Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E298: The Problem With Modern Faith (It’s Not What You Think) w/ My Siblings!

Transcript

E298: The Problem With Modern Faith (It’s Not What You Think) w/ My Siblings! · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  I'm your younger sister. So much of faith today is about
• 0:03
  what I feel, my experience, what I think, what I want.
• 0:07
  On that plane, I thought to myself, if the plane goes down,
• 0:09
  I'm not going to be thinking I left anything on the table.
• 0:11
  What a gift. I need to not get attached to a
• 0:14
  specific idea of how God wants me to live my life and be
• 0:18
  content with what He offers me. Beauty will save the world.
• 0:21
  In particular, beauty that's offered as a sacrifice to God
• 0:24
  will save. Sacred beauty.
• 0:25
  That's the craziest thing is what God does for every single
• 0:28
  baptized Christian. That every.
• 0:30
  We were a Wretch and we. And our imagination is so
• 0:32
  impoverished, we think, is that it?
• 0:34
  I just saw water get dumped over the baby.
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  Can't do any work. So it's the ultimate sign that
• 0:39
  God is the only one who saves us.
• 0:40
  Jesus isn't you. Jesus isn't me.
• 0:42
  We are the body of Christ. But not in ourselves.
• 0:44
  The modern imagination can't conceive of this because we are
• 0:47
  so self actualizing in everything that we do.
• 0:49
  We go to the gym to self actualize.
• 0:51
  We go to church to self actualize.
• 0:52
  We go to thank you so much to everyone who has been
• 0:55
  subscribing. If you aren't already
• 0:56
  subscribed, be sure to hit that subscribe button.
• 0:59
  And if you enjoy this episode, please leave this episode a like
• 1:02
  also go over to patreon.com/lila Rose show.
• 1:06
  A big thank you to everybody who's supporting this show and
• 1:08
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• 1:11
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  merch, your choice and we will send it to you for free.
• 1:23
  Thank you so attached to all of our patrons, Paul.
• 1:26
  I'm starting right now, Paul. They're starting.
• 1:28
  Oh, my gosh, not again. OK, Paul Rose and Nina Rose,
• 1:32
  welcome to the podcast. Thank you.
• 1:34
  Don't include any of those remarks from earlier.
• 1:36
  Paul just. Just so everybody's aware, Nina
• 1:39
  is our sister. Yes.
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  Also known as Antonina, recently designated.
• 1:46
  Yes, yes, thank you for sharing my full legal name with the
• 1:49
  Internet. She's also pregnant.
• 1:52
  I'm not looking at her on purpose because.
• 1:56
  Have you not announced that? That's fine.
• 1:58
  All right, 17 weeks, 18 weeks, 18 weeks, the beautiful sis.
• 2:03
  All right, so people have met Paul before.
• 2:04
  We'll talk about you in a minute.
• 2:05
  I'll have to look at her. You can look at her I.
• 2:08
  Thought I'm always supposed to look at just.
• 2:09
  Don't look at the camera. OK.
• 2:12
  So, Nina, I'm so happy you joined the show.
• 2:15
  Thank you. Give us a little bit about your
• 2:16
  background. I'm your younger sister.
• 2:23
  I'm your younger sister. I grew up the same way you grew
• 2:26
  up, but ten years younger and I am a musician.
• 2:33
  I am recently a wife and a mother.
• 2:36
  Mother to be, but mother currently just to a unseen
• 2:41
  entity child. OK, this is really throwing me
• 2:46
  off good. Yes, I'm a musician.
• 2:49
  I work at a parish currently as the music director.
• 2:52
  So I have a lot of experience and love for sacred music, but I
• 2:59
  also create music in a secular sense, and that's pretty much
• 3:04
  everything you need to know about me right now.
• 3:07
  And you also moonlight on sing the hours.
• 3:09
  I'm moonlight on Sing the Hours. I'm the female voice of Sing the
• 3:12
  Hours and. Whenever I see your YouTube
• 3:13
  comment section it's always like, where's Nina?
• 3:15
  Why hasn't she been singing lately?
• 3:17
  The voice of an Angel. Yeah, I've been busy, but
• 3:20
  hopefully I'll have more time. So I want to get into the music
• 3:25
  that you're doing now because you have an album out, you have
• 3:29
  a solo single out. Excuse me, you have a
• 3:31
  forthcoming album and we also haven't heard a little bit from
• 3:35
  you in a while. How Sing the Hours is going,
• 3:37
  Paul? You haven't heard a little bit
• 3:39
  from me in a while. What does that even mean?
• 3:42
  Sing the Hours is great. Clearly you knew enough to.
• 3:44
  We're hitting the big time, as you know, big time.
• 3:46
  Yeah, of course. Big time chance.
• 3:49
  No particular reason. It just sounds good to say that.
• 3:51
  So wait, remind people what Sing the Hours is.
• 3:53
  Yeah, so we, we do the, the prayer of the Church of the the
• 3:58
  Breviary. So it, it, it's praying the
• 4:00
  Psalms every three hours of the day as an, as a liturgical
• 4:04
  prayer. And in the current cycle, in a
• 4:09
  month, you get through all 150 psalms and priests are required
• 4:12
  to pray it in Canon law. And it's part of the way that we
• 4:15
  save the world. Is that my camera?
• 4:22
  What? It's the way that we save the
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  world. I love that beauty will save the
• 4:27
  world. But in particular, beauty that's
• 4:29
  offered as a sacrifice to God will save.
• 4:31
  Sacred beauty, God's Word sung back to.
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  Him, yeah, all that good. Stuff.
• 4:35
  I love that. But it literally is saving.
• 4:38
  We are in the heart of Lent and moving closer to Holy Week and
• 4:42
  Easter. For the rest of this month,
• 4:44
  let's be intentional. More prayer, more fasting, and
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• 5:05
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  goodranchers.com. I was finding faith in college.
• 6:14
  I became Catholic at 20, You and Paul and Bob and Kat and Dad
• 6:20
  became Catholic too. Mom came back to the church
• 6:22
  because she was raised Catholic, fell away, was kind of
• 6:24
  culturally Catholic, became born again evangelical, and then
• 6:26
  found the fullness of the faith in the Catholic Church.
• 6:30
  But what was it like for you? Did you really feel like you
• 6:32
  understood it? Did it feel strange?
• 6:36
  Yeah. Well, no, Yes, which is
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  surprising for a 10 year old, but I understood it way more
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  than I understood evangelicalism.
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  As a Protestant, I didn't really connect with my faith.
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  I definitely connected with Jesus and loved God and whatnot
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  as a best as a child can, which is I guess better than adults
• 6:54
  can often times. But I didn't have any connection
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  to like doctrine or truth or like the richness of faith in
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  the many facets of faith. I remember going to church as a
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  as a young kid, maybe 8-7 years old to a Protestant church, and
• 7:10
  they did the ceremony where you write your sins on a piece of
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  paper. And then there's a bonfire
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  outside the church and you all throw your sins into the bonfire
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  to like, symbolize cleansing yourselves.
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  And I didn't get the memo. And so I like heard like, you're
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  supposed to write something in your innermost heart onto the
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  paper. So I just wrote like Jesus,
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  Jesus on the paper. And then we all like a shuffle
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  outside and we all throw our papers in and we burn them.
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  And I, I like was like, Oh my gosh, I've committed a heinous
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  crime. I've burnt the name of cheats.
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  I thought I'd like committed heresy or committed sacrilege.
• 7:46
  So becoming Catholic was a huge breath of relief actually,
• 7:51
  because it's I did crave like structure and just like, how do
• 7:55
  I practice my faith? OK, the first thing when my
• 7:58
  parents sat us down and they said we're becoming Catholic, if
• 8:01
  you want to join us, you can. You don't have to.
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  That was their approach. So they sat.
• 8:04
  Down you and then the four youngest.
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  The four youngest kids who are still living at home ages
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  10121416. So they sat us down and said
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  we're becoming Catholic. You can join us if you want.
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  Here's a rosary. And this is how you pray it, and
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  we're going to pass it around. And if you want to pray it, you
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  can. And that was like instantly easy
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  way to practice prayer because I have no idea how to pray before
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  and so. They like you didn't learn at
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  youth group like because I remember they taught you like
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  pray pee, praise R repent a ask why yield.
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  I was maybe a little too. Young for youth group.
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  OK, so. I mean, I was 10.
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  Yeah, didn't. I don't remember learning
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  anything in Sunday school. No offense to my to our
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  community. Did you got?
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  You did family Bible study though, right?
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  I have no memory. You don't remember it.
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  If if I did do it, it didn't stick.
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  You guys, I think I'm pretty sure the family was doing that.
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  Like with our family. Yes, yes, yes.
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  Yeah, probably. Yeah, probably.
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  Yeah. I don't have specific.
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  You don't. Have the memory of going to
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  Bible study at the church. You go to Sunday school and
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  stuff. The first, the first concrete
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  memory I have about my family talking about faith was the the
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  here's the rosary. And really, yeah, that was the
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  first, like, family meeting I remember surrounding faith.
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  And then the other thing that was really cool.
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  And and I know that Protestants knocked this was devotion to the
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  Saints because you could collect prayer cards like Pokémon cards.
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  So we would go to like the church gift shop and they're
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  only like $0.70 at the time for a prayer card.
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  And so mom would be looking around and I would pick like 3
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  off the thing and be like, mom, can we get these?
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  And every time we went, which was often, I would pick up like
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  3 more. And I ended up with this giant
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  stack and I had a bulletin board in my room.
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  And maybe this is also like irreverent, but I would stick a
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  pin through each of them and line them up on the bulletin
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  board. And every night my prayer
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  routine. I got a prayer routine because
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  of being Catholic. Every night I would take down 1
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  by 1, read the prayer on the back and then put it back, take
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  the next one, read the prayer on the back, put it back, and I
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  would just do that. And that was my routine.
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  So being Catholic gave me ways to connect with God where I had
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  no structure and no clear path forward as an evangelical.
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  It's beautiful, I. Love this beautiful.
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  Did you have any doubts as you got older and you realized, oh
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  this is a faith? My parents didn't say that I had
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  to have. And again, I I want to be
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  careful because like, it's all Christianity.
• 10:28
  And I think we were introduced to faith and baptized obviously
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  before becoming Catholic. So that's 100% faith and
• 10:36
  Christianity. And then coming Catholic, you
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  become, I think even more deeply into, into our faith.
• 10:43
  But yeah. Did you have any doubts as you
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  got older? I don't remember ever having
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  intellectual doubts about the faith, and that's a gift.
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  Like not everybody like and God gives everybody different
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  struggles. I would say if I did struggle
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  with something growing up, it would be more the virtue of hope
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  rather than faith. So not the belief that God
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  exists, that the church's teachings are true, etcetera,
• 11:04
  but more that they're true for me and that God loves me
• 11:07
  specifically and that I he has a plan and a vocation for me
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  specifically. That that was more of a theme in
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  my life where maybe other people, their struggle is with
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  faith, but the the teachings of the Catholic Church were always
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  very certain to me, which was a blessing when I when I turned
• 11:27
  into your to the Catholic thing. And like I said earlier, I was
• 11:30
  listening to you argue theology with Bob.
• 11:32
  So how did that start? And where you are?
• 11:35
  What were you arguing about? Bob and I.
• 11:37
  Well, you wouldn't argue to discuss and animatedly.
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  Just discuss. We just read.
• 11:42
  Honestly, big factor in my intellectual formation.
• 11:48
  I wouldn't say my conversion I you you know I take issue with
• 11:51
  that framework. Because why?
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  Just for people to know. Because number one, it it airs
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  towards the direction of Pelagianism to be like I
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  converted conversion is something that God very clearly
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  in Catholic and even general Christian theology, God does it
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  to you and he did it to the three of us when we were babies
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  long before we realized we were Catholic and it's.
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  Through baptism. Yeah.
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  And, and it's, it's a firm Catholic doctrine that when you
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  are baptized, whether you know it or not and whether it's in
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  the right confession or not, you absolutely are Catholic with an
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  indelible mark. You've been you've been given
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  your Social Security number as a Catholic, just like you do
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  automatically at birth, whether you realize it and.
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  By Catholic you mean universal? Christian, I, I probably knew my
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  Social Security number after I became Catholic.
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  So realizing my identity in the Kingdom of God, actually, I
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  became aware of that sooner than I realized my full American
• 12:53
  implications of having a Social Security number and paying
• 12:55
  payroll taxes and whatever. So I, I would say that I know
• 12:58
  that that that analogy is nuts, but I think it's actually very,
• 13:00
  very on point that there's no Catholicism is something that
• 13:04
  happens to you. And if you're watching this
• 13:05
  video and you've been baptized, whether you thought that you
• 13:09
  were making the choice to be baptized and you were doing it
• 13:11
  because of they told you this is like a sign you're doing or
• 13:15
  something. The reality is that when that
• 13:16
  happened, if it was in the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy
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  Spirit, God made you Catholic, whether you realize it now or
• 13:22
  not. And so when you receive the
• 13:25
  sacraments in the Catholic Church and go through RCA, you
• 13:27
  will be told, have you been baptized?
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  And that makes a big difference because then it's simply a
• 13:31
  matter of receiving your birthright.
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  Whereas if you're not baptized, then you have to go through the
• 13:38
  whole process truly of conversion.
• 13:40
  But I think this is also a big temptation in danger today as
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  people getting double baptized. So they were baptized and many
• 13:46
  times as Catholics, they were baptized as children and then
• 13:48
  they were not formed in their Catholic faith, their Christian
• 13:51
  faith. And so they later on don't like,
• 13:54
  they don't really understand. They're not really connected to
• 13:57
  God in their in their hearts. And so they end up being, you
• 14:00
  know, drifting off, sometimes refining faith as an evangelical
• 14:04
  or a Protestant. And then they're like, Oh, I, I
• 14:05
  haven't been baptism baptized. Well, I was baptized as a baby,
• 14:08
  but it didn't count because I didn't choose it exactly.
• 14:10
  And which is why it's. Pelagianism, yeah.
• 14:12
  It's why it's like we, we are in a cultural framework where
• 14:16
  you're in the driver's seat. We, we like to give lip service
• 14:19
  in our various the songs that we write and the prayers that we
• 14:24
  say. We like to give lip service.
• 14:26
  Jesus, take the wheel, you're in the driver's seat.
• 14:28
  But most people make their own traditions.
• 14:30
  You know most people. Make their own liturgies, They
• 14:34
  make their own liturgies, they make their own worship music.
• 14:35
  Make their own. Traditions make their own
• 14:37
  baptism, right? Your your baptism is you're
• 14:39
  proclaiming something is that modern evangelical framework.
• 14:41
  That's not the Protestant framework.
• 14:44
  Martin Luther, you know, maybe we've talked about this before,
• 14:46
  but he signed edicts to burn people at the stake if they
• 14:50
  didn't baptize their children. And in the edict I I can
• 14:53
  remember, he says he would. Actually say he would burn
• 14:55
  people, he. Burned the Anabaptist at the
• 14:57
  stake and in the, in the edict he wrote, and you can look it up
• 15:01
  something along the lines of I haven't, I haven't read it in a
• 15:03
  while, but I'm, I think I'm quoting it pretty fairly.
• 15:05
  He says it's a far greater violence for our society to
• 15:10
  allow poor infants to be deprived of heaven then to burn.
• 15:18
  And he said. I don't feel good about it,
• 15:19
  especially the women. But the moms also have to be
• 15:21
  burned at the stake because they're perpetuating violence.
• 15:24
  Would he burn the children? No, the parents and then they
• 15:27
  would baptize the children, make them more force wards of the
• 15:29
  state. Well, by force I mean, I mean
• 15:31
  basically like, and that's what the Catholic Church wouldn't do
• 15:34
  that, but I'm telling you that. Martin Luther did that when he
• 15:37
  was became a reformer. Yeah.
• 15:39
  So hold on a second just to double check.
• 15:41
  Since believe baptism saves your soul.
• 15:43
  Protestants believe that baptism gives you membership, but only
• 15:48
  if you think maybe some Calvinist traditions in during
• 15:51
  the Reformation. I mean the Reformation had an
• 15:53
  explosion of many different but but your main Protestant
• 15:55
  denominations in the Reformation, Anglicanism,
• 15:59
  Lutheranism, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, these these
• 16:02
  people believe that baptism has a Sacramento effect and that God
• 16:07
  does it to you and think about I mean, this is all the this is
• 16:10
  all the discussion you need is that Luther is the champion of
• 16:13
  faith alone. No works, right?
• 16:17
  And in that he writes that baptism is the greatest proof of
• 16:19
  that. Baptism is something that
• 16:21
  happens to you even when you're a baby.
• 16:23
  A baby can't do any works. And so it's the ultimate sign
• 16:26
  that God is the only one who saves us, right?
• 16:29
  And he saves us through through like physical means, because
• 16:31
  Christ is Incarnate. And Luther rightly sees it as a
• 16:34
  rejection of Christ's incarnation to reject baptism.
• 16:39
  And it's a rejection that God does the work to reject baptism.
• 16:43
  And it's it comes full circle where in, you know, modern
• 16:46
  evangelicalism, they make baptism out to be something that
• 16:49
  they're doing. And it's also meaningless.
• 16:50
  It doesn't have like an actual like effect of salvation.
• 16:53
  And I'm not advocating burning anyone this at the stake.
• 16:55
  Surely not. But it is humbling.
• 16:57
  I'm just I take issue with the description of Protestant
• 17:00
  because Protestantism as a historical reality where they
• 17:04
  where you know, 9995 theses they protest the church has very
• 17:08
  little in common with modern evangelical postmodern
• 17:11
  Christianity. And the fact is getting back on
• 17:15
  track is that we were made Catholic by God, by the precious
• 17:21
  blood of Jesus, buried with Christ in his death and risen
• 17:26
  again when we were baptized even in our evangelical church as
• 17:30
  babies. And that is what makes you
• 17:32
  Catholic. It's the blood of Jesus.
• 17:34
  It's the Sacramento reality. And so all of this like
• 17:37
  testimony thing where it's fine, it's great, it's beautiful.
• 17:40
  I'm I'm very edified with, with Nina's story.
• 17:43
  I haven't heard that maybe ever. So that's beautiful.
• 17:47
  But your point is, I think so much of faith today is about
• 17:50
  what I feel, my experience, what I think, what I want, what I
• 17:54
  choose. And I think your point is faith
• 17:56
  is about receiving the gift of faith and acknowledging what God
• 17:59
  has done and acknowledging what God has done and praising him
• 18:02
  for what he's done. And.
• 18:02
  Praising him. That's, that's actually all
• 18:04
  that's missing now. Like look at Zechariah.
• 18:07
  John the Baptist dad gets it. He's his speech is deprived of
• 18:10
  him because he screws up right. He he doesn't believe that his
• 18:17
  wife is going to have a baby. The angel's testimony to him.
• 18:20
  If you're not familiar with the Bible story, read the the
• 18:23
  beginning of the gospel of Luke. You'll hear about John the
• 18:24
  Baptist dad and he struck mute for the entire pregnancy, which
• 18:28
  is brilliant. I mean, now that imagine I'm
• 18:32
  just looking at Nina's Nina's husband like.
• 18:34
  Can't be nagged. Yeah, he just like.
• 18:38
  Well, he can be nag, he just can't.
• 18:42
  No, no, but like the man can't talk back.
• 18:44
  I mean, it's just a brilliant like 9 months, right?
• 18:49
  And then he and then he regains his speech and immediately
• 18:52
  breaks into like in terms of the Latin text or the Greek text or
• 18:56
  the English text. You'll notice because the church
• 18:58
  in the literature, the hour, so on on our podcast, sing the
• 19:00
  hours, we sing in the morning, Zechariah's canticle every
• 19:04
  morning of the liturgical year without exception.
• 19:06
  So every day without fail since the early church, the the church
• 19:10
  takes Zechariah's hymn. That's the morning hymn during
• 19:13
  morning prayer at the climax of the prayer and then in the
• 19:18
  evening you sing the Magnificat, which is marries him every day.
• 19:21
  My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, right?
• 19:23
  My soul magnifies. Now this is the crazy thing is
• 19:26
  the Magnificat is so beautiful and simple and short and each
• 19:30
  verse like Manifi, that's a whole verse and Zechariah is
• 19:52
  every line, even by Latin standards and English.
• 19:54
  Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel.
• 19:56
  He's come to his people and set them for he has raised up for us
• 19:58
  a mighty savior. I mean the words are just
• 20:00
  flowing out of him in his in his song because he hasn't spoken in
• 20:03
  nine months. But the first thing he does is
• 20:05
  he blesses the Lord Benedict to us.
• 20:07
  Blessed be the Lord the God of Israel, because the response
• 20:09
  that we're so missing because everybody thinks that they need
• 20:11
  to. Have their own like scripture
• 20:15
  kind of goes out the window too, because scripture is this public
• 20:17
  revelation that we sing to each other, we pray with each other
• 20:20
  and we we experience God together in Word and sacrament
• 20:23
  in like a Catholic mass. The first half is all scripture,
• 20:26
  but even the communal praying of scripture that rarely happens.
• 20:29
  Like you might get one verse in a Protestant homily and then
• 20:32
  like they'll give a 40 minute of their own.
• 20:34
  Like here's how to make it. You know their self help talk
• 20:37
  based on that, but the living out scripture as the script of
• 20:41
  our relationship with God. This is God's revelation to me.
• 20:44
  This is what he wants to tell me.
• 20:45
  And breathing. I think what one of the big
• 20:48
  challenges a lot of people have today with praising God, with
• 20:51
  God's own words and living the faith in this universal, truly
• 20:55
  Catholic means universal way is postmodernism has sort of
• 20:59
  deformed our brains to think things.
• 21:01
  Everything is so subjective and there's not this objective
• 21:04
  reality that we must assent to. I mean, there's God.
• 21:08
  And mirrors and phones and everything makes everything so
• 21:11
  hyper focused about us. We become as important as
• 21:13
  father, Son, Holy Spirit. There's father son, Holy Spirit
• 21:16
  in me. There's no body of Christ,
• 21:17
  communion of the Saints. There's no like most people,
• 21:20
  even Catholic, Protestant, doesn't matter.
• 21:21
  Most modern people's experience with religion, I'm sure other
• 21:23
  religions suffer from this too. Is your God and you, which is
• 21:27
  not the vision of Christianity. That's not the Christian faith.
• 21:30
  The Christian faith is. You are a body of Christ.
• 21:33
  It needs all the members. Saint Paul talks about that.
• 21:35
  You're baptized into Christ identity.
• 21:38
  So it's actually us, through Jesus, experiencing the Trinity.
• 21:43
  I wish we had John Bevere here to talk with you and with us
• 21:46
  because I did. AI told you about the
• 21:48
  conversation I had with him, which I think has would have
• 21:50
  already come out by the time we have this conversation.
• 21:52
  But we got into this talk about his childhood, raised Catholic.
• 21:56
  I don't think he really fully understood or got it.
• 21:59
  He had some wounds from it. He ends up having this born
• 22:01
  again experience later on, you know, come to Jesus in this
• 22:05
  different way. And then he now sees like he
• 22:08
  just can't ascend to a lot of this Catholic theology as he
• 22:11
  sees it. And we were discussing it and he
• 22:13
  was basically saying, like, you know, Eucharist is nice.
• 22:16
  It's, you know, I don't know if it's really Jesus's present
• 22:18
  actual body or not, But Lila, Jesus is in you.
• 22:21
  Jesus is in me. We are the body of Christ.
• 22:23
  But not in ourselves. That's, that's the key.
• 22:27
  The modern imagination can't conceive of this because we are
• 22:29
  so self actualizing in everything that we do.
• 22:32
  We go to the gym to self actualize.
• 22:33
  We go to church to self actualize.
• 22:35
  We go to we, we, we choose our diets to self actualize.
• 22:38
  People do Lent to self actualize.
• 22:39
  So I'm going to take Lent and lose 5 lbs.
• 22:41
  Like everything is about us, us, us, us, us.
• 22:44
  And so it's all about, Oh yeah, Jesus is in me.
• 22:47
  I think it's interesting because we are in a society that at the
• 22:49
  same time is very depersonalized and people do long for personal
• 22:55
  yeah, to be known to be, to truly connect with God.
• 22:59
  And I think some people have a gripe with certain forms of
• 23:04
  organized religion of of maybe they didn't get that connection
• 23:09
  with God, which is I don't think that that's a a true reality of
• 23:12
  organized religion at all. I got my connection with God
• 23:15
  through being Catholic and as part of the body of Christ.
• 23:19
  But I think that's that's kind of, there's two sides of it that
• 23:23
  are two kind of competing issues. 1 is that people really
• 23:26
  long for connection with God. And the other is that oftentimes
• 23:29
  when people are seeking that, they seek connection with God in
• 23:32
  a vacuum, it's just me and God without reference to reality or
• 23:36
  truth or this greater picture or society.
• 23:39
  And that's where we get lost. That's a really good point and
• 23:42
  and even more deadly, it becomes not just me and God, but what I
• 23:46
  think of me and God. So the reality of are we living
• 23:50
  in sin? Are we to helping the poor?
• 23:51
  Are we praying? Are we praising the Lord?
• 23:53
  Are we close to the sacraments? None of that matters as long as
• 23:57
  we the the inner visual that we desire of ourselves and Jesus is
• 24:03
  maintained at whatever cost, whether it's watered down music,
• 24:06
  watered down worship. Geology like our self-image of
• 24:10
  our own relationship with God, if that becomes center, the
• 24:14
  center, the center point or the the focal point, as opposed to
• 24:16
  like actually living out the Christian life, regardless of
• 24:19
  how it feels in our innermost heart, because the because the
• 24:24
  the experience of The thing is going to differ.
• 24:26
  But if we're always sort of dwelling on our own experience,
• 24:28
  we're not actually living anymore.
• 24:29
  And The thing is actually very hard and very easy at the same
• 24:33
  time. And neither are acceptable.
• 24:35
  Are acceptable because it's hard because Jesus says not I'm going
• 24:39
  to remain in you as the as the as the primary thing he says
• 24:41
  remain in me. So he does remain in us, but
• 24:44
  through US entering into his putting on Christ.
• 24:48
  Christ doesn't put on every single one of us
• 24:50
  schizophrenically. We become a priesthood of
• 24:52
  believers. We become a Kingdom right of
• 24:55
  people because for God, because we put on Christ together.
• 25:00
  Here's a question, though. So one thing that John Berger
• 25:02
  and I were discussing is like the Eucharist, and you know, the
• 25:06
  Eucharist is divine revelation. You can kind of reason at it a
• 25:09
  little bit in terms of, well, it would make sense through natural
• 25:13
  law that the Lord who gave mana to his the Israelites in the
• 25:16
  desert would also leave mana for us Christians in his own body
• 25:19
  and blood, he said. And then the Lord is close to
• 25:22
  with close to us physically, yes, in each other to some
• 25:25
  degree, but he would be close to us in another physical way.
• 25:27
  When his resurrected body is in heaven still, how is he with us?
• 25:31
  You know, did he leave us in a physical leave, leave us his
• 25:34
  body in a physical way? So you kind of do that.
• 25:36
  But at the end of the day, it's divine revelation when we're
• 25:38
  talking about withdrawn, you know, in his view, he was
• 25:41
  thinking, well, he of course he believes in the generosity of
• 25:43
  God. But the part about like Jesus
• 25:45
  would leave the Eucharist in this way, like just did not.
• 25:48
  It was not landing with him. He wasn't.
• 25:49
  He wasn't there. Most of the way that people talk
• 25:51
  about the generosity of God, and This is why when we said we're
• 25:54
  going to talk about our testimonies, I start to freak
• 25:56
  out is because sitting in plain sight in every Tabernacle of
• 25:59
  every church in the world is the God himself in the Eucharist.
• 26:02
  And then we talk about such small things like God did this
• 26:05
  for me. This is and God is personal and
• 26:07
  our stories matter to a certain degree.
• 26:09
  But we're on a public podcast like Zechariah.
• 26:12
  This is the crazy thing. When he regains his speech, he
• 26:15
  doesn't say, which would be so reasonable because God did way
• 26:18
  more incredible things for him than us.
• 26:20
  He didn't say blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel.
• 26:24
  My wife of 82 years just had a miraculous thing and now she had
• 26:27
  a child. It's so crazy because it's a
• 26:29
  miracle since it's not naturally possible.
• 26:31
  I got to tell everybody, every man, woman and child, this crazy
• 26:34
  miracle the Lord did for me. No, his whole thing is must be
• 26:37
  the goddess of Israel and he prophecies about the general
• 26:40
  glory of salvation and God being so, so solicitous to to give a
• 26:46
  Messiah to the people of God. So it's like you look in the
• 26:49
  scriptures of people giving testimony and the greats, the
• 26:52
  greats like Saint Peter, but even Peter didn't say when he
• 26:57
  said men of Jerusalem. I'm just thinking I've never had
• 27:00
  this topic. No very much was about his
• 27:01
  testimony. Saint St.
• 27:02
  Saint Paul indeed, indeed shared his testimony, But you, you,
• 27:06
  you, you can see it. It's so remarkable how he does,
• 27:10
  because it is an exception. Like Saint Peter didn't say men
• 27:13
  of men of Jerusalem, right? At Pentecost I was a fisherman
• 27:16
  on the sea. This is what the Lord did for
• 27:18
  me. Could have said that, but we
• 27:19
  don't have that recorded. You know, as Saint John says at
• 27:21
  the end of the book of John, like there are so many things
• 27:23
  that have happened in the life of Christ in this ministry that
• 27:25
  they would take, but the things that.
• 27:26
  Are recorded are the are what God wants to.
• 27:28
  Reveal to us well, I think the but I think they were living
• 27:31
  they were living testimonies. So they didn't need to say it
• 27:34
  because it was seen in their actions that are recorded.
• 27:36
  I mean, I think both are both things are true.
• 27:38
  I think yes, you're right. I agree with you that we contend
• 27:41
  in modern Christianity or would call postmodern Christianity to
• 27:45
  be overly fixated on our own stories and experiences.
• 27:49
  I think that's true. I do think it is though possible
• 27:51
  and and to forget what God has done objectively in giving us
• 27:56
  the sacraments and giving us the body of Christ and the Saints
• 27:58
  and everything. Else that's what God still
• 28:00
  demands, He says, remain in me. And he says only those who obey
• 28:03
  my commandments, right? He says if you love me, you will
• 28:09
  obey my commandments. Every purchase that we make
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  off your order. If you love me, you will obey my
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  commandments. This is, I think the challenge
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  because when in my life, again, faith was never really an issue,
• 29:41
  but hope has been an issue. And I think the times at least
• 29:44
  growing up where I felt furthest from the church and furthest
• 29:47
  from practicing my faith was because of a lack of hope.
• 29:50
  That's a hard teaching. If you love me, you'll obey my
• 29:53
  commands. And especially in in the
• 29:56
  Catholic Church that comes with Mass attendance on Sunday,
• 29:59
  confession once a year and more. If you commit a mortal sin,
• 30:02
  understanding mortal sin. And there's, there's a lot that
• 30:06
  goes with it. And you actually have to
• 30:07
  practice your faith in a concrete way.
• 30:11
  And you know, for a scrupulous person, you know, trying to
• 30:16
  figure out what is mortal sin like, there are personal
• 30:19
  challenges that make practicing the faith difficult for
• 30:22
  individual people. And so it's sometimes easier to
• 30:24
  just be like, I'm going to instead relate to God in my own
• 30:29
  personal perceived way that's safe for me, that doesn't
• 30:32
  require too much of me because it's hard to, it's hard to
• 30:36
  accept the teachings. But I think we are supposed to
• 30:39
  see what God is doing on a daily basis in every single moment of
• 30:44
  our life. And I so I think we are supposed
• 30:46
  to live with a fierce attentiveness to the hand of God
• 30:50
  and to the graces of God. I think this is a great, great
• 30:53
  point, Lila. I think that in those
• 30:55
  circumstances, that's the inner dialogue.
• 30:59
  There's two different types of prayer in Scripture.
• 31:02
  God calls our prayer to be the most radically public thing.
• 31:06
  Two or more have to be gathered. Then I'm there right when you
• 31:08
  pray, say our Father. But then there's another type of
• 31:11
  prayer in a certain context where he says when you pray shut
• 31:16
  the door, That's when you singular.
• 31:19
  That's when you singular. So your prayer singular.
• 31:21
  He doesn't say when you pray go talk to other people what God is
• 31:24
  doing in your life. No go, go in the in the intimacy
• 31:28
  of the Holy Spirit. Yes, Mary has our model because
• 31:30
  Mary has our model. She had one public prayer that
• 31:33
  she prayed to Elizabeth and that's been prayed throughout
• 31:36
  all generations. All generations shall call me
• 31:38
  blessed and. The church prays that prayer
• 31:39
  every night and. We pray that prayer every night
• 31:41
  in the Liturgy of the Hours and she, she celebrates.
• 31:43
  Blessed is the Lord. She celebrates the Lord, her,
• 31:45
  her, God. She praises him.
• 31:47
  It's all about praising him. And the prayers are not personal
• 31:49
  it's he has scattered the mighty from their Thrones and solicit
• 31:53
  lived of the It's not it's not my soul magnifies the Lord
• 31:56
  because I was just just this little girl in Nazareth like
• 31:58
  that would be such a lame love song to God.
• 32:00
  I was just a little girl in Nazareth, then an Angel.
• 32:02
  Came worship music today. But his but he but her prayer is
• 32:06
  my soul magnifies the Lord. So there is a personal thing my
• 32:09
  soul right my spirit. But then it's everything that
• 32:12
  she declares that God has done is a transcendental it's she is
• 32:15
  praising the very she knows in her prayer because she's so well
• 32:19
  versed in Scripture and she's so filled with the Holy Spirit and
• 32:21
  she has God himself in her that she gets it.
• 32:24
  She gets every attribute of of not what God has done for her,
• 32:28
  but what God is and therefore has done for creation, for
• 32:31
  everyone, for every person. So what are they He has cast?
• 32:36
  Light out in their deceit. He is casting the mighty from
• 32:38
  their Thrones, lifted up the lowly.
• 32:40
  He is scattered. Filled the hungry with good
• 32:41
  things, Sent the rich way empty. Come to the help of his servant
• 32:45
  Israel, for he's remembered his promise of mercy.
• 32:49
  The promise you made to our fathers, to Abraham and his
• 32:51
  children forever. I think there's instruction here
• 32:54
  for us. And again, I have not thought
• 32:56
  about this in advance, but this is a beautiful, a beautiful
• 32:59
  discussion to wrestle with these ideas.
• 33:01
  I think that that might be a kernel of wisdom in how you
• 33:05
  reconcile those scriptures because on the one hand, it's
• 33:07
  kind of crazy that God says pray ultra privately.
• 33:10
  Don't let anyone see what you're doing.
• 33:11
  Then your Father in heaven will reward you, right?
• 33:13
  It's like, wait, but then you just told us.
• 33:16
  To press to push back a little bit.
• 33:18
  So I think what you're what you're saying in one sense is
• 33:20
  like telling personal testimonies in true form.
• 33:24
  Paul, you're taking you're taking a issue with the very
• 33:27
  thing we're doing with the show, which is to tell our
• 33:29
  testimonies. And you're like, we don't tell
• 33:31
  testimonies. We just glorify God and then go
• 33:33
  to your closet and pray. But I know that's the so
• 33:35
  oversimplification, but I think about the woman at the well and
• 33:38
  our Lord comes to her, you know, and where is your husband?
• 33:41
  Oh, you've had many husbands. And then you know everything
• 33:43
  that I've done, Lord, and I have water that will not leave you
• 33:47
  thirsty of like eternal like living water and.
• 33:49
  She does go to the town, she says.
• 33:51
  This man told me everything I've ever done.
• 33:53
  She went and did her testimony and it's part of like sacred
• 33:56
  scripture. Yeah, I don't know if I felt
• 33:58
  like I I think I. Mean how many times did Jesus
• 34:00
  say to somebody after a personal miracle, don't go?
• 34:02
  And well, but the reason he was saying that wasn't because he's
• 34:06
  like telling your testimony is not like Christian or something
• 34:08
  like that, that the reason he's saying that is because this time
• 34:10
  had not yet come so. There, there, there, there is a
• 34:13
  there one slight problem here is there is a chicken and the egg
• 34:19
  situation happening where you're using part of the public
• 34:23
  revelation, right in order to perhaps to support US deviating
• 34:30
  from the public. Because all of this ended up in
• 34:32
  the Bible, so. So his.
• 34:35
  It's interesting. It doesn't actually include what
• 34:37
  their final words were together. It's which is really
• 34:40
  fascinating. Well, you, you don't know what
• 34:41
  else they discussed because what happens where the disciples show
• 34:45
  up, right? And they're surprised to find
• 34:46
  him talking with a woman and then leaving her water jar.
• 34:49
  The woman went back to the town. So it sounds like she, they were
• 34:51
  kind of like interrupted by the disciples showing up.
• 34:54
  But either way, Jesus reveals himself to her.
• 34:56
  I, the one speaking to I am he, I am the Messiah, right?
• 34:59
  And then she just kind of books it and starts to tell everybody.
• 35:02
  She can't help but tell everybody.
• 35:03
  The purpose of that, though, is it's one of the, I mean, there's
• 35:07
  a lot of exegesis on the passage that talks about how it's very
• 35:10
  significant in terms of, you know, she's a Samaritan.
• 35:15
  There's a lot we can unpack there, but I think that you're
• 35:22
  not going to find a fundamentalist tell all that
• 35:25
  it's never appropriate. And that's not what any of us
• 35:28
  would would do well to argue that it's never appropriate to
• 35:31
  give it's. The habit we're in in
• 35:32
  postmodern. Christianity, that is, That is
• 35:34
  the it's. Tell our testimonies.
• 35:36
  Yeah, I mean, when when you read John Chrysostom, who's a church
• 35:39
  father, contemporary of of Augusta, maybe slightly before,
• 35:42
  but I mean when you read the Church Fathers, you have
• 35:45
  Augustine who's notable as basically inventing the genre of
• 35:49
  personal testimony as in in the age of the Church, right.
• 35:53
  He has his confessions, yes. And then you have Chrysostom
• 35:59
  and. And he's a doctor of the Church,
• 36:02
  Saint Augustine. Yes and yeah, he.
• 36:04
  Is and he wrote confessions. So I mean there you, I mean
• 36:06
  there's another great point like he has his, but you're saying
• 36:09
  not everyone needs to write a confessions or what are you
• 36:11
  saying? Well, he Augustine is notable
• 36:13
  because he's like the only one that did and there's so many
• 36:15
  other doctors of the church the. Story of the soul.
• 36:17
  That's her confession. 20th century like you're skipping
• 36:20
  forward 1500 years. Yeah, but that's that's actually
• 36:22
  she was elevated at the Doctor of the Church for Story of the
• 36:25
  Soul. Yes, you're wrong, but I think.
• 36:27
  Wait, hold on. Just really quickly to go back
• 36:29
  to something you said and in this kind of tension between the
• 36:32
  testimony of the church and of the whole salvation history of
• 36:36
  the world versus personal testimony, you said Lila
• 36:40
  earlier, maybe in our private prayer, we should be thinking
• 36:44
  every day of all the good things God does for us.
• 36:47
  And and then Paul said, oh, but that should be our private
• 36:49
  reflection. And maybe publicly we can pray,
• 36:51
  you know, what God has done for the church.
• 36:53
  I think the reason and again, why it's so important to be a
• 36:56
  part of the body of Christ, to be a member of the church, the
• 36:58
  physical church, is that it's not always apparent to the
• 37:02
  individual soul based on what's going on in our lives, the good
• 37:07
  God is doing for us. So it's such a good dependent.
• 37:09
  Like you couldn't say to somebody who's in a horrible,
• 37:12
  like, let's say they're, you know, in a war zone or in an
• 37:14
  abusive situation, you couldn't say to them, Oh, just think of
• 37:17
  all the good things God did for you today, because maybe it
• 37:19
  didn't feel like anything good happened to them.
• 37:21
  But even they as part of the body of Christ can say he has
• 37:25
  raised up the lowly, he has cast on the the conceited from their
• 37:29
  Thrones. He's done all of these things.
• 37:31
  He's come to the help of his servant Israel.
• 37:32
  So he is still God, the church still true, the faith is still
• 37:36
  true. Even if I don't feel it, even if
• 37:38
  I'm not connected at all right now, I'm going through it.
• 37:41
  And that's like for me, and maybe we'll go back to my
• 37:43
  personal testimony for a hot 2nd is where the virtue of hope
• 37:46
  throughout my life has really flourish, is that you can
• 37:50
  believe things are true, but you can struggle to live them if you
• 37:55
  don't believe they're true for you.
• 37:57
  And so even if you're going through something or whatever,
• 37:59
  if you're depressed or whatever it may be, and you hold on to
• 38:03
  the Magnificat, the prayer of the church, the Magnificat, then
• 38:06
  you can still apply that hope to your life, even if you don't
• 38:10
  have your personal litany of things that you're personally
• 38:13
  thankful for that day. When I was a kid and I heard the
• 38:16
  parable of the publican, I didn't understand it.
• 38:18
  And to this day I think that the Pharisee in a lot of ways just
• 38:21
  behaves like a normal person because he's thanking God for
• 38:25
  these things and the other things that sound a little
• 38:27
  holier than that. He's like thank you that I'm not
• 38:29
  falling into this sin or doing this or thank you that I tithe
• 38:32
  or whatever he says and he's. Still kind of doing a personal,
• 38:36
  he's doing his own litany, but it's just twisted.
• 38:38
  It's coming from his ego. He's not praising God for his
• 38:40
  goodness, he's praising God for his his goodness.
• 38:44
  Exactly. The danger, though, is because
• 38:46
  everyone, like Father Eric says one of our difference,
• 38:48
  everyone's a work in progress, right?
• 38:50
  We're all like, and we Catholics believe that Mary had never
• 38:53
  committed a sin and she is still, I mean, she of all people
• 38:57
  could make the claim like thank you, Lord for rescuing me from
• 38:59
  sin, but she doesn't even that's like that is part of revelation.
• 39:03
  That's something that we all believe.
• 39:05
  That's for all of us to know. But she doesn't even say that.
• 39:07
  And she could have without sin said something like that because
• 39:11
  it's true. It was given to her.
• 39:12
  But like the Pharisee, I think it's notable because he is
• 39:16
  praising God for he. Made it all about himself.
• 39:18
  Yeah, which is what testimonies like how how I think that I'm
• 39:22
  not saying testimonies are wrong.
• 39:24
  Again, it would be fundamentalist to say that you
• 39:26
  should never talk about yourself.
• 39:28
  That's fundamentalist. And we don't, we don't like
• 39:30
  fundamentalism. We're maximalist.
• 39:31
  Talk about yourself, talk about what God has done, but don't
• 39:34
  forget to talk about who God is in himself.
• 39:38
  Don't forget to talk about like Mary in her prayer or Zechariah
• 39:41
  and his. Well, I, I do think the
• 39:42
  postmodern tendency to just really dwell on our testimony as
• 39:46
  a sort of like a center point for, you know, a lot of faith is
• 39:51
  that we also don't have the communion of the Saints and we
• 39:55
  just have each other. Like, like we don't, we don't
• 39:57
  think that we don't, we don't realize we have the communion of
• 39:59
  the Saints is what I'm trying to say.
• 40:00
  A lot of Christians today who are not Catholic, they don't.
• 40:03
  Understand the communion of the Saints or they think the
• 40:05
  communion of the Saints is just whoever's alive and a believer.
• 40:07
  And so there's a whole world, millions, billions and less
• 40:11
  Saints, right? And people that is are recorded
• 40:15
  that you could be learning about their life, learning from them,
• 40:19
  you know, asking for their prayers, getting to know them.
• 40:21
  And so it's like it's almost like a poverty where you're just
• 40:24
  sort of stuck with only yourself and your own story.
• 40:27
  And maybe the story was from your friends as opposed to
• 40:30
  having all of the the wealth of the stories of the church.
• 40:33
  And you have the stories of the Bible, which is great, but then
• 40:35
  you're missing so many, you know, I forget.
• 40:39
  My namesake, St. Paul, yes, he, he tells his
• 40:42
  story, it's recorded, but he is famous for saying the like, the
• 40:49
  only thing that matters, the only thing that I possibly will
• 40:52
  boast about is Christ crucified. And So what is the boasting
• 40:56
  there? That's something that takes a
• 40:57
  long time to unpack. The point is that there is a
• 41:00
  high level of maturity and discernment necessary and even I
• 41:04
  would say fully bakedness that the average person, myself
• 41:06
  included, just hasn't achieved yet that you need before you can
• 41:11
  start Saint Augustine, you know, clout sharing his story or Saint
• 41:16
  Paul or Saint Therese like these people are doctors of the
• 41:19
  Church. I don't know.
• 41:23
  I think there's such beautiful, intense faith that there that
• 41:28
  many non Catholic Christians have, like John who is here at
• 41:32
  the studio. I was just talking about our
• 41:33
  conversation. And I think that is a that is a
• 41:39
  gift. Obviously faith is a gift and we
• 41:43
  should all ask for more of that gift.
• 41:46
  And I think we can learn about that gift and and maybe have a
• 41:49
  develop a hunger to receive that gift by hearing the stories of
• 41:52
  other people receiving that gift, if that makes sense.
• 41:54
  So that's why I do think the testimonies are very inspiring
• 41:58
  because they give people the sense of inspiration of what is
• 42:02
  possible for them. Like they can be given faith and
• 42:06
  they they should want faith. And Paul, I think maybe some of
• 42:12
  the the personal reticence to to go into personal testimony land
• 42:17
  speaks to your mission in your life right now, which is to
• 42:22
  share the public prayer of the church and to de emphasize
• 42:25
  yourself and emphasize the prayer of the church that is,
• 42:30
  you know, far more profitable to souls than one person's story.
• 42:34
  So I think that that's a beautiful thing and something
• 42:38
  that we should talk about more and something that we should
• 42:41
  emphasize more. I think I can be inspired for a
• 42:46
  moment by endless personal testimonies, and I think there's
• 42:49
  a good place for that. But that what really sustains
• 42:52
  our faith and brings us towards sanctification and holiness, is
• 42:57
  the practice of the faith. Right.
• 42:59
  And is holy is that? Just just to use an even more
• 43:02
  radical analogy, I see all the little like if we're building
• 43:04
  our faith on faith on something, every little story like Nina
• 43:10
  describes in the pitfalls you have describes in the pitfalls
• 43:12
  even talk about the Saints have so many great stories that are
• 43:15
  reliable. They're stamped with approval.
• 43:17
  We know that everything turned out good in the end, etcetera.
• 43:21
  I think there's a great danger to the average dialogue about
• 43:27
  faith being testimonial in that. To me, it's like building your
• 43:30
  house on a million stories of sand, a million grains of sand
• 43:33
  because we don't know what is going on in people's lives
• 43:39
  behind closed doors publicly, we don't know how people are going
• 43:42
  to end up. And if we're basing our faith on
• 43:45
  all these little stories that are works in progress.
• 43:47
  In fact, most people, I would say are on life support, given
• 43:50
  how much modernism has destroyed our, our Catholic Christian
• 43:54
  imagination, we're all like. And so I, I, I honestly it, it
• 43:58
  almost like reaffirms the, the insanity for, for, for anybody
• 44:04
  to claim that like I am, you know, God has done XY or Z for
• 44:09
  me personally. It it it kind of like versus
• 44:13
  building your house on rock Christ building it on his word,
• 44:17
  sharing what he has done and is doing.
• 44:19
  But it's also the power of self deception because, and this is
• 44:22
  something I think about a lot because I see the Lord working
• 44:25
  in my life again, talking that, that like, you know, postmodern
• 44:29
  personal lens potentially. But then I also know like I
• 44:33
  could very easily misinterpret my life.
• 44:35
  And I do, I probably do regularly.
• 44:37
  And I, I have had some like semi scandalous experiences in my own
• 44:41
  like life where I felt very strongly the Lord was telling me
• 44:46
  one thing and then it wasn't true.
• 44:48
  Like it, it sounds like the Lord is not true.
• 44:49
  It's my own perception is untrue.
• 44:51
  So I am obviously a very faulty vessel.
• 44:54
  My discernment is completely dependent on the mercy of God
• 44:59
  and it's going to go wrong some of the time or maybe a lot of
• 45:01
  the time and I'm not going to actually know all of that.
• 45:04
  The side of heaven anyways, right, Because we're look
• 45:07
  through a glass only darkly like we're we're we don't really have
• 45:10
  the full vision of anything right now.
• 45:11
  We're very clouded. So all that's to say we
• 45:14
  shouldn't live with fear. We should move forward to make
• 45:16
  the decisions like try to live our life the best that we can.
• 45:19
  But this idea that we can confidently say God did this and
• 45:23
  I know it was him. And then therefore this like
• 45:26
  affirms these other actions that I'm taking.
• 45:28
  I think holding it lightly is also part of the life of a
• 45:32
  Christian and. This is.
• 45:33
  Being, you know, commanding it as if I am going to speak for
• 45:36
  God. Well, This is why we're Catholic
• 45:38
  because we can very confidently say God adopted me as his child
• 45:44
  when I was baptized. God sealed me with the Holy
• 45:47
  Spirit when I received confirmation.
• 45:49
  God gave his his Son to me sacramentally when I received
• 45:53
  the Eucharist, God wiped away my sins when I go to confession.
• 45:57
  And these are not subject to perceptional flaws.
• 46:01
  These are true no matter what. And so that's why being Catholic
• 46:05
  is safe, because I've also done that same thing where I
• 46:08
  misinterpret the signs, releasing a song called Signs
• 46:11
  next month, actually about being stupid and discernment,
• 46:14
  misinterpreting signs. And and that's actually been
• 46:19
  probably the greatest test of faith for me have been like, oh
• 46:21
  God, I thought you were leading me to marry this person and now
• 46:25
  they dumped me or whatever. Aren't you glad turned out this
• 46:28
  way though? Right, Totally, totally glad
• 46:31
  that it turned out exactly how it did.
• 46:32
  But right, what keeps me Catholic and what keeps me
• 46:35
  faithful is okay, I might have totally misread this part of my
• 46:39
  life, but I know what God has done for me.
• 46:40
  He's forgiven my sins. He's gotten me adopted as his
• 46:43
  child. You know, I received the
• 46:45
  sacraments and that is really the core of my faith and of my
• 46:48
  relationship with God that. Makes you special.
• 46:51
  Like that's the thing, people. It makes you special.
• 46:54
  You were a a ghost Walking Dead. You were half dead in sin like
• 46:59
  in the parable, the Good Samaritan, the man lying on the
• 47:01
  side of the road with no life support, with your final gasps
• 47:05
  of your tiny mortality. And God took you and by the
• 47:09
  simple washing of water, he made you another one of himself.
• 47:13
  He baptized you into his identity, Christ Jesus.
• 47:17
  And if you're walking around still living in sin, if you're
• 47:19
  walking around still unsure, I give you the absolute confidence
• 47:24
  that if you were baptized, God through no working of your own,
• 47:29
  took you off the side of the road, as the Psalm says, drew
• 47:33
  you from the miry clay, which is inescapable.
• 47:38
  And he puts you in the choirs of heaven to praise him for
• 47:41
  eternity and to delight in him forever.
• 47:44
  And that is like way better than having an hour long conversation
• 47:47
  about. And there's so and there's so
• 47:48
  many ways in which our faith has gone individual.
• 47:50
  Like every other homily at Matthew here, this is a Catholic
• 47:54
  problem. This is, this is just a modern
• 47:55
  problem. The priest, you know, the other
• 47:58
  day, it was the light of the world passage.
• 48:00
  And it's like he wants to Saint all of us.
• 48:02
  You are the light of the world. Like even when you do that
• 48:04
  little thing for that little person, you're being so good and
• 48:07
  you know, blah, blah, blah. And and like, I mean, it's
• 48:10
  exhausting. Being said, Chachi BT.
• 48:12
  Tells us we're the greatest like Chachi BT Hold on, it's just
• 48:15
  like. What's the correct
• 48:16
  interpretation? What should he have said in that
• 48:18
  homily? He says don't lose your savour.
• 48:21
  That's what Christ is. That's what Christ is giving us.
• 48:23
  He's and what does? Savor look like in the modern
• 48:25
  world today. It looks like making people
• 48:27
  uncomfortable by telling the truth.
• 48:28
  It looks like you know, the the changing that extra diaper,
• 48:33
  having that extra kid, even though you don't think you can
• 48:35
  financially take care of it, even though it's going to make
• 48:37
  your body wrecked, It's it's going to make you never sleep
• 48:40
  again. I'm a you know, I'm a personal
• 48:42
  testimony. I will never sleep again and
• 48:44
  it's horrible, but it's beautiful.
• 48:47
  It's beautiful, like I'm not supposed to sleep.
• 48:50
  I think I'm. Supposed to I'm supposed to care
• 48:52
  for, clothe the naked, that's my daughter.
• 48:53
  Feed the hungry. That's my daughter.
• 48:55
  Daughters. And really quickly, that's what
• 48:58
  you said that God has done this for us is you don't need to have
• 49:02
  like a crazy testimony story because I think this is also all
• 49:05
  right really quickly. Sorry, making it about me for a
• 49:07
  hot 2nd is something an insecurity maybe I had growing
• 49:10
  up of like I didn't have some like crazy conversion experience
• 49:14
  where I was like, you know, deep in the depths of of hell and I'd
• 49:17
  reached rock bottom. And then like God lifted me up
• 49:20
  in this crazy spiritual experience, which I know people
• 49:22
  have and that's amazing. And I thought, I can't witness
• 49:24
  to people because I don't have that experience.
• 49:26
  I just lived like I just became Catholic and was, you know,
• 49:28
  like, Oh yeah, this is true. And I'm going to pray and like,
• 49:31
  I don't know, I didn't have any like crazy, crazy experiences,
• 49:35
  but that's the craziest thing is what God does for every single
• 49:39
  baptized Christian that every. We were a Wretch and we.
• 49:42
  And our imagination is so impoverished.
• 49:44
  Everything. Our imagination is so
• 49:46
  impoverished that we think, is that it?
• 49:49
  I just saw water get dumped over that.
• 49:50
  Then we need to take the word baptism and invent, well, I'm
• 49:53
  going to get baptized in the Spirit by like having some
• 49:56
  crazy. Experience.
• 49:56
  The thing that and something I feel like we need to speak out
• 49:59
  against is the second baptisms thing because it's so
• 50:02
  disrespectful of God. I mean this sounds harsh, but a
• 50:05
  second baptism is disrespectful of God.
• 50:08
  And the terminology, yeah, I mean you, you can have you.
• 50:10
  Can't do a second baptism too. Like it's not a real baptism.
• 50:13
  The first baptism, it's one and done.
• 50:15
  This is not talking about conditional baptisms, just to be
• 50:18
  clear. For Catholics who aren't sure if
• 50:19
  their first baptism was valid and they.
• 50:21
  Do. But the point is, if you have a
• 50:23
  valid, if you have a valid baptism, if it was done with
• 50:26
  water, and if it was done in the name of the Father and the Son
• 50:29
  of the Holy and of the Holy Spirit, right?
• 50:31
  If the priest said I baptize you or the pastor or your aunt or
• 50:34
  your grandma, yes, it can even be a woman.
• 50:37
  There's no This is because God wants baptism for us.
• 50:42
  That's why he made it easy. He made it.
• 50:44
  All you need is H2O and a a person who can speak.
• 50:50
  Yes, that's all you need. I baptize at you in the.
• 50:52
  Name of the Father and Son, Holy Spirit.
• 50:54
  Yeah. And without that, no matter how
• 50:56
  good you feel about Jesus, no matter how good you.
• 50:59
  Think Jesus. Feels about you, No.
• 51:01
  Without that, your personal relationship with Jesus is it
• 51:08
  could be something that's preparing you for Jesus to give
• 51:11
  you baptism. But without baptism in the
• 51:12
  picture, it's it's a fiction. It's just a fiction and so.
• 51:15
  Can I ask a question? I mean, I see so much error in
• 51:19
  the world. Obviously, I'm in my own heart.
• 51:21
  I mean, it's not just like the errors in the world and on me.
• 51:23
  But the point is there's so much theological error when it comes
• 51:26
  to baptism, when it comes to, you know, the person of Christ,
• 51:30
  the Eucharist, when it comes to the communion of Saints, when it
• 51:33
  comes to the Saints, when it comes to Mary, all of these
• 51:35
  things, right? And I see people with such a
• 51:38
  sincere, an apparently sincere faith, people that seem like
• 51:42
  they're good people with good intentions, who also seem like
• 51:46
  they really have a relationship, like, if you sat them down
• 51:49
  there. So I guess I feel like I have a
• 51:50
  relationship with Jesus. He's a real person to me.
• 51:52
  I feel like we talk with one another.
• 51:54
  He has guided me. He's pulled me out of difficult
• 51:56
  situations. Like, this is how they would
• 51:58
  talk and they would say, yeah, and I got baptized again and it
• 52:03
  was so special, you know? So I guess what I marvel at is
• 52:07
  like the amount of error that is there and yet the Lord still
• 52:11
  works with all of us even in the middle of all of our error, if
• 52:14
  that makes sense. I think that that's like, it's
• 52:16
  similar to like falling in love, like the experience of falling
• 52:20
  in love with somebody and it's like not your spouse, like it's
• 52:22
  like an intense emotional experience and you can look back
• 52:25
  on it fondly or whatever. But you there's also like a
• 52:30
  element of reality that might be completely different than your
• 52:33
  perception of things. And that can be true of falling
• 52:35
  in love. And that can be true of how you
• 52:37
  felt the day you got baptized the second time, which is that
• 52:40
  human experience is, is suspect. The way that our brains process
• 52:44
  things is suspect. Like it says in Corinthians, we
• 52:48
  currently see in a dimly in a mirror, we and we'll see face to
• 52:51
  face in heaven. We'll actually see how God was
• 52:53
  working in our lives objectively, and we might find
• 52:56
  that it's very different. But yeah, we're we're at the
• 52:59
  whims of our own perception. And that's why it's even more
• 53:03
  important than ever to hold on to concrete truths, biblical
• 53:07
  truths, the teachings of the church, and to subject our own
• 53:12
  personal experiences to the mysteries of the faith that are
• 53:16
  revealed to us. And so even if we feel that our
• 53:19
  second baptism is was meaningful to be able to say, OK, maybe
• 53:24
  that's not exactly. Like what?
• 53:27
  The Holy Spirit is meaningful. And he was, yeah, he was with
• 53:29
  me. You know he was with me.
• 53:31
  In some way and I can look back. I don't have to like, judge that
• 53:33
  experience. Like I don't have to say.
• 53:34
  Self yeah, like valid the first time yeah so.
• 53:37
  When I was flying in here and again.
• 53:41
  Agree, baptism is not biblical. It is fine to share things from
• 53:45
  your life. That's not what we're talking
• 53:46
  about. What we're talking about is the
• 53:48
  genre of faith dialogue called testimony.
• 53:52
  OK, but but but but we but. It's fine.
• 53:54
  Like when, when Nino, she, she felt like she had to apologize
• 53:57
  because she was like, I used to deal with scruples.
• 53:59
  It's fine to talk about yourself.
• 54:01
  Sorry for talking about myself. On on my flight over here right?
• 54:04
  I was on the plane. I was tired.
• 54:05
  Bad night's sleep last night. It's beautiful.
• 54:07
  I love, I love my girlies on the oh that's 2 little girls, 2
• 54:11
  little girls on the way. Is it a girl?
• 54:13
  It's a boy. Oh, it's a boy.
• 54:14
  I knew that. Yeah, Two boys.
• 54:17
  OK, now we're just sharing everything on the Internet.
• 54:20
  Oh my gosh. So on, on the flight over here,
• 54:23
  I, I had a great consolation in prayer.
• 54:26
  And I, and I'm doing this thing lately where it's in preparation
• 54:28
  for Lent, because during Lent I want to go as much digital free
• 54:31
  as I can. I don't have any social media or
• 54:33
  anything like that, but I do look at Google News.
• 54:36
  I do read about random stuff and I am, I would say addicted to my
• 54:39
  phone. Which is bad even without
• 54:41
  Twitter or anything I. Have no social media.
• 54:43
  I don't know how people who have like like TikTok or whatever,
• 54:46
  how would somebody not be hopelessly addicted to.
• 54:49
  Their device. Because like I find myself
• 54:51
  scrolling through Google News, I got my screen time report 5
• 54:54
  hours a day on my phone. How is that possible?
• 54:56
  Well, that's probably text and phone.
• 54:57
  Calls, too. That's also, yeah, face timing.
• 54:58
  Every family member. Yeah, every single.
• 55:00
  Day when I I saw like I was on my phone 10 hours a day.
• 55:03
  It also includes any phone call, any text message but.
• 55:05
  Still, that's dangerous. That's so much.
• 55:07
  It's like it's like just think about, think about the there's
• 55:13
  just so much to impact there. And I know this is a common
• 55:15
  topic on the Internet, ironically, like don't go on the
• 55:17
  Internet. We hear on the Internet, but
• 55:19
  it's. Fine or like on podcasts, don't
• 55:20
  listen to podcasts. I had we Christy Horton was on
• 55:23
  earlier today and we're like, don't go on social media.
• 55:26
  And we're both like influencers, you know, I was like.
• 55:29
  So on the plane you cannot. Follow me whatever helps you
• 55:32
  like get rid of, you know, get it under control.
• 55:35
  It was a 58 minute flight from San Jose to Orange County and I
• 55:40
  didn't want to be on my phone at all or on any screen or
• 55:42
  anything. So I didn't play music, I didn't
• 55:45
  do anything. I just sat in silence, which was
• 55:47
  really good. And during that silence, what
• 55:50
  the first thing that happens is 1000 Psalm verses popping in my
• 55:52
  head because I pray the Psalms. I sing the Psalms all the time
• 55:54
  that it's just. But then there's this process of
• 55:57
  sifting, and maybe this is sharing too much of the Holy of
• 56:00
  Holies, the private prayer. So I'm not saying this as
• 56:04
  something you should absolutely follow.
• 56:05
  I'm just sharing this because it's, it was interesting that
• 56:07
  during this process of sifting through Psalm verses, which is
• 56:10
  beautiful because then I know God is speaking to me because
• 56:14
  that's why he gave us the Bible. Because if you're meditating on
• 56:16
  a Psalm, it's literally God outside of time in that moment,
• 56:19
  that is exactly the voice of God reliably because you're using
• 56:24
  the tools God gave you to hear him, which is scripture, which
• 56:27
  we usually don't use in prayer. We use it to study and then
• 56:30
  create weird theological frameworks that that adjust to
• 56:34
  our lifestyle. That's usually people do with
• 56:36
  the Bible. These.
• 56:37
  Days. Politics.
• 56:37
  Yeah, or our politics or whatever it is, we make
• 56:40
  Scripture this like little toolbox of, oh, let's make it a
• 56:43
  science textbook. So the world was created this
• 56:45
  way. Let's make it a all these things
• 56:47
  Scripture is. Find the world word anxiety.
• 56:49
  It's you know, 100 times that that tells us, you know what to
• 56:52
  get. I don't think like that's
• 56:54
  completely fruitless. I want my 4-O1K to grow.
• 56:56
  Let's see all the scriptures to talk about making money and
• 56:58
  manifest those in your life and meditate.
• 56:59
  I mean, like there's, there's a lot going on, but scripture is a
• 57:02
  dialogue with God. So anyway, on the plane, this is
• 57:04
  the punchline. I'm sitting there and I actually
• 57:06
  was hit with a great consolation that it if if the plane goes
• 57:10
  down, which is always a little conversation I have with God
• 57:13
  every time I get on a plane, if the plane goes down, it's fine.
• 57:20
  Because even though my whole life I've been told, especially
• 57:23
  by our dear mother, love her. She's my biggest fan.
• 57:25
  I'm her biggest fan. She's also my biggest critic.
• 57:28
  She's always been like, Oh no, you are God's gift to humanity
• 57:31
  in this way. Italian Mama.
• 57:33
  She thinks her kids are awesome. We are awesome.
• 57:35
  Right you. Have a great voice.
• 57:37
  You gotta do this. You gotta do this.
• 57:39
  You gotta do this. You gotta do.
• 57:40
  This what a blessing. But on that plane, I thought to
• 57:42
  myself, if the plane goes down, I mean, I'm not gonna be
• 57:49
  thinking I left anything on the table and I had this
• 57:52
  overwhelming and I actually thought about the Benedictus on
• 57:56
  the plane. But this is, this is what that
• 57:58
  prayer became. That prayer became scripture
• 58:00
  because literally it was no, I, I literally in that moment of
• 58:03
  the plane went down, I would have thought, you know,
• 58:05
  wonderful. I mean, yes, it might have been
• 58:07
  wonderful to raise my children, but if the plane went down, it
• 58:09
  would probably be because maybe I wouldn't have been the best
• 58:11
  father that God wanted me to be. I, I don't know the full story,
• 58:15
  but I do know that in that moment, I was completely joyful
• 58:19
  at what the Lord has done in, in my life.
• 58:21
  And I was completely joyful about who God was.
• 58:23
  And if I, if the plane went down, I would have been excited
• 58:25
  to see him and I wouldn't have felt as it was crashing.
• 58:27
  Like I still have to record that or do that Psalm or learn that
• 58:31
  or I have so much to teach my kids.
• 58:32
  It's like we're very small. We are very small.
• 58:35
  And you wouldn't feel like, Oh no, you, you didn't have any
• 58:39
  fear in your heart about seeing our Lord face to face because
• 58:43
  you felt. Oh, I did.
• 58:44
  I had terrible fear. But in that fear I had very,
• 58:49
  very great consolation because the antiphon that was going
• 58:52
  through my head and. Confidence.
• 58:53
  In the mercy of God, the antiphon was it goes something
• 58:57
  like this Dominic converter the IT means the antiphon means it's
• 59:04
  for the offertory. It's an option in funeral
• 59:06
  masses, but the antiphon the church praise means return.
• 59:09
  Lord, rescue my soul, save me in your merciful love, Nizori
• 59:15
  Korodium and I just over and over again.
• 59:17
  And so I thought, if the plane is crashing, I'll just keep
• 59:19
  praying that I'll keep singing it.
• 59:20
  And I was actually singing it aloud on the plane for for a bit
• 59:23
  there was nobody around me. But still, it's just like this
• 59:26
  is the transcendental truth. It's a God is merciful love and
• 59:30
  he will save me. And I have strayed.
• 59:35
  I haven't, you know, but you know, you, you, you have to just
• 59:37
  surrender it all to the God man and see what happens.
• 59:41
  But anyway I I don't know why I'm sharing this but.
• 59:44
  No, just to wrap. Yeah.
• 59:45
  Well, just to wrap that up, I think it's it's that something
• 59:48
  that we can strive for, especially since we are all
• 59:51
  going to die and we don't know when that will happen, is that
• 59:55
  our lives are not about what our culture tells us, which is self
• 59:59
  idealization, self actualization.
• 1:00:01
  Like live your mission. Like find what you're good at
• 1:00:04
  and do it and make money doing it and whatever.
• 1:00:06
  And see what God is calling you to do right, Right.
• 1:00:09
  Our missions are as valuable as God dictates.
• 1:00:12
  And if God dictates, hey, hey, actually it means nothing and
• 1:00:15
  you're going to die tomorrow. And it's, we're cutting it all
• 1:00:17
  short and it's, you know, before it even has begun.
• 1:00:21
  Blessed be God, who is raised up the lowly and scattered the
• 1:00:25
  proud in their conceit, like blessed be I.
• 1:00:27
  Do feel like the theology and my fighting for life book was just
• 1:00:31
  not fully on point in in in the focus of the book.
• 1:00:35
  Like then there was just prudential what I focused it on.
• 1:00:37
  But I do it resonates a lot what you're saying, you know, because
• 1:00:40
  I do think like this focus on like find your hyper
• 1:00:42
  personalized mission. I think we're all called to the
• 1:00:46
  cause, the pro-life cause in this example, it's a universal
• 1:00:48
  call. It's not like Lila Rose's
• 1:00:50
  special call or this other person's special call.
• 1:00:52
  We're actually all called to that work as Christians period.
• 1:00:56
  But this idea of like your special mission for your life.
• 1:00:59
  I mean, yes, I agree that the special mission for your life
• 1:01:04
  may not be anything like what you imagine or think or can, you
• 1:01:07
  know, drum up. But I do think everybody does
• 1:01:10
  have a mission. God has a vocation for all of
• 1:01:13
  us, and he has a he has a hope for our lives and a plan for our
• 1:01:15
  lives. I think where it gets tricky is
• 1:01:18
  that we spend too much time trying to figure out what it is
• 1:01:22
  and like, rather than just be Catholic, rather than just
• 1:01:25
  follow the church and, and let it play out as God intends it.
• 1:01:29
  And then we get attached to our idea of God's plan for us.
• 1:01:33
  And I'd like then this is something with, with me, you
• 1:01:37
  know, and vocationally and like, oh, I'm a musician.
• 1:01:39
  I want to be a musician. I want a music career.
• 1:01:41
  Like, I think I, I've had to detach over the years to the
• 1:01:44
  idea of like, God could never make that happen.
• 1:01:48
  He could decide that's never going to happen for you.
• 1:01:50
  You're going to be a wife and a mom and that's going to be like
• 1:01:52
  the best thing. And that's, that is is the best
• 1:01:53
  thing ever. But I think there's a detachment
• 1:01:56
  process that I've had to have of like, I need to not get attached
• 1:02:00
  to a specific idea of how God wants me to live my life and be
• 1:02:04
  content with what he offers. Me but but the Lord worked
• 1:02:07
  mysteriously and so I do think I mean we just had on Father John
• 1:02:10
  Ricardo on the show and he talks about you are made for
• 1:02:14
  remission. Yeah.
• 1:02:15
  And his plan is is awesome. Like it's greater than anything
• 1:02:18
  we could imagine. It's the best.
• 1:02:19
  I think it's again, our own perception.
• 1:02:22
  Like when our perception is suspect, our self narratives are
• 1:02:25
  suspect, our personal relationship and our personal
• 1:02:28
  connection, all of that is suspect and has to be, you know,
• 1:02:32
  subjected to trust in God and trust in the teachings of the
• 1:02:36
  faith. But not to live in insecurity
• 1:02:38
  because you can make a decision like I believe that I'm going to
• 1:02:40
  do this and I think that's what the Lord wants.
• 1:02:42
  And then there might be a mistake or it's a risk.
• 1:02:44
  But I think we're also not supposed to live in a posture of
• 1:02:46
  like insecurity of like it's all it's all everything is a
• 1:02:50
  question mark constantly. I think we can move forward in
• 1:02:53
  matters of prudence and believe yeah, this is where Lords not to
• 1:02:56
  me. Now that you're finished telling
• 1:02:58
  your testimonies, right, Your non testimony testimonies.
• 1:03:03
  Very beautiful thoughts, Jared. Thank you.
• 1:03:04
  My my sibs. So Nina has her music that's
• 1:03:07
  coming out. Obviously everyone should check
• 1:03:10
  out Sing the Hours. A lot of people who listen to
• 1:03:11
  this podcast already know about your Sing the Hours, Paul.
• 1:03:13
  But it's beautiful. I feel like everyone who comes
• 1:03:15
  to the show, like half the guests are like, oh, I do I
• 1:03:18
  listen to Sing the Hours. But anyways, I pray with Sing
• 1:03:21
  the Hours. But Nina, you have your first
• 1:03:23
  song out called Dream a Dream a Dream, which is so beautiful.
• 1:03:28
  You have another song out that's called Saint Joseph coming out,
• 1:03:31
  which is sorry, it's coming out next month.
• 1:03:33
  Early March, yeah. There's a line in there that
• 1:03:35
  gives me chills from that song and I want to play a little bit
• 1:03:37
  of it. But then this.
• 1:03:38
  You mentioned signs. Yep.
• 1:03:40
  What's next? Should we listen to a little bit
• 1:03:42
  of signs? Whatever you want to start with,
• 1:03:46
  Joseph is about Saint Joseph and it's a very personal
• 1:03:49
  relationship with Joseph kind of song.
• 1:03:52
  I'm like consecrated to him. I love him.
• 1:03:54
  And I saw it was just funny because I was thinking about it
• 1:03:56
  kind of amusedly as we were listening to Paul's railing
• 1:04:00
  against testimonies. And I was like, oh, this is a
• 1:04:03
  very like personal relationship. But I will say, and I wish we
• 1:04:08
  had more time to have this whole discussion, Joseph is a more
• 1:04:11
  explicitly Christian song. The album is kind of like semi
• 1:04:15
  Christian, semi secular, written by a Christian.
• 1:04:17
  So there's going to be God. Thinks a song like your Joseph
• 1:04:20
  song. It's masterfully written, The
• 1:04:22
  lyrics are beautiful, the singing is gorgeous, all of it.
• 1:04:25
  But I just love the way that you you tell the experience of you
• 1:04:30
  imagine for people Saint Joseph and who he was and you just feel
• 1:04:34
  like he really does come alive. Let's.
• 1:04:36
  Do a listen of the first half. It's a long song, so let's just
• 1:04:38
  do that. The first part.
• 1:07:04
  I love. There's a whole outro with piano
• 1:07:06
  and a whole second. Song I feel like for any
• 1:07:09
  Catholic girl listening this is this is such like I feel like
• 1:07:14
  every Catholic girl needs to hear the song because every
• 1:07:19
  Catholic girl that I know has an experience of asking Saint
• 1:07:23
  Joseph about their husband and it's about their life, but their
• 1:07:27
  husband really for all let's be real.
• 1:07:30
  And I remember going to church before meeting Joe.
• 1:07:33
  I remember Our Lady of Peace in Santa Clara and going to where
• 1:07:38
  there's the, you know, the statues of our Lord of Our Lady
• 1:07:41
  in Saint Joseph and like obviously going to pray for the
• 1:07:44
  Blessed Sacrament and just talking to Saint Joseph and like
• 1:07:46
  having these vivid, prayerful experiences of just like asking
• 1:07:50
  him for his intercession and his guidance.
• 1:07:52
  And like obviously spending that precious time with our Lord and
• 1:07:55
  just really praying about like my future husband, my future
• 1:07:58
  husband, my future husband. And there are Joseph giving me
• 1:08:00
  so much feeling like I'm getting actual strength from Joseph and
• 1:08:04
  I just it brought me closer because I realized like once I
• 1:08:06
  got my real, my Joseph, my husband Joseph, I kind of like,
• 1:08:10
  you know, like forgot, Thank Joseph, thank you as hot because
• 1:08:15
  I'm like I got my real life one. It's not.
• 1:08:17
  I mean, it's it's a little it sounds a little harsh, but like
• 1:08:20
  it is, it is about a bit true, because now I get to love Jesus
• 1:08:24
  and my husband. I get to.
• 1:08:25
  I think Saint Joseph is OK fading in the background for
• 1:08:27
  that one. Fading in the background a
• 1:08:29
  little bit, but it just, it just, it was so I just love it,
• 1:08:32
  Nina, it's so good. Thank you.
• 1:08:34
  Yeah. Did you pray the Saint Joseph
• 1:08:35
  Nobina for Aiden? I don't remember.
• 1:08:39
  I, I, I'm sure I asked Saint Joseph about my future husband.
• 1:08:43
  I asked him about a lot of things because I think I, I just
• 1:08:47
  wanted to shore up as much, like, fatherly, like support as
• 1:08:53
  I could. And obviously God is our father,
• 1:08:54
  but he gives us like, people. Yeah, he gives us fathers, you
• 1:08:57
  know, he gives us people. To support us, do all Catholic
• 1:09:01
  women have the same little fangirl discussion about Saint
• 1:09:06
  Joseph being a young guy? I mean middle-aged, young.
• 1:09:11
  I never saw you asked me. I feel like you've asked me.
• 1:09:13
  He wasn't old. You're an icon.
• 1:09:16
  All ages. Young St.
• 1:09:18
  Joseph. I can see him all ages.
• 1:09:19
  I've definitely like in looking for icons of him.
• 1:09:22
  Look for the young St. Joseph.
• 1:09:24
  Let's say at the oldest, let's say at the youngest, he was like
• 1:09:26
  maybe late teens, 20 when he met Mary.
• 1:09:30
  But the youngest or the. Old, the youngest like when he
• 1:09:33
  when Jesus was a baby, he was like a very, very young man when
• 1:09:36
  he met Mary, let's just say at the youngest.
• 1:09:38
  But by the time of, you know, his passing, which is presumably
• 1:09:42
  a little bit before Jesus's public ministry, right, because
• 1:09:45
  he's not in the Gospels, he had already passed then he would
• 1:09:49
  have been around 50. So you're going to have all ages
• 1:09:52
  of Joseph, you know, basically in the life of.
• 1:09:54
  Jesus. Yeah, he could have.
• 1:09:55
  Been old. He could have been any.
• 1:09:57
  Yeah, I don't think so. Well, that's personal.
• 1:10:00
  You know, it's a beautiful thing about teaching about Luke, and I
• 1:10:04
  love having all my siblings. This is an argument for having
• 1:10:07
  lots of intergenerational activity, and our family's kind
• 1:10:12
  of intergenerational because last night I was having dinner
• 1:10:15
  with the oldest brother, and our oldest brother is what, 40
• 1:10:21
  something? It.
• 1:10:24
  Goes all the way down to little Nina.
• 1:10:25
  Who, How? How?
• 1:10:26
  Not that big of an Asian? How?
• 1:10:27
  Old are you 2016? Years.
• 1:10:29
  It's nothing. I'm six months.
• 1:10:30
  What did I just say? Six months pregnant, 10 years.
• 1:10:34
  Old. Wait, how old are you?
• 1:10:35
  She's 10, I'm 26. She's so weird.
• 1:10:37
  Oh, that's so good. It's.
• 1:10:38
  Not little. But it's a big it's a big spread
• 1:10:40
  and in the Gospel of Luke and now I've been thinking about
• 1:10:42
  Zechariah, this whole conversation, but isn't it
• 1:10:44
  incredible how Jesus #1 dwells in a family like he's Incarnate
• 1:10:49
  in a family. He doesn't float it on the crowd
• 1:10:51
  clouds as a baby and be like, I'm here.
• 1:10:54
  He's he's not like ET coming then coming in in like a basket,
• 1:10:58
  although literally he kind of does, but in the Manger.
• 1:11:01
  But no, this is really beautiful.
• 1:11:03
  Have you ever thought about how the Church fathers talk about
• 1:11:06
  this in their commentary on Luke, about how every single
• 1:11:09
  type of person encounters the Christ child?
• 1:11:12
  In the first chapters of Luke, you have a married woman,
• 1:11:17
  Elizabeth, an old married man, Zechariah.
• 1:11:21
  You have young betrothees married young.
• 1:11:26
  Mary and Joseph marry a virgin, a young a young virgin you have.
• 1:11:31
  The old people in the temple. The old wise men.
• 1:11:34
  The the Wise men prophetess. Shepherd Boy.
• 1:11:37
  The shepherds, yeah, but it's also every age group.
• 1:11:39
  And it's weird that the Gospel says the prophetess Anna was
• 1:11:42
  what, 80 is? Also sweet.
• 1:11:44
  So the oldest of ladies, a widow.
• 1:11:46
  And then Saint John the Baptist jumping for joy.
• 1:11:49
  His mama's from from unborn baby to old lady.
• 1:11:53
  Unborn baby to 90 year old woman.
• 1:11:56
  Both genders. Every type of family dynamic.
• 1:11:58
  A widow, married unmarried children.
• 1:12:01
  All celebrating the coming. And it's a fulfilment of the of
• 1:12:04
  the Psalm. Praise him old men together with
• 1:12:09
  children, young men and maidens like the vision of the Church is
• 1:12:13
  we all can praise the Lord and that that makes you special.
• 1:12:17
  You're you're praying in Christ beautiful.
• 1:12:20
  It's beautiful. OK, let's do a little bit of
• 1:12:22
  science. Is that cool?
• 1:12:23
  Yeah. And this one is just it.
• 1:12:25
  It walks through the discernment process of somebody who me at
• 1:12:30
  some point in my life, somebody who over analyzes and over like
• 1:12:36
  their perception, they interpret the signs.
• 1:12:38
  Tries to read the TV. People find this music again.
• 1:12:41
  It will be. On Spotify, Apple Music.
• 1:12:43
  Follow Antonina. So follow Antonina Music on
• 1:12:47
  Instagram, probably. Get in this episode.
• 1:12:49
  To antoninaofficial.com is my website, yeah.
• 1:12:51
  All right, here we go. This will be out.
• 1:15:21
  Play I feel like this is the song that you like after the
• 1:15:23
  breakup scene in the movie. She's like driving home in a
• 1:15:26
  rain and she's like crying and crying and the raindrops on her
• 1:15:32
  and just like driving and driving and it's like amazing.
• 1:15:35
  That's exactly how I compose this song.
• 1:15:39
  Yeah, yeah. Doesn't it feel good to be
• 1:15:42
  married? I love being married.
• 1:15:44
  Oh my gosh, all of the discernment angst is behind.
• 1:15:48
  Me, it's the best. I love it.
• 1:15:50
  Nina, I'm so proud of you. I'm so excited to get these in
• 1:15:53
  the public. I know some of it's not released
• 1:15:54
  yet, but it's really beautiful. I know the angst.
• 1:15:57
  Feeling it hardcore. Paul, any last words?
• 1:16:02
  Before I die, before the plane goes down.
• 1:16:08
  Blessed be God this Lent. Up your prayer.
• 1:16:11
  Do some liturgical prayer. Join us on Sing the Hours.
• 1:16:15
  Love that 40 day challenge doesn't exist, but we'll we'll
• 1:16:19
  make it exist. Come, come pray with me for 40
• 1:16:21
  days. You're on Halo app right?
• 1:16:23
  We're on everything. Go go on the Youtubes if you
• 1:16:25
  want the the script and listen to Nina's music.
• 1:16:30
  It's going to be coming out, Antonina.
• 1:16:32
  Antonina. Which means in Italian it means
• 1:16:37
  little Anthony female. Yes, little female Italian
• 1:16:41
  Anthony. You got to ask for Saint Anthony
• 1:16:43
  that I help you out. I'm asking all of.
• 1:16:44
  Them you're like find me fans. Whoa, that's harsh.
• 1:16:52
  Hey, I've got. 52 monthly listeners on Spotify I'm.
• 1:16:56
  Doing pretty good at 1551. All right, Any final words,
• 1:17:00
  Nina, we're. All going to die.
• 1:17:01
  Blessed be God for. God, Amen.
• 1:17:06
  Amen. Goodnight.
• 1:17:09
  Goodnight. Don't forget your Milky my.
• 1:17:18
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• 1:17:20
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• 1:17:25
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• 1:17:28
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• 1:17:31
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