Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E232: "No Greater Love": How 3 Opus Dei Friends Gave Their All | Lila Rose Show

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E232: "No Greater Love": How 3 Opus Dei Friends Gave Their All | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  June 18th, these three men were on a hike.
• 0:02
  Out of the water, they. Hear him cry for help. 9
• 0:04
  professional divers determined that this is unsafe to send
• 0:07
  somebody into. The last thing we need right now
• 0:09
  is 1/4 dead person. That's how he finds them and he
• 0:11
  says very peaceful. Down there like they're
• 0:13
  sleeping. What were you feeling and
• 0:14
  thinking when you got that text? The reason that it was natural
• 0:17
  for them in that moment is because they did it all the
• 0:20
  time. But now we look at that act and
• 0:22
  we say it's heroic. These guys gave their lives for
• 0:24
  their friend. A few weeks ago here in
• 0:29
  California, three men of God, Matt Anthony, Matt Schenecker,
• 0:33
  and Val Kruis, were on a beautiful hike and ended up
• 0:36
  losing their lives in a tragic accident.
• 0:38
  Since their passing, there have been thousands of people who
• 0:41
  have been moved not just by their deaths, but most
• 0:44
  importantly by their life and the way that they gave their
• 0:47
  lives as celibate members of Opus Dei to their communities
• 0:51
  generously and sacrificially. In today's episode, we sit down
• 0:55
  with Matt Bowman, who's the head of the Zephyr Institute, who was
• 0:58
  close friends with all three men for over 25 years.
• 1:01
  And Matt shares about the events of their death, as well as the
• 1:04
  heroic work of a diver named Juan who recovered their bodies,
• 1:08
  and also gives us some reflection on their lives and
• 1:11
  the lessons we can learn from these incredible men.
• 1:13
  I hope you enjoyed this special episode of the Lila Rose Show in
• 1:16
  tribute to Matt Schenecker, Matt Anthony and Velcroess.
• 1:20
  Also, friends, don't forget to subscribe to the show.
• 1:23
  There are over 300,000 of you already subscribed and the show
• 1:26
  continues to grow. It is such a joy to get to do
• 1:28
  this work and bring you good true beautiful stories and
• 1:31
  experts and testimonies. Make sure to subscribe to the
• 1:34
  show on YouTube and subscribe to the podcast if you're listening
• 1:37
  on podcast app. Give us five stars, leave a
• 1:39
  review. It helps the show reach more
• 1:41
  people. Matt, thank you for joining the
• 1:44
  show. Thanks for having me Lila.
• 1:45
  Yeah, it's. Good to be here.
• 1:46
  Yeah, I good to see you after probably.
• 1:48
  It's been a decade, actually. It's been a while, but I've been
• 1:51
  a big Lila fan. In fact, I was thinking on the
• 1:53
  on the flight down here that I have an unofficial Lila test for
• 1:57
  myself. OK.
• 1:58
  Which is if whatever I'm doing is not as important as what Lila
• 2:01
  has dedicated her life to. I should probably.
• 2:03
  Be doing something different. So just so you know, that's just
• 2:06
  a little. Like personal like.
• 2:07
  Examination of conscience so. That's very humbling, but.
• 2:10
  You're doing, obviously you have been doing very important.
• 2:12
  Work I do waste a lot of time so and I was, you know, mindlessly
• 2:17
  scrolling on Instagram last night.
• 2:18
  So you don't that test isn't always going to work well, but I
• 2:21
  I that's very, very kind and very, very actually holds me to
• 2:26
  a higher standard that I need to fight towards.
• 2:28
  So thank you. You're when I met you, I've seen
• 2:31
  I met your sister. She's amazing.
• 2:33
  Tessa, you come from a great family, but you're doing really
• 2:36
  beautiful work up in Northern California.
• 2:38
  I know that's connected to your relationship too with the Mats
• 2:41
  and with Val, but just give people a bit of background on
• 2:44
  yourself. Sure.
• 2:45
  So my connection to MATS and the Val is I guess the short version
• 2:49
  is that I'm a numerary member of Opus Day.
• 2:51
  So Opus Day is an organization in the Catholic Church that's
• 2:53
  dedicated to helping people come closer to God in ordinary
• 2:56
  circumstances of life. And so I run, I'm the director
• 3:01
  of a center there. Matt and Matt and Val have all
• 3:05
  been in leadership positions in in centers of Opus De elsewhere.
• 3:08
  And so we've gotten to know each other very well over the last 25
• 3:11
  years, all three of them. And so I, yeah, my work in
• 3:16
  Northern California, my day job is at the Zephyr Institute.
• 3:18
  So we try to renew the humanities in Silicon Valley and
• 3:23
  we work with Stanford faculty on, on efforts to help
• 3:26
  strengthen the intellectual diversity on campus.
• 3:30
  And I guess the, you know, the connection there is simply that
• 3:34
  Opus Day, which is a is part of kind of my inspiration has
• 3:40
  formed my, my view of life, has encouraged me to try to do that
• 3:45
  kind of work. Well, the same way that these
• 3:46
  guys, I think have been encouraged by the spirit of Opus
• 3:48
  Day. I think it took hold in them
• 3:52
  much more than it's taken hold in me.
• 3:53
  But but we've all, you know, that's kind of what we have in
• 3:55
  common, is that we all share that spirit and that mission,
• 3:59
  that vocation. I want people to understand what
• 4:02
  it means to be a numerary because you're doing something I
• 4:05
  think very sacrificial. You're saying 100% yes to
• 4:10
  serving God through obviously ordinary work, but really
• 4:13
  serving the church and serving families and then the community
• 4:16
  around you to the point where you're saying I'm not going to
• 4:19
  start my own family. I'm going to be celibate at live
• 4:21
  as a celibate, and I'm going to just focus on living out God's
• 4:25
  plan for me this way. Can you share a little bit more
• 4:27
  about what that means? Because this was also the state
• 4:30
  of life, the vocations of Matt, Anthony, Val, and Matt.
• 4:34
  Sure. Schonecker.
• 4:35
  Yeah, being out and and to say it's sacrificial, I think being
• 4:39
  a mom is pretty sacrificial. I think being a parent in
• 4:41
  general, there are many ways of of living sort of the generosity
• 4:46
  that our Lord calls us to. So numeraries are are people who
• 4:51
  at some point in their lives understood that God was calling
• 4:55
  them to what Jesus talks about in Matthew chapter 19, right to
• 4:58
  give up my some people, he says, are called to give up marriage
• 5:01
  for the sake of the Kingdom. And not everybody is called to
• 5:04
  that. Some people are some people are
• 5:05
  called to marriage. Some people are called to be
• 5:07
  priests, to be religious. And so numeraries are unlike
• 5:10
  priests and religious. We are lay, we're in the middle
• 5:14
  of the world. We have day jobs, but we're
• 5:17
  called to form part of this family of Opus, stay and help
• 5:20
  carry forward its mission and try to spread its message right
• 5:25
  in, not in very public ways, but through in just very natural
• 5:28
  ways. Which is kind of.
• 5:29
  Fitting for the secular spirit of up his day right What's the
• 5:32
  normal way that you that you share something that you care a
• 5:35
  lot about that you think is really beautiful and important.
• 5:37
  You tell your friends about it, right?
• 5:39
  And, and so, so numeraries have have determined that Jesus is
• 5:48
  calling them to give up marriage for the sake of other souls.
• 5:54
  I think that it might be a little bit harder to make that
• 5:57
  decision when you're young. And at first, I think it's much
• 6:00
  harder to be a parent and a spouse later on than it is to be
• 6:04
  a numerion in many ways. So it's a, it's a beautiful
• 6:08
  vocation. I love it.
• 6:10
  It's hard at times. There are different, you know,
• 6:11
  just like everybody's path is hard, but that's what we shared
• 6:14
  in common is that we all were called, we discerned at some
• 6:16
  point that we were called to be members of Opus Stay and to be
• 6:18
  members as, as celibate members who now what's, you know, what's
• 6:21
  the point of giving up marriage? It's so that you can be
• 6:24
  available for other people and you can do a lot more working
• 6:29
  together than you can alone, right.
• 6:30
  So my dad was was a supernumerary member of Opus
• 6:35
  Stay when we were when I was growing up.
• 6:37
  And I didn't really know what that meant for most of my life,
• 6:39
  but I do know that he had friends that were very
• 6:42
  supportive of his spiritual growth.
• 6:45
  And when he moved from Massachusetts to Southern
• 6:48
  California when I was 12, he had basically the same family, right
• 6:53
  to kind of tap into which was the family of Opus day.
• 6:55
  And so numerators are the ones that kind of provide that
• 6:58
  continuity right from place to place.
• 6:59
  It's kind of you can you always feel like you're home when you
• 7:02
  walk into a center of Opus day? Is it for those who feel called
• 7:06
  to, to be, you know, a part, either a part of that family is
• 7:09
  a member or just somebody who takes advantage of the
• 7:11
  activities that are offered. So you got to have people who
• 7:14
  are kind of available for moving around, for kind of forming part
• 7:19
  of that organization that creates that that family spirit.
• 7:21
  So that's what a new area is. Matt, how many siblings do you
• 7:23
  have? I'm one of nine.
• 7:25
  You're one of nine. That's awesome.
• 7:26
  Where are you on the birth order?
• 7:28
  #3. OK, you were raised first on the
• 7:31
  East Coast in Southern California.
• 7:33
  And your your dad was a supernumerary as well.
• 7:37
  Yes. So you were raised with this
• 7:39
  approach to faith, which was very much infused with
• 7:42
  sanctifying daily life, you know, bringing prayer into the
• 7:45
  into daily life. Yeah, and it felt very normal.
• 7:49
  My mom was involved, too. And so both of them just kind of
• 7:53
  created this home life where, yeah, God was an important part
• 7:56
  of our lives. We prayed.
• 7:58
  We didn't have to pray the rosary, you know, on a daily
• 8:00
  basis. They were very big on freedom.
• 8:02
  In fact, my grandmother was also a supernumerary, and I always
• 8:04
  remember her. At one point, there was a moment
• 8:08
  where somebody in the family suggested we were at a big
• 8:11
  gathering, you know, at my grandma's house.
• 8:12
  And somebody said, hey, why don't we pray the rosary
• 8:14
  together? And somebody said.
• 8:16
  Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah, let's do it.
• 8:18
  And somebody else started saying, well.
• 8:20
  I got a lot of homework. And my grandma yelled out
• 8:23
  freedom. It was like a, you know, a.
• 8:24
  Breakdown Homework. Yeah, exactly like there's.
• 8:27
  We do not. Have we don't impose this stuff.
• 8:29
  So so yeah, I think that I think that there was it just kind of
• 8:33
  naturally infused our home life. Yeah.
• 8:35
  And I'm and I'm very grateful for that.
• 8:36
  And so when I sensed that God was sort of inviting me to do
• 8:40
  this it I kind of understood it as helping to provide that same
• 8:44
  kind of thing that my parents found very helpful because
• 8:47
  everybody needs support to be good parents.
• 8:48
  Like it's it's tough work, right?
• 8:50
  And good spouses. So to just be there, to be a
• 8:53
  kind of accompanying people who who are trying to live life
• 8:57
  well, get closer to God in and through all those ordinary
• 8:59
  circumstances that that appealed to me, it made sense to me.
• 9:04
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  pro-life movement. I've got to ask because folks
• 10:01
  listening, we have a lot of Christians.
• 10:03
  Obviously you watch the show, some non Christians, we have
• 10:06
  both Catholics and evangelicals who watch the show.
• 10:08
  We had on Father Luke Mata, who's just amazing, salt of the
• 10:12
  earth, light of the world. He's just so fun and wonderful
• 10:14
  and wise. He was, he was just great.
• 10:16
  But I think people when they hear Opus Day, they might
• 10:19
  remember that crazy book, Dan whatever, Brown's book from
• 10:23
  whatever 20 years ago. And they think it's like a cult
• 10:25
  or, you know, it just sounds like difference in Latin.
• 10:28
  Just you've you've kind of spoken to it already.
• 10:30
  But just to kind of help us lay the foundation here, if you
• 10:33
  could just share how Opus Day kind of exists within the
• 10:37
  Catholic Church as its own sort of mission within the larger
• 10:40
  mission of evangelization. And why?
• 10:43
  OK, someone outside of Opus state, it's not like they don't
• 10:45
  have a mission too. But there's just kind of a a
• 10:47
  special kind of spirituality that is the guiding star from
• 10:52
  Saint Josemura, the founder for how if you're a member, what
• 10:55
  that means in in your daily life.
• 10:58
  Yeah. So I, I should say I don't speak
• 11:00
  on behalf of Opus Day. I'm not a spokesperson.
• 11:02
  This is all of my opinions and comments are my own.
• 11:04
  And, and, and, and so you can talk to the press office, you
• 11:09
  know, for the official version of everything.
• 11:11
  So this is with that sort of grain of salt.
• 11:16
  Yeah. Look, I think.
• 11:17
  That there are a lot of people who had a bad experience with
• 11:19
  Opus Day. I mean, there are a lot of
• 11:21
  people who just felt like, you know, it's frustrating.
• 11:23
  Look, Opus Day is made-up of, of human beings.
• 11:25
  Human beings are flawed. And so I think that I, you know,
• 11:30
  I don't want to dismiss all of like those critics.
• 11:34
  I think there's a lot, there's a lot of experiences that need to
• 11:38
  be heard and understood, right? So the that, that impression I
• 11:42
  think is usually that, you know, there's almost always.
• 11:45
  A grain of. Truth in somebody's experience
• 11:47
  that, you know, if it was a negative experience, but Opus
• 11:51
  Day, so it's made-up of humans, but it has this ideal.
• 11:54
  But I think that, yeah, the vast majority of people that I come
• 11:57
  across who have had experience with Opus Day are grateful for
• 11:59
  it. But as far as the life of Opus
• 12:02
  Day goes, what it's an ideal, right?
• 12:06
  And what's the ideal? It's kind of very common sense.
• 12:10
  I think when you say it nowadays, it was at the time
• 12:13
  when it when it was founded, it might have been a little bit
• 12:15
  more jarring for a lot of people.
• 12:16
  But the idea is that everybody, everybody is called to holiness.
• 12:24
  It's called to come close to God and that the secular world, the
• 12:29
  world of, you know, business and, you know, Hollywood and
• 12:33
  Silicon Valley is. All.
• 12:36
  Part of God's creation. It's all beautiful and working
• 12:40
  and living in the secular world is a path towards God, all the
• 12:46
  stuff that exists. Is a path towards God, so it's a
• 12:48
  simple. Idea it's like in Vatican 2
• 12:50
  makes this abundantly clear. So what's what's open?
• 12:52
  Today's role is basically take that line in Vatican 2, you
• 12:55
  know, there's a universal call to holiness and just underline
• 12:57
  it, right? And say like, yeah, this.
• 12:59
  And by the way, it is hard. The reason that it was
• 13:01
  controversial when it was founded, I think was because
• 13:06
  people had a good sense of how hard it is to seek holiness.
• 13:10
  Like people have been trying to do this for centuries and
• 13:13
  centuries and, you know, you never quite get there.
• 13:16
  And so to take it serious, there's a sense to take it this
• 13:18
  seriously, Like you've got to take some drastic steps.
• 13:20
  You got to leave the world. You know, not all anything go to
• 13:24
  the convent and really work at this.
• 13:26
  And God bless those religious brothers and sisters of ours who
• 13:29
  are called to that because they provide a witness of, of
• 13:33
  transcendence, I think. But but not everybody is called
• 13:38
  to that. It's kind of clear, right?
• 13:39
  A lot of people are called to to build up the secular world, to
• 13:43
  contribute to the improvement of society and and God loves them
• 13:49
  intensely and is calling them in and through that work.
• 13:52
  So that's the spirit of Opus Day.
• 13:55
  If somebody is, you know, determines in their prayer that
• 13:59
  God is inviting them to make this their life's mission, then
• 14:04
  they would become a member of Opus Day.
• 14:07
  And and that that includes helping people get there, right.
• 14:10
  Many people might say, look, I'm in the middle of the world.
• 14:14
  I know I'm called to holiness in the middle of the world.
• 14:17
  I get that. I don't need an, you know, I
• 14:20
  understand it, right? I don't need anybody to remind
• 14:22
  me of it and I have my methods, my, my spiritual resources that
• 14:27
  are helping me get there. Wonderful, beautiful.
• 14:29
  Not everybody's called to be able to many people say I, I
• 14:34
  wouldn't mind some help. I, I would love some spiritual
• 14:36
  guidance and accompaniment, right?
• 14:38
  I would love a community that I can plug into every week and,
• 14:42
  and kind of be reminded of these higher things because it is easy
• 14:45
  to get distracted in the modern world.
• 14:47
  And great, you can be somebody who goes to Opus day activities,
• 14:51
  right, without being a member. If you're called to kind of like
• 14:53
  help with the, with the build up the family of Opus day and
• 14:57
  provide that service, then maybe you're called to be a member.
• 14:59
  But it is a, it's a vocation. I mean, I've always experienced
• 15:02
  it as a, as a vocation, as something that's, that is, it's
• 15:06
  like a lifelong ideal that you're that you've sensed God is
• 15:10
  inviting you to pursue. I've been so personally blessed
• 15:14
  by the people of Opus Day priests associated with Opus Day
• 15:18
  priests of the work, as well as numeris who really have taught
• 15:23
  me the faith, taught me virtue, heard my, you know, long winded
• 15:28
  complaints about my life or just, you know, things I'm
• 15:30
  discerning the things I'm struggling with and helped give
• 15:33
  me the encouragement and the really tools to discern to try
• 15:39
  to pursue holiness. So there's so much richness to
• 15:42
  what San Jose Maria gave the church and what has been passed
• 15:45
  on through this family of of Opus Dei.
• 15:49
  I think that's why this what's what's taking place here with
• 15:52
  the loss of Matt. Matt and Val has been so deeply,
• 15:58
  there's been so much deep grief because they were part of a
• 16:01
  family. They were all numerous celibate
• 16:04
  men living in service of the church.
• 16:06
  But they were part of this larger family, both inside and
• 16:09
  outside of Opus Dei that was just deeply connected to these
• 16:13
  men and, and, and was loved. These men loved many people and
• 16:18
  they were touched. Many people were touched by
• 16:19
  these men. So I want to hear about
• 16:23
  obviously how you knew them and your experience with them.
• 16:26
  Before we go into Val, can you just share, I know we touched on
• 16:30
  the in the intro here, but just share what happened 3-3 weeks
• 16:33
  ago? Yeah, so June 18th, these three
• 16:38
  men were on a hike in Tahoe National Forest area, and it's a
• 16:43
  hike I've made before with one of them.
• 16:47
  It was day hike. They, you know, for a little bit
• 16:49
  of context, they were on what we call an annual course.
• 16:51
  So an annual course is a three-week course that
• 16:54
  numeraries tend to go on once a year, often times in the summer
• 16:58
  to take courses in philosophy and theology to kind of brush
• 17:02
  up. And it's also a little bit of a
• 17:04
  break from, you know, their usual activities.
• 17:07
  So we have a Conference Center up in Novato and a number in
• 17:13
  California. Yeah, not Nevada, but Nevato and
• 17:16
  a number of of the male numerators were there on one of
• 17:18
  these courses. And what you tend to do once a
• 17:20
  week is take a take a break and go do something fun or maybe
• 17:23
  just read in the living room or whatever.
• 17:25
  So several of these men, seven of them who are on this course,
• 17:31
  decided to go on this excursion up to Tahoe.
• 17:34
  Matt Schenecker, I know in particular was very excited
• 17:37
  about it. I know he loved this spot.
• 17:40
  I love the two. And so so the seven of them went
• 17:44
  up there and they started to hike.
• 17:46
  It's a hike that's about 7 miles, takes about four hours,
• 17:51
  and it's actually downhill. So you start at kind of a pine,
• 17:54
  then go down into this gorge. And it's a gorge that's I
• 17:58
  believe, carved by the North Folk Fork of the American River.
• 18:03
  So some of them start out. One of them gets a call up at a
• 18:06
  family matter. So he goes back to the car and
• 18:08
  the six of them continue on their way and it's towards the
• 18:13
  end of the trail. It gets a little bit hard to
• 18:14
  follow. So I know they were kind of they
• 18:17
  took a few turns. It's like, Oh no, no, it's not
• 18:18
  this direction. It's over here.
• 18:20
  And Matt was leading the excursion, as I understand it.
• 18:24
  And so they they eventually they get to the waterfall after, you
• 18:28
  know, a long hike. It's beautiful.
• 18:30
  This waterfall is just a gorgeous spot.
• 18:32
  So what it is, is sort of a water for the waterfall itself
• 18:36
  has sort of 2 levels. There's a little ledge that
• 18:38
  divides it, each one I believe is about 45 feet.
• 18:42
  And then you have cliffs that circle around on one side of it
• 18:47
  forming a pool. So all this water that's coming
• 18:49
  down from the river forms this pool and you have these cliffs
• 18:54
  that are then facing the waterfall of about 1520 feet or
• 18:58
  you can jump off into the pool. So some of the news stories have
• 19:02
  said, you know, these guys jumped off a waterfall or into a
• 19:05
  waterfall, which isn't quite true.
• 19:06
  There some distance from it. If you were to jump up from a
• 19:10
  very, there are some spots where you can jump for like close next
• 19:13
  to it. They didn't do that.
• 19:15
  So they were. At A at a bit of a distance.
• 19:17
  Have you jumped there? Yes, yeah, I jumped from the
• 19:20
  same spot. It was a calmer day for the
• 19:23
  water, as we know now, but I've jumped from that spot and and it
• 19:28
  was a blast. Like we, you know, went there
• 19:32
  with a group and there were some people just under the waterfall,
• 19:34
  right? It's kind of like on there, you
• 19:36
  know, shower in the head. I mean, it was it's normally
• 19:38
  quite calm. So two of them jump in.
• 19:42
  Matt Jennifer's one of the two that jump in first and they
• 19:46
  realize that it's very strong. Like Matt says, this is the
• 19:51
  strongest I've ever seen this current.
• 19:52
  And they're getting pushed by the water against the Cliff off
• 19:55
  of which they had just jumped, right?
• 19:57
  So they're both pretty agile. They make their way down so that
• 20:01
  the water is flowing both towards the Cliff, pushing them
• 20:04
  against it and then out towards the outflow of this pool like
• 20:08
  then goes on downriver. So they get, you know, so
• 20:12
  they're going down and also also down downriver a little bit is
• 20:16
  where there's, it's easy to get out so.
• 20:20
  And they is Matt and Val. No Matt and one of the other
• 20:23
  hikers. There.
• 20:24
  And so Matt and the other hiker get, you know, climb up out and,
• 20:30
  and Matt's saying, you know, this is this is really strong.
• 20:32
  And Val had been planning to jump with the two of them.
• 20:37
  So the three were going to kind of like, you know, they had
• 20:39
  gotten there, they had started to eat lunch, you know, sort of
• 20:42
  settled down. And at some point the three of
• 20:44
  them had decided, all right, let's go, let's go jump in,
• 20:46
  right. And, and Val got a little
• 20:48
  nervous. So the two jumped in.
• 20:52
  And then as they're getting out, you know, Matt was saying, this
• 20:55
  is pretty strong. And then Val jumped in.
• 20:59
  So as they're coming up then out of the water, they hear him cry
• 21:03
  for help. And so Matt basically heads over
• 21:09
  and jumps in to go help give him a hand.
• 21:12
  Matt Anthony hadn't been planning on jumping, but he
• 21:17
  heard Val's cry also. And he said something like, I
• 21:21
  think Val needs help. So he went.
• 21:23
  He just took his shoes off, they sell his shirt and socks on and
• 21:26
  jumped in. And the Cliff, you know, these
• 21:29
  guys are having black have we're having lunch a little ways away
• 21:32
  and the Cliff is here. So they see them all go in and
• 21:34
  they figure at that point and they figure, OK, great.
• 21:37
  You know, the other two young guys, I can give Val a hand.
• 21:40
  And they expected to see him climbing up shortly.
• 21:43
  And by the time they get over and look in, they're gone.
• 21:47
  So they first figure maybe, maybe they've gone downstream
• 21:49
  just the way that, you know, the first two had been pulled along.
• 21:53
  So they look downstream, but you can tell the the lip that lets
• 21:57
  out into the stream, it's there, it gets very shallow and it's
• 22:01
  slow. So you'd see them.
• 22:02
  So you know, it's not like they'd be washed downriver at
• 22:04
  that point. So eventually they realized
• 22:09
  something bad has happened here. So they, the problem is they
• 22:14
  didn't know exactly how to get back, you know, for, so they had
• 22:18
  to, once they decide we really need to go for help to get to a
• 22:21
  spot where eventually one of the phones is able to get a signal,
• 22:24
  you know, and, and relay SOS and kind of, I mean, it's they were
• 22:31
  able eventually to get through to the Sheriff's Department And
• 22:34
  so explain what happened in the Sheriff's Department, then sent
• 22:36
  out a helicopter. They did an initial search.
• 22:40
  They eventually decided to to lift the guys out the remaining
• 22:43
  3. And and so that's what happened
• 22:46
  that day. Then we were, you know, so we're
• 22:53
  in the situation where, OK, we know they've probably drowned
• 22:57
  like it's unthinkable. I got the I got the a note that
• 23:01
  evening that this happened. And it was wild to me because
• 23:05
  Matt and Matt had just spent several days each at my center
• 23:09
  within a week, part of this happening, right?
• 23:12
  And and Val, you know, as I'll, I'll explain is, is he's like
• 23:16
  the most alive guy in the world. And I knew him so well.
• 23:18
  So it's like. At first I thought like this is
• 23:20
  just such a. Weird joke to be playing to tell
• 23:24
  me that these guys, all three of them died, you know, but of
• 23:27
  course, you know, consciously realize this can't be a joke.
• 23:30
  And so. So that was Wednesday night.
• 23:34
  And Thursday that you. Didn't believe it when you got
• 23:36
  the text. I mean, there was a part of
• 23:38
  there was like a subconscious part of me that's like, this
• 23:40
  obviously cannot be true, but there's a conscious part of me
• 23:42
  that's like, yes, this is true. I mean, it was pretty
• 23:44
  instantaneous. But yeah, that was my first
• 23:45
  reaction. It's just like, no, no, I was
• 23:48
  just with these guys. We were hanging out.
• 23:50
  We were having great conversations.
• 23:51
  Like they have so much more to do in this world.
• 23:54
  Like, you know, it's it's not possible.
• 23:58
  So, so yeah. So then then the next day the
• 24:03
  sheriffs bring out, you know, a team to try to to try to, you
• 24:06
  know, search for the for our brothers and they, you know, the
• 24:14
  report as a report indicates it was the turbulence was so
• 24:19
  intense and there was debris and it was very windy.
• 24:23
  So it was they said it's unsafe to kind of do a deep to do a
• 24:26
  dive, send down a diver into this right now, you know, but it
• 24:29
  was but basically they just said it was, you know, that these the
• 24:31
  conditions were making it very difficult the search.
• 24:35
  And then so when I realized. That OK, these these guys are
• 24:40
  you know, we don't know where they are.
• 24:42
  We have a very. Good sense.
• 24:43
  We're 99% certain we know where they are, but and then they're
• 24:46
  having a hard time with the search.
• 24:47
  And so what's going through my head at that time?
• 24:49
  For what it's worth, myself and several other people who have
• 24:52
  been there have noted the water going into that pool or that
• 24:55
  waterfall seems copious, intense.
• 24:58
  There's a lot, a lot of water going in.
• 25:00
  And when you look at the outflow from the lip that leads from the
• 25:04
  pool downstream, it's shallow, slow, narrow something.
• 25:11
  Could there be an underground river?
• 25:13
  There's a there's a spring upstream a little ways.
• 25:16
  I was talking with one of the other guys in my center who
• 25:18
  knows him, who did a lot of spelunking in his days as a
• 25:21
  young boy in Mexico. And he was saying, like, there
• 25:23
  are caves around waterfalls, right?
• 25:25
  And so that's, I'm like, look, we, we basically know what
• 25:29
  happened, but sliver of a sliver of a chance.
• 25:32
  What if there's an underground river that they got pulled into?
• 25:34
  And so I talked with a number of people, you know, who've been
• 25:36
  there and said, you know, it's doesn't sound crazy.
• 25:40
  So I called the Sheriff's Department and, and they also
• 25:44
  said, well, you know, it doesn't sound, doesn't sound like a
• 25:46
  crazy theory, but. What would that mean, by the
• 25:49
  way, Matt, if there's an underground river, that their
• 25:51
  bodies would be somewhere like lost forever in this river, or
• 25:54
  that they would somehow have survived because there's some
• 25:56
  air pocket? I mean the the the possibility.
• 25:58
  That I'm working on in this moment is that they got sucked
• 26:03
  into a river and there's an air pocket or a cave, you know?
• 26:05
  And it was crazy thought, as you're always wondering in these
• 26:08
  moments, like there's got to be a chance, right?
• 26:11
  But it also occurred to me that, sure, but until somebody tells
• 26:16
  me like this is impossible, let's entertain this
• 26:19
  possibility, right? It's it's the least I can do.
• 26:24
  So, so I start looking for somebody who's got a drone, an
• 26:31
  underwater drone. And The thing is the the
• 26:34
  Sheriff's Department had a, you know, I believe by that point
• 26:36
  already had plans to bring out an underwater drone.
• 26:39
  But you need, I mean, the water is very intense.
• 26:41
  You need a commercial drone and. That has to be helicoptered.
• 26:44
  In you can't hike it in and so, you know I said look, you put in
• 26:50
  like a little consumer drone in there, chances are you're going
• 26:53
  to lose it. But I said well I'm OK with
• 26:56
  that. Let me find a, you know, a
• 26:57
  consumer drone somewhere and we'll hike it in and we'll just
• 27:00
  see what we can find out. You know, so I start looking for
• 27:03
  somebody who might have, you know, The thing is you ordered
• 27:05
  on Amazon, it's going to take a few days, right?
• 27:06
  So I start looking for somebody who might have a drone.
• 27:09
  And I had one of my housemates had sent me this post by someone
• 27:14
  on Facebook saying, hey, if anybody knows the hikers who
• 27:17
  were there, diver Juan already is interested in helping out.
• 27:22
  And so something that's what I sent it on to to the guys who
• 27:25
  had been there. And so I knew that he was
• 27:28
  already familiar with the situation, so I gave him a call
• 27:31
  and to ask him if he might have a drone, right.
• 27:34
  And I explained, you know, I said, Hey, I saw that you were
• 27:36
  interested in learning more. Here's what I know about
• 27:39
  situation. I've been there before.
• 27:40
  Maybe I can be helpful, you know, just understanding the,
• 27:43
  the area or whatever. So he had a number of questions
• 27:46
  and then he says, all right, I'll be there.
• 27:50
  And I, I said, what, what I'm asking for is if you have a
• 27:52
  drone. He said, no, I don't have a
• 27:53
  drone, but I want to go in and, and find your friends.
• 27:57
  So I said, well, let me make some phone calls.
• 27:59
  And I mean, great, I'll, you know, we'll do it right?
• 28:01
  We'll, we'll hike in. And, and so I make some phone
• 28:05
  calls. I end up talking at one point
• 28:07
  with the Sheriff's Department and you know, they tell me they
• 28:09
  had 9 divers, 9 professional divers there get in the water
• 28:12
  right and determine that this is unsafe to send somebody into.
• 28:16
  So every point we're like, the last thing we need right now is
• 28:19
  1/4 dead person in this whole situation.
• 28:22
  So I, I call Juan back and I said, look, we'll call off this
• 28:26
  idea because the last percent, you know, because it's already
• 28:30
  been determined to be too dangerous and and I'll keep
• 28:33
  looking for someone with a drone.
• 28:35
  He understood. So, you know, so he, he had this
• 28:37
  pause on the phone. OK, I.
• 28:45
  Could tell the wheels were turning in his head and the way
• 28:48
  that he understood what I had just told him.
• 28:50
  With this, this I got subsequently was you asked for
• 28:54
  my help to recover, you know your friends and you told me
• 29:01
  that you're not going in, going to be going in because it's too
• 29:03
  dangerous. There's a loophole there.
• 29:10
  I'm going in myself and that's what you decided to do.
• 29:13
  He didn't tell me, but that's what you decided to do.
• 29:16
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  your relationship with God. So he ended up going in on
• 30:07
  Saturday by. Himself.
• 30:09
  With a with a helper actually. He's one of the news stories
• 30:12
  says with two helpers and I had, I went to breakfast with him a
• 30:16
  couple days ago and a few others and, and he mentioned that, that
• 30:20
  yeah, the, the news story said two helpers and said, yeah, one
• 30:23
  was, you know, my, my, my friend and the other was God, who was
• 30:27
  diving with me. Yeah, it's an impressive guy.
• 30:29
  So he goes down there. The thing is on Saturday,
• 30:32
  there's like the storm of the century comes in, There's hail.
• 30:35
  Never seen hail in Lake Tahoe, but I don't, I don't know, I
• 30:37
  haven't been up there that much, but it's an intent, you know,
• 30:39
  you can see the video of him walking in, but it was this big
• 30:42
  storm. So he hikes that and, and he
• 30:43
  told me initially too, that he when we first talked, he said,
• 30:47
  well, let me think about this. I, I hurt my ankle a little
• 30:50
  while back, so I would need some help bringing in some equipment.
• 30:53
  So he hurt his ankle. He's going in there on a pretty
• 30:55
  challenging hike in the rain, in hail and they eventually get to
• 31:01
  the spot and, and then he dives in.
• 31:05
  He doesn't bring in scuba gear because it's too much to carry
• 31:09
  in seven miles. So he free dives without gear
• 31:14
  four times to the bottom of this pool, which turns out to be 45
• 31:17
  feet deep. So, you know, 4 1/2 stories of
• 31:21
  frigid water and just with his flippers, you know, in a mask.
• 31:28
  And he ends up going down and back up four times, holding his
• 31:32
  breath 3 minutes each time. This is a point of confusion in
• 31:35
  some of the news stories too, because to him, all right, there
• 31:39
  was Val, Big Matt and Little Matt.
• 31:42
  And he, he told me at this breakfast too, he never uses the
• 31:46
  word bodies in these situations. They're people with names.
• 31:50
  So he's looking for Matt, Big Matt, Little Matt and Val.
• 31:58
  And so he but some of the stories, you know who, which one
• 32:02
  is Big Matt and Little Matt? I mean, these are both pretty
• 32:04
  big. Guys, they're both they're.
• 32:05
  Taller than I am, I don't know. Oh, they're I don't even want to
• 32:09
  guess, but. These are these are tall
• 32:10
  fellows. Matt Schenecker is, I think he's
• 32:13
  taller. I could be wrong.
• 32:15
  And, and, and very lanky, very thin.
• 32:19
  Matt Schenecker is a little bit bigger, right?
• 32:22
  Huskier. Matt Schenecker.
• 32:24
  Sorry. I hope I'm sometimes I, I so
• 32:27
  Matt Anthony is the one who's a little bit bigger.
• 32:28
  He's got a beard. Matt Schenecker is older, but
• 32:33
  Matt Anthony's got the beard so so there was some.
• 32:36
  Confusion who's big Matt who's little Matt and we worked this
• 32:39
  out at the breakfast so little Matt is Matt Schenecker he's
• 32:45
  skinnier he was a little bit of ways away from the other two big
• 32:51
  Matt Matt Anthony is with Val with his arm on him so he had
• 33:01
  gotten to him and they the two of them, you know, had given
• 33:06
  their halt to try to break him back so that's how he finds them
• 33:14
  and he says very. Peaceful down there like they're
• 33:17
  sleeping and he. Says down there.
• 33:21
  The water is actually extremely calm, so it's very turbulent up
• 33:26
  above where the waterfall is causing all this turbulence.
• 33:28
  But you get down deep enough and it's very calm.
• 33:30
  It's super still, he says. Even the, the shirt that Matt,
• 33:35
  Matt Anthony was wearing wasn't moving, you know, so very
• 33:39
  peaceful. It was like they were asleep and
• 33:40
  in perfect condition, you know, no scratches or anything like
• 33:43
  that. So he he pulls up Matt Anthony
• 33:49
  and Matt and Val, actually Matt Anthony and Val together kicking
• 33:53
  like crazy against all of this turbulence.
• 33:56
  By himself. By himself, yeah, yeah.
• 33:59
  And so this for the first trip, he's bringing them both up.
• 34:03
  He had to, you know, and so he manages and they, you know, he
• 34:06
  goes eventually get and gets match Heniker as well.
• 34:09
  And, and then he secures them, you know, under 3 feet of water
• 34:13
  kind of behind a boulder. So they're very safe.
• 34:16
  And and then he's got to get back to where he can get cell
• 34:19
  coverage to notify the Sheriff's Department.
• 34:21
  So I got a text on Saturday night.
• 34:25
  I had had my own side adventures continuing to look for the for a
• 34:29
  drone. But he gets back actually
• 34:31
  Saturday night about 10 PMI first see a text message from
• 34:34
  the Sheriff's Department say, Matt, have you heard anything
• 34:36
  about an independent diver? We're getting some reports.
• 34:40
  And I say, well, the no, the I mean, the only one I've been in
• 34:43
  touch with is is 1 Eredia. But I told him, you know, we
• 34:46
  knew it was too dangerous. And so, you know, we called off
• 34:49
  that project. That's the way I put it.
• 34:53
  I grant that there's There's also a little bit of a.
• 34:58
  Possible language barrier. So you know, Juan speaks English
• 35:00
  well, but but it's his second language.
• 35:03
  So anyway, he so he said, yeah, that's the name we're hearing.
• 35:07
  And then and then I Scroll down and I see from 9:48 I had a text
• 35:10
  from Juan saying I found your three, I found your.
• 35:13
  Friends, so that was impactful. And, and so, you know, and then
• 35:28
  there's this kind of whole question for a little bit, you
• 35:30
  know, the, the Sheriff's Department, obviously there, the
• 35:33
  Sheriff's Department have a very legitimate concern about, you
• 35:36
  know, they got to do investigations and things like
• 35:38
  this. And so they're, they're not
• 35:39
  crazy about, about people moving bodies sometimes, right.
• 35:44
  So, I mean, but they know they don't want.
• 35:46
  And, and so there was some, you know, just just back and forth
• 35:52
  of kind of getting facts straight about who contacted who
• 35:55
  and, and what was the communication like.
• 35:58
  And at the end of the day, I think we all agreed.
• 35:59
  It's like, look, I think if, if you're an authority and you're,
• 36:05
  you've got your divers who are following your commands and you
• 36:08
  look at a situation like this, you say it doesn't make sense to
• 36:11
  risk another life for this. You know, I'm not going to ask a
• 36:14
  man to to risk dying to, to recover these people.
• 36:18
  And so, you know, when the situation is we can, there are
• 36:22
  safer ways of recovering them. But if an individual knowing his
• 36:26
  own competence and Juan is an incredibly competent diver.
• 36:30
  He's done this sort of thing a number of times, gauging his own
• 36:33
  level of skill, decides taking upon himself to help in this way
• 36:37
  that's obviously legitimate. And noble right, to say the
• 36:41
  least. So, so that's been that was, you
• 36:44
  know, a little bit of a silver lining, a big, you know, it's
• 36:47
  it's an edifying part of the story.
• 36:48
  And there's more to say about Juan, but I think probably at
• 36:53
  some point we should. Talk about the the other fellows
• 36:56
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• 38:01
  I want to go into your vocation and and experience with Val
• 38:05
  first because sounds like you knew Val for many years and he
• 38:10
  was really an important mentor to you.
• 38:15
  But just going back to that moment again before we go to
• 38:18
  there, when you got that text from Juan, what were you feeling
• 38:22
  and thinking when you got that text?
• 38:24
  I found your friends. Well, I just.
• 38:26
  I mean I, I think. You know, it was very simple,
• 38:30
  right? Juan's a man of few words and
• 38:34
  and so look, it didn't bring them back to life.
• 38:36
  You know, it's it there's so much more to all of their
• 38:39
  stories. By the way, please pray for
• 38:43
  their families. I mean, you can just imagine so
• 38:48
  it it's not like it made everything better, but but
• 38:53
  getting that was. It was moving to see people you
• 38:58
  don't know helping in that kind of situation.
• 39:02
  Like I say, there was there were a few other people along the
• 39:05
  these lines. It was a guy who did end up
• 39:07
  having a experience with underwater drones.
• 39:10
  It was very helpful who explained to me why my theory.
• 39:14
  He thought my theory. Actually was pretty good at
• 39:15
  first. And then he talked to the
• 39:17
  Sheriff's Department and they looked.
• 39:18
  Had a hydraulics expert look at that question about the inflow
• 39:20
  and outflow. And he said they looked at it,
• 39:22
  it's actually, it seems like it's more copious because of the
• 39:24
  power of of gravity. But when you look at the volume,
• 39:26
  it's actually it matches. So there's not an expectation.
• 39:28
  The other thing was that even if we had used as a commercial
• 39:33
  drone to fight, you know, a consumer drone to find something
• 39:35
  and let's say we find like an underwater.
• 39:36
  River what's the next action? It's the next action would be
• 39:40
  let's get a commercial grade drone in there so we can get it
• 39:43
  into the river right into that. So it's the same it would be it
• 39:46
  wouldn't change the decision tree essentially would be doing
• 39:48
  the same thing either way so. Anyway, there was a guy who was
• 39:51
  very helpful in thinking through that situation.
• 39:54
  His name is Keith. And then there was a random guy
• 39:57
  I found who had just bought a drone on Facebook Marketplace.
• 40:00
  His name is Jimmy. And he said, hey, you know, I
• 40:04
  asked if I could buy it on my way out there, you know, or, or,
• 40:07
  or borrow it and offered to replace it if we lose it.
• 40:10
  And he said the situation, no, you can just use just use it.
• 40:13
  In fact, I don't know how you feel about this, but.
• 40:16
  I do a lot of hiking and I'd like to go with you and use it
• 40:19
  you. Know so God bless Jimmy too so
• 40:22
  so it's kind of that sort of thing where it's nice to see
• 40:26
  humanity, humanity pulling together you know and so it's
• 40:29
  not it doesn't it doesn't make up for you know, for the loss of
• 40:33
  these guys but it's a silver lining.
• 40:35
  Tell me about how you met Val for the first time and what how
• 40:40
  Val what your relationship with Val was like.
• 40:43
  All right, so Val, a little bit of background.
• 40:45
  Val Kraos was born in the Philippines.
• 40:48
  He went to undergrad there and then he moved with his whole
• 40:51
  family to to the US. He went to USC for to get an MBA
• 40:57
  and then also a master's. I think it's some business
• 41:00
  taxation. And so he was about, if I got
• 41:04
  get my math right, he's about 29.
• 41:06
  When I first met him, I was 14. My dad said, Hey, there's this
• 41:10
  center that's doing a trip to Yosemite, you know, to go
• 41:13
  hiking. If you want to go, you can go.
• 41:15
  And I'm like, sounds awesome, right?
• 41:17
  So I joined this group that Val's a part of to, you know,
• 41:23
  with a number of other guys in high school.
• 41:24
  And we and we go out hiking in Yosemite and along, you know,
• 41:28
  that's where that was kind of my first.
• 41:29
  Exposure really to like activities of Opus day.
• 41:32
  So I met Val there and and he so you know, he's just, he has this
• 41:39
  just very natural, simple way about him.
• 41:42
  He's a very funny guy. Matt Meeks.
• 41:47
  He may some people may have seen Matt's post about Val on
• 41:50
  Facebook, but he tells kind of a typical story of, of his first
• 41:55
  time meeting Val. I don't actually remember like
• 41:57
  our first encounter encounter, but Matt remembers his and he
• 42:01
  says I share it because it's just so typical, he said.
• 42:05
  Matt said that he had just come out of his first confession in a
• 42:07
  long time at the, you know, the state center in LA and Val bumps
• 42:13
  into him and has never seen him before and, and.
• 42:16
  He says, hey, who are you? And Matt said, well, I'm, I'm
• 42:20
  just here, I just got a confession because, you know,
• 42:22
  the Archbishop Gomez had suggested that I get in touch
• 42:25
  with, with, I think it was, you know, with anyway, with the
• 42:29
  priestess center there. And Val says, oh, the
• 42:32
  Archbishop, huh. So you must be some kind of big
• 42:34
  shot. And it's just so, you know, it's
• 42:37
  just so sort of disarming and just like off the top of his
• 42:40
  head like that, right? And it's just kind of fun.
• 42:41
  And his humor is like just irreverent enough, a lot that
• 42:44
  that it kind of just puts you at ease about everything.
• 42:47
  So, so when he gives advice, you're just like, it's so easy
• 42:50
  to take advice from Val. You know, because it's just so
• 42:53
  simple about it. So Val started, yeah, mentoring
• 42:58
  me basically, you know, talking to me about how to build a kind
• 43:00
  of set of practices that'll keep me plugged into God throughout
• 43:03
  the day. And so he got me suggested, you
• 43:06
  know, trying to. He and he knew he.
• 43:08
  Was dealing with a kid who's like, I can't take too much, you
• 43:10
  know, at this point so. He's like you were fourteen.
• 43:11
  I was. 14 yeah. So a little by little, you know,
• 43:13
  he says, well, why don't you just like, pray a decade of the
• 43:16
  rosary every day, see if you can do that, you know?
• 43:18
  3 minutes. Yeah, yeah.
• 43:20
  OK. All right.
• 43:22
  And you know, try 5 minutes of the gospel.
• 43:24
  OK, great. So he's kind of, you know, and,
• 43:26
  and then we're talking and he, he just helps me kind of like
• 43:29
  build up this, you know, and, and he's a good sounding board
• 43:32
  too. So he helps me to build up this
• 43:34
  kind of spiritual life and he would come up.
• 43:38
  You know, he would drive up from Los Angeles to Ojai, which is
• 43:42
  like an hour and a half drive. He would meet other people on
• 43:45
  the way, but he would come into the town to see me, right?
• 43:48
  I mean to give like me a talk on on Christian virtue.
• 43:51
  And the chat with me, I mean, it's like, and Val, I mean, he's
• 43:55
  a, he was a very talented accountant.
• 43:58
  I mean, he, you know, he worked at Deloitte touché and, and
• 44:01
  other firms that were going like high-powered.
• 44:03
  I mean, he was a guy who really worked his way up in life.
• 44:06
  And you can imagine, you know, when you're 29, that's kind of
• 44:08
  like prime time of trying to make it in this world.
• 44:12
  But he took the time to do this sort of thing and he came to a
• 44:15
  football game of mine, you know, I remember so.
• 44:19
  So Val was he was super cheerful.
• 44:21
  He was a lot of fun to be around.
• 44:22
  You know, on the basketball court, he earned the name flying
• 44:25
  squirrel because he's just like he's short, but he has got so
• 44:28
  much energy. He's very athletic.
• 44:32
  And one of the other guys initially initially said he's
• 44:34
  he's like an on defense. He's a gnat.
• 44:36
  You know, he just he just like is in your he's just I mean, he
• 44:39
  always gets the ball somehow because he's just you don't know
• 44:41
  where his arms are, you know, and then he would just have
• 44:43
  these like crazy shots that would go in and he's like
• 44:48
  shorter than everybody else. And you get some like Matt
• 44:50
  Shaniker is a beast on the basketball award.
• 44:51
  He's very good. And sometimes, you know, we'd
• 44:53
  have these games. So he was playing against very
• 44:55
  talented be very big, but that was.
• 44:57
  Just like pure energy, he he was great in in get togethers.
• 45:04
  You know, he had this, he had just a few, a few kind of
• 45:07
  phrases that you that would always come out when he got
• 45:10
  home. You know, from work every day,
• 45:13
  it's kind of like he'd walk into whatever it might be, like a
• 45:15
  group of the guys in the center having a get together or walk
• 45:18
  into dinner. And he would say, wow, you know,
• 45:23
  and it would be about something, right?
• 45:25
  You know, it'd be about wow, this group of people, right?
• 45:28
  Or wow this dinner, like, and it was both, you know, and I'm
• 45:33
  trying to tell why was it so endearing when he would do that?
• 45:35
  Because like, we know it's this kind of put on, but at the same
• 45:38
  time, he's really good at putting it on.
• 45:39
  That's enthusiasm. And I think that it was so good
• 45:42
  because what it was is like he's kind of encouraging himself and
• 45:47
  everybody else to really appreciate like what this is.
• 45:50
  He's being funny about it at the same time.
• 45:53
  So, you know, we all know that. Yeah, this is like part effort
• 45:56
  to to appreciate this. But but yeah, I appreciate this
• 46:01
  because this is great. There was none of that was
• 46:03
  conscious. It was just kind of like the
• 46:05
  effect of this very funny, like like, you know, unexpected awe
• 46:09
  at whatever was happening. So it was like just one of his
• 46:11
  sort of frequent instances of humor and, and so.
• 46:19
  He was, he was also good at like at just excursions.
• 46:22
  He was very creative at thinking of ways of enriching family life
• 46:25
  in the center. So he liked golf, but he would
• 46:28
  also do things like fishing expedition.
• 46:31
  Just no, none of us really fish here.
• 46:32
  But let's just do it. It'll be fun, right?
• 46:35
  Or there was one of the other guys, good friend was who was
• 46:39
  telling me they he went with Val to Rome.
• 46:42
  I think this was. 2002 for the canonization of San Jose
• 46:45
  Mariasco Val might have been the beatification.
• 46:46
  And they ended up getting lost, you know, and and Val was just
• 46:50
  so fun to be around. And Val had this, he found this
• 46:52
  spot somehow, you know, where they could stay.
• 46:55
  And it was pretty inexpensive, a couple of rooms and it ended up
• 46:58
  being like the name of the hotel was Aphrodite.
• 47:02
  And it was like. All right, a little bit of a
• 47:04
  city, part of town, but he was like an adventure, right?
• 47:08
  Yeah, I mean, it's like they can still, you know, and maintain
• 47:10
  their, you know, there wasn't an occasion of sin for these guys,
• 47:13
  you know, so they they maintained.
• 47:15
  But but it was he was he was adventurous, right?
• 47:18
  And and would find just like fun excursions.
• 47:21
  So Speaking of Rome, actually there was and just his, his
• 47:24
  ability to mentor in such a natural way that was he never
• 47:27
  felt like, I don't know, like it like pressure.
• 47:31
  It was just ideas that he would propose to you.
• 47:35
  But he had a good friend. Who was who he was sponsor for
• 47:39
  coming into the church? A Jewish man who ended up
• 47:42
  getting baptized by John Paul the Second in Rome.
• 47:44
  So he met the Pope in Rome. You know, I mean, there was just
• 47:46
  a lot of people that he, he brought closer to God.
• 47:50
  How many people do you think he he mentored you and you found
• 47:54
  your vocation in part through his mentorship?
• 47:56
  But how many other younger men did he mentor over his years?
• 48:02
  That's really hard. To know, right?
• 48:04
  I mean, I know that he mentored a lot.
• 48:05
  I mean my. Brother must have been in the
• 48:06
  hundreds. Yes, yeah, no doubt.
• 48:08
  Hundreds of young men that he mentored to bring closer to God.
• 48:11
  Yeah, yeah, no doubt. You know, my older brother went
• 48:14
  on some of these trips and he said, Oh, yeah, Val was always,
• 48:16
  he was great, you know, and they had some good conversations.
• 48:19
  And he just and he, he he was game for mentoring anybody.
• 48:25
  And I, I know that because he mentored me.
• 48:28
  He told me eight years later, You know, there was a time when
• 48:30
  I was like, not really. Sure that any of this was
• 48:32
  sinking in with you. It was a moment and a on a
• 48:36
  retreat and I was at and I was I was probably 14 or 15 and I had
• 48:41
  some point just absolutely rolled up my sleeves and I had
• 48:44
  as an adolescent just want to do eraser burned my girlfriends
• 48:48
  initials on my left arm and and Aussie on my right arm.
• 48:52
  I was a big. Perfect for celibate life.
• 48:54
  Yeah, yeah. I was not thinking celibate life
• 49:00
  at that time. I mean how does 1 eraser burn?
• 49:03
  I don't want to give the children ideas, Lila.
• 49:05
  They're. They're kids who tune into the
• 49:07
  show. You know, it's pretty.
• 49:08
  It's, it's very simple. Just taking it over and just
• 49:10
  kind of do it. And there's, yeah, it ends up
• 49:11
  with a scar, you know? Oh wow.
• 49:13
  Still to this day. It's no those those eventually
• 49:16
  did fade briefly, but you know, so he saw that and he's like,
• 49:22
  you know, I'm not sure is this guy, you know, is he is he even
• 49:27
  like contributing to the tone of these, you know.
• 49:30
  Activities, you know, if this is the sort of thing that he's
• 49:32
  doing, but he said, you know, but well, I know that he just
• 49:35
  decided to persevere anyway and just as long as I was willing to
• 49:39
  get, you know, touch base and and and.
• 49:42
  He'd so he kept at it, you know, and I am so grateful he did.
• 49:46
  I mean, I'll I'm one maybe one last I thought about Val my own
• 49:50
  vocation. Like I said, he had suggested a
• 49:52
  very simple thing. 5 minutes of gospel reading every day.
• 49:55
  Came back from football practice one day I was too tired to start
• 49:57
  my homework and. So I said I'm going to, you
• 50:00
  know. This this is easier.
• 50:02
  Right. I'm going to take Val's
• 50:03
  suggestion here and pick up the Gospel.
• 50:05
  And I opened up to a random that was kind of how I did it in
• 50:07
  those days, I guess just a random spot, you know, a little
• 50:10
  bit of superstition, whatever. God's going to speak.
• 50:12
  And it was Matthew chapter 19 and precisely this this chapter
• 50:16
  in which Jesus talks about the beauty of marriage.
• 50:20
  And and what an elevated ideal it is.
• 50:23
  And then, you know, so, so elevated that one of the
• 50:25
  disciples says, well, that's how it is, you know, yeah, it's
• 50:28
  forever, you know, and that it's better not to get married.
• 50:32
  At least that's the way I kind of like, imagine one of the
• 50:34
  disciples saying it. I was like, wow, here sounds the
• 50:37
  real deal is very hard. And then Jesus kind of uses that
• 50:42
  opportunity to raise their sights a little bit and says,
• 50:44
  well, it's actually true that for those to whom it's given.
• 50:49
  Giving it up is better, but it's, that's a very important
• 50:52
  conditional, right? Those to whom it's given.
• 50:55
  And he says, and then he goes through, you know, there,
• 50:57
  there's some people who are called to give up marriage for
• 50:59
  the sake of the Kingdom. And I'm just, I'm like, what
• 51:01
  does it mean to be given that? How do you even know?
• 51:04
  I'm just kind of asking this question half to myself, half to
• 51:06
  God and the and it wasn't like a.
• 51:09
  Loud. Voice but it was kind of it felt
• 51:11
  like it came from beyond kind of answers like well it's.
• 51:15
  Got to be given. You can't do that, you know.
• 51:18
  And I knew I couldn't do that. I mean, I had wonderful friends.
• 51:21
  I would have loved to. I had the.
• 51:23
  Girlfriend. Yeah, exactly.
• 51:25
  And, and I was, I was imagining a life of marriage and, and, and
• 51:30
  there was, you know, a particular girl at that moment
• 51:31
  and, you know, a number of others that would have made
• 51:34
  great wives. But he said, you know, you can't
• 51:38
  do that, but with my grace, you could.
• 51:41
  And if you can see yourself doing this, I invite you to it.
• 51:47
  I was just like that, just very subtle, you know, come follow
• 51:51
  me. Not, not forced.
• 51:55
  I think it's significant. You know, we're talking about
• 51:57
  some of the criticisms of Opus De.
• 51:58
  And sometimes there are some people who may have felt kind of
• 52:02
  pressured to consider a vocation.
• 52:04
  And I don't doubt that that happened, right?
• 52:07
  And, and may have caused some, you know, a lot of angst.
• 52:12
  In my case, Val Simply put me in touch with Jesus, and Jesus did
• 52:20
  his thing, right. And so, so that was, you know,
• 52:25
  so like I said, very grateful. If he hadn't done that, if he
• 52:28
  hadn't made that suggestion, I mean, maybe I would have found
• 52:30
  another way. But I'm really grateful to.
• 52:32
  He used Val because Val's such a fun guy.
• 52:34
  He's he's such a good friend. So, yeah, so that's Val.
• 52:39
  How did he react when you told him?
• 52:40
  Did you tell him that you had that experience of reading the
• 52:43
  gospel randomly and it's like to whom it's given and you're like
• 52:46
  talking to God and God's like if you, if you, you know.
• 52:50
  Well, I, I kind of tried to forget that for a little while.
• 52:53
  So, you know, I mean, let it say, let's say, but it kept
• 52:55
  coming back in prayer. And and so eventually I said,
• 52:59
  well, maybe, you know, all right, Lord, if this is it,
• 53:03
  then, you know, now I now I got to figure out where or how right
• 53:07
  as a priest is it, you know, is it numerary?
• 53:09
  Because I was familiar with that possibility by the time.
• 53:12
  And, and so I started to kind of work that out.
• 53:14
  And that was that was much more of a working out mentally of
• 53:17
  like what makes the most sense, because God like wasn't giving
• 53:19
  me any more lightning bolts in answer to that question.
• 53:23
  But what did makes a lot of sense is that like all my
• 53:25
  friends, I went to public school, public middle school,
• 53:27
  public high school. All my friends were, you know,
• 53:30
  Buddhist, atheist, fallen away Catholic, but not Catholics.
• 53:34
  I had, I had very few friends who were Catholic and those were
• 53:37
  my people, you know, and and they're not going to go talk to
• 53:41
  a priest if they need somebody, you know, kind of alongside
• 53:45
  grappling with the deep issues. And so so numero made a lot of
• 53:49
  sense to me and Val. So I didn't tell Val right away.
• 53:53
  But why? Because I wasn't I, I wasn't
• 53:58
  sure I was still. Don't get many ideas.
• 54:00
  Yeah, yeah. Maybe there's a little bit of
• 54:02
  that. Too great welcome to the family
• 54:04
  and you're like not not sure. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 54:07
  It was just kind of like exactly it just, it was the kind of
• 54:09
  thing that it was just an idea and a, a possibility at 1st.
• 54:12
  And I don't remember telling him anything until.
• 54:14
  So he had suggested when I was in high school, 1 summer to go
• 54:20
  on the service project to Lithuania.
• 54:22
  So he said, Hey, there's a group of people who are arranging this
• 54:25
  project. This was like, this was probably
• 54:27
  96 thereabouts. And we, a number of people in
• 54:31
  Opus De had arranged for an English camp in, in the rural
• 54:36
  part of Lithuania. So Lithuania, you know, it's
• 54:38
  just recently coming out from under communism.
• 54:39
  There are a lot of young people who really wanted to learn
• 54:41
  English. And, and it was again, another
• 54:44
  another opportunity to kind of help people grow and help young
• 54:46
  men grow in virtue. And so he said, this would be
• 54:50
  great. You should go on it.
• 54:51
  And so so he said, OK, but it's kind of expensive.
• 54:56
  He said, well, let's get a list of the richest businessmen in
• 55:01
  California and you can write to them and ask them to fund it.
• 55:05
  And I said, OK, where do I find that list?
• 55:06
  Well, here's you know. And so he was very.
• 55:08
  I mean, that was another thing you don't realize about Val.
• 55:10
  I mean, he's like, he was he's just a gutsy guy.
• 55:13
  Like he just he, he did things that just knowing him, you
• 55:18
  wouldn't guess like he'd. He was very.
• 55:20
  Daring, right? So, so we'll figure this out.
• 55:22
  So I did I, you know, wrote a number of those letters and then
• 55:24
  some other family members who could pitch in.
• 55:26
  So made enough. I think he, you know, I think I
• 55:30
  made for half, half the cost of the trip.
• 55:32
  So probably he or somebody, you know, the center or something
• 55:34
  kind of helped with with some of the payment.
• 55:36
  But you know, but we did, there was something that was brought
• 55:38
  in so enough for the plane ticket to get head out there.
• 55:41
  And while I was there, it was a chance in my mind to test this
• 55:45
  out. Like see if.
• 55:47
  See if I can go without flirting with any girls for three weeks
• 55:50
  and. There aren't any girls in
• 55:52
  Lithuan. No, there.
• 55:53
  I mean, there are beautiful girls in Lithuania, but not on
• 55:55
  this, not on boys camp. But there.
• 55:58
  Were opportunities, you know, as a town and what not.
• 56:01
  And so there would be, you know there, I remember there's a pond
• 56:03
  near where the the camp was taking place and I was just
• 56:06
  walking by. There was a little bit of time
• 56:07
  from between one thing and the next.
• 56:08
  And there was a group of people my age down there.
• 56:10
  It's probably about 3 girls, 3 guys.
• 56:11
  And I said, you know, and The thing is, you know, when you're
• 56:14
  like an American in a foreign country, sometimes you have that
• 56:17
  there's that sort of like exotic whatever.
• 56:20
  So I was feeling kind of confident and I thought, like,
• 56:24
  yeah, but remember, this is the test.
• 56:27
  So I managed to walk by. I didn't go down and say hello
• 56:29
  or anything. It's like that wasn't so hard.
• 56:32
  So then I went back after this this this camp back.
• 56:38
  I think Val picked me up from the airport another just a
• 56:42
  favor, right? And and so I think it was on
• 56:44
  that trip when but one way or another, we were in the car
• 56:48
  together and, and I said, Val, I think that God might be inviting
• 56:52
  me to be a numerary. And I didn't know exactly what I
• 56:57
  expected to hear, but he said, great, let's get an ice cream,
• 57:00
  right? Actually, it was a milkshake.
• 57:02
  Let's get a milkshake. So we pull over and get a
• 57:04
  milkshake. And this is so.
• 57:06
  So he's just happy about it, you know?
• 57:08
  And yeah, so I, you know, I don't know, I guess I'm kind of
• 57:11
  a ponderous person. I was expecting more like, let's
• 57:13
  have a philosophical discussion by me.
• 57:14
  And he was just like so. You.
• 57:16
  Know sounds good simple yeah and so so you know I I I appreciated
• 57:22
  that too it's like OK great I guess I guess Val's not opposed
• 57:25
  to it and so maybe but Val's like Val's game for anything so
• 57:29
  there's still thankfully there's structures and opus day of kind
• 57:32
  of like helping you take time to figure out if this is the.
• 57:34
  Right thing for you and so. So anyway, that was yeah, that
• 57:39
  Val was the person person I told and and yeah, he had a great
• 57:42
  reaction. I knew Val, not anyway close
• 57:45
  like you. It's an acquaintance situation,
• 57:47
  but I remember being connected because I think we needed ACPA,
• 57:50
  my husband and I, when we moved to Los Angeles.
• 57:52
  And and then also we met him at an event or something and he was
• 57:56
  just like the sweetest, nicest guy.
• 57:57
  I remember talking to him on the phone and he was like super
• 58:00
  encouraging about pro-life work and like super kind, you know,
• 58:04
  super up, you know, I was like this guy's the CPA.
• 58:05
  CPA S are supposed to be boring, you know, like like super by the
• 58:09
  book and everything. And he was just so just kind and
• 58:14
  cheerful, a little zany. And I think anyone who had two
• 58:18
  seconds with him saw that and felt that and just completely in
• 58:22
  love, like he was completely dedicated to our Lord.
• 58:25
  Yeah, yeah. And for him it was very simple
• 58:26
  and natural. It's like, of course, this is
• 58:28
  how you live your life. And and he had a certain it was
• 58:30
  interesting because he had a certain confidence in like he
• 58:33
  was simple, zany, funny and disarming with people.
• 58:37
  And then and that makes sex about this in his post too that.
• 58:40
  He was just. I mean, I don't think every.
• 58:42
  I don't like giving advice and my, my style is very different,
• 58:48
  but Val, the Val could do it in a way that was just like you
• 58:51
  just understood, like he's just throwing ideas out at you.
• 58:53
  And and and so he, yeah, he had this, he had just, he, he
• 59:00
  attracted a lot of people to his style.
• 59:02
  I think. I mean, it's because it's very
• 59:03
  simple. There's nothing like super
• 59:04
  charismatic about it. You're not, he's interesting to
• 59:07
  Jesus, right? He's not like making you part of
• 59:09
  the Val fan club or anything, right?
• 59:10
  It's not that he's just such a simple guy, right?
• 59:12
  And yet he would do things like he, you know, he ran a, a
• 59:16
  retreat for, for executives who are just kind of in, in
• 59:19
  positions where they have to make big decisions.
• 59:21
  And so it makes sense that there's some, there's some like
• 59:26
  aspects of that situation that call for a type of, you know,
• 59:32
  spiritual reflection on how do you take responsibility for, you
• 59:35
  know, a whole, a division of a company or whatever.
• 59:38
  And so I think it's helpful to help people to see that kind of
• 59:41
  responsibility in God's, you know, from God's perspective as
• 59:44
  well. So there were these executive
• 59:46
  retreats and and. My brother has been on one of
• 59:49
  those. Yeah, yeah.
• 59:50
  And so it's just it's like it's, it's, you know, like I say and
• 59:54
  the guys who who came across Val are talking or I was seeing a
• 59:58
  testimonial from one of them recently.
• 59:59
  It just said, you know, it's just very moved by by Val's
• 1:00:04
  confidence in dealing with people like that.
• 1:00:07
  And giving them, you know, it's like, OK, yeah, you're a big
• 1:00:09
  shot, So what? Right.
• 1:00:12
  Tell me more. Yeah, do you know Jesus?
• 1:00:15
  He. Was he was a big shot.
• 1:00:16
  He was. I mean, he was very
• 1:00:17
  professionally like successful in his own right.
• 1:00:21
  But yeah, he wasn't like he was just very.
• 1:00:25
  I mean, down to earth is maybe one phrase.
• 1:00:27
  And again, I I had such a just got to meet him a few times and
• 1:00:31
  have a few phone calls, but natural you think he used that
• 1:00:35
  word? He's just very.
• 1:00:37
  Yep. Yeah, no, he was a good man.
• 1:00:39
  That was a good man. So do you want to?
• 1:00:43
  Should we talk about the others? Let's talk about the mats.
• 1:00:45
  Tell me about your relationship with the Mats.
• 1:00:48
  Yeah, so. Big, Matt.
• 1:00:50
  Little Matt. Big Matt and Little Matt, let's
• 1:00:52
  start with, let's start with little Matt.
• 1:00:53
  He in a way was the one I spent a little bit more time with out
• 1:00:57
  here in California. So Matt Schenecker, you know,
• 1:01:00
  grew up in Wisconsin. He was valedictorian of his high
• 1:01:03
  school. He was a diver, a champion diver
• 1:01:06
  there in high school and then and then went on to to dive as
• 1:01:10
  well in college. And he was on a football team as
• 1:01:13
  well and just loved, I mean, just a, you know, from what I
• 1:01:18
  ever, you know, people who knew him at the time, just just his
• 1:01:21
  classmates loved him and respected him.
• 1:01:24
  And, and so I went to Madison, eventually ends up at Berkeley.
• 1:01:31
  He did a PhD. At Cal and worked on, he's a, an
• 1:01:35
  engineer, he worked on cochlear implants, so basically
• 1:01:38
  improving, you know, implants for hearing.
• 1:01:41
  So he's a very smart guy. He was a very athlete.
• 1:01:44
  He was an incredible athlete. He also did pole vaulting.
• 1:01:47
  I just found out the Sunday before he died, I was like, you
• 1:01:51
  were pole vault. I was, I did track and I always
• 1:01:53
  had this like respect for the pole vaulters because like
• 1:01:54
  that's hot and you know, I don't know, it's you got to have a lot
• 1:01:57
  of I thought, I thought it was all about upper body strength,
• 1:01:59
  right. And holding on his head and he
• 1:02:00
  said, no, no, it's all it's all about speed.
• 1:02:02
  And he and he told me the whole like engineering, you know, the,
• 1:02:05
  the kind of mathematical formulas for why speed is what
• 1:02:08
  really matters. So the faster you are, the
• 1:02:09
  better you can pole vault and and he could get into all of the
• 1:02:12
  math of it. So Matt ended up, after doing
• 1:02:19
  that PhD, you know, he spent basically his professional life
• 1:02:22
  doing kind of internal work for Opus Day.
• 1:02:25
  So he was, he ran the center down in LA Children's Study
• 1:02:28
  Center, which has just a lot of of activities for young men.
• 1:02:32
  He is beloved among generations of campers.
• 1:02:35
  There's this big camp for boys. That Tilden runs.
• 1:02:39
  I think they have about 150 boys who come out for it every year.
• 1:02:43
  Yeah, every year. So it's like that.
• 1:02:45
  I mean, thousands of boys. He's there was another, you
• 1:02:50
  know, family friend who is someone who was mentored by Matt
• 1:02:54
  and we were really wanted to get someone on the show to talk
• 1:02:58
  about the mats and Val someone that knew knew them.
• 1:03:01
  And this one guy knew him really well and he was just like, he
• 1:03:04
  was like my, you know, he was, he was this guy that just helped
• 1:03:08
  him love the Lord. And I think for him, it was too
• 1:03:11
  raw to come and talk, you know, about Matt.
• 1:03:14
  And I understand that. But my point with the sharing
• 1:03:16
  this is like my understanding is there were thousands, literally
• 1:03:19
  thousands of boys. Yeah.
• 1:03:20
  Yeah. That Matt was a role model for.
• 1:03:23
  Yeah, I think that's fair to say, you know, and he, he didn't
• 1:03:25
  let that go to, you know, I don't know, go to his head if he
• 1:03:28
  saw he was, he was a very down to earth guy.
• 1:03:30
  He loved his family intensely. He has a a brother he's very
• 1:03:34
  close to, you know, and and I mean, of course, all of his
• 1:03:38
  siblings and and his and his parents.
• 1:03:42
  He's very he's and that just became we, we would talk, you
• 1:03:45
  know, we we had just hard to hearts from time to time and and
• 1:03:49
  talked about our family. So he I know he prayed for my
• 1:03:51
  siblings. I prayed for his siblings.
• 1:03:55
  So, but Matt was, you know, he, so he was a former of, you know,
• 1:04:00
  a former in the best sense of the word.
• 1:04:01
  I don't really like that word formation or former, you know,
• 1:04:04
  in English because it makes me think of a cookie cutter, right?
• 1:04:06
  There's a form and you kind of give a form, but in the
• 1:04:09
  classical sense, the form as opposed to the matter.
• 1:04:12
  So the form of a living thing is its soul.
• 1:04:14
  And So what formation really means is helping a person be as
• 1:04:20
  much that person as he can be or she can be, right?
• 1:04:23
  It's it's helping that person flourish.
• 1:04:25
  So he was great at that with people.
• 1:04:27
  He was very good at giving talks.
• 1:04:29
  When, you know, we in Opus day, you tend to give a lot of talks,
• 1:04:31
  you know, just like talks on Christian virtues or whatever,
• 1:04:34
  which when you think about it, that that could be pretty like
• 1:04:36
  pedantic and like overbearing or whatever.
• 1:04:39
  Matt was so good at just they were all stories and anecdotes
• 1:04:43
  all the time. It was to the point where I was
• 1:04:45
  just like, I just started studying the way that he gives
• 1:04:47
  talks. So I would take notes on what he
• 1:04:48
  was saying, but then I would take notes on the structure and
• 1:04:50
  like, what is this ratio of like story, anecdote to point, you
• 1:04:54
  know, And it's like the point would be very short and it's
• 1:04:56
  all, And so it sticks with you like, and he really studied
• 1:04:58
  this. Were any of those reported?
• 1:05:01
  Probably not, you know, and it's it is kind of like shoot that.
• 1:05:05
  On the other hand, it and I was that .1 of the guys in my house
• 1:05:09
  asked that same question and we're both kind of like shoot,
• 1:05:12
  but on the other hand, it's like man, that and this this goes for
• 1:05:15
  all these three guys. It's on us now Opus days
• 1:05:25
  approach to helping people is not corporate.
• 1:05:29
  It's one-on-one. You know it's personal because
• 1:05:33
  because the message of Jesus Christ is like when God speaks.
• 1:05:39
  It's such a rich message. You need a really rich medium.
• 1:05:41
  So, you know, pencils or crayons aren't quite going to do even
• 1:05:45
  even oil right on canvas won't do.
• 1:05:49
  You need a person to communicate it.
• 1:05:51
  And so so in a way, it's kind of the fact that we don't have any
• 1:05:55
  of Matt's great's talks and they were they were wonderful.
• 1:05:58
  I suppose just means we just got to all try to do this better.
• 1:06:01
  So he but yeah. And I remember there was one
• 1:06:03
  talk he gave at some point on giving formation on preparing
• 1:06:06
  talks. And and he'd say, you know, it's
• 1:06:13
  one of the guys who's on on. I think it was on the camp said,
• 1:06:18
  you know, I have my best ideas in the shower, you know,
• 1:06:22
  whenever I'm trying to write a paper or whatever, you know, and
• 1:06:24
  he and he said, yeah, and sometimes for some people it's
• 1:06:26
  running. You know, you have your best
• 1:06:27
  ideas when you're going for a long run.
• 1:06:28
  And and he pointed out, you know, that's that's good to take
• 1:06:34
  stock up. So when you know, when you're
• 1:06:35
  preparing a talk, like use those times, you might even plan to
• 1:06:38
  think about the the topic, you know, and and that's why I'm
• 1:06:41
  sure he did that. He was a because I mean, he ran,
• 1:06:44
  he was very athletic. And so I'm sure he did, you
• 1:06:46
  know, he spent those times thinking about the formation
• 1:06:51
  that he was planning to give, which is just one more instance
• 1:06:54
  of him giving his whole life for the ideal.
• 1:06:58
  Because I don't know, I kind of like kind of think about other
• 1:07:00
  stuff, You know, when I go running, it might just be
• 1:07:02
  whatever, right? Random things.
• 1:07:04
  He's like, I'm, I want to make this talk as high quality as I
• 1:07:07
  can. So even those in between
• 1:07:08
  moments, like that's how I'm going to use it.
• 1:07:12
  Yeah. He gave he gave great anecdotes.
• 1:07:14
  It was another one that that actually in the talk that he
• 1:07:18
  gave us. So he at the center where I
• 1:07:21
  mentioned I live and he stayed, you know, on the Sunday before
• 1:07:24
  he died, he gave, you know, what we call a circle.
• 1:07:27
  It's just a little gathering with some prayers and a talk.
• 1:07:31
  And one of the anecdotes he told him that talk was, you know,
• 1:07:34
  once he was sitting around on with a group of other members of
• 1:07:38
  Opus Dei on one of these annual courses.
• 1:07:41
  And they were talking about, you know, the topic was kind of
• 1:07:43
  happiness. You know, there's been a lot of
• 1:07:44
  research recently and to happiness and, and what what
• 1:07:48
  leads to it. And, and people are saying,
• 1:07:50
  well, you know, it's kind of one of the things is, you know,
• 1:07:52
  exercise and, and diet and sleep.
• 1:07:54
  And another was, well, the virtue, you know, when you look
• 1:07:56
  at Aristotle, it talks to the virtues.
• 1:07:58
  If you're practicing the virtues, that's what really is
• 1:08:00
  happiness. He said there was another guy,
• 1:08:03
  another brother of ours in Opus De who is known for being, he
• 1:08:07
  just marches to the beat of a different drum.
• 1:08:10
  You know, he just says things that are kind of, you know, off
• 1:08:12
  the wall, but have a lot of, you know, and, and he said.
• 1:08:16
  Well, I don't know. Guys, what about love?
• 1:08:19
  You know, why does love have to do with happiness?
• 1:08:22
  You know, and he's the he's the kind of person who could say
• 1:08:24
  that. And it doesn't sound like, well,
• 1:08:25
  come on. Right.
• 1:08:26
  It's just like, oh, yeah, yeah, no, good point.
• 1:08:27
  Yeah, that's, that's kind of a big part of it too, you know?
• 1:08:30
  And, and so just, you know, loving your brothers and and the
• 1:08:33
  people around you has a lot to do with happiness.
• 1:08:35
  It's like an obvious point. And I remember that because,
• 1:08:38
  Matt, it was good telling anecdotes that stick in your
• 1:08:41
  mind, you know, So he was a great former of, of souls.
• 1:08:46
  He also, you know, took these young men on visits to the poor
• 1:08:49
  quite frequently or they would visit, you know, folks in need.
• 1:08:53
  And he did a lot of that. What?
• 1:08:57
  Did that look like? They could look like it could
• 1:08:59
  look like it, you know, like a trip in a van down to a poor
• 1:09:02
  city and another country where there's a rural kind of Hospice
• 1:09:08
  for, you know, basically impoverished dying people where
• 1:09:13
  the conditions are just very, very destitute, right?
• 1:09:17
  And you just go there and see what they need help with and
• 1:09:21
  talking with the people they're giving them, you know, just
• 1:09:24
  shooting the breeze and then doing something it all.
• 1:09:26
  It almost always involved some kind of manual work that was
• 1:09:30
  helpful to the facility. Or it might be just very local.
• 1:09:34
  They heard of a family one time was a big family, I think was
• 1:09:37
  living in like a one room house. Just went and visited to see how
• 1:09:42
  you know, see how they could help and you know, hey, we got a
• 1:09:45
  lot of young men, you know, manual labor.
• 1:09:47
  I think they had a project already worked out.
• 1:09:50
  Now I saw I just saw a post on on Facebook.
• 1:09:53
  I don't know if this is one of those family members.
• 1:09:56
  It could be or it could be another one that they visited at
• 1:09:59
  some point, but I'll just read you this little this little
• 1:10:02
  testimonial from from this woman.
• 1:10:04
  This is from Teresa Rose Ramos on Facebook.
• 1:10:08
  She said, I can't find the right words to say.
• 1:10:11
  I'm saddened by this news. Matthew Schenecker came to my
• 1:10:17
  Matthew Schenecker came to my home with others and helped my
• 1:10:20
  family in a time of need. I will never forget the hard
• 1:10:24
  work, giving heart and his faith, His example not only to
• 1:10:29
  myself, but to my children was such a beautiful blessing.
• 1:10:34
  Rest in peace to a beautiful soul.
• 1:10:37
  Keep him and the others who lost their lives in your prayers.
• 1:10:40
  So one among many people, you know, just doing his job well.
• 1:10:46
  And that was for Matt. None of this was like
• 1:10:48
  spectacular or it's just it was just part of what he had to do,
• 1:10:52
  you know, day in, day out. So and he was cheerful.
• 1:10:57
  This was he had this, you know, whenever you would, you'd walk
• 1:11:02
  in the room and you for whatever reason, very often he would have
• 1:11:07
  this smile and it was like he was about about to burst out
• 1:11:10
  laughed at laughing and he had something he had to tell you.
• 1:11:12
  You know, it was some joke, something, something just funny
• 1:11:14
  on the top of his head. And I, I understand he you know,
• 1:11:18
  that he kind of he worked at that over time.
• 1:11:21
  He was a pretty serious young man, somebody who's kind of that
• 1:11:23
  accomplished took it was a very hard worker, you know, a friend
• 1:11:28
  of mine. So in Opus Day, we have this,
• 1:11:31
  this tradition of fraternal correction, right?
• 1:11:33
  I don't like that phrase that much either like fraternal
• 1:11:35
  suggestion or, you know, but, but the idea is that it's a,
• 1:11:42
  it's a loving thing to sometimes point out to somebody else
• 1:11:45
  something that they're doing that, you know, I, I don't know,
• 1:11:48
  you could, you could maybe work on this, right?
• 1:11:51
  And I mean, aerosol talks about the, the, the friendship of
• 1:11:53
  virtue is where you really want the good for the other person
• 1:11:55
  and you love the, you know, seeing the other person grow.
• 1:11:58
  I mean, there's nothing better than growth and becoming more of
• 1:12:00
  a person. So somebody shared this with me
• 1:12:02
  and, and it reminded me of actually a correction I got from
• 1:12:04
  Matt once too, but he said that, Hey, you know, I know it's like
• 1:12:07
  in our get together, sometimes you're very enthusiastic about
• 1:12:11
  when you talk about your things. And then when somebody else is
• 1:12:14
  talking about their thing, you kind of tune out, you know?
• 1:12:19
  Matt was saying this. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:12:21
  And this was younger. Yeah.
• 1:12:22
  This was like younger Matt kind of early on And, and and his
• 1:12:26
  friends had said that, well, you know, it kind of, I didn't like
• 1:12:30
  it, you know, on the moment it stuck with me all these years.
• 1:12:34
  And, and Matt got really, he grew intact over time too.
• 1:12:41
  Like he really. So I and and I had one, you
• 1:12:43
  know, one or two, I'd say, of these kinds of, you know,
• 1:12:46
  suggestions from Matt amidst a ton of affirmation, by the way,
• 1:12:50
  And I was really good at that too, and I'll get to that in a
• 1:12:52
  second. But but he didn't, you know,
• 1:12:54
  sometimes it's easy to do this on a surface level kind of
• 1:12:57
  thing. It's like, hey, your shirts
• 1:12:59
  untucked, you know, you might want to tuck it in.
• 1:13:00
  It might, you know, make you look a little whatever better.
• 1:13:02
  And so I was like, but he would do substantive sort of things,
• 1:13:05
  right, where it's kind of like this could come off as being
• 1:13:08
  like maybe a little bit uncaring or whatever.
• 1:13:10
  So he would get, he would get a substantive things and, and that
• 1:13:14
  was really, really helpful. There was another, another
• 1:13:17
  actually a priest brother of ours who told me the story of,
• 1:13:22
  you know, it's very simple thing, but he was at Tilden, you
• 1:13:25
  know, the center in LA. And there had been a visitor
• 1:13:28
  that day who had to go to the airport and and then they were
• 1:13:32
  preparing to have a movie and which they didn't do that that
• 1:13:35
  often, but, you know, once in a while you might watch a movie
• 1:13:37
  together as a family. And so they were going to do
• 1:13:40
  that that night. And the call came from the
• 1:13:42
  visitor at the airport. Hey, I forgot my computer at
• 1:13:46
  Tilden and my flight takes off at such and such that could is
• 1:13:50
  it possible somebody could bring this?
• 1:13:52
  And Matt, you know, knew that he should probably be there as the
• 1:13:56
  director of the center to kind of, you know, be a part of the
• 1:13:59
  thing. So he sheepishly walked into the
• 1:14:03
  priest room and and kind of said, hey, this is a situation.
• 1:14:07
  We need somebody to bring this computer to this Brother.
• 1:14:10
  I was at the airport. You know, I I hate, I know we're
• 1:14:13
  having a movie tonight. I hate to ask you this.
• 1:14:15
  And, and I said, of course, yeah, no problem.
• 1:14:19
  And this priest actually on told me it's kind of personal.
• 1:14:22
  He didn't say I couldn't share it.
• 1:14:23
  And I told him I was going to be talking on podcast.
• 1:14:25
  So I think it's he's he, he said I could share this.
• 1:14:28
  But he said on the way there to the airport, he had one of the
• 1:14:32
  most intense experiences of God's love that he'd ever had.
• 1:14:35
  Because it's like he's just doing the simple thing of a
• 1:14:38
  simple act of charity for a brother, bringing this computer
• 1:14:41
  to him. And, you know, and kind of in
• 1:14:45
  the context of family life, the director had asked him to do
• 1:14:47
  this so great. He does it.
• 1:14:49
  And, and he was, I was, I, I started asking myself, what did
• 1:14:53
  I eat today for, you know, for dinner is am I, am I high on
• 1:14:56
  something? I mean, it's just feels so good.
• 1:15:00
  And so he, he'll bring that out from time to time in his own
• 1:15:02
  preaching. And it was a result in a way.
• 1:15:06
  I mean, it's God doing all of that, but using Matt's simple
• 1:15:11
  faithfulness to his duties as a director.
• 1:15:13
  Sometimes you'd have to ask people to do things, but he was
• 1:15:16
  so tactful, right? That was at that point, he was
• 1:15:18
  just very gentle. So he grew in in this kind of
• 1:15:20
  tact over time. And and by the time, you know,
• 1:15:23
  you sort of loved getting substantive corrections from
• 1:15:25
  Matt Schenecker because he was so he was so smooth at them and
• 1:15:28
  and respectful. You know, he would always, he
• 1:15:31
  had this way, I say, of affirmation, of asking you for
• 1:15:37
  your opinion or your advice on something that he knew that you
• 1:15:39
  were kind of an expert in, right.
• 1:15:41
  So he might, you know, he'd like come up to me and say, you know,
• 1:15:43
  maybe we meet and, and say, Hey, Matt, what?
• 1:15:46
  You know, there's all this stuff in the news about, you know,
• 1:15:48
  higher Ed and, you know, the the administration and these and
• 1:15:52
  these schools. And he knows that I kind of work
• 1:15:53
  in higher Ed. So what's your take on all this?
• 1:15:55
  You know, it's a very simple, subtle thing.
• 1:15:57
  You know, nothing spectacular or, or evidently heroic about
• 1:16:00
  it, but it's just a kind of a subtle affirmation, right?
• 1:16:04
  So he, he, he worked at growing in virtue himself.
• 1:16:08
  He was a good. So he knew what he knew what it
• 1:16:10
  was like to try to. Grow in in areas where you need
• 1:16:12
  to grow. And he was, really.
• 1:16:12
  Good at helping other people do that.
• 1:16:14
  So that was Matt. I could go on and on about any
• 1:16:18
  of these guys, but we should probably should we touch base on
• 1:16:21
  Matt Anthony. Give us your.
• 1:16:22
  It's impossible to give any of these guys their due.
• 1:16:25
  Of course, of course. And this is not to try to do
• 1:16:28
  full due because it's impossible, but it's a little
• 1:16:30
  peek. It's a little peek.
• 1:16:31
  Yeah. So Matt Anthony, Matt Anthony.
• 1:16:35
  It's just he's he's just such a great friend, such a great guy.
• 1:16:39
  So grew up in St. Louis, MO.
• 1:16:43
  Really quick. Did you know Val the best and
• 1:16:46
  Matt Shenaker like second and Matt Anthony third?
• 1:16:48
  Or kind of. It's, you know, it's, it's kind
• 1:16:51
  of hard to say. You knew them all pretty well.
• 1:16:53
  I knew them all pretty well. For how many years?
• 1:16:57
  For over a quarter century in all.
• 1:16:59
  For. All of them.
• 1:17:00
  I mean, yeah, so Val, I met when I was 14.
• 1:17:03
  Matt Anthony I met next. We we joined Opus Day the same
• 1:17:06
  year. Same age.
• 1:17:08
  And same, same age. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:17:10
  So we went through a lot of kind of the first summers together on
• 1:17:14
  these courses that we would take and so.
• 1:17:16
  So he was a brother? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:17
  No, he's very he was a brother totally.
• 1:17:20
  And and, you know, I feel like he was like, you know, just a
• 1:17:25
  great friend because he the way that he would just interact with
• 1:17:27
  you is he remembered things. Matt Shaneker remembered things.
• 1:17:30
  This is another thing that, by the way, is just back to Matt
• 1:17:32
  Shaneker one second. There's a great video tribute to
• 1:17:36
  him that the campers, so he died just before this camp that he
• 1:17:40
  was running for many, many years happened down in LA.
• 1:17:43
  He was already scheduled not to be there because he had moved to
• 1:17:45
  New York, but it was going to be the first year without Matt
• 1:17:47
  Jennifer there. And so the, the, the boys there
• 1:17:51
  put together a video tribute and one of the guys, one of the guys
• 1:17:56
  said, you know, one thing about Matt Jennifer, he's so great.
• 1:17:59
  But he would always, he would remember things that we had
• 1:18:01
  talked about that I've forgotten completely, you know, And he
• 1:18:05
  would bring them up and there's all kinds of things that, you
• 1:18:08
  know, it was just like little tokens of, of affection for
• 1:18:11
  people. So, so Matt and Anthony, yeah.
• 1:18:15
  So I met them about the same time I met Matt Anthony 1st and
• 1:18:17
  then Matt Shanecker. I spent a little more time with
• 1:18:19
  Matt Shanecker out here in San, in California probably over the
• 1:18:22
  years. But we're like, we're all pretty
• 1:18:24
  close. Like we've all.
• 1:18:26
  We're all mats. And we're all mats.
• 1:18:28
  Yeah, I am. I am the least of the mats.
• 1:18:31
  We got big little and like tiny man, right?
• 1:18:35
  So, but Matt Anthony was definitely big Matt in many,
• 1:18:38
  many ways. He was a big soul, big heart.
• 1:18:41
  So he went to Notre Dame, He then went to New York.
• 1:18:45
  He he did some continuing studies there and then went to
• 1:18:50
  teach at the Heights, which is a school and in in Washington, DC.
• 1:18:54
  All boys school. All boys in school, Yeah.
• 1:18:57
  And. Then he became the director of
• 1:18:59
  the center there as well. And then after that he was
• 1:19:01
  basically also full time internal work for Opus Day.
• 1:19:04
  So he was running programs. He went to Chicago and he helped
• 1:19:09
  build up a youth program there. And everybody who worked for
• 1:19:13
  them said like Matt was. Matt was incredibly efficient
• 1:19:17
  and effective. Things grew around him and he so
• 1:19:23
  then he he was asked to be kind of the head of youth activities
• 1:19:27
  for the region. You know, so for all of the
• 1:19:29
  United States, kind of oversaw all of the activities with young
• 1:19:32
  people and then was asked to go to Rome and oversee that for the
• 1:19:36
  Pharaoh paste for the whole world, all the activities.
• 1:19:40
  Very competent guy and, and asked to kind of take on these
• 1:19:42
  positions when I first saw him, you know, a few days before his
• 1:19:49
  death, you know, simple greetings and, and he said, hey,
• 1:19:52
  Matt, how's your, how's your sister doing?
• 1:19:55
  Again? We had, we prayed for each
• 1:19:57
  other's sisters and, and family, but he had remembered right,
• 1:20:01
  that she had had some health problems recently.
• 1:20:04
  And, and so she's kind of, you know, these guys remember
• 1:20:08
  details. I, I was thinking like, how do
• 1:20:09
  we put this all together? And I think there's kind of two
• 1:20:12
  big things. 1 He mastered himself over time.
• 1:20:16
  It's kind of fun to think about young Matt Anthony and and then,
• 1:20:21
  you know, 44 year old Matt Anthony and the development
• 1:20:25
  there because he he developed himself into a real leader.
• 1:20:28
  So when he was younger, I mean, just to give it like a snapshot,
• 1:20:31
  he was just so fun to be around. He was, he got the sense he just
• 1:20:34
  always loved being one of the guys.
• 1:20:37
  And he, he went to a camp out in, you know, the eastern part
• 1:20:41
  of the US. And I was just talking with a
• 1:20:44
  very good friend of her his who was a director on that camp.
• 1:20:47
  And that's when they first met And they had, it was actually
• 1:20:52
  like 2 camps, 2 weeks each. So, you know, plus like training
• 1:20:55
  and things. So they were basically got to
• 1:20:56
  know each other over the course of about two months and became
• 1:21:00
  good friends by the end of it because everybody gets no match.
• 1:21:03
  Matt Anthony, you're just like, you just feel like you're great
• 1:21:05
  friends. And so at the end of it, the two
• 1:21:08
  directors like doused Matt in water somehow.
• 1:21:11
  I think I it might have been like a big bucket or maybe they
• 1:21:14
  pushed him in the pool, but they got him, you know, and at the
• 1:21:16
  end and he was like I he was a high school counselor and he
• 1:21:20
  said just they he was totally reliable.
• 1:21:22
  You could you, he was fun. The kids really enjoyed having
• 1:21:26
  him as a counselor, kind of like doing the rah rah stuff.
• 1:21:29
  And but he was also totally reliable.
• 1:21:31
  And so so Matt Anthony then, you know, at the end of camp, these
• 1:21:36
  two guys went to drop him off at his house in Missouri and it's
• 1:21:40
  like a townhouse and and, and he said, Hey, guys, I just want to
• 1:21:45
  show you some, you know, one thing before you leave, since
• 1:21:47
  you're here, just come out, come around the backyard.
• 1:21:49
  So they go follow him. He turns a corner, they come
• 1:21:51
  around the corner and he's sitting there with a hose and
• 1:21:53
  just drenches them. You know, it's just, you know,
• 1:21:55
  he's just a little cackling. He had a big laugh.
• 1:21:59
  It was just an infectious like. Bear man laugh, you know.
• 1:22:02
  And and they oh, you got us, you know, and then.
• 1:22:05
  They were the high school boys. Or they were.
• 1:22:06
  His brothers, these are the directors of the camp.
• 1:22:08
  Oh, the other the other leads. The other leads, yeah, yeah.
• 1:22:12
  And he's so he's just a very fun loving guy.
• 1:22:16
  He was really into history, so he studied classics.
• 1:22:21
  He loved war history. It's a Revolutionary War, World
• 1:22:25
  War Two, World War One and and just great figures of history.
• 1:22:29
  So he'd always be reading a biography.
• 1:22:31
  Last time I asked him what he was reading was a couple months
• 1:22:33
  ago. He said Truman and you know how
• 1:22:36
  he was thinking about the decisions that he had to make.
• 1:22:38
  So he he trained himself to be a very prudent strategist and
• 1:22:43
  leader by reading a lot about history, right.
• 1:22:46
  I mean, that was that was just kind of the way he operated.
• 1:22:48
  But again, when he was younger, you know, and, and these kind of
• 1:22:53
  like holidays, he was on a trip to and in fact, we were there at
• 1:22:58
  the same we would have been there.
• 1:22:59
  No, this was an earlier trip to Rome.
• 1:23:01
  I think he was 16 years old. And the the leader of the trip,
• 1:23:06
  you know, there's a number of guys who are in touch with the
• 1:23:08
  activities of the center there said, hey, guys, you know, we're
• 1:23:13
  going to let's go since we're in France.
• 1:23:14
  Oh, that's right. It was World Youth Day in Paris,
• 1:23:17
  1997. So they were there and said,
• 1:23:19
  let's we're going to go visit the whole the cell of Teresa
• 1:23:24
  Lasso, the little flower. And Matt had, you know, he had
• 1:23:29
  that studied all the geography where they're gone and stuff.
• 1:23:31
  And it's like Normandy, the beach of Normandy is so close.
• 1:23:36
  Like we need to visit Normandy. Like that's where heroes died.
• 1:23:41
  And and he actually got really upset, you know, 16 year old
• 1:23:45
  kind of kid. I can't believe we're not, you
• 1:23:47
  know, that's, that's the director.
• 1:23:49
  I had to say, Matt, we're not here on tourism.
• 1:23:51
  We're here on pilgrimage. You know, I was like, that is a
• 1:23:53
  pilgrimage, you know, so, but he was so, you know, he was a very
• 1:23:57
  emotional kind of person. Is he Italian?
• 1:23:59
  Good hearted Matt Anthony sounds like an Italian name.
• 1:24:03
  I I believe there's Italian background, yeah.
• 1:24:06
  And there's also Irish. His mom was Irish, so a lot of
• 1:24:11
  fire and she, I mean, I've, I've heard about it like, and I
• 1:24:15
  haven't met the parents, but I've heard just great stories
• 1:24:17
  about, about both of them. His dad, his, his dad Paul and
• 1:24:22
  his, and his mom. So, but I, you know, like I say,
• 1:24:25
  I'll, I'll have to leave it to others to give, give their
• 1:24:27
  personal testimonies. So, yeah.
• 1:24:30
  So he had, I, I'm pretty sure he had some Italian and some and
• 1:24:33
  some Irish, which is father Paul Donilon has that too.
• 1:24:35
  It's not a bad, not a bad mix, you know, and, and also, you
• 1:24:38
  know, when he was younger, I remember we were in New York
• 1:24:42
  together for two years, living in the residence there.
• 1:24:46
  And, and I was in a triple with him.
• 1:24:51
  So we had three guys sitting in the same room and we had to
• 1:24:53
  assign somebody to wake up Matt Anthony like every day because
• 1:24:57
  the guy slept like a bear. I mean, and alarms wouldn't do
• 1:25:01
  it like shaking him wouldn't do it like you would sometimes like
• 1:25:04
  he was pour. The water on him, what would you
• 1:25:05
  do? That's what we sometimes, yeah,
• 1:25:07
  wow. I mean, not a big bucket, but
• 1:25:08
  some, you know, like he was such a deep sleeper.
• 1:25:11
  So it was just like, I don't know, I think his big my heart
• 1:25:13
  just like needed a lot of rest. And so so he you know, but now
• 1:25:19
  he he was also just loud at the time, like he had a loud voice.
• 1:25:23
  You could hear him like through the floors, you know, and you
• 1:25:27
  know, So now I'm one of the things I've noticed in some of
• 1:25:29
  the I was talking to about just memories of of Matt Anthony
• 1:25:32
  mentioned this too. It's really impressive how he so
• 1:25:35
  first of all, when he came back from Rome, his voice was
• 1:25:39
  quieter. It was it had all of it had
• 1:25:41
  morphed into a great gravitas, you know, but you couldn't hear
• 1:25:47
  him shouting through the through the walls and he his diet like
• 1:25:53
  you couldn't help but notice he didn't take dessert.
• 1:25:56
  He could have some fruit. He's obstinous because he just
• 1:26:00
  he just decided why that he didn't need it.
• 1:26:05
  It was a kind of internal discipline and and he didn't
• 1:26:09
  make a big deal out of it, but you just noticed he wouldn't eat
• 1:26:11
  carbs, you know, and didn't. And there are other people who
• 1:26:13
  obviously lots of people who do this right.
• 1:26:15
  But it was just like one more thing where it's like he had
• 1:26:18
  really worked on the simplest things in mastering himself and
• 1:26:23
  so that he could give himself. And he never lost this like big
• 1:26:27
  hearted laugh. He loved having a, you know, a
• 1:26:29
  cigar and a beer with the guys. And so he, he always kept that
• 1:26:32
  humanity, but, but it worked on the rough edges, you know, And
• 1:26:36
  so he, he channelled his intensity.
• 1:26:40
  He was very competitive when he was younger too, very
• 1:26:43
  competitive. You know, there's like one, I
• 1:26:47
  heard, you know, 1 moment I might have been there, I can't
• 1:26:50
  quite remember. But you know, when he was
• 1:26:52
  playing football and he was like, you know, LastPass
• 1:26:55
  touchdown pass potentially. And he dropped it, went through
• 1:26:58
  his hands and he was so angry, you know, it's just like, and
• 1:27:04
  but, you know, so now he would, you know, react more quickly,
• 1:27:07
  supernaturally and that sort of thing.
• 1:27:08
  I mean, he so he had this intensity that he channeled
• 1:27:11
  really well over time, you know, working on it.
• 1:27:14
  So he had he had a lot of big jobs.
• 1:27:20
  I mean, just a little while ago there was this big merger of
• 1:27:24
  many regions in Opus Dei. So you had kind of different
• 1:27:27
  typically, like it may be each country or set of countries or
• 1:27:30
  part of a country might be a whole region.
• 1:27:31
  And so there's an administrative unit that kind of takes care of
• 1:27:34
  the paperwork and decisions that need to be made.
• 1:27:36
  And, you know, who do we need to help out with what?
• 1:27:39
  And, and so then there was an idea of consolidating a number
• 1:27:42
  of these. So he was very involved in that
• 1:27:44
  globally. And then in the US, you know,
• 1:27:46
  you have the merger between the United States and Canada and
• 1:27:50
  it's actually a really big kind of complicated problem.
• 1:27:54
  And so it's just one example of him.
• 1:27:55
  He just, the, the guys were there just like he just went to
• 1:27:57
  task. Like he came with like a 2530
• 1:27:59
  page report of like who right now, who is doing what?
• 1:28:04
  What are all the responsibilities that are had?
• 1:28:06
  Who's the best person to now take these on?
• 1:28:08
  How do we think about this? Like he was very strategic.
• 1:28:13
  He was like a general, you know, I mean, he's just thinking
• 1:28:15
  things through and he would take these big problems, break them
• 1:28:17
  down into steps, propose them, get feedback from them.
• 1:28:21
  If people didn't give him free, right, he would remind them, I
• 1:28:23
  need your thoughts on this, right?
• 1:28:25
  And then come up with a plan and then execute.
• 1:28:28
  So he wouldn't just come up with a plan and like, here you go.
• 1:28:31
  I mean, then he would execute on it and he would follow up with
• 1:28:33
  people. It's like we need this thing by,
• 1:28:35
  you know, we kind of should have had it by yesterday.
• 1:28:36
  You know, he's very good at driving things forward.
• 1:28:40
  So he's he was a solver of big problems.
• 1:28:42
  He was a launcher of big projects.
• 1:28:44
  You know, in the course of this, he was open to new ideas.
• 1:28:46
  Like, you know, there's we now have in in the US again, there's
• 1:28:50
  this idea we should, we should try to minimize the bureaucracy,
• 1:28:53
  right? Have few, as few people as
• 1:28:55
  possible kind of doing internal work.
• 1:28:56
  So more people can just be out there dealing with people,
• 1:28:59
  right. And and so that kind of
• 1:29:02
  consolidation brings with it certain, certain problems, like
• 1:29:04
  how do we, how do we kind of just make sure that that we're
• 1:29:07
  all staying in touch, right? That, that the, the people who
• 1:29:10
  need to make decisions for the whole region are hearing from
• 1:29:13
  like us out here in California, Like we're way, you know, we're
• 1:29:16
  out on the frontier, like easy, easy to freak out.
• 1:29:18
  And so he came up with new offices, You know, I think
• 1:29:21
  director at large, right, that would just be, look, the only
• 1:29:24
  thing you're responsible for is keeping in touch with those
• 1:29:27
  people. And, you know, so he, he was
• 1:29:28
  really good at getting the information, figuring out the
• 1:29:31
  problems, figuring out what the answer should be, getting more
• 1:29:34
  feedback on that, coming up with a plan, executing it.
• 1:29:38
  You know, he worked on a number of problems that we just I'm so
• 1:29:41
  grateful for this. They recently digitized kind of
• 1:29:44
  all of our like note passing in Opus day, which, you know, used
• 1:29:48
  to be a lot of just a lot of mailing back and forth.
• 1:29:49
  And, and it's just like it's time.
• 1:29:52
  Let's use like Google Docs, right?
• 1:29:54
  And but it's a big project and, and a number of them here in the
• 1:29:59
  US, there's kind of a team who like awesome, we got to make
• 1:30:01
  this happen. And, and there are a lot of
• 1:30:04
  people who have to be convinced this is the right way to go.
• 1:30:07
  You're dealing with all generations and multiple
• 1:30:09
  cultures and languages in Opus De, which is so beautiful.
• 1:30:12
  But new process exactly. And so and then and then you
• 1:30:16
  know, with with Rome, like explaining here's how we're, you
• 1:30:19
  know, going to do this in case other people want to sort of
• 1:30:21
  adopt it. And Matt also knew because he
• 1:30:25
  had been there, he'd been in spend time in Europe and, you
• 1:30:28
  know, and also here and he, he knew a lot of he said he knew
• 1:30:31
  kind of what the concerns would be about doing something like
• 1:30:34
  this, making sure things are, are just secure, you know, I
• 1:30:37
  mean, and, and reliable. And so he because he was kind of
• 1:30:41
  involved all of that. It's just like every box was
• 1:30:44
  checked when it kind of came to like, are we, Are you sure that
• 1:30:46
  this is the right way to go? Yes, we've thought through
• 1:30:48
  everything. So he was he, he had a lot of
• 1:30:53
  hutzpah too and is getting things done past that he knew
• 1:30:56
  really are the right things to do, even though there's going to
• 1:30:58
  be some, you know, maybe some opposition.
• 1:31:02
  He was a general. He was a general.
• 1:31:04
  Man for the Lord. Yeah.
• 1:31:07
  And for the work. Yeah, totally.
• 1:31:09
  But he was a general who listened.
• 1:31:10
  That was one thing that really impressed, impressed me about
• 1:31:12
  him is like some, you know, when you get, when you have to think
• 1:31:15
  about a lot of big problems, plus, you know, not only things
• 1:31:19
  that need to get done, but then just problems that are coming in
• 1:31:22
  of people who are having a hard time, whatever.
• 1:31:26
  And you get somebody like me, little of me who has, who has
• 1:31:28
  like ideas, like I think we should be doing something, this
• 1:31:31
  XYZ thing differently, right? And he'd sit down and he'd
• 1:31:35
  listen and he would take it in and and if he if he didn't
• 1:31:42
  agree, never got the sense that he was dismissing your ideas or
• 1:31:46
  your suggestions, he would take it seriously.
• 1:31:50
  And and then if he didn't agree, ultimately he would he would
• 1:31:53
  basically lay out like, OK, yeah, but here's the other
• 1:31:55
  things we got to take into account.
• 1:31:56
  You know, ABCXYZ was never like, let me handle this.
• 1:32:00
  You know, I know all the problem.
• 1:32:02
  Everything is kind of behind everything else that has to be
• 1:32:04
  dealt with. He would explain it right to
• 1:32:06
  anybody so that you understood his, his, his desire was that
• 1:32:09
  anybody who's who kind of is suggesting something that
• 1:32:12
  disagreed with what he thought was the right thing.
• 1:32:14
  My job is to convince you to show you what I'm seeing, you
• 1:32:18
  know, So he was very respectful, incredibly respectful of, of
• 1:32:23
  people's contributions in that way.
• 1:32:25
  And then he would say a lot of times, here's the decision that
• 1:32:28
  I think we should make here, all the reasons for it.
• 1:32:31
  And it would always be very well researched and very well thought
• 1:32:33
  out. And and they say I might be
• 1:32:36
  getting this wrong. What do you guys think?
• 1:32:38
  I mean, do you, what do you think?
• 1:32:39
  How do you, how do you read this stuff?
• 1:32:41
  So it's always that kind of like real respect for other people's
• 1:32:43
  intelligence. So that was math.
• 1:32:49
  Big heart. Great General.
• 1:32:51
  Yeah. What does it look like to not
• 1:32:54
  have the mats and not have Val? It looks, it looks like way too
• 1:33:02
  much load to, you know, I way too much load to carry.
• 1:33:07
  So I remember another priest one time, wonderful man who was
• 1:33:12
  telling anecdote of a funeral he attended of a very respectful,
• 1:33:18
  respectable guy who just was a fireman who good family man had
• 1:33:24
  died, you know, in tragic circumstances, you know, in
• 1:33:27
  heroic circumstances, saving people from a fire.
• 1:33:30
  And at this funeral, one of his buddies in the fire department
• 1:33:35
  just turned to this priest and said, well, I guess we got to
• 1:33:39
  stop sponging off them now, meaning like we were relying on
• 1:33:45
  these guys for a lot and and now we don't have them.
• 1:33:50
  I mean, we have them look. So another one of the guys said
• 1:33:54
  I just to pick, you know, a good friend said, I picture Matt
• 1:33:57
  Sheniker going into heaven and, you know, see in the office and
• 1:34:00
  saying, wow, this is great. I can do so much more from here.
• 1:34:04
  Like, guys, let's get to work. This is going to be incredible,
• 1:34:07
  right? So we have them.
• 1:34:09
  That's the other thing. We've got them.
• 1:34:11
  So and on the one hand, it feels it feels like there's some just
• 1:34:16
  wonderful models to try to live up to.
• 1:34:21
  One thing that San Jose Maria said is we don't, we imitate the
• 1:34:26
  Saints, we imitate Jesus Christ, right?
• 1:34:29
  The Saints help us to get to Jesus.
• 1:34:31
  These guys help me to get to Jesus.
• 1:34:35
  They reflect his, his Spirit in many ways.
• 1:34:42
  And we still have their help. We've got their help.
• 1:34:44
  What does it look like to get their help now?
• 1:34:48
  When you're maybe overwhelmed is too strong a word.
• 1:34:52
  But they did a lot, yeah. They helped thousands of people,
• 1:34:56
  and they were also integral to the leadership of Opus Day.
• 1:35:01
  Yeah, they did a lot. So I, I mean, a lot of these are
• 1:35:04
  questions for the directors in New York.
• 1:35:06
  You know, what happens now, you know, on a on a practical level
• 1:35:10
  and pray for those guys. I would not want that, you know,
• 1:35:14
  to be in that situation Now. It's like, Oh my gosh.
• 1:35:19
  But yeah. But I, I so I think that what it
• 1:35:22
  means to that we actually still have them.
• 1:35:26
  You know, different people are kind of, I think praying to them
• 1:35:29
  for different types of causes. My thing for all these three
• 1:35:32
  men, I think that they, it just makes sense like they could I go
• 1:35:36
  to them for help with friends. These guys were friends and they
• 1:35:41
  were friends who helped folks improve.
• 1:35:44
  I mean, you know, by improve, not just like in terms of virtue
• 1:35:47
  and character, but in the deepest sense, get to know
• 1:35:50
  Jesus, like here he is, right? This is what he's like.
• 1:35:54
  This is how you this is how you get in touch with him.
• 1:35:56
  Here's here's a plan for the day to make sure that you're kind of
• 1:35:59
  like talking to on a regular basis.
• 1:36:02
  And here's how you can give back in little ways, right?
• 1:36:04
  I mean, show him that you love him in all these little ways.
• 1:36:07
  So I think that when it comes to if you've got like, you know, a
• 1:36:10
  friend and perhaps in particular a male friend or brother or
• 1:36:14
  father who you care about, ask these guys to give me your hand.
• 1:36:20
  You know, I think that they're like, for me, they're patrons of
• 1:36:25
  healthy male friendship. And you see it in that last act,
• 1:36:30
  right? This is the thing about about
• 1:36:32
  them jumping in, right, to to save a brother, help a brother.
• 1:36:37
  If if that had been successful, if they had given Val a hand and
• 1:36:42
  they were all able to get out, we wouldn't be talking about
• 1:36:45
  them right now on this podcast. Probably they would had some
• 1:36:49
  good laughs on the way home and some ribbing, you know, you
• 1:36:56
  know, thank you, you know, really appreciate it.
• 1:36:57
  And you know, maybe some like, wow, that was like that was a
• 1:37:00
  close one. We got to we got to rethink this
• 1:37:01
  kind of this trip to the spot, right?
• 1:37:03
  But that would be that might be the extent of it.
• 1:37:07
  But now I think we look at that act and we say it's heroic.
• 1:37:11
  These guys gave gave their lives for their friend and it's
• 1:37:22
  simple. It's a normal act.
• 1:37:25
  These guys did the same kind of thing day after day.
• 1:37:27
  The reason that it was natural for them in that moment is
• 1:37:30
  because they did it all the time.
• 1:37:33
  So the flip side of this is true, right?
• 1:37:36
  When you go home and you try to be patient with your husband or
• 1:37:40
  somebody's working on a spreadsheet and it's just kind
• 1:37:43
  of tired and just that's all right, All right, I'll put in a
• 1:37:45
  few more minutes because there are people at the end of the
• 1:37:48
  spreadsheet that are being served right or, you know,
• 1:37:54
  whatever it is, whatever small thing, this colleague, I'm going
• 1:37:56
  to try to make some time to just have a deeper conversation with
• 1:37:58
  them. All those normal things that
• 1:38:01
  those are potentially heroic. This heroic act was normal.
• 1:38:08
  So I think that I think it's a really good example of of the
• 1:38:12
  theory of Opus day, right? Normal things can be a path to
• 1:38:15
  God if they are acts of love. I want to share one other thing.
• 1:38:23
  Actually, I was just checking my my text messages because I want
• 1:38:27
  to see how much permission I had to share this.
• 1:38:30
  But we had this breakfast with one already the the diver who
• 1:38:34
  was there and he, you know, you could imagine different,
• 1:38:42
  different reactions of sheriff's to his kind of work because on
• 1:38:48
  the one hand, some of, you know, they have a plan and it makes
• 1:38:52
  sense. And Juan's thing is there are
• 1:38:57
  families behind these people every time.
• 1:38:59
  So he's recovered a lot of bodies quickly from tough to
• 1:39:04
  find places. And his thing is, think about
• 1:39:08
  the mothers and the family members never call them bodies.
• 1:39:16
  These are people with first names.
• 1:39:19
  So, so anyway, he's he's a person who's very driven by love
• 1:39:25
  to do the work that he's doing. And so one sheriff, I keep this
• 1:39:31
  vague so they're not because, you know, it has to do with with
• 1:39:34
  ongoing work in the Sheriff's Department, but it's one sheriff
• 1:39:38
  who did reach out to him to say, look, there's this case.
• 1:39:45
  I want to learn from you. You know, what is it that you're
• 1:39:50
  how do you go about this? Because you're very good, like
• 1:39:51
  you've you've recovered a number of what is it that you do?
• 1:39:54
  And so this is what I told me said, first of all, use their
• 1:39:57
  names. You're not recovered.
• 1:39:59
  Don't don't say bodies. You're recovering.
• 1:40:00
  People aim for an open casket, you know?
• 1:40:06
  I mean, that's The thing is that if, if they're recovered
• 1:40:08
  quickly, that's a, that's more of a possibility it and it can
• 1:40:11
  give these families closure. And, and so this gentleman was
• 1:40:16
  very grateful and, and he shared this with his team and they,
• 1:40:21
  they spent a lot of time. The other thing he said is just
• 1:40:25
  say, I'm not leaving without him.
• 1:40:26
  I'm not coming back without him. So the team, the sheriff's went
• 1:40:33
  and applied this, you know, for this sense it's like open casket
• 1:40:36
  mentality. And after a long search, they
• 1:40:39
  did find this particular body. And and, you know, the family
• 1:40:49
  was incredibly grateful. And the gentleman, you know,
• 1:40:52
  wrote back to him and said thank you so much.
• 1:40:55
  This is the first time I've had this kind of an interaction with
• 1:40:58
  the family. I'm looking at my job in a whole
• 1:41:01
  different way. And that's so I told Juan, it's
• 1:41:06
  like you live our theory. You know, this is the theory of
• 1:41:10
  Opus De. Everything, your work, your
• 1:41:12
  ordinary work can be an act of love.
• 1:41:14
  It can be a transcendent act of love for God and for his other
• 1:41:18
  creatures. But just saying that doesn't
• 1:41:20
  make it happen. You have to care about them.
• 1:41:22
  You have to think about them. You got to use the first names.
• 1:41:24
  And by the way, let me just take a moment to say if people want
• 1:41:29
  to are moved to help support Juan's work, this diver, I mean,
• 1:41:33
  he's he's independent and he never asked for money.
• 1:41:36
  Never, you know, so so angels recovery dive team.org, you can
• 1:41:41
  donate to Juan's work. Please consider it so.
• 1:41:45
  But I think, and I think that he's really living sort of also
• 1:41:47
  this this spirit that that Matt, Matt and Val dedicated their
• 1:41:51
  lives to. So.
• 1:41:55
  What a what a inspiration. Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry for
• 1:42:00
  being so blubbery here, but and, and thank you Lila for for
• 1:42:05
  taking the time to talk through this, this story in particular.
• 1:42:08
  I mean, like I said at the beginning, you have you do some
• 1:42:10
  of the most important work in the world in my book.
• 1:42:13
  And so I really appreciate the time that you've dedicated to
• 1:42:17
  this. I'm personally moved by these
• 1:42:22
  men. They're just men of excellence
• 1:42:24
  and of course, men of faith. And you know, I get to be moved
• 1:42:28
  by talking to other people who know them.
• 1:42:31
  And of course, you know, thank you so much for being willing to
• 1:42:33
  share on the show and just be real about it because I know
• 1:42:37
  that's also really hard. You're grieving and I know it's
• 1:42:39
  fresh. So.
• 1:42:41
  But my prayer is that people listening can be inspired, and I
• 1:42:45
  know they will be by their example.
• 1:42:47
  And please pray for their families again.
• 1:42:49
  Wonderful. I mean, you can imagine that
• 1:42:51
  that is very difficult for them, but I appreciate that, Lila.
• 1:42:55
  Thank you. Let's all be better because of
• 1:42:58
  them and love. Love harder, love more.
• 1:43:01
  Yes, exactly with first names. With first names.
• 1:43:04
  I love that. Yeah.
• 1:43:05
  Thank you, Matt. Thank you, Lila.
• 1:43:08
  Thank you for taking the time to do this with for the show and
• 1:43:11
  just sharing, sharing about their lives.
• 1:43:13
  Yeah, I hope I, I, I appreciate it and I hope people kind of,
• 1:43:18
  you know, have have gotten to experience a little bit of the
• 1:43:20
  joy that I had getting to know these guys because it really
• 1:43:23
  was, they were, they were all very joyful people.
• 1:43:26
  What's next for you? Flight back up to Northern
• 1:43:30
  California, back to Silicon Valley and.
• 1:43:36
  And you know, I guess trying to do my work on the spreadsheets
• 1:43:40
  that I've got to do. I got to submit a grant
• 1:43:43
  application tomorrow for a young scholar.
• 1:43:46
  And it's not the most fun work, but I think that it can do some
• 1:43:51
  good. And so I'll just try to do what
• 1:43:53
  they did, you know, just do the small things of everyday.
• 1:43:56
  Ask for a little bit of help with it.
• 1:43:59
  And yeah, so a lot of, you know, a lot of doing what we can do
• 1:44:03
  for young scholars who show a lot of promise and who can who
• 1:44:06
  can help people think through deep issues.
• 1:44:09
  That's my, that's my day-to-day. Can you share the URL for the
• 1:44:12
  Zephyr Institute? Surezephyr.org, ZEPHY r.org love
• 1:44:17
  it. And I know we met.
• 1:44:19
  I don't know if you remember, but but you stopped by a few
• 1:44:22
  years ago and that was great. And I'm because I think you were
• 1:44:25
  looking for office space in the, up there in the, in the Bay
• 1:44:28
  Area. I'm glad you did not end up in
• 1:44:31
  the. We're happy, We're happy where
• 1:44:32
  we are. This is very nice, yeah.
• 1:44:34
  Good. You're changing.
• 1:44:35
  You're changing lives, one Stanford student at a time.
• 1:44:38
  Well. Thanks for doing.
• 1:44:38
  We're doing what I can, yeah. Thank you, Matt.
• 1:44:41
  Thank you, Lila. Thanks so much for listening to
• 1:44:43
  this episode of the Lila Rose Show.
• 1:44:45
  I hope that it was inspiring. Please share this episode with
• 1:44:48
  friends who might be benefit or family members.
• 1:44:51
  Make sure to check out Juan's Angel Diver organization and
• 1:44:54
  support it as well as the Zephyr Institute.
• 1:44:57
  And also you can make a donation to the work of Opus Day at the
• 1:45:01
  link in the description. Also, friends, don't forget to
• 1:45:03
  subscribe to the show. There are over 300,000 of you
• 1:45:07
  already subscribed and the show continues to grow.
• 1:45:09
  It is such a joy to get to do this work and bring you good,
• 1:45:11
  true, beautiful stories and experts and testimonies.
• 1:45:14
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• 1:45:18
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• 1:45:19
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• 1:45:21
  It helps the show reach more people.
• 1:45:23
  Thank you all so much and we'll see you next time.
• 1:45:25
  And a huge thank you to EWTN Eternal Word Television Network,
• 1:45:29
  which is the largest religious broadcaster in the world.
• 1:45:32
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• 1:45:35
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• 1:45:40
  you to EWTN and their incredible mission to bring souls to Jesus.