.
1:52:46
Yeah. I totally agree with you and
1:52:49
that's convicting for me. I, I mean, with my organizations
1:52:53
like live action, we have a weekly celebration where we like
1:52:56
shout out people on, on our all staff or sorry, it's every other
1:52:59
week we shout out people on our all staff.
1:53:01
So that's like a thing that we do.
1:53:02
But I'm realizing like, like on the podcast team and I'm also
1:53:06
realizing, you know, even just something about my friendships
1:53:09
and my family life, like, you know, you can definitely like be
1:53:12
very loving and nurturing. I am with my kids and my husband
1:53:15
and stuff. But making it an intentional
1:53:17
point of like, what can I praise about you today?
1:53:20
Like, I celebrate you. I love you.
1:53:22
But like God loves like Adolf Hitler, you know?
1:53:25
So it's like, you know, as parents, we're going to love our
1:53:27
kids unconditionally, right? But like, what can I celebrate
1:53:29
about you? Because there's a million things
1:53:31
to celebrate. And I think in the kind of media
1:53:34
space too, of people, or just like the ministry space, I
1:53:37
should say, there's all these people doing amazing work and we
1:53:39
should be more like open with our praise about it.
1:53:41
Yeah, Yeah, I would, yes. Sorry I haven't given you a
1:53:46
shout out on X yet, Father. No.
1:53:48
No, I still probably think yourself allowing yourself to be
1:53:54
celebrated more is probably more important than you going to
1:53:58
celebrate other people first. Yeah, that's a part of it.
1:54:01
But I would, I would. I bet you're better at
1:54:03
celebrating other people than allowing yourself to be
1:54:05
celebrated. At least maybe from what I've
1:54:08
heard, I don't technically know you, but that's yeah, that that
1:54:12
seems to because it's just. It's a little uncomfortable.
1:54:16
It's uncomfortable to be celebrated.
1:54:17
It is a thing. It's very uncomfortable.
1:54:19
It's weird. Right.
1:54:21
Yeah. I mean it, it's not weird when
1:54:23
my husband does it, I guess I should say, but it's weird when
1:54:27
it can feel weird when people that are not close to you do it.
1:54:31
And I think that's where there needs to be.
1:54:33
I probably need to grow in humility instead of being like,
1:54:37
oh, no, no, I'm just like ignoring it and like kind of
1:54:38
like marching off and doing, you know, the next thing.
1:54:40
It's like, thank you so much. Thank you for taking the time to
1:54:43
like, thank, you know, like, that means so much to me and
1:54:47
like. To do something that it allows
1:54:51
us to celebrate the reality that God saw me love me, chose me,
1:54:57
used me like, but he did it to me specifically.
1:55:02
Like there's, there's, there's a there's a gift and a grace there
1:55:05
that allows us to feel love and to experience in an incarnation
1:55:10
away, like God's choice of us, his love of us using of us are
1:55:13
fruitfulness that is like super helpful for us to receive.
1:55:18
It roots us deeply in our identity.
1:55:21
It gives us strength to endure a lot of the other difficulties
1:55:24
like it's and so it's super, super helpful for us to have
1:55:27
that experience. And I think if you talked about
1:55:29
any like, I'm not a psychologist, whatever.
1:55:31
Like it's important for kids in their development to be
1:55:33
celebrated. And if they're not celebrated at
1:55:35
all, there's going to be some like negative consequences to
1:55:37
it. And I would just think like, you
1:55:40
know, imagine if like a like a, a 10 year old child has some
1:55:45
huge success and their mom and dad want to celebrate it.
1:55:49
And they like say no, yeah, you know, And it's that.
1:55:52
Would be bad, yeah. Yeah, you know, and it's like
1:55:54
your Heavenly Father wants this to be celebrated.
1:55:58
He wants to do something for this.
1:56:00
Like he wants to celebrate us in in as individuals and in unique
1:56:04
ways and with particular thresholds and, and new things
1:56:07
happening. And it's like it's just
1:56:08
important for us. There's just, yeah, I think it's
1:56:11
important for us to kind of talk about a little bit and start
1:56:14
kind of leaning into it again, particularly in the pious
1:56:19
spaces, because there's a lot of fear around it.
1:56:22
And maybe like, like a space for ongoing formation of how do we
1:56:27
celebrate what God has done in somebody in a way which honors
1:56:31
God and what he has done, but also uphold and honors like the
1:56:35
person as well and, and how those can actually be true
1:56:39
together. It's almost like a little bit of
1:56:41
like how like people don't want to pray the rosary, so they
1:56:45
don't want to take away some help from like what God has,
1:56:47
like from Jesus. And it's like, no, both.
1:56:49
And, and there's like, there's a little bit here of like, I don't
1:56:52
want to celebrate an individual for something to happen because
1:56:54
I don't want to like steal the glory from God.
1:56:57
But also somehow these can exist together.
1:57:02
I think women and women's religious communities do it
1:57:04
well, men generally, men's religious communities, we don't
1:57:07
do it great. And there's probably room for
1:57:09
for growth in it. Is there something in the
1:57:11
Catholic space where we like, celebrate the winds of creators?
1:57:15
There is OK. I mean like, like, what is it?
1:57:18
Like there's the, there's the. Yes, I didn't get one.
1:57:23
I think CMA. Oh, OK.
1:57:24
Catholic Media Awards, maybe? OK, yeah, right.
1:57:27
But you have to, like, submit it.
1:57:28
I didn't. Get 1 Harris.
1:57:31
I'm just checking but you have. To submit it, oh, you have to
1:57:33
submit it. Yeah.
1:57:35
So that would be like, so like I've I've you know, some things
1:57:38
have come from us from them that like Ascension has proposed or
1:57:41
that script juice has. But then it's like this is like
1:57:44
like our this is me. See, like I still I'm convicted
1:57:49
of this, but I still feel the vulnerability and the fear
1:57:52
around this of like going to the space, like saying a good thing
1:57:55
out loud. But like my the Poco Poco
1:57:57
podcast 1, like the religious got like first place religious
1:58:00
podcast from the Cmas in 2024 or whatever it was.
1:58:06
But it's like, congratulations, thank you.
1:58:10
It's awkward to say that out loud.
1:58:12
You know, it'd be like as the, as the, as the podcast, the
1:58:14
community, like for us to do that, it would be kind of like
1:58:18
weird, like like you guys are celebrating yourselves.
1:58:20
It's like, well, I don't know. Well, you're celebrating your
1:58:24
audience. You're celebrating, Yeah, your
1:58:26
fellow Friars. So I think it I think to a proud
1:58:31
person, everything is pride, and to a humble person, everything
1:58:34
is humility. Right.
1:58:35
OK. Have you heard that?
1:58:37
I. Something I I'm botching the
1:58:39
reference. It sounds like something that
1:58:41
would be a saying. But meaning anything can be
1:58:46
pride, but anything can be humility.
1:58:48
It's really in the posture of the heart.
1:58:51
So that's what it comes down to. But I think objectively
1:58:54
speaking, to your point, it is good to encourage.
1:58:57
You know what? I, I have been reflecting on how
1:58:59
the, how the virtue of encouragement, the gift of
1:59:02
encouragement, I should say, and realizing how much I actually
1:59:05
need it. And sometimes if I'm not getting
1:59:08
it, it does affect me more than I would like.
1:59:11
And the importance of encouraging other people and how
1:59:13
encouragement is a gift that is not given or received enough.
1:59:19
So it's so maybe celebration is another maybe code for the word
1:59:22
encouragement, but it's encouragement also has to be
1:59:24
with like meeting someone in a hard time and telling them you
1:59:26
got this, you know, all the things.
1:59:28
Yeah, totally. And I like to kind of, I think I
1:59:33
that this is totally like, it's, it's humble to say, like I need
1:59:36
encouragement. And it's, it's humble to say,
1:59:39
like actually celebrating this thing, like would be helpful.
1:59:43
And I would like to do that. And like what I like how I kind
1:59:47
of talked to that speak into that is I think of like our
1:59:50
Lord's baptism, right? So he's, so he's, he's down at
1:59:53
the Jordan that the heavens are rent open.
1:59:55
And the heavenly Father, like says, like this is my beloved
1:59:58
son with whom I'm well pleased. Like he celebrates his son, like
2:00:01
publicly and like concretely and intentionally.
2:00:06
And then it's right after the baptism of Jesus and this moment
2:00:11
that he goes into the wilderness where he's going to be tempted
2:00:14
by Satan for 40 days, You know, and, and I read into that like,
2:00:18
in a certain sense, like for us human, like Jesus like, shows
2:00:22
the way to live. Like there's a way in which it's
2:00:23
not 100% true for Jesus because of what it means for him to be
2:00:26
God. But there's like a way in which
2:00:27
like you could see like in a human sense, like the grace and
2:00:32
the confidence and the strength he needs to go into the desert
2:00:34
and do the battle is received from the honoring.
2:00:37
He receives the celebration. He receives the truth.
2:00:39
He receives of like who he is his beloved son, which gives him
2:00:43
with the, the weapons, the the ardor, the, the, the, the armor
2:00:48
to go into the like the battle, right.
2:00:50
And to continue to trust. And so I do think that actually
2:00:53
what equips us to go into the hard things, to resist
2:00:57
temptation, to remain sort of true to the Lord and the
2:00:59
difficulties is when we are rooted most deeply in our
2:01:03
identities, beloved son and daughter.
2:01:04
And part of how we experience that is going to be through like
2:01:09
some of the celebration type of stuff.
2:01:11
I think it, it actually like strengthens us to remain humble
2:01:15
and vulnerable and meek in a lot of the other, like the
2:01:19
wilderness of life, which part of why I like it's so important
2:01:22
for us to hear, you know, God speak these words.
2:01:24
If he's he's like, I love you, you're like, you're beloved.
2:01:28
I'm proud of you. You know, to hear that every
2:01:30
day, but also like I think to celebrate that is, is super
2:01:34
important. You know what I think a good way
2:01:37
to close is, Father? What's that?
2:01:39
We should encourage each other and people listening.
2:01:41
OK, great. Can I start?
2:01:43
Yeah, thank you for saying yes to God for your vocation,
2:01:47
because you helped truly millions of souls through all
2:01:50
the media. And you add on the direct
2:01:51
personal contact help. You've done like literally
2:01:54
millions of people because you've said yes and you showed
2:01:57
up and you've been willing to record your talent of speaking
2:02:02
and educating and encouraging and enlightening.
2:02:05
And that's helped millions of people.
2:02:07
And because now they're being helped, they're going off and
2:02:10
praying for millions more people.
2:02:13
And maybe there's billions now at this point that have been
2:02:17
helped on their journey to heaven because of you.
2:02:19
Isn't that crazy? That is crazy.
2:02:21
That's pretty awesome. And there might be someone
2:02:23
listening today that might discover their vocation because
2:02:25
of you being willing to speak about it so openly.
2:02:28
And there's certainly people who are going to go and pick up the
2:02:30
rosary. So and more many more spiritual
2:02:34
goods I can't even imagine. Amen.
2:02:37
Thank you. And yeah.
2:02:40
Well, I, I already, I, I already used my encouragement.
2:02:44
I'll say it again now publicly, but also try and like, I want to
2:02:48
give you another one. You know, you know, people know
2:02:51
this is my first time meeting you.
2:02:52
So it's like I don't have it. I don't have as much to work
2:02:54
with for my encouragement as I would normally like to.
2:02:59
But like what I, what I, what I said to you before this, and I
2:03:01
have to say it again here, and I mean, it is that I really trust
2:03:07
your voice. And you know, I'm not, I, I
2:03:12
haven't seen a take of yours that fell off.
2:03:17
And it takes a lot of courage because I think that there's,
2:03:19
there's especially in the pro-life space with the stakes,
2:03:26
there's just a lot of reasons to get polarized and to pick a
2:03:31
safer side and one side. But like what you've done is I
2:03:35
think you that you have continued to use your platform
2:03:37
in this ministry from the heart of the church, with the mind of
2:03:40
the church and the mind of Christ with, with elegance and
2:03:43
wisdom and courage. But but in the truth.
2:03:47
And it's a huge gift to me as a priest to have a trusted voice
2:03:51
who I can, who I can look to and it can encourage other people to
2:03:54
look to. And I do believe there's a cost
2:03:56
to stay in where you're staying. Like it's, do you think it's
2:04:00
more vulnerable? And it does require courage.
2:04:02
And so I just thank you for for the courage of again, like
2:04:07
continuing to bring the mind in the heart of Jesus to your work
2:04:10
and to what you say and to what you do.
2:04:12
And I think that you're doing it beautifully and very well.
2:04:15
And you know, it was it was John Paul the second who said Bishop
2:04:21
Fulton Sheen when he met him in New York.
2:04:23
You've you've written and spoken well about our Lord and Savior
2:04:26
Jesus Christ. And I believe the same for you
2:04:29
like that you have represented the Lord and the church in a way
2:04:34
that is just such a gift. And so I am deeply moved and
2:04:38
deeply grateful. And if I can though, if I can
2:04:42
just speak as a under the title of Father, I'm very proud of
2:04:47
you. Thank you, Father, that means so
2:04:50
much to me. It's very gracious and
2:04:53
encouraging. And I said this earlier, but if
2:04:56
I have prudence, it's from the Lord, of course, and it's also
2:05:00
from the Lord, the people the Lord has given to me, my
2:05:03
parents, my husband, my spiritual guides, the mentors.
2:05:07
So it's sort of like you have to be a really bold and aggressive,
2:05:11
imprudent person to get around all of that prudence.
2:05:14
So thankfully that's helping over the years a lot.
2:05:18
Are you deflecting the gift a little bit?
2:05:20
I'm sharing it. Is that OK?
2:05:21
Yeah, Yeah, yeah. All right.
2:05:22
That's why I asked. OK.
2:05:24
No, I I'll, I'll, I receive it. Thank you.
2:05:26
And I share it. And that I I I have, I have
2:05:28
prudence in my life, like my husband.
2:05:31
I mean, I might start crying all of a sudden.
2:05:33
Sometimes I just cry when I talk about him.
2:05:34
But he's a man of incredible justice and prudence.
2:05:37
Like, unbelievably so, So just and generously just.
2:05:41
I mean, he's obviously very generous with people, but he's
2:05:43
also so prudent. Like when I ask him about
2:05:46
anything or I show him things I'm working on that he always
2:05:49
gives me what I believe is, you know, connected to his great
2:05:52
virtue and, and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and just
2:05:54
having that. I know not everyone has that.
2:05:56
So it's just, I think that has helped me so much.
2:06:01
He's got to come on the podcast. He hasn't yet.
2:06:03
OK. Is he has?
2:06:05
Is he not into it? He's into it in that he supports
2:06:08
me doing it and he does listen to some podcasts, but he himself
2:06:11
is like, I don't, I don't do, I'm not on Cam.
2:06:14
I'm not a Cam on camera guy. I'm behind the scenes guy.
2:06:17
You know, I do think eventually I'm going to get him on.
2:06:21
I try not to do the I the Super hard sell.
2:06:24
You know, I think if I begged him, that's probably wise.
2:06:26
He might, but I I just kind of try to respect the have you?
2:06:30
Done anything publicly like that?
2:06:33
Yeah. No speeches, no podcasts with
2:06:36
him, No. Can you pray that he's?
2:06:41
Kind of a vibe though. It's kind of cool.
2:06:43
That he, that he, that he. I mean, I don't want to take
2:06:44
that from you, but I. You respect it.
2:06:47
You. Kind of respect it.
2:06:48
It's a little St. Josephy.
2:06:49
He's Oh my goodness, his name is Joseph.
2:06:51
Yeah, there you go. There you go.
2:06:52
He's extremely Saint Joseph. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I just, I
2:06:57
want you to be able to have him on the show.
2:06:58
But I also think it's pretty cool that yeah, he's doing what
2:07:02
he's doing the way he's. Doing it.
2:07:02
And that's where I'm sort of at peace about it.
2:07:04
Yeah. Because as much as I'd like to
2:07:05
have my show, like, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da da.
2:07:07
Yeah, there's also a lot of power in how he like supports
2:07:13
me, us. This exercise is our family.
2:07:17
It's not just the show is from our family.
2:07:19
It's not Lila Rose out here doing this.
2:07:22
People might not see that that's OK.
2:07:24
But but yeah, I've in God, in his wisdom, I'm like Lord, why?
2:07:28
Like come on, like husband, let's do it together, you know,
2:07:31
but we are doing it together is the fact it's just he's not
2:07:35
publicly facing as as am I. Can I stick with this theme for
2:07:39
a second? OK, an insight that I had that I
2:07:43
thought was like kind of just unique and made sense to me.
2:07:46
And one of my my favorite parts of the whole Rosen the year
2:07:48
journey was the role of Saint Joseph with Our Lady.
2:07:53
And right there's like there's a way, much like Mary's a fully
2:07:58
human. She's she's a human and she's
2:08:00
chosen to, you know, to to conceive in her womb.
2:08:05
The word made flesh to have this, this virginal conception
2:08:12
and you just can't help but think like how like vulnerable
2:08:15
she experienced in this state, both physically, but also just
2:08:19
with like the mystery that surrounds her.
2:08:21
And and I like and like, like, you know, with with Mary, like
2:08:27
for example, like with the visitation, we don't have like
2:08:30
explicit in the Scriptures that Saint Joseph went with her, but
2:08:33
like in I just, I think like, so like God sends his Angel and to
2:08:37
says Joseph, like take hers as like your wife, right?
2:08:40
Stay with stay with Mary. And like, I can't help but see
2:08:43
that like God, the way in which God is going to be present to
2:08:48
Mary and to accompany her in a way which takes flesh, right?
2:08:52
In a way which is so concrete and which is a way which gives
2:08:54
her like both interior but also like physical safety is Saint
2:08:57
Joseph. That he is there as like an icon
2:09:01
and an instrument of God's fatherly care and protection of
2:09:04
her. And that like he goes with her
2:09:06
and that there's a safety that she experiences in Saint Joseph
2:09:09
in the vulnerability, that like God sees the vulnerability and
2:09:13
he cares about it. And he sends Joseph to accompany
2:09:15
her and to be with her and to like, and I, so I just see him
2:09:19
like part of the, I see him being with her like in the
2:09:22
visitation, like she's making this long, arduous journey,
2:09:24
which like, it just wouldn't make sense for like a 14 year
2:09:27
old girl to do by herself. But like Joseph is there.
2:09:29
And if Joseph is there, like she's safe and she's secure and
2:09:32
they go into like the nativity, she's just given birth.
2:09:36
And now there's like these strangers coming to her and like
2:09:38
this. I don't think this happens if
2:09:40
Joseph isn't there. Like it wouldn't, wouldn't make
2:09:42
sense for her to like be there with her newborn and welcome
2:09:45
these like strange shepherds or the, or the, the magi.
2:09:47
And there's a way in which all this was possible, humanly
2:09:51
speaking, because of the presence of Joseph being there.
2:09:54
And, and I say this because what comes to mind is like, there is
2:09:57
a unique way in which you have been able to navigate and to
2:10:01
stay and like hike vulnerably. And it's in a somewhat dangerous
2:10:05
space. And the idea that you go to your
2:10:08
Joseph and the way in which his love of you, his support of you,
2:10:11
like, is so real and so tangible.
2:10:13
Like there's absolutely virtue and grace to what you're doing.
2:10:17
But also you can just see the way in which God has God as he
2:10:23
sent Joseph to Mary. God has chosen a Joseph to
2:10:26
accompany you and to walk with you.
2:10:28
And that there is a real way in which I think the way that you
2:10:30
are able to be in the space you're in, the way you're able
2:10:33
to do it as beautifully and, and, and gracefully and
2:10:37
prudently as you are. Like the fact that you have a
2:10:40
really good and loving husband. Yeah, you can see the influence.
2:10:44
It makes sense. That's so beautiful, thank you
2:10:48
for sharing that. And I never thought about Saint
2:10:50
Joseph accompanying Mother Mary to the visitation.
2:10:55
It makes sense what you just said.
2:10:57
And it also helps encourage me in how my husband and I have set
2:11:01
up our lives because I've always wondered.
2:11:03
I've, it's almost felt unfair, honestly, to me a little bit
2:11:07
because my husband is so prudent.
2:11:09
He's so well spoken. He's so diplomatic.
2:11:13
Like, you know, he has all, he has more gifts in terms of
2:11:16
communication than most people in media today.
2:11:19
OK, he does. And so I know for a fact that if
2:11:23
he did a podcast, if he gave a speech, he would be phenomenal
2:11:28
and people would love it. Like he has those gifts, but
2:11:31
he's chosen, he's not felt the call to use them publicly.
2:11:34
He has felt the call to support mine and and he does very
2:11:37
beautifully. And that's been a bit of a
2:11:39
rustle for me. So I'm like, get out there like
2:11:41
you're so amazing, you know, and I, I want you on my show and at
2:11:44
this and that and this and that. But but he just feels that his
2:11:48
role is to support me, obviously love me, love our children,
2:11:53
leader family. So anyways that that I've never
2:11:55
really, I've always thought of him as my Saint Joseph, but I've
2:11:58
never really thought about it in the way you're expressing.
2:12:00
And it's actually a very beautiful encouragement.
2:12:03
I'll share that with him too. Yeah.
2:12:04
And there's like, yeah. They'll be like, good, you're
2:12:06
going to lay off the get on TikTok, I mean.
2:12:08
That's The thing is like, I don't want to, I don't want to
2:12:11
push against you here. But like Saint Joseph, we he
2:12:13
didn't say anything, you know? Wow, so well, Mary didn't say
2:12:18
much either, but she ended up saying a lot in Christian
2:12:21
history because she's always showing up.
2:12:23
Yeah. She's always showing up in
2:12:25
different outfits, you know, in these beautiful apparitions,
2:12:28
giving just the right message and encouragement and
2:12:31
exhortation. You know, that's her.
2:12:33
That's her role. And, I mean, she's my biggest
2:12:35
role model, of course. I mean, she's on the wall behind
2:12:37
you. Yeah.
2:12:40
Yeah. I love that.
2:12:41
Yeah, I think because like I've had the experience.
2:12:44
This is the, the idea of like noticing you navigate this in a
2:12:48
way that's like uniquely good and trustworthy.
2:12:51
That's something I've like, it's not something I I just came to
2:12:55
mind last week. Like I've observed this for a
2:12:57
couple of years and just, but again, like the the, the role,
2:13:02
not that it's all him, but the role that your husband and you
2:13:05
have your own Joseph. They're like, it makes a lot of
2:13:08
sense of how you have the resources it takes to do what
2:13:12
you do the way you do it. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
2:13:16
It's pretty cool. Yeah.
2:13:17
And, and I guess the thing I wanted just to like there's a
2:13:20
way in which my understanding of the sacrament of marriage is
2:13:23
that like, so God loves you, right?
2:13:25
And he rejoices and he celebrates you and, and the one
2:13:28
of the like, and he wants to love you and to celebrate you in
2:13:31
a way which is like so incarnational, that's so
2:13:33
experiential, that's in like your daily life in a way that
2:13:36
like, you can't, like you can actually hear, taste, touch,
2:13:39
feel. And that like, like the call,
2:13:41
like in the sacrament of marriage, like your husband when
2:13:44
he loves you and he celebrates you, like he doesn't just give
2:13:47
himself, he gives you God as well in God's love of you and
2:13:50
God's care for you and God's support of you.
2:13:52
And so like 100 like I just, I see the way in which, again, the
2:13:56
safety that is being given to you, like all the ways in which
2:13:59
your husband is loving you well are also icons.
2:14:02
And and they're not just symbols, but they're actually
2:14:04
like ways in which the Heavenly Father is loving you and caring
2:14:08
for you and rejoicing in you as well.
2:14:11
And so like, yeah, yeah. Your Heavenly Father is very
2:14:16
proud of you, and he loves you and he cares for you.
2:14:19
Thank you, Father. Yeah, it's cool.
2:14:20
It's cool. I think that's going to help me
2:14:23
also receive it better from my husband and also be more
2:14:28
grateful. I'm already grateful, but
2:14:31
there's room for more gratitude because I think I sometimes, you
2:14:35
know, don't realize how much the Lord is doing for me through
2:14:39
Him. But that's like part of the
2:14:41
mission. It's not like, oh, my husband
2:14:43
needs to be out in front in the same way, but it's still both of
2:14:46
us doing it right. I, I, we, we, we get a lot of
2:14:51
requests to speak and things like this.
2:14:54
And it pains me if I'm doing a trip without my husband, right,
2:14:58
because he's holding down the home for it or whatever.
2:15:01
But recently I had this little like inspiration or and I don't
2:15:04
do a lot. I probably do like one a month.
2:15:05
It's like our family cadence for like out of town trips or
2:15:08
whatever. And they're like one or two
2:15:09
nights Max. But I had this like it, you
2:15:12
know, we were discussing it and he's like, you're, you're I'm
2:15:16
going with you. Like when you got when you're
2:15:18
going out, you know, it's not that I we are still one like so
2:15:22
I can receive this grace through you.
2:15:25
And here I am to help in these other ways that, you know, these
2:15:27
practical ways to help our family.
2:15:28
And and that's such a that was such a gift.
2:15:30
I was like, yeah, like he's actually is with me.
2:15:32
Like if I go to see Our Lady, I was going to go speak in Mexico
2:15:35
City this last fall at C PAC and I was, you know, just like, oh,
2:15:39
we got to go together, like we got to go as a family.
2:15:41
And they're all these practical considerations and, and also
2:15:45
some security things that just made it not make a lot of sense.
2:15:48
But then I, we were discussing, it was like, actually, if I go
2:15:51
make this pilgrimage, we go together in, in spirit.
2:15:56
And what a blessing. Not that we can't go together
2:15:58
in, in flesh too, because we have done many things together
2:16:00
in flesh, of course. But like, this is not something
2:16:02
I have to. I'm not doing it alone, even if
2:16:04
I physically am alone in that moment.
2:16:06
Yeah, yeah, that's super cool. Yeah, I love.
2:16:10
It even if Mary technically went and did the visitation, let's
2:16:12
just say just to say maybe Joseph wasn't there for whatever
2:16:15
reason, he was still there. Sure.
2:16:17
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, his provision was there
2:16:20
and it was the anchor for her to be able to do that one way or
2:16:22
another. I think he would.
2:16:24
I, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm willing to, to go there and to say that.
2:16:27
But also I think he, I think he had to be there.
2:16:30
Yeah, I think you're. Right, he had to be there.
2:16:32
Can I ask you some pro-life questions?
2:16:33
Sure. How do you navigate what we call
2:16:37
remote cooperation, remote material cooperation with evil?
2:16:42
You know, you know, the right, It's like, how much do you pay
2:16:48
attention to that? How much do you, what are like
2:16:53
even maybe just some examples, some very concrete decisions
2:16:56
that you're you're making as like how you're kind of
2:16:58
navigating it because it is so like everywhere, right?
2:17:01
The taxes we pay, yeah. One of the examples, right?
2:17:05
It's like I grew up a Nike kid, everything was Nike and Nike was
2:17:07
#1 it's my favorite brand. It's always been my favorite
2:17:10
brand. But then you like, I realized
2:17:12
like, you know, like that with that now with, you know, the
2:17:16
overturning Roe V Wade and all that stuff.
2:17:17
Like they're willing to, they're, they're paying
2:17:19
employees who need to travel somewhere else to have
2:17:21
abortions. And, and I don't like it
2:17:24
doesn't, I don't understand how I can continue to, when I have
2:17:28
options, continue to choose to shop or to ask for things from a
2:17:32
place, which is like using some of their money to pay for
2:17:35
someone to go have an abortion out of state.
2:17:37
Like that just doesn't like it doesn't, I can't, I can't do
2:17:41
that. It doesn't make sense to me.
2:17:43
But it's like I, I, I ask because it's like it's so
2:17:45
prevalent and it's so like, how do you, how do you not get like
2:17:49
overburdened by it? How do you kind of, but still
2:17:53
not become a like indifference? Like what does that look like
2:17:56
for you? That's a very good question.
2:17:59
I would say always have some battles going.
2:18:02
I think if you never fight a battle against remote
2:18:06
cooperation and evil meaning like the the company that is,
2:18:10
you know, paying for the employee to have an abortion,
2:18:12
right. So you're not directly
2:18:13
participating, but ultimately through your support of the
2:18:16
company that money may eventually be used to support
2:18:19
abortion, right. So it wouldn't be illicit to
2:18:21
receive or to buy the, the product, but is it advisable,
2:18:25
especially if you can have another product you can
2:18:27
purchase? And so now we, if we, if we
2:18:30
painstaking looked at every like every piece of equipment in the
2:18:32
studio is one of these companies involved in abortion, surely,
2:18:35
right at some point, right? So there's a there's a certain
2:18:38
level of practicality, but I think you should be fighting
2:18:40
battles. And I think that's the Christian
2:18:42
way is pick find battles to fight like take stands because
2:18:47
it will inspire other people to care and they may join you.
2:18:49
So like Target is an example. I boycotted Target for two plus
2:18:53
years after their excessive displays of transgender content
2:18:59
for kids, right. And just this past year,
2:19:03
according to reports and certainly the targets I went
2:19:05
into or I heard about the targets and then I went and
2:19:07
checked they were not doing any display anywhere during Pride
2:19:10
month. And so I thought, OK, this is a
2:19:13
victory that they pulled back on this.
2:19:16
So I think it wouldn't have been wrong and or immoral to shop at
2:19:18
Target, but it was actually, I think a good thing to take a
2:19:22
stand. And it, and I would just say
2:19:23
that in general to people, pick some like if you, if you're not
2:19:25
fighting any battles when it comes to this thing, then like
2:19:29
meaning it wouldn't meaning like it's not technically immoral for
2:19:32
you to like buy the product or, you know, do whatever thing
2:19:35
you're doing. But your omission, you're
2:19:37
omitting, you know, getting engaged in one way or another,
2:19:39
then I think that's that is the problem.
2:19:41
So find find battles that you can fight and then fight them
2:19:44
faithfully. Yeah, You have wisdom.
2:19:47
You just, you just do. I love it.
2:19:50
You know, I'm like, I'm open to the fact that I like what you
2:19:52
say because I agree with what you say.
2:19:53
But but what you're saying is like, that's great.
2:19:56
Yeah. 100% yeah I love. That air on the side of more
2:20:00
battles than less in terms of your comfort level.
2:20:02
Yeah. Because that's the other thing.
2:20:03
If you only give when it's comfortable, if you only take a
2:20:05
stand when it's comfortable or when you have the physical time
2:20:08
and it's not going to put you out of your, you know, out of
2:20:11
your, again, comfort level, then that's also an issue too.
2:20:14
Because love should. Hurt a little bit.
2:20:15
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like my the the language
2:20:20
that I use these days, like I something in your life has to be
2:20:23
different because of the reality of like abortion.
2:20:25
Like we, we, we can't just be going about life completely
2:20:29
ignoring that. We have to be picking, we have
2:20:31
to be fighting somebody else be doing something.
2:20:33
So like, because I'm like I'm working on this concept that I
2:20:36
think I'm going to start doing of like basically like a year
2:20:38
life pro-life examine. I love that.
2:20:40
You know, like in the Friary, we have like a poverty check where
2:20:44
like once a year we get together as a Friary, we look about how
2:20:46
we're doing with poverty and we do it for our work, with our
2:20:49
fraternal life, our prayer life. And I do think it like it.
2:20:52
It makes sense and is appropriate and doable to like,
2:20:56
do it like once a year. And so I'll do it always around
2:20:58
the anniversary here of like Roe versus Wade.
2:21:00
OK, let's do it. How are like what Like, yeah,
2:21:03
what in my life is different because of this?
2:21:05
What can And then it's like, what can I the invitation is
2:21:08
like just do one thing of prayer, 1 little sacrifice and
2:21:11
then one sort of like concrete choice, one pick, pick a battle.
2:21:15
You know, for me in my life, the battles I pick aren't
2:21:18
necessarily like in a public out facing way.
2:21:20
It's like, OK, I'm not going to ask for Nike anymore.
2:21:24
Or, you know, if somebody's going like a different year at
2:21:27
what? So like I kind of do like my
2:21:30
invitation or what I'm doing for myself, I don't invite people to
2:21:32
do is like make like make one more choice a year.
2:21:38
So it's like, OK, one, one year is like super clear, OK.
2:21:41
Like Starbucks for sure supports a whole worldview.
2:21:44
That is not that is not consistent with Christian
2:21:47
worldview, right? There's a lot of different
2:21:48
places you can buy coffee. So if somebody wants to get me.
2:21:51
Coffee sevenweekscoffee.com 10% donated to pregnancy research
2:21:55
centers. Nice one delicious coffee I.
2:21:58
Believe it are we have did I have some of that?
2:22:00
I you know what? I don't know what that is.
2:22:02
That might be from Costco. Sorry.
2:22:05
Seven weeks. It's all right.
2:22:06
Sorry. Seven weeks up.
2:22:07
Front, you know, cares. Oh, it's an espresso pod.
2:22:10
OK. I don't know if they're good
2:22:12
guys or not, so no comment. Challenging me here to get my
2:22:15
coffee house in order. Here, But that's the thing, like
2:22:17
with, with so Starbucks is an easy one for me at least,
2:22:19
because it's like you have options and it's very easily
2:22:22
easy for you to avoid that one, right.
2:22:25
And so I, I, I encourage like and, and the one sack, I do
2:22:28
actually like the one sacrifice thing of like, OK, for, you
2:22:31
know, the year of 2026 for the pro-life movement, for the end
2:22:35
of abortion, for the, the consistent pro-life ethic across
2:22:38
the board. I'm going to not have Snickers
2:22:42
this year. I'm not going to have like, it's
2:22:44
one thing small thing. I'm not going to have, you know,
2:22:47
I love whatever seltzer water this year.
2:22:49
I'm not going to have seltzer water and just something that
2:22:52
like is a is an ongoing reminder and also sacrifice that like
2:22:56
keeps us like doing something, but also like we have to have
2:22:59
like some sort of like pinch about it.
2:23:01
Like you got to we. I do think our life has to be
2:23:06
affected by the reality and the existence of abortion and all
2:23:08
and the creation and destruction of embryos across the board.
2:23:12
Like we can't just go about life doing nothing happening.
2:23:14
Yeah, the thing I tell people is you have to show up at the
2:23:17
abortion clinic even just to pray, run mercery.
2:23:20
You're not maybe trained as a SIWA counselor yet.
2:23:22
You don't know anybody else. Just go and stand and be a sign
2:23:25
of contradiction and pray. And if you've never done that,
2:23:28
people listening not have done it.
2:23:29
Do it one time. 40 Days for Life is going to start here with Lent
2:23:33
soon and it's going to be a perfect opportunity.
2:23:35
Or you can just go to any abortion clinic and just stand
2:23:37
outside. Every Christian should do it at
2:23:39
least once. And I would argue every
2:23:41
Christian should do it at least once a year.
2:23:43
And then I would say you could get to a point of doing it once
2:23:44
a month, but just start with the first time.
2:23:47
I mean, that changed me deeply when I went for the first time
2:23:50
when I was 14. And, you know, I think it's the
2:23:54
Ground Zero of the spiritual battle in our country that's
2:23:57
raging. And it's also where the most
2:23:59
lives are being taken. Innocent lives are being taken.
2:24:01
Yeah. And I think that's super.
2:24:03
Again, that's like like there you have to be, there is some
2:24:07
space of living life and there's some things that you have to be
2:24:10
able to give your time and attention to.
2:24:12
But also I do think some of these things that's like
2:24:15
extremely reasonable once a year to go and pray at an abortion
2:24:17
clinic, especially 40 Days for Life.
2:24:20
It's like super concrete. It's just.
2:24:22
It's a bare minimum, yeah. Yeah.
2:24:24
And to go, right, because it's, it's all around us to go and
2:24:27
like to the place where it's happening to like see it face to
2:24:29
face, to see the women coming in, the women coming out.
2:24:32
I think it like it can just become if, if we don't have
2:24:35
those experiences, it becomes this abstract thing and we can
2:24:38
kind of get disconnected from. Yeah.
2:24:41
The, the, the reality of it. I I love that.
2:24:43
It's horrible, Yeah. I hate it because it's so you
2:24:47
feel so helpless. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's
2:24:51
horrific to go on prayers at an abortion clinic.
2:24:53
It's so helpless. You see human beings going in
2:24:57
with another human being and then they're going to be
2:24:59
murdered and you can do nothing except to pray, which is
2:25:03
everything in a sense. But it still feels on a human
2:25:06
level, a helplessness. And it's diabolical.
2:25:09
Yeah, and so like. So I understand why people are
2:25:12
like and it feels weird. There's like, but just like.
2:25:14
All the more reason you have to go.
2:25:17
Yeah, 100%. And this is where I do think
2:25:19
like I do think the rosary and Our Lady have a special place to
2:25:23
play in this particular battle of our time and that like that
2:25:29
to pray and to pray the rosary, particularly for this intention
2:25:34
it I I think it's like the call to arms.
2:25:36
Yes, certainly we are powerless before a lot of it.
2:25:39
But I attribute the quote to Pope St.
2:25:43
John Paul the Second. I don't know that he actually
2:25:44
said it, but this, the quote, as I say, is that prayer united
2:25:47
with sacrifice is the greatest force in human history.
2:25:50
And so it's like you're there and you can't, you can't
2:25:52
convince this person to change their mind, But you can pray and
2:25:55
you can make the sacrifice of being there.
2:25:57
And you can have confidence that like you're you're giving rise
2:26:00
and access to the power, the most powerful force in human
2:26:03
history, which is like prayer united with sacrifice.
2:26:07
Yeah. Yeah.
2:26:09
We got to be doing something. I agree.
2:26:11
That's so good. Thank you.
2:26:12
Thank you for that reminder and encouragement.
2:26:15
Yeah, and I asked because I obviously like, it's like a deep
2:26:18
part of your heart and your mission, right.
2:26:19
And it has been for a long, long time.
2:26:21
But and, and I'm just like, just because I recognize like we got
2:26:24
to do something, but also that it can be, it can be
2:26:27
overwhelming if you try and fight every battle all the time.
2:26:30
You can't, yeah. And so interiorly for you,
2:26:35
there's just, there's, there's like a, there's a, some sort of
2:26:37
surrender. I'm going to like, I'm going to
2:26:39
do what I can in a like in a prudent way and trust that like
2:26:44
it's enough or like, how does that interiorly work for?
2:26:47
You, I think it's good to feel uncomfortable, it's good to be
2:26:49
heartbroken. And, and if you feel yourself
2:26:51
not ever uncomfortable or heartbroken, then you need to
2:26:54
let yourself get uncomfortable and heartbroken on a regular
2:26:57
basis. In my view, and this I did write
2:27:00
about in my book, the 1st chapter is let your heart break
2:27:04
and you don't just let it break one time.
2:27:06
So you have to really engage with the stories of the, of the
2:27:10
horror and not like just say, I don't want to say that.
2:27:13
Well, it's so dark. Like people say, don't show
2:27:15
images of abortion victims. It's too heavy.
2:27:17
Like this is what gets people to wake up.
2:27:20
You know, it's our uncomfort, discomfort with, you know, with
2:27:24
the horror, like justifying us, like keeping it under wraps and
2:27:27
not letting people see the truth of this, you know, horrible
2:27:31
thing. So what was the question though?
2:27:36
I think I just made a statement. We got to do something.
2:27:38
But oh, I guess no, I was asking about the like, you have to
2:27:42
there's there's to be able to not fight every fight
2:27:45
constantly. There's some amount of like
2:27:47
interior freedom, you know, to be able to like.
2:27:51
I think you have to suffer. I mean, honestly, it like, like
2:27:55
love does require suffering. Like I remember reading Mother
2:27:57
Teresa as a teenager and just being so wowed, right?
2:28:00
Love until it hurts, until you feel the pain, you know, like if
2:28:03
there's no suffering in your love ever, is it?
2:28:06
Are you really trying? You know, are you really like
2:28:08
going to the edges, you know, so there has to be some pain there.
2:28:12
But the secret of it is you're constantly offering the pain to
2:28:14
God. And then the pain itself becomes
2:28:16
a prayer, which helps for the good of souls in your own soul.
2:28:20
Right now, this isn't like you're like a, you know, as a a
2:28:23
masochist who's going out there and be like, I just want to like
2:28:25
hurt myself all the time, right, Like you, you still, you know,
2:28:28
you got to celebrate like. You're saying you got to?
2:28:30
Rest on Sabbath. You got to enjoy the good of the
2:28:32
other person. Like I've got these amazing
2:28:34
magical kids I'm married to like that are just like, you know,
2:28:36
serotonin left and right, just like enjoy.
2:28:39
So like there's so much good to celebrate and and you have to
2:28:41
celebrate the good. That's part of the part of the
2:28:43
entire mission, right? But you got to like, let
2:28:46
yourself, you know, like walk among the lepers as like Mother
2:28:50
Teresa would, right? Like literally walk among the,
2:28:53
the, the dying and let yourself like feel like smell the stench
2:28:56
of it and you know it effectively.
2:28:58
Yeah. Yeah.
2:28:58
Yeah, you got to stay in touch with.
2:29:00
Yeah, Stay in touch with which? Is what you do as CFR so
2:29:02
beautifully. Yeah, yeah, we tried.
2:29:04
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's even like, there's a
2:29:05
wisdom to like, part of our legislation is that we have to,
2:29:08
we have to live in an area noted for poverty.
2:29:12
And we and we have to, we, we use the language of we have to
2:29:15
have hands on work with the poor.
2:29:17
And part of that is a response to the ability to be like just
2:29:19
the administrator of a homeless shelter.
2:29:21
And there's this thing is then like you're just up in your
2:29:24
office, this thing and that, and you're not getting into contact
2:29:26
with like the real stories, the real history, the real things
2:29:28
happening, which is, which is in, in one part, it is the, the
2:29:32
heartbreaking part because you're there with the people and
2:29:35
wrestling with life with them. But it also, it's like the
2:29:37
beautiful thing, like, you know, their names, their faces, their
2:29:40
stories, their hearts. You going to be with them?
2:29:42
But I think, yeah, being being in like having contact with the
2:29:46
poor, with the leper, being being going to the abortion
2:29:49
clinic, all of this stuff. It's just I think it's
2:29:52
necessary. I do think it's necessary.
2:29:54
And and not doing it virtually or digitally is not enough.
2:29:59
You got to, like, do it, Yeah. Yeah, it's so true.
2:30:03
We had Austin Havish on the show and he talks about door knocking
2:30:06
and inviting your neighbors to church basically.
2:30:09
And I was convicted because I was like, how many?
2:30:10
I mean, we, we more recently moved into our neighborhood, but
2:30:13
how many neighbors have I like directly invited to church?
2:30:16
Where are my where am I taking them?
2:30:18
Right? What's my ministry look like?
2:30:19
And so just because we have a digital ministry or we have our
2:30:24
many other responsibilities doesn't mean we do don't also
2:30:27
have a responsibility, time and space that's bound to our
2:30:30
station in life connected to our like our physical environment.
2:30:33
And so that was convicting for me because, you know, and this
2:30:37
isn't to say like some hard and fast rule, like you have to
2:30:39
knock your neighbors doors to like ask them to church, but you
2:30:42
should be solicitous of the souls of your physical
2:30:45
neighbors. Yeah, yeah, no matter how busy
2:30:49
you. Are yeah, totally there is.
2:30:51
Like the way the church works is everything.
2:30:54
Everyone's not called to do the same thing with the same
2:30:57
intensity. It's not going to take the same
2:30:59
form. But there are some universal
2:31:01
principles that actually alley to everybody.
2:31:03
And so like everyone has some sort of call to working with the
2:31:07
materially poor. What it's going to look like for
2:31:09
me and what's going to look like for you are quite different, but
2:31:11
you you're not you're not exempt from that responsibility in some
2:31:14
way. And I think similarly, like
2:31:16
Austin, like he is, he is, he's had this particular like grace
2:31:19
and call to go and to be like knocking on strangers doors or
2:31:23
what you know, and to start a ministry and to encourage it.
2:31:25
And maybe not everyone's called to do it exactly that same form.
2:31:28
But when you're in a conversation with somebody you
2:31:31
like you like you kind of said like you can extend the
2:31:32
invitation, you know, and to be open to the the possibility of
2:31:36
like, like a real basic one that would like, I think applies to
2:31:39
some people is like a lot of people might be like, say like,
2:31:42
what'd you do this weekend? And they'll just they'll skip
2:31:44
over the part about that them going to mass.
2:31:46
It's like when somebody asked you what you did this weekend,
2:31:48
like say something about the. And say, and I'd love for you to
2:31:51
come sometime. They you're always welcome to
2:31:53
come. I'd love to see you and I'd love
2:31:54
to, you know, go with you. Yeah.
2:31:56
And so like the difference like, like, so like Austin's knocking
2:31:59
on doors and maybe not for everybody, we're maybe not all
2:32:03
called the knock on doors, but like to look for open doors and
2:32:06
like go through them, you know, you know, and particularly
2:32:08
through conversation. Well, also not like, yeah, yeah,
2:32:12
yeah. I'm also very open to a lot to a
2:32:16
whole army of church door knockers.
2:32:18
So I'm not trying to like undercut that.
2:32:20
No, but I hear you. It's going to look different,
2:32:22
but I think the bottom line is we all are in a similar mission
2:32:24
for these similar needs, but we have to be doing something as
2:32:27
the point. Yeah, if you're not doing
2:32:30
anything, you're like, well, I'm busy with XY or Z.
2:32:33
It's like you probably could extend yourself a little bit.
2:32:35
More yeah. Can I ask you a question that's
2:32:40
not 100% linear is do you have a like what would be your your
2:32:46
upbringing background? What is it?
2:32:47
Is it sports? Is it educational?
2:32:49
Is it military? What's your?
2:32:53
Meaning. Like the culture you grew up
2:32:54
like? Like your home?
2:32:55
Or like home school classical education and you know, I was
2:33:00
doing kind of AI was doing junior college classes in high
2:33:05
school for like some of the harder sciences and like math
2:33:08
and things like that. But that was my foundation when
2:33:12
I went to UCLAI was actually just talking to someone about
2:33:15
this recently. It was easier than my high
2:33:17
school classes, my college classes because my parents were
2:33:20
so intentional about our education.
2:33:23
And then I did a lot of homeschool speech and debate and
2:33:25
some non homeschool like Lincoln Douglas and JSA junior State of
2:33:30
America. I was a senator for California,
2:33:33
which my platform running for this thing was pro-life.
2:33:37
This was like all the secular high schools in California, So
2:33:40
it wasn't like Catholics or Christians or Protestants or
2:33:43
homeschoolers. It was just public schools and
2:33:45
private and I would ran first. You can have two cent these two
2:33:49
senators in California every year.
2:33:50
The the whole like clubs, all the different clubs elect and I
2:33:54
ran for on a pro-life platform, which why would people in
2:33:59
California, a bunch of high school students in public
2:34:01
schools vote for me as their senator.
2:34:02
My platform is like abortion, but I won.
2:34:06
And so I did feel like the Lord early on gave me these
2:34:08
encouragements that you can persuade people, secular people,
2:34:12
you know, non Christian people in California to literally vote
2:34:16
for life and vote for like pro-life political
2:34:19
representation. Was it your conviction about
2:34:22
like the like all things pro-life that led you kind of to
2:34:25
entering into like a little slightly political space or was
2:34:28
it you felt a draw to that? It was the pro-life conviction,
2:34:33
Yeah, we had the pro-life club there.
2:34:36
And I'm sure your audience know this, but like the word is you,
2:34:39
Can you trace back like the pro-life conviction where it
2:34:41
came from? Yes, it was from my, I motivate
2:34:44
kids. So there's like the pro-life
2:34:45
ethic at home. My grandmother volunteered at
2:34:47
pregnancy Resource Center and invited me to come as a young
2:34:49
kid. And then I, I read a book on
2:34:52
abortion at my parents' house because my house was full of
2:34:55
books because we were homeschooled.
2:34:56
And one of the books was this handbook on abortion by Doctor
2:34:59
Missus Wilkie that had the history of abortion, abortion
2:35:01
statistics and images of fetal development, embryonic
2:35:04
development and abortion victims.
2:35:06
And so seeing that I just was deeply convicted, this is
2:35:09
happening thousands of times a day.
2:35:10
It's legal. These are human beings.
2:35:12
No one's saying or doing anything about it.
2:35:14
The Planned Parenthood is 10 miles away, butchering babies up
2:35:16
to 24 weeks. I can't just sit around like
2:35:19
nothing's happening. I have to do something.
2:35:21
Even if it's very small, I have to do something.
2:35:23
OK, so there it is, one step at a time.
2:35:29
Yeah, that's it. Yeah.
2:35:30
Yeah, that's cool. Thanks for sharing.
2:35:33
Again, I know I'm sure your audience is all very aware of
2:35:35
this, but thanks for. Well, it's fun with the podcast
2:35:37
because we go beyond. I spent so many years talking
2:35:41
only about abortion, and now we still talk about it a lot.
2:35:43
But we have expanded the topic so now we have guests come in on
2:35:47
the show or people who watch the show who don't necessarily
2:35:49
aren't as familiar with the pro-life work.
2:35:51
So it's fun to introduce them to the pro-life issue, you know,
2:35:55
more adjacently. So it's like a different, it's a
2:35:57
different experience, but it's it's, I love the show community
2:35:59
we're building here, so. How long has this been happening
2:36:02
this. Podcast the show about a little
2:36:04
over 2 years. All right, Very cool.
2:36:06
Praise God. Yeah.
2:36:08
Thank you, Father. Thanks, Lila.
2:36:09
This has been awesome. Yeah, yeah.
2:36:11
I'm really glad I had an opportunity.
2:36:12
This has been such a blessing. Yeah, thank you.
2:36:14
I know we're you're like, how long does this go?
2:36:15
Maybe 90 minutes, sometimes two hours.
2:36:18
Harris. Or is this our.
2:36:20
This is this is one of our. This is our Matt Frad one.
2:36:23
I'm used to. Oh, yeah.
2:36:24
You're used to chatting it up. No, it's great.
2:36:27
Where can people find your podcasting?
2:36:30
Oh gosh, and. Your books and everything else.
2:36:32
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I do a lot with
2:36:33
Ascension. So like the book on the
2:36:35
Beatitudes is ascensionpress.com for slash promises, and the Poco
2:36:40
Poke podcast is still going, which is what I do with a bunch
2:36:42
of my My Friar Brothers and then Rosen in the Ears.
2:36:45
Just I don't know when it's going to come out, but it's just
2:36:47
wrap it up and you can always find it wherever you listen to
2:36:49
podcasts. Amazing.
2:36:51
Yeah, Check it out, guys. All.
2:36:52
It's all amazing stuff. Thank you, Father.
2:36:54
Mark, Mary. Thank you.
2:36:56
Thanks so much for listening to this episode of The Lila Rose
2:36:58
Show. I hope you enjoyed it.
2:36:59
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2:37:01
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2:37:04
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2:37:10
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