Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E174: Blindness, Poverty, and Christmas w/ Fr Robert Spitzer

Transcript

E174: Blindness, Poverty, and Christmas w/ Fr Robert Spitzer · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  The story of Jesus coming into the world as this baby,
• 0:03
  completely helpless, and then he tells us later on become like a
• 0:07
  child. I didn't like going blind.
• 0:09
  I had to have somebody pick me up to take me to my parish
• 0:12
  assignment and I felt utterly humiliated.
• 0:15
  I felt like the expectation of a man in this culture is you ought
• 0:18
  to be self-sufficient. Why was it important he came as
• 0:21
  a baby? If you got everything in this
• 0:24
  world, it would be really hard to seek first the Kingdom of
• 0:28
  God. Father Spitzer, it's such a
• 0:32
  delight to have you back at the podcast.
• 0:34
  Thanks for coming in again. Oh, I'm delighted and honored
• 0:37
  again, Lila. Thank you very much.
• 0:39
  The Great Father Robert Spitzer, physicist, author, theologian,
• 0:45
  philosopher, the founder and the head of the Magi Magis Center.
• 0:49
  Excuse me and we've I've had him on the show many other times and
• 0:54
  always you're a a huge fan favorite.
• 0:56
  So I'm very excited for today's episode.
• 1:00
  All right so we're about to celebrate Christmas Christmas is
• 1:04
  coming tomorrow. This episodes coming out, they
• 1:06
  think Christmas Eve and there's so much to unpack about
• 1:11
  Christmas historically, theologically.
• 1:13
  And this episode isn't just for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day,
• 1:16
  but this is really for the celebration of Christmas, which
• 1:19
  traditionally in the church is more than just on Christmas Day.
• 1:23
  So maybe we'll start with that. Father Spitzer is what is the
• 1:26
  tradition of celebrating Christmas to make a good full
• 1:29
  celebration in in the church. Well, of course, it begins
• 1:33
  really with the anticipation of Christ coming and Advent, which
• 1:37
  we're celebrating right now. And when Christmas happens, of
• 1:40
  course, this is the, the great climactic moment because Jesus
• 1:45
  is born into the world and he's born into in the world in a very
• 1:51
  specific ways. He's brought into a family who's
• 1:54
  he has very pure, pure of heart, but you know, quite poor, poor
• 1:59
  surroundings. Although Joseph certainly had a
• 2:03
  a very good profession as a Carpenter and brought in, you
• 2:06
  know, you know, very enough funds for his family and
• 2:11
  certainly, you know, had a profession that he could teach
• 2:15
  his son, which would assure that his son would be well off as far
• 2:20
  as he, you know, knew. I mean that he could give his
• 2:23
  son was obviously a wave beyond being a Carpenter, but modest
• 2:30
  means is the main thing, you know, and and when you really
• 2:33
  think about, you know, you know, the incarnation and you you
• 2:37
  think, wow, so the the son of God's going to come into the
• 2:42
  world in Israel and specifically in Bethlehem.
• 2:48
  Now, why exactly would that be? Because of course, you know
• 2:54
  what? And why would he choose earth?
• 2:55
  Why would he? You know, I mean, he's, it's
• 2:58
  like he could have chosen much more exalted kinds of contexts
• 3:04
  into which his son would be born.
• 3:07
  So he, you know, why not Babylon, Egypt or Syria, these
• 3:12
  great empires? Because God was already working
• 3:16
  in Israel And and it wasn't about power in in a worldly
• 3:20
  sense. It wasn't about wealth in a
• 3:22
  worldly sense. It wasn't about conquest in a
• 3:25
  worldly sense. And was really about love and
• 3:29
  that, you know, the, the, the love and the compassion that is
• 3:33
  coming into the world wants to reach everyone, rich and poor,
• 3:39
  you know, educated and not so educated people who are of the,
• 3:44
  you know, professions, people who are of the trades, people
• 3:47
  who are struggling to make a living.
• 3:50
  He wanted to include everyone. So the idea of love is that it
• 3:56
  is, you know, trying to be inclusive to every single person
• 4:01
  and you know, to reach every person's heart, not necessarily
• 4:05
  to reach every person's, you know, a desire for reputation
• 4:10
  and so forth and so on. So, you know, the, the Christian
• 4:13
  Church always and ever, you know, that, you know, the first
• 4:16
  thing in apologetics was, well, why, why would he come to
• 4:20
  Israel? I mean, you got, you know,
• 4:22
  pyramids in Egypt, you got zigrads there in Babylon, you
• 4:26
  know, you got a temple here. That's pretty good.
• 4:29
  You know what, why, why here? So the, the apologists of the
• 4:32
  Christian Church were always up against it, you know, but it was
• 4:35
  because God wanted it. So God wanted the love of his
• 4:40
  Son. He wanted God with us to come
• 4:43
  into a humble setting, into a caring, heartfelt setting.
• 4:48
  What was much more important about Jesus birth is that he's
• 4:53
  born of a mother who is already, as it were, beyond sainthood.
• 5:00
  So she is the one that will teach him his prayers.
• 5:02
  She's the one that will give him his, you know, earthly human
• 5:07
  nature side of you know how he at first sees ABBA sees God.
• 5:12
  Yes, of course Jesus has, you know, a huge, thick, intuitive
• 5:18
  awareness of God on a level even his mother could not have
• 5:23
  imagined even as a child. But putting that to thematic
• 5:28
  articulation, it's his mom who will be doing that and teaching
• 5:33
  him his prayers and his psalms. And so, for example, when you
• 5:38
  hear, you know, an Aramaic Psalm like we have, you know, in the,
• 5:43
  the the crucifixion, right, Aloui Aloui, Lama Sabakhthani,
• 5:48
  which of course Matthew corrects to the proper Hebrew, but it's
• 5:52
  really that northern Galilean dialect that Jesus is saying
• 5:58
  those words in on the cross. And so when you hear, is it
• 6:03
  about, you know, being abandoned by God?
• 6:06
  No, this Psalm is a Psalm of hope, but it's a Psalm of hope.
• 6:11
  And of course, even a prophecy of the kind of, you know,
• 6:16
  crucifixion that he would endure abandonment and torture and
• 6:21
  people who are making fun of him and Spears going into his side,
• 6:26
  etcetera. All of these things are part of,
• 6:31
  you know, his sort of awareness of God, his trust in God that
• 6:36
  he's getting right there as a little kid from his mother.
• 6:40
  So so. She's Mother Mary, sorry to
• 6:42
  interrupt you, but mother Mary is literally teaching him the
• 6:44
  psalms of King David, including my God, my God, why have you
• 6:47
  forsaken me in the this northern Galilean, as you said, dialect
• 6:52
  and that's that's the childhood of Jesus.
• 6:55
  And it's coming right out on the cross.
• 6:57
  He says the Psalm like he memorized it when he was a
• 7:00
  little kid from his mother. And so that's how he's saying
• 7:05
  it. But it's with the same trust
• 7:07
  that his and God that his mother communicated to him, the same
• 7:12
  simplicity of heart that his mother.
• 7:14
  So when you get to the end of the Psalm and you see the whole
• 7:17
  purpose of the Psalm, right or. What is the end of the Psalm?
• 7:20
  Well, the end of the Psalm says that this is not going to be for
• 7:24
  Israel alone, right? This is going to be for all the
• 7:27
  peoples, right? The peoples mean the the
• 7:29
  gentiles that are beyond Israel. And it's not just going to be
• 7:33
  for the present moment. It's going to be for every
• 7:37
  single moment in the past. So all those who have gone down
• 7:42
  into the dust, who that dust means the world of oh, that the
• 7:47
  underworld, right, who are awaiting resurrection, right?
• 7:51
  That the underworld's like a, almost like a storage place,
• 7:54
  right? Where you, that people go, you
• 7:58
  know, almost a shadowy world where they are alive awaiting
• 8:01
  the time of the Messiah who would either redeem them up to
• 8:05
  heaven or allow them to go, you know, into the real hell, right?
• 8:11
  We sometimes we translate all as hell, but it isn't.
• 8:13
  It's just the waiting area before heaven or hell.
• 8:17
  So when Jesus says for all those who went down into the dust, all
• 8:20
  the righteous who go down into the Dutch dust, Jesus is going
• 8:24
  to rescue all of them too by this act.
• 8:26
  And then of course for all future generations.
• 8:30
  And then at the end of the Psalm, it says, and he has done
• 8:35
  it. So what Jesus is saying is, wow.
• 8:39
  You know, I mean, if you look at the three stages of that song
• 8:42
  that he's saying like he would have learned it as a little kid.
• 8:45
  The first Psalm is, oh, you know, you know, I'm you know, my
• 8:49
  God, my God. Why have you have enemy but I
• 8:51
  don't? I know I can trust you.
• 8:53
  I know you will redeem your servant.
• 8:55
  I know that you get switched. Obviously the first two lines
• 8:58
  look like a lamentation, but they are a lamentation.
• 9:01
  But then room that goes into a Psalm of trust.
• 9:04
  Then it goes in the second phase is a recounting of this event.
• 9:10
  Now this is written 600 years before Jesus, right?
• 9:13
  And you look at that accounting right in, in, in Psalm 122.
• 9:18
  And you, you, you see that there, you know, it's almost
• 9:22
  like, you know, 600 years ago, they knew what was going to
• 9:25
  happen to this Messiah. I mean, it's so closely related.
• 9:29
  My, you know, my tongue is clinging, you know, my roof of
• 9:33
  my mouth. They're, they're putting a spear
• 9:35
  in me. They, they're, you know,
• 9:37
  they're, they're making fun of me.
• 9:38
  They're wagging their fingers like lions.
• 9:40
  They're surrounding me and torturing me, etcetera.
• 9:43
  And then at the end of the Psalm, there is this.
• 9:48
  But here's why this is happening.
• 9:51
  This is why the the, the, the servant of God, the Son of God
• 9:55
  is suffering so that everyone will be redeemed.
• 10:00
  Everyone who wants it will come to Yahweh.
• 10:04
  Everyone not just in the present moment and in Israel, everyone
• 10:09
  of the peoples beyond Israel. And then of course, all the past
• 10:14
  and all the future. And he has done it.
• 10:18
  And so that Jesus, everything is summed up into this one Psalm.
• 10:22
  But I think it is so telling. It's Mary's trust that is kind
• 10:27
  of embedded in it, that she taught him.
• 10:30
  And you can just see with her goodness, her simplicity, her
• 10:34
  love. It's that Psalm is embedded with
• 10:38
  that love and trust, both of a father, namely God the Father
• 10:43
  and his mother. And she taught it to him.
• 10:46
  So I think it's kind of telling, you know, that was Mary's job.
• 10:49
  And so she had to be the one. You know, she, she was the one
• 10:54
  who could love that purely and that simply.
• 10:57
  She was the one that just would have that purity of heart to
• 11:03
  trust God as Jesus would need to trust his father.
• 11:07
  But, you know, obviously he's getting it from his own
• 11:10
  intuition and relationship with his father.
• 11:12
  Yes. But it goes all the way back to
• 11:15
  his mother and all that, you know, training and love that she
• 11:20
  demonstrated for him. That, of course, makes the
• 11:24
  perfect blend, as it were. So.
• 11:27
  So I think yeah, yeah. Mother Spitzer, why do you think
• 11:31
  that God chose I think a Christian, a non Christian,
• 11:35
  excuse me might look at the story of Christmas and see this,
• 11:40
  you know, incredible for retelling of this little baby
• 11:45
  who comes into the world through a virgin birth.
• 11:48
  It's this miracle and then Saint Joseph's is not sure what to do.
• 11:51
  But then he accepts her into his home and then they they're
• 11:53
  turned away at the end they're going for the census.
• 11:56
  They're turned away at the end. They he gives birth in a stable.
• 11:58
  These three wise men show up. There's a star.
• 12:01
  Then there's the, you know, Herod's slaughter of the
• 12:04
  innocents, the holy innocents trying to kill Jesus.
• 12:06
  I mean, all of this like very dramatic unfolding of events.
• 12:11
  And I think maybe the first question someone might ask is
• 12:15
  why this way? It's so specific.
• 12:19
  It also involves so much trauma, quite frankly.
• 12:22
  And you know this, the slaughter of the innocence is a horrific,
• 12:25
  heinous event like you were talking about in a moment ago.
• 12:29
  He's born into poverty, our Lord.
• 12:30
  He's literally born in a stable. What's your take on on that?
• 12:35
  Can you believe that it's almost the end of 2024 and soon it will
• 12:39
  be Christmas. If you want time to slow down
• 12:42
  and focus on God, then I highly recommend Hallow.
• 12:46
  As you may know, Hallow is the number one per app in the world
• 12:49
  with thousands of guided meditations and prayers.
• 12:51
  There's also sleep stories, Bible stories, content for kids,
• 12:55
  and so much more. Go check it out today
• 12:57
  hallow.com/lila for three months free and join the Pray 25 Prayer
• 13:02
  Challenge with Hallow. What's your take on on that?
• 13:05
  Well, Jesus Christ is true God and true man, so that means he
• 13:11
  has 100, he's got 2 natures, right?
• 13:13
  He at once his divine personhood, right?
• 13:17
  He's he's got a single self consciousness, right?
• 13:20
  And that one self consciousness of the second person that we
• 13:24
  call the Son has two natures. So that self consciousness is
• 13:29
  using his infinite divine nature.
• 13:31
  But when he becomes Incarnate, he's also Incarnate into a
• 13:36
  finite human nature. So I one of the things that God
• 13:41
  wants to do, you know, and I'm calling God here the triune God,
• 13:44
  including Jesus the Father and the Holy Spirit.
• 13:47
  What's going on with them? Is it, you know, they want Jesus
• 13:52
  to be true man in the sense that all of us are.
• 13:57
  In other words, there's trauma in all of our lives.
• 14:00
  You know, everything is so ambiguous.
• 14:02
  We've got to fight off evil. And we and we were born into an
• 14:07
  atmosphere which, you know, is fraught with this cosmic
• 14:10
  struggle between good and evil. And So what you know, Jesus is
• 14:15
  doing is he has, he's going right into the midst of it.
• 14:18
  But just like His passion, you know he's going to take on the
• 14:22
  full brunt. So in other words, He doesn't
• 14:27
  want us to endure what he himself has not endured for our
• 14:32
  sake to bring us into the Kingdom.
• 14:35
  So He is taking it on full blast.
• 14:38
  So when he comes into the world, there's, well, they don't have
• 14:43
  any room for him. And you'd think, well, God's
• 14:45
  son, you know, get him into an end, you know, you know, God
• 14:49
  could easily make provision. God could have easily made
• 14:53
  provision for him to be born in a palace with all the trimmings.
• 14:56
  And an unwed mother. And and, well, that's well.
• 15:00
  She was not married yet. Yet and so all of that is, you
• 15:05
  know, you, you, you look at this and it's like he takes on this
• 15:09
  full burden. But of course he doesn't notice
• 15:13
  it as a little child, but it's like he doesn't get special
• 15:17
  privileges. He wants to be with us in all
• 15:22
  that we are, all that we must endure the challenges we're
• 15:25
  going to have, the suffering we will endure, and of course, the
• 15:29
  battle with evil that that we are going to endure.
• 15:33
  What he's trying to do is show us, you know, first, you know,
• 15:38
  I'm willing to go through what you're going through so you will
• 15:42
  know that this is necessary. You think to yourself, but why
• 15:46
  does it need to be suffering? Why does there have to be
• 15:49
  poverty? Why is it that, you know, we're
• 15:53
  going to have to confront evil and resist temptation and do all
• 15:57
  these things? Why?
• 15:58
  Why would you put us into a world like this?
• 16:01
  2 words Free choice. We're going to have to do it
• 16:07
  because we need to choose good or evil.
• 16:12
  We're going to have to choose a path of virtue or a path of
• 16:17
  vice. We're going to have to choose
• 16:20
  whether we want to do things the right way or whether we're going
• 16:23
  to do them the wrong way. Now you say to yourself, well,
• 16:26
  why would suffering even be necessary?
• 16:29
  Well, free choice is right there.
• 16:31
  Again. The point, of course, is, first
• 16:34
  of all, we couldn't be free. You know, our love could not be
• 16:38
  our own unless we had the possibility of choosing evil.
• 16:43
  Let's face facts. If you only had one choice, so
• 16:46
  you were going to be born in the world and there's no way you
• 16:49
  could have ever caused evil or it caused suffering to anybody
• 16:53
  else. You know, if you couldn't have
• 16:54
  done that, then you don't have any free choice and the loving
• 16:59
  behaviors you demonstrate are not your own.
• 17:02
  The loving behaviors are part of the divine programmer who has
• 17:07
  programmed you for one thing only to do loving behaviors.
• 17:11
  But it's not your loving behaviors.
• 17:12
  It's the programmers behavior name of the God.
• 17:15
  And God didn't want that. He didn't want us to be
• 17:17
  programmed super sophisticated programmed robots.
• 17:21
  He wanted us to be free. So we had to take a chance.
• 17:24
  He had to allow us to cause suffering and evil to other
• 17:27
  people. And more than that, you say,
• 17:28
  well, what about earthquakes? What about poverty?
• 17:31
  What about all this other stuff that causes our lives to be
• 17:34
  miserable, that nobody seems to have caused genetic defects,
• 17:38
  disease, that so, so forth and so on?
• 17:41
  What about that? Well, it's the same, you know,
• 17:44
  thing. You know, God is using these
• 17:48
  things, using every bit of suffering in order to pull us
• 17:53
  out of what I might call this, you know, almost apathetic.
• 17:58
  You know, if things are going right, if God's taking care of
• 18:00
  everything, you know, I don't have to do anything.
• 18:03
  He's not going to let us not choose.
• 18:06
  He's not going to let us, you know, just, you know, be is
• 18:13
  somehow neutral. We're going to have to make a
• 18:16
  decision between virtue and vice.
• 18:18
  We're going to have to make a decision whether we're going to
• 18:20
  help people or not help people. We're going to have to make a
• 18:23
  decision ourselves whether we're going to, you know, you know,
• 18:27
  you know, accept God if suffering comes into our lives.
• 18:32
  But see perhaps that in that suffering, he's trying to pull
• 18:36
  us out of something, maybe pull us out of dangerous choices that
• 18:41
  we have made, like Saint Paul, right?
• 18:42
  He's made a bad choice. He's out there persecuting the
• 18:46
  church. And of course, I got a little
• 18:49
  sufferings going to come. I'm going to knock you off your
• 18:51
  horse. I'm going to blind you.
• 18:53
  And of course you're not going to like it, but it's good for
• 18:56
  you. This is going to pull you.
• 18:58
  And how many times have we heard of a person who had just made
• 19:03
  vicious, terrible choices in their lives going down a path of
• 19:07
  darkness right into the domain of the evil spirit, full blast.
• 19:11
  And God just so perfectly pick some form of suffering that that
• 19:16
  just, you know, shakes them right out of that, you know, a
• 19:21
  certainty that no harm will come to me, you know, if I just go
• 19:26
  down the path of evil. And, and you know, certainly
• 19:30
  that that happens all the time. And similarly, we can see, you
• 19:34
  know, in 2 Corinthians 12, right, when Saint Paul is, is
• 19:38
  saying, you know, look, I was given a thorn in the flesh, an
• 19:42
  Angel of Satan to beat me to keep me from getting proud.
• 19:50
  And you look at that and go, but Saint Paul, he converted.
• 19:52
  I mean, what was the deal? Why did he get have to get the,
• 19:55
  I thought he, he, he was going blind in his later life.
• 19:58
  And I really still believe that because you know, the, the stuff
• 20:01
  in the Galatians, you know, you would have got shot your own
• 20:04
  eyes and given them to me if you could have.
• 20:06
  But of course, he, you know, you look at that and go, why would
• 20:08
  he say that unless he was going blind or having terrible
• 20:11
  troubles? But the main thing, though, is
• 20:13
  why would God do this to him? Why?
• 20:16
  And Paul says I I can tell you the answer right now.
• 20:19
  Because as I grow weaker, Christ grows stronger in me.
• 20:23
  Hence in my weakness is my strength.
• 20:28
  Because Christ is my strength. And without this suffering I
• 20:33
  would have made no room for Christ.
• 20:35
  Paul was a smart guy, articulate guy, very energetic, exercised
• 20:42
  guy. This guy could have been very,
• 20:44
  very, you know, successful in every sense of the word, you
• 20:50
  know, today. I will use the the weak to shame
• 20:53
  the strong and that's. What?
• 20:55
  That's what he does, yeah, though I, I, I coming back to
• 20:58
  the Holy Innocence though, because I, what you're saying is
• 21:00
  so beautiful. It's the heart of our faith of
• 21:02
  this, you know, Christ taking on human form and really taking on
• 21:06
  our weakness and our suffering so that he could endure.
• 21:09
  He he, he walks with us. He walks with us in our in our
• 21:13
  sickness. I, we had a guest on a couple
• 21:15
  weeks ago who does life coaching.
• 21:17
  She was sharing Laura Brasov about one of the women that she
• 21:19
  served to experience this brutal rape, you know, abuse after
• 21:24
  walking into this abandoned home just for like just to see if she
• 21:27
  was brave enough to go into this like old abandoned home.
• 21:30
  And she had to kind of unpack where was God and all of that.
• 21:35
  And she later on would say, well, God was holding me and
• 21:38
  holding my eyes shut and my ear is shut.
• 21:41
  And he was with me even in that brutal abuse that I endured.
• 21:46
  And it, but it's, it's, it's a tough truth, even then the, the
• 21:51
  existence of suffering. And you know, I know we're
• 21:54
  skipping ahead here in the in this Christian Christmas story,
• 21:58
  but the Holy Innocence, I think is very much scandalous what
• 22:04
  they endured that their Jesus Christ came into the world and
• 22:08
  then Herod tried to kill Jesus. And then Herod would actually
• 22:11
  order the slaying of all Jewish males to and under in order to
• 22:17
  try to kill Jesus, eradicate Jesus.
• 22:19
  And and because he saw Jesus as a threat to his power, his
• 22:22
  political power, because the Jews would say this is our
• 22:25
  Messiah that's come. And I've heard it said by those
• 22:30
  that don't profess the faith that are critical or maybe it's
• 22:32
  a doubt that some who profess the faith have.
• 22:35
  So Jesus comes into the world, OK, he's, he's born into
• 22:38
  suffering into this poverty effectively, but it's because of
• 22:43
  his coming that then maybe hundreds of little boys are
• 22:47
  murdered. And isn't that a heavy thing?
• 22:51
  Why did, why would God choose that way when it led to, you
• 22:55
  could say the deaths of these hundreds of little innocent
• 22:58
  boys? Huge thank you to our sponsor,
• 23:00
  Good ranchersgoodranchers.com. Is American meat delivered.
• 23:04
  This is meat 100% sourced in the United States from American
• 23:07
  farmers and ranchers. You can get your beef, your
• 23:10
  pork, your poultry, your seafood, all from
• 23:12
  goodranchers.com. The steaks are absolutely
• 23:15
  delicious. I know from personal experience.
• 23:16
  And even better is their chicken.
• 23:18
  I love it. It's tender, juicy, flavorful,
• 23:20
  all the things that you could want.
• 23:21
  And goodranchers.com is doing an amazing special right now where
• 23:25
  if you order any subscription box, you will get one whole free
• 23:29
  year of a free add on of your choice.
• 23:32
  That's a free add on of ground beef, chicken breasts.
• 23:35
  I highly recommend those salmon or bacon.
• 23:38
  And if you use the code of Lila at checkout, you will get not
• 23:41
  only your free add on for a year, but you will get $25 off
• 23:45
  your first order as well as fast free shipping.
• 23:48
  That's goodranchers.com can meet delivered and.
• 23:51
  God is not going to eradicate Herod's freedom to do it.
• 23:55
  I mean, he could have avoided Herod, you know, or avoided, you
• 24:01
  know, having Herod be informed and so forth about it.
• 24:04
  But the main thing to recognize is this.
• 24:08
  You have to change your worldview as a Christian.
• 24:11
  God's project is not limited to a single group in a single area.
• 24:18
  His whole project is, first of all, not just for this life
• 24:22
  alone, but for the next life for Christians, right?
• 24:26
  It's really clear that every one of those boys is saved, right?
• 24:32
  So they're up to heaven through the merits of Jesus Christ.
• 24:35
  You know, Zoom. And they're called martyrs,
• 24:38
  they're called holy innocents and martyrs, even though they
• 24:41
  weren't old enough, they didn't have the age of reason.
• 24:43
  They were like 1-2 years old newborns.
• 24:46
  And so they didn't, they weren't old enough to rationally accept
• 24:49
  Jesus into their heart or to, you know, choose to become
• 24:52
  Christian or anything like this. But they're considered, why are
• 24:55
  they considered martyrs, the Holy Innocent?
• 24:57
  Well, because of course they died for one reason, even though
• 25:01
  they did not choose the death. We say that a martyr is someone
• 25:05
  who goes up to heaven because of the sacrifice of himself.
• 25:09
  Technically speaking, you don't need to necessarily be, you
• 25:13
  know, you do need to choose it, you know, in the full sense of
• 25:16
  the word. But these babies had no choice.
• 25:18
  They couldn't choose it because they were yet of the age of
• 25:21
  reason or even heard about Jesus.
• 25:23
  Nevertheless, they are saved, and they are saved instantly
• 25:28
  upon their death. And for, you know, Christians,
• 25:33
  they're OK and not only OK, more than OK, filled with a kind of
• 25:39
  unlimited joy. However their parents suffered.
• 25:43
  It was a terrible and tragic time.
• 25:46
  So you have to say, well, is it worth it?
• 25:48
  You know, that this should happen and that the parents
• 25:51
  would have to suffer, you know, even if the boys did not suffer.
• 25:55
  And the answer is it is in, in one sense, you have to accept
• 26:00
  and trust God that in the unfolding of the is victory over
• 26:04
  evil. This is a necessary step.
• 26:07
  In other words, people are going to suffer.
• 26:09
  His son is going to suffer. Christians, generations of
• 26:13
  Christians are going to suffer in order to bring this home
• 26:18
  that, you know, we all like to, you know, get out there as Clint
• 26:21
  Eastwood or something. And well, you got to take all
• 26:24
  those guys out. But that's not Jesus's way,
• 26:27
  right? He's he's Jesus is going to come
• 26:29
  on the scene and of course he is going to redeem all that
• 26:34
  suffering, every bit of it. Yet at the same time, we have to
• 26:38
  trust him that somehow this is necessary in order for this
• 26:45
  cosmic struggle between good and evil to play out.
• 26:50
  So in other words, you know, when we see, you know, Jesus,
• 26:53
  you know, gives that analogy of the camel, you know, going
• 26:56
  through the eye of a needle and, you know, and, and you know, he
• 27:00
  says it's, it's, it's easier for a camel go through the, you
• 27:05
  know, what needle's eye then for a rich man to enter into the
• 27:08
  Kingdom of heaven. He said, well, what do you mean
• 27:10
  by rich man? Somebody who's got everything
• 27:12
  right? It's not just like having
• 27:14
  wealth. It's like this guy's talented,
• 27:16
  this guy's wealthy, this guy has got power, This guy's got
• 27:21
  prestige and status and all the stuff that, you know, people
• 27:24
  want. So what's so hard about getting
• 27:27
  into the of God? If you've got everything, you
• 27:30
  are so distracted. I mean, we need suffering, we
• 27:36
  need some impoverishment. We need challenge.
• 27:40
  Because what Jesus trying to tell us is if you've got
• 27:43
  everything, man, you are so likely to be distracted.
• 27:48
  You know, somehow these challenges have to be there in
• 27:52
  our lives so that, you know, we're choosing virtue.
• 27:56
  We're not just defaulting to the privileged life that we have.
• 28:00
  And you know, you know, Jesus seek first the Kingdom of God.
• 28:04
  All else will be given you. Besides, if you got everything
• 28:08
  in this world, do you? We, I know, you know, it would
• 28:12
  be really hard to seek first the Kingdom of God.
• 28:16
  It's really tough if you've got all the prestige and the power
• 28:20
  and so forth. The.
• 28:21
  Comfort. The comfort, it's like you need.
• 28:24
  A special grace of yearning and aching.
• 28:27
  If you have all of your creature comforts met, you have great
• 28:30
  family and you've got position everything you need, then the
• 28:34
  feeling that need I need you Jesus and opening up your heart.
• 28:38
  I trust in you, Jesus. It is.
• 28:40
  Harder. Perfectly said.
• 28:43
  We have to need God so we can get our priorities straight.
• 28:49
  And sometimes when we got everything, it's hard, truly
• 28:54
  hard to see not only our need for God, but that our need for
• 28:58
  God goes way beyond just worldly comfort and prestige.
• 29:02
  Without God, without a relationship with God, we're
• 29:05
  always lonely. We have no absolute meaning in
• 29:07
  our life, you know, absolute purpose in our life, no absolute
• 29:10
  anchor in our life. We've got no eternal hope, no
• 29:13
  eternal possibility of eternal fulfillment.
• 29:15
  We don't have anything, you know.
• 29:17
  I mean, we think, you know, Oh gosh, I got prestige, I got
• 29:20
  power, I got success, I got wealth, I got comfort, I got
• 29:24
  everything. No, you have just a teeny little
• 29:27
  slice of fraction. You don't know what you're
• 29:30
  missing. You are missing a relationship
• 29:33
  with the Almighty. You are missing a relationship
• 29:36
  that will give you an absolute anchor and that will give you an
• 29:39
  absolute meaning and purpose in life that will give you an
• 29:42
  eternal hope of salvation. You are missing perfect truth,
• 29:45
  love, goodness, beauty, and home.
• 29:47
  You are missing so much and at the same time, you're going to
• 29:51
  underlive your life unless you know what you're missing.
• 29:55
  And if you underlive your life that poignantly, all I can tell
• 29:59
  you is you're going to wind up being filled with cosmic
• 30:03
  emptiness, alienation, loneliness, malaise, guilt.
• 30:08
  I mean, look at all these people.
• 30:10
  They've got everything you could ever want in this world, and
• 30:14
  they're empty. They look.
• 30:15
  Yeah, they look at themselves in the mirror and they don't see
• 30:19
  any substance in themselves because they have no God.
• 30:22
  Or they get just very distracted, I think, with the
• 30:25
  things of the world to keep them unaware of their emptiness, even
• 30:29
  though deep down they experience it.
• 30:30
  And I know so many people, you know, and I've been in this
• 30:35
  place in different types in times in my life where if I'm
• 30:38
  not deeply connected to our Lord and trusting in him, you end up
• 30:41
  getting almost robotic. You end up getting in this sort
• 30:43
  of rhythm of living as a creature, as a, as a, as an
• 30:47
  animal, and not as a, a spirit made to relate to God, you know,
• 30:51
  as in friendship with God. And I think there's a lot of
• 30:54
  people today that are kind of like Ottomans.
• 30:56
  They're just automated. They're doing the motions and
• 30:59
  they have some emotional moments and maybe spiritual moments, but
• 31:03
  they're living on a surface level.
• 31:06
  Oh yeah, I mean, they, they don't even know what they're
• 31:08
  missing. And that's the pity of it all.
• 31:11
  They could have perfect truth, love, goodness, beauty and home.
• 31:13
  They could have a relationship with pure meaning itself, pure
• 31:16
  love itself, pure goodness itself.
• 31:19
  They could have a relationship with this being.
• 31:21
  And instead they think that a good substitute is going to be
• 31:27
  money, power, prestige, success, etcetera.
• 31:30
  And you know, it's it's almost pitiable, but they do, you know,
• 31:33
  God gives them the feelings the same Ignatius says, right in
• 31:36
  Spiritual Exercise, God is telling them he peaks them, you
• 31:41
  know, and he sort of says, you know, when you look in the
• 31:43
  mirror and you're shaving and you see no substance looking
• 31:46
  back at you, just take note because without me, you've got
• 31:51
  no substance. And by the way, when you're
• 31:53
  sitting there this Christmas surrounded by all your family
• 31:57
  and friends and you're feeling cosmic loneliness, like
• 32:00
  somebody's missing, something's missing.
• 32:03
  I mean, I feel so lonely in the midst of all my family.
• 32:06
  Just take note because something may be missing, like a
• 32:09
  relationship with the one who created you for much more than
• 32:13
  this world created you for perfect truth, love, goodness,
• 32:16
  beauty and be or your walking down the street and you're just
• 32:19
  thinking I'm out of kilter with everything in the cosmos.
• 32:22
  I mean, I just don't fit in here or everything out there is empty
• 32:26
  and alienating and lonely and dark and you just and, and well,
• 32:30
  why? I mean, you got everything.
• 32:33
  Why would you feel that way? Because you don't have God, you
• 32:36
  don't have the absolute. You don't have the one who is
• 32:39
  perfect love and perfect goodness and perfect beauty.
• 32:42
  All you have is like little, you know, images of these things,
• 32:46
  fleeting images, transit glory. I'm Wendy, right.
• 32:49
  So you just literally you're on like this mini level of
• 32:54
  everything. You cannot even sustain
• 32:56
  yourself. You can't even make yourself
• 32:58
  busy. That's why you say to Gus and
• 33:00
  says for to God, right, for thou has made us for thyself and our
• 33:04
  hearts are restless. They're unhappy until they rest
• 33:08
  in thee. And so the the whole point, you
• 33:11
  know, is it's suffering. That is what helps us to see
• 33:15
  what we're missing. And I pity the person who does
• 33:19
  not suffer. I pity the person who has not
• 33:23
  know what they think to be a whit of a challenge because I
• 33:27
  know there's three things going to happen to them.
• 33:31
  The first thing is the evil spirit is going to just so
• 33:35
  easily pull them along his path because the, the need for
• 33:41
  virtue, the need for trust in God, it's not there.
• 33:45
  They don't even need know that they need to go to church, that
• 33:48
  they're so radically incomplete without, you know, just being at
• 33:52
  a religious ceremony and praying.
• 33:54
  They don't know it. And that makes them like cannon
• 33:57
  fodder for the evil spirit. He just can drag them along.
• 34:01
  The second thing that's really clear is that that cosmic
• 34:06
  alienation and loneliness and emptiness, you know everything.
• 34:09
  You know, the, the, the existentialist philosophers,
• 34:12
  even the atheistic existentialist philosophers talk
• 34:15
  about, right, Every one of those things, you know, that, that
• 34:19
  these people are feeling right, Rodion Roskolnikov and
• 34:22
  Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment or Edgar Allan Pozia,
• 34:26
  the tell tale harder. You know, obviously Josef Kaye
• 34:30
  and Franz Kafka, the trial, right?
• 34:32
  All these, you know, things you what, what's this, all this
• 34:35
  cosmic guilt about in this malaise and this inability to,
• 34:38
  to, to, to redeem yourself. You know, I mean, don't we need
• 34:42
  some sort of expiation forces if we didn't need expiation from
• 34:48
  God and absolute and God alone, You can't give it to me.
• 34:52
  I can't give it to myself. The whole world can't give it to
• 34:54
  me. Only God can give me that
• 34:57
  expiation. There's got to be some kind of
• 34:59
  religious, you know, sensitivity there, you know, a relationship
• 35:03
  with God that can help me through that.
• 35:05
  And without God, I'm powerless. You know, I, I'm become a rodeon
• 35:10
  Roscoelder. I become Joseph K and die like a
• 35:13
  dog, as he puts it at the end of the book.
• 35:16
  So all these things right, that are happening without suffering.
• 35:20
  I mean, we are can and fodder for those cosmic emotions.
• 35:25
  We're can and fodder from everything from cosmic, you
• 35:28
  know, guilt and cosmic emptiness, loneliness,
• 35:31
  alienation. We're not at home here and we
• 35:34
  won't be at home until we're in home at home in God.
• 35:37
  And we're can and fodder for the evil spirit who can pull us
• 35:40
  every which way that wealthy are can without faith, the wealthy
• 35:45
  can be he LED around by the there's nothing wrong with
• 35:47
  wealth. If you put your faith first
• 35:49
  before your wealth, before your power, your prestige, you're OK.
• 35:53
  But if you don't, he was first guy's way with you.
• 35:57
  You know, you pull you around by the nose.
• 35:59
  Just tell you what a great person you are.
• 36:01
  Yeah, I'm not telling you, but I mean the person in general, you
• 36:05
  know that that a person is. And then, of course, the third
• 36:07
  thing that happens, you know, when you know, it's people are
• 36:10
  getting old. They lose their home, meaning
• 36:12
  and purpose in life. Let's face facts.
• 36:15
  When you get older, you know, you just get a little weaker.
• 36:18
  You know, the powers of articulation slip a little bit.
• 36:20
  And you know the, you know, I can't play the old tennis game I
• 36:24
  used to, and now I'm going blind and it's not helping, you know,
• 36:29
  and so forth and so on. And you have no God.
• 36:31
  You have no purpose beyond this world.
• 36:34
  How are you going to do this? How are you without that
• 36:39
  Christian notion of the resurrection, where all of us
• 36:42
  will be released from our pain and suffering?
• 36:46
  How are we going to handle just the regular old process of
• 36:50
  growing old and then dying without any faith in God?
• 36:56
  All I can tell you is you without God being first, without
• 37:01
  the Kingdom of God being first, we're all going to be the
• 37:03
  victims of this. So God and his mercy gives us
• 37:06
  challenges, God and his mercy gives us suffering.
• 37:09
  Ohh, my blindness is a you know, I, I didn't like going blind.
• 37:13
  I'd be very. Frank, are you totally blind?
• 37:15
  Yeah, this with him now. Everylife.com is America's
• 37:18
  fastest growing baby diaper and wipes company.
• 37:21
  I love Every Life because this is a premium product made from
• 37:24
  the best materials for your little one and everylife.com is
• 37:28
  a pro-life company. When you go to
• 37:30
  everylife.com/join you can join the Changing Lives Club.
• 37:34
  This way you can set up a subscription to get your diapers
• 37:36
  and your wipes these premium products delivered right to your
• 37:39
  door for your little one. And after three months of the
• 37:42
  subscription, you will be able to donate for free a month
• 37:45
  supply of diapers to a mom and a baby in need.
• 37:48
  So what are you waiting for? Go to everylife.com, join, join
• 37:52
  the Changing Lives Club, Use the code LILAT, check out, get 10%
• 37:56
  off your order, start your subscription.
• 37:58
  And after three months, you can donate a full month supply of
• 38:01
  diapers to a mom and a baby in need.
• 38:04
  I I didn't like going blind. I'd be very frank.
• 38:06
  Are you totally blind? But, you know, I, I wasn't, you
• 38:10
  know, when I was 31, I had pretty good vision, you know,
• 38:13
  and then all of a sudden, the night is pigmentosa.
• 38:16
  But I am, but I am, but I am. But I am just showing the
• 38:18
  downhill. And of course, every time I'm
• 38:20
  doing this, Lord, what are you doing?
• 38:21
  I could be so much more efficient in your service if I
• 38:24
  just didn't have this blindness. Now let me give you, you know
• 38:26
  what I call my Father Spitzer's wrong prayer.
• 38:29
  Dear Lord, I am going blind here.
• 38:32
  I'm not liking it. I'm, I'm going to give you a
• 38:34
  pathway that I recommend to Get Me Out of the first.
• 38:37
  You know, maybe I can get a Doctor Who can do something.
• 38:39
  Well, maybe I can get a miracle, you know, and so forth.
• 38:42
  And so now let me give you a recommended timeline, which I
• 38:44
  think is very appropriate for getting rid of this blindness.
• 38:46
  Of course, God is just sitting there.
• 38:49
  Go ahead and just keep praying. I'm gonna do what's good for
• 38:53
  you. And the blindness has been a
• 38:55
  terrific thing for me. Oh, it's just like how has.
• 38:59
  Your blindness been a terrific thing for.
• 39:00
  You let me tell you just first of all, you know having the
• 39:04
  challenge, it kills the myth of self-sufficiency overnight.
• 39:09
  Oh, I was probably a little bit hard to to contend with as a
• 39:12
  younger man. I people put in my yearbook does
• 39:16
  not suffer fools gladly. That tells you what a not a nice
• 39:20
  guy I was. Really.
• 39:22
  Oh yeah, I was pretty. It's hard for me to believe
• 39:24
  you're so congenial and pleasant and humble and willing to talk
• 39:28
  to anyone about anything. And.
• 39:31
  That's because of transformation, that's because
• 39:34
  of faith and part of my faith it, you know, the blindness has
• 39:38
  really helped, you know, when you start bumping around trying
• 39:40
  to go through airports and people are going to go in like a
• 39:43
  blind or something, As a matter of fact, I am.
• 39:46
  So of course, you know, there's a little humility as Ignatius as
• 39:51
  it's good for everybody. And this is the good thorn in
• 39:54
  the flesh that God chose for me. Might have been the same for
• 39:57
  Paul. Who knows, it might have been,
• 39:59
  but the. Sorry to interrupt, but would
• 40:01
  you say your personality has changed since?
• 40:04
  Wow. Oh, yeah.
• 40:05
  Oh, no. I boy, you know, you know what
• 40:09
  my doctorate dissertation director said to me?
• 40:12
  I love the guy. Very definitely a wonderful
• 40:14
  Jewish scholar. Paul Weiss.
• 40:16
  You know what? You know one of the great
• 40:18
  Sterling shareholders. You know what?
• 40:20
  Great university out there. And so anyway, up always says,
• 40:25
  you know, Spencer and he says you know, you, you got to be a
• 40:30
  little bit more discreet, a little bit more refined.
• 40:34
  I said, what do you mean? He says, you know, you take your
• 40:37
  opponent and then you hit him and then you knock him down and
• 40:44
  then you jump on him and bite him.
• 40:47
  Don't bite him. So I said OK.
• 40:51
  This was pre blindness I'm. Guessing this is the pre the pre
• 40:54
  blind Spitzer you know? I That would have been a fun
• 40:57
  Spitzer. I mean, this is the funnest
• 40:58
  Spitzer to talk to right here, but that would have been an
• 41:01
  interesting one right there. Yeah, it was very political, you
• 41:05
  know, maybe a little bit too, too much so, you know, But, you
• 41:10
  know, a lot, a lot of my friends told me, you know, cash, you
• 41:13
  know, you know, ease up on people, you know.
• 41:16
  Was this when you were in leadership at Gonzaga?
• 41:20
  This was no, it was far before. OK, so this was just as a young
• 41:24
  smart, smart Alec smart as a whip priest.
• 41:26
  Yep, and it wasn't even this is I was just just ordained and I
• 41:31
  still had a lot of smart Alec in me and and, you know, just going
• 41:36
  blind, you know, as you know, it just was so small.
• 41:40
  You know, it was like, well, I can't read the the the pointing
• 41:43
  of my Hebrew. I'll be OK, you know, and I kind
• 41:46
  of talked myself into that and then I oh, I got another loss,
• 41:49
  you know, and I go, Oh boy, Lord, you know, there's plenty
• 41:53
  of time for you to do the miracle, but a miracle would be
• 41:55
  very good right now. But every single time I suffered
• 41:58
  a little bit of set back, always there was a little bit more
• 42:02
  vulnerability, a little bit more need for God, a little bit more
• 42:06
  trust in God. And then, you know, he was
• 42:09
  softening me. I mean, he was softening me.
• 42:13
  And, you know, after a while, you know, you begin to think
• 42:17
  about things and you begin to think I'm a much more effective
• 42:21
  person softened than a person who is going to slug it out,
• 42:26
  being very hyper critical, you know, and very, you know, biting
• 42:33
  them. So, you know, I, I think the key
• 42:36
  point was it the softening help me, the softening help my
• 42:41
  ministry, the softening. You know, I, I did have some
• 42:46
  debates early on where, you know, you know, I, I probably
• 42:52
  was a little harder than I needed to be on, on opponents
• 42:56
  because I want to get my point across.
• 42:59
  But I don't think I won the audience over any better by
• 43:02
  being hard. But at the time, you know, I
• 43:08
  mean, if a person is respectful, I generally try to be
• 43:12
  respectful. But if a person is not
• 43:14
  respectful, then I do at least jump on him a little bit and
• 43:20
  maybe do some biting. But because, you know, sometimes
• 43:24
  you have to do that in order to get your point across or else,
• 43:28
  you know people. Assert yourself a little.
• 43:30
  Bit assert yourself, you do, you absolutely do.
• 43:32
  But I would never do that with somebody who I think is an
• 43:37
  innocent or as previously I might have been, I might might
• 43:43
  have done some harm to people who you know, I mean, it's like,
• 43:47
  hey, you don't get the triple integral here.
• 43:49
  This is how you do it. You know and you know and.
• 43:53
  Was there a was there a moment in your journey?
• 43:55
  And I think this is so beautiful to talk about because it's very
• 43:58
  connected to the Christmas story of Jesus literally coming into
• 44:01
  the world as a completely helpless baby.
• 44:04
  And you're talking about sharing.
• 44:06
  And I appreciate you sharing this because I know it's, you
• 44:08
  know, very personal to you and I but I think it's incredibly
• 44:11
  powerful. Your experience with the
• 44:13
  vulnerability of becoming, losing your vision, losing your
• 44:17
  sight. Was there a moment when somebody
• 44:20
  said to you, oh, you know, Spitzer, Father Spitzer, you're,
• 44:24
  you're different now? Or was it so gradually like
• 44:28
  being boiled in a pot over time as you as you changed?
• 44:32
  Well, twice in my life actually, that happened.
• 44:34
  I mean, the first was unrelated to suffering, more related to
• 44:38
  the Holy Eucharist. So, you know, I, I began to go
• 44:44
  to daily Mass when I was a freshman in college and then I
• 44:49
  got hooked. I couldn't stop going.
• 44:52
  And because of that, you know, I, I really was listening to the
• 44:56
  word of God, but also he was transforming me in my heart.
• 44:59
  I, I think the solution of the vocations problem is get people
• 45:02
  to go to, to daily Mass. But the, the, the, the key thing
• 45:05
  though, is finally people would tell me, you know, Spencer,
• 45:08
  you're changing. I'd go no, the same hard
• 45:11
  utilitarian, no nonsense rat. I've always been.
• 45:14
  Well, yeah, you are a utilitarian no nonsense rat, but
• 45:17
  less so. And so, you know, I I, I knew
• 45:21
  that they saw something in me that was changing.
• 45:24
  And then that also happened with the blindness to people would
• 45:27
  actually say, you know, you know, you're not as
• 45:32
  self-sufficiency prone. You know, I mean for me,
• 45:35
  honestly, when I had to accept a ride.
• 45:40
  For the first time. For the first time what?
• 45:42
  Was that when? How long ago was that?
• 45:44
  Seven Weeks Coffee is America's pro-life coffee company on a
• 45:48
  mission to fund the pro-life movement. 1 cup of delicious
• 45:51
  coffee at a time. Why are they called Seven Weeks
• 45:53
  Coffee? Because at seven weeks, the baby
• 45:56
  is the size of a coffee bean, and it's the same time that the
• 45:59
  heartbeat can be first clearly detected on ultrasound.
• 46:02
  That's why Seven Weeks Coffee donates 10% of every sale to
• 46:06
  support pregnancy resource centers across the country.
• 46:09
  Seven Weeks Coffee is harvested from the top 1 to 2% of beans in
• 46:12
  the world. Their beans are mold free,
• 46:14
  pesticide free, shade grown, and low acid, and they're
• 46:18
  organically farmed. 7 Weeks Coffee truly checks all the
• 46:21
  boxes and just in time time for the holiday season. 7 Weeks
• 46:23
  Coffee is having their biggest promotion yet.
• 46:26
  You can enjoy exclusive discounts, free gifts with every
• 46:28
  order, and new limited edition coffees.
• 46:30
  And exclusively for my listeners, you can go to
• 46:33
  sevenweekscoffee.com and use the code Lila for up to 25% off your
• 46:38
  order. Oh, that was when I was 31, you
• 46:43
  know, and then, you know, I'm now 72, so quite a while back.
• 46:47
  So what does The main thing though is, you know, I had to
• 46:51
  have somebody pick me up to take me to my parish assignment from
• 46:55
  the parish. And I felt utterly humiliated
• 46:59
  because I felt like the expectation of a man in this
• 47:02
  culture is he ought to be self-sufficient.
• 47:05
  And of course, I liked being self-sufficient because that was
• 47:09
  a better image of myself from what I call my old point of
• 47:14
  view, the old man, the old, as Paul would call it.
• 47:18
  And so, you know, I, I, I liked it.
• 47:20
  And then all of a sudden, you know, people, you know, one time
• 47:24
  I was riding in the car with this lady and, and I said, well,
• 47:27
  you know, sorry I forced you to come out here and pick me up and
• 47:31
  do all this stuff and take me to the parish.
• 47:32
  She goes, oh, no, there's a whole list of people that
• 47:36
  actually want to pick you up. I'm just #4 on the list.
• 47:40
  So I get to do it this week. I said, really, you know, people
• 47:45
  want to do this. And she goes, oh, yeah, they,
• 47:48
  they, they really like the time in the car with you.
• 47:50
  I was so shocked, you know, I thought, well, maybe maybe I
• 47:53
  don't need to drive, you know, and of course I've met all these
• 47:57
  people. You know, I have a wonderful,
• 47:59
  you know, you know, assistant and Joe and Jacoby who's just
• 48:03
  like, my gosh, you know, I, you know, I never met her.
• 48:08
  If I hadn't needed, you know, assistant that could drive me
• 48:11
  into all these things and and do all the things she does.
• 48:13
  She's just a good heart, you know, and I learned who good
• 48:17
  hearts were, you know, from from her, you know, in so many
• 48:20
  different ways. So I mean, all these blessings
• 48:23
  come cascading in, but my need for God, you know, it's that
• 48:28
  prayer of you can always say, I love you, I trust you.
• 48:32
  But if you really want to deepen all of that, it's I need you.
• 48:37
  And then you, you'll trust more, believe me, you will love more
• 48:43
  because you will see he is guiding and protecting you where
• 48:47
  you can't help yourself. And it's there where you see his
• 48:52
  love. Some person comes in, you know,
• 48:54
  sometimes, you know, like one time just the other day, I was
• 48:57
  kind of in a airport and the, you know, I, I had to come to
• 49:01
  the restroom. And so the guy dropped me off
• 49:04
  and, you know, and I came out of the rest and he'd left me, you
• 49:08
  know, And so I wasn't quite sure where the gate was and so forth.
• 49:12
  I just knew it was in the general direction somewhere down
• 49:15
  where. Did the guy go he?
• 49:17
  Just left, I guess he was in a hurry so, but he left me.
• 49:21
  So anyway, you know, kind of walking out with my hand
• 49:26
  extended, my arm extended. So he didn't want to hit
• 49:28
  anybody, you know, but I was just trying to go straight
• 49:31
  ahead. And finally this guy goes, where
• 49:33
  are you going? I said, I'm going to this gate,
• 49:35
  whatever it was, gate 31 or something.
• 49:38
  And he goes, well, don't you have any assistance?
• 49:41
  I said no, you left me, you know.
• 49:43
  And he and he says, well, that guy's mother didn't train, He
• 49:48
  didn't learn him well. And I said, well, probably not.
• 49:52
  But I said, do you happen to see where 931 is?
• 49:55
  And he goes. Like I'm about to miss my
• 49:57
  flight. And so he basically, you know,
• 50:00
  he I said, can I take an ELF always ashore?
• 50:03
  So of course he brought me down there and so forth.
• 50:05
  Well, I met this guy and I just thought, you know, here's this
• 50:09
  guy and he was that just a Good Samaritan.
• 50:13
  But, you know, I see two things in it.
• 50:15
  I think he actually liked leading me, you know, and this
• 50:20
  other thing is it, you know, I just told him.
• 50:22
  I said you're you're, you know, providentially sent.
• 50:26
  That's exactly what I told him. And he goes, really, I said,
• 50:30
  yes, I was praying to God help me, you know, get to my gate and
• 50:35
  you came along and, you know, and I'm very grateful.
• 50:38
  And so at the same time, you know, you know, I, I see God's
• 50:44
  hand in it. I see my vulnerability in it.
• 50:47
  And he saw me as he, he saw himself as a blessing for me.
• 50:54
  And so God gets a triple play, you know, off of, you know,
• 50:58
  Switzer, you know, someone down there down the down the aisle,
• 51:03
  you know, trying to figure out where he's going.
• 51:06
  Do you, do you feel less vulnerable now, Father Spitzer,
• 51:09
  now that you've learned to live with a lack of eyesight than you
• 51:13
  felt in the earlier days? And how has that changed for
• 51:15
  you? Yeah, because first of all, if
• 51:18
  you have been kind of self-sufficient and you can get
• 51:20
  yourself out of a jab, you know, when you're by yourself, you
• 51:25
  know, you're going to feel very vulnerable when that first
• 51:29
  happens to you because you're just going to say, I can't get
• 51:32
  myself out of the jam like I could before.
• 51:35
  You know, I mean, I'm going to have to have some help.
• 51:38
  But then when you see that there's a lot of good helpers
• 51:41
  out there, and then you see that God really, if they're not a lot
• 51:45
  of helpers, then God brings one in fast.
• 51:49
  You know, I mean, like almost every time, you know, it's like,
• 51:53
  OK, Lord, I'm, I'm, I'm in a, you know, in a bad position
• 51:58
  here, you know, just help me out, you know, or something.
• 52:01
  And, you know, somebody comes, somebody does something, you
• 52:04
  know, and, and, and so forth. I remember once I was at
• 52:09
  California Institute of Technology and, and, you know,
• 52:13
  given a tug and it's just great. This kid comes up to me
• 52:16
  afterwards and he didn't really know I was blind because I, you
• 52:19
  know, I don't use notes when I'm talking.
• 52:20
  I just look, kind of look straight at the audience.
• 52:23
  So he comes up and he says, Hey, can you check my notes out here?
• 52:25
  He has his smartphone, you know, and, and I said, well, I, I
• 52:29
  can't exactly do that. He goes, well, why not?
• 52:32
  I said, well, I'm blind. He goes, you're blind and he
• 52:35
  says how do you function? So I took the opportunity.
• 52:39
  I just said God. Wow.
• 52:42
  But it's really true, you know, he he just was, you know, people
• 52:46
  don't notice. But then if they did notice,
• 52:50
  they would help you. There are many more good people
• 52:53
  out there than ones who who don't care.
• 52:56
  They really will go the extra mile and help you.
• 52:59
  So if you're trying to get, you know, sometimes at the gate, you
• 53:02
  know, they forget, you know, to call, you know, the people that
• 53:06
  you know, need some assistance going down the jet way.
• 53:09
  So I'm trying to, you know, find myself, you know, trying to get
• 53:12
  from the gate from my seat over to the to the gate, you know,
• 53:16
  and if I'm up there sort of feeling around, you know, they
• 53:20
  people just automatically. I mean, so many good people out
• 53:24
  there who really do a very good things.
• 53:26
  And like I said, if if one doesn't appear immediately then
• 53:31
  soon God sends 1 so. But you, you, you and you
• 53:34
  travel. You typically travel with
• 53:36
  someone, right? I hope.
• 53:37
  So, well, it depends on the trip.
• 53:41
  I mean, I do, if I've got a talk, you know, where I have to
• 53:46
  get to a hotel, I have to get, you know, up on the stage.
• 53:51
  I have to move from place to place to get to the talk and
• 53:57
  everything. Generally I will not, you know,
• 54:01
  make the person there do it. So, but if I have a place where
• 54:05
  let's say I know a person who is there who's going to pick me up,
• 54:10
  who, you know, will it knows that they'll have to get me up
• 54:14
  to my hotel room, right? I'm not going to find it on my
• 54:17
  own. Or they also will get help me
• 54:19
  get up to the stage and take me down from the stage, you know,
• 54:23
  and everything. Well, if that is there, I, I
• 54:26
  just travel on my own. I'll just.
• 54:27
  Airports, too. Because there's normally a
• 54:30
  person at the airport that that you know, you just ask for it at
• 54:35
  the count to. Walk with you.
• 54:36
  Yeah, to walk with you. And then if there's somebody
• 54:39
  take take care of me when I get there, I'm fine.
• 54:42
  You know, I just meet him at right curbside Alaska or
• 54:45
  whatever. You, you have a lot to teach me,
• 54:48
  Father Spitzer, more than your theological philosophical
• 54:51
  wisdom. And I think people listening in
• 54:54
  your life, and I know you don't often speak about your no.
• 54:57
  Not really. Yeah.
• 54:58
  So I appreciate you talking about, you know, your, your,
• 55:01
  your journey and this condition that you've had.
• 55:04
  I mean, it sounds like for many years you were hoping it would
• 55:06
  reverse. Oh yeah, I really was.
• 55:08
  But now I'll be honest with you, God is taking care of everything
• 55:13
  He really has. I have all these assistants in
• 55:15
  my life. Frankly, I'd have 1000 times
• 55:18
  more distractions, you know? How do you write 19 books, you
• 55:21
  know, in about 10 years as a blind guy, be blind, you know,
• 55:26
  In other words, there's no distractions.
• 55:29
  It's wonderful. So, you know, I can hear things
• 55:33
  on a computer on Alexa, you know, you can get Alexa to read
• 55:37
  Kindle books, you know, and so forth.
• 55:40
  My secretary, you know, Michael, my other assistant, you know,
• 55:45
  they, they can like Joan, like she reads so fast, you know, and
• 55:50
  then, you know, like my emails, it's just like blah, blah, blah.
• 55:53
  And then I dictate blah, blah, blah.
• 55:54
  And she types 110 words a minute, you know, the smoke is
• 55:57
  coming out of her fingers. And so, you know, the, you know,
• 56:01
  it's all taken care of, you know, and I, I'm undistracted.
• 56:04
  I mean, I'm literally, you know, it might be, you know, really
• 56:08
  technical article, you know, that it may be publishing for a,
• 56:13
  you know, a, you know, a reference journal or a or a, you
• 56:17
  know, a reference book of some kind or another.
• 56:19
  And honestly, I'm just undistracted.
• 56:23
  I can absorb if it's physics or philosophy, I can absorb the
• 56:28
  argument. I can think through the things I
• 56:30
  can remember what the sources are.
• 56:33
  And then I can just say, oh, you know, search this source or go
• 56:37
  to this place and all the footnotes can be filled in by,
• 56:42
  you know, my assistant who can do it.
• 56:44
  So I mean, like I said, I'm just undistracted.
• 56:47
  I I don't think about going to the beach or I'm.
• 56:52
  Scrolling social media saved your eyes from that one.
• 56:57
  Exactly. Wow.
• 56:58
  Yeah, No, I'm in fact, you know, I don't have to worry about a
• 57:02
  whole lot of distractions. But you know, you think, well,
• 57:05
  aren't you bored? Just, you know, thinking about
• 57:07
  physics and philosophy and culture.
• 57:09
  No, no, not a bit. Because amidst all of that
• 57:13
  there's God and my desire, my love of spreading the Kingdom so
• 57:18
  that people aren't left with the problem of the rich man.
• 57:23
  So many distractions it, but they'll make time to discover
• 57:27
  perfect truth, love, goodness, beauty, and home that make time
• 57:30
  to discover Christ our Lord who has given us all these things,
• 57:35
  who is our Savior and who is our comfort, who is our meaning, who
• 57:40
  is our purpose. I don't have to give this to
• 57:42
  myself. I can discover this on the
• 57:44
  deepest levels because I'm blind and I'm not distracted by all
• 57:49
  the other stuff that could really be really present a
• 57:54
  temptation and a problem. So all those things being the
• 57:58
  case, you know, we come out, you know, not just softened and
• 58:02
  chastened, which is good. Humility is definitely good, but
• 58:06
  you come out with a lot of trust, you come out with a lot
• 58:09
  of empathy, you come out with a lot of compassion and you come
• 58:13
  out with a lot of work product, you know, which it will do a lot
• 58:18
  of good for a lot of people. And boy, I couldn't ask for a
• 58:22
  better life. I mean, am I happy?
• 58:24
  I'm as happy as I could possibly be.
• 58:27
  And so, as I said, you know, Christ as Saint Ignatius is
• 58:32
  right. He came before me.
• 58:33
  He suffered 1000 times more than me.
• 58:37
  You know, I'm just like one of those blind prophet types, you
• 58:40
  know, I, I, you know, I mean, I've got a really relatively
• 58:45
  good life And, and like I said, I've got so many wonderful
• 58:49
  friends and so many of them are my church friends, are my
• 58:53
  friends in faith. And, but I like, you know, I'm
• 58:57
  being on a good debate. You know I, you know, I think
• 59:00
  you know your. Your work product is truly
• 59:03
  incredible, but I think what you're sharing is very
• 59:07
  encouraging because it's, I mean, it is you're living the
• 59:11
  gospel, right? And that's what the Christian
• 59:13
  supposed to do is live the gospel, not just preach it, but
• 59:16
  live it and living it is that I need you, Jesus and coming back
• 59:19
  to our humanity and our frailty, because if we think we're too
• 59:23
  powerful and we're too strong and we don't need Jesus or we
• 59:26
  just operate without him in the day-to-day, we're never going to
• 59:28
  taste the, the full, the depth of what he created us for.
• 59:32
  And, and heaven might be too, might be very far away from us
• 59:35
  if we're unfortunately getting caught up in evil like the evil
• 59:38
  1 and separation from God. And I just, I think about, you
• 59:42
  know what you're saying and it's so beautifully connected to and
• 59:44
  even just what you're sharing. And I so appreciate you sharing
• 59:47
  it, the story of Jesus coming into the world as this baby,
• 59:51
  completely helpless and he's and then he tells us later on it
• 59:56
  when he has begun his public ministry many times, he tells
• 59:59
  his disciples become like a child.
• 1:00:02
  He tells the rich man you it's as hard as a camel to pass
• 1:00:05
  through a needle to enter the Kingdom of God, but the child is
• 1:00:09
  to whom heaven belongs. He says the child become like a
• 1:00:11
  child and then you will enter the Kingdom of heaven and do not
• 1:00:15
  let the let the little ones come to unto me.
• 1:00:17
  You know that this is the the child likeness of the faith is
• 1:00:22
  center and the Jesus as the child coming into the world is
• 1:00:26
  the beginning of his salvation story.
• 1:00:29
  I mean the incarnation is center.
• 1:00:33
  If you have riches, if you have intelligence, if you have.
• 1:00:38
  Sight. Sight.
• 1:00:40
  If you have everything you could ever want, but you don't have
• 1:00:43
  simplicity and faith if you don't, you're never going to
• 1:00:47
  discover love on any profound level.
• 1:00:50
  That would be my prediction and my further prediction is when
• 1:00:54
  push comes to shove, you won't have the absolute meaning and
• 1:00:56
  purpose. You won't have, you know, the
• 1:00:59
  everything that you need to prevent that sense of emptiness,
• 1:01:02
  alienation and loneliness. All the stuff you can't give to
• 1:01:06
  yourself. You're not going to be able to
• 1:01:08
  give yourself eternal hope. You're not going to be able to
• 1:01:10
  give yourself expiation from your faults in the sins that
• 1:01:14
  you've committed. You're not going to be able to
• 1:01:16
  do any. You know, you're going to be not
• 1:01:19
  just half a person, you're going to be like a billionth of a
• 1:01:23
  person. And what people don't
• 1:01:25
  understand, they, you know, go around thinking, you know why
• 1:01:28
  I'm smart and I belong to the Mensa society and well, I'm a
• 1:01:33
  very intelligent and very well spoken, powerful and prestigious
• 1:01:38
  person. Yeah.
• 1:01:41
  But when you start looking at yourself in the nakedness of not
• 1:01:45
  being with God, when you look at what you are missing without God
• 1:01:51
  and what you were meant to be, namely being, you know, in, in
• 1:01:55
  the midst of God's love and goodness and beauty and truth
• 1:02:00
  and, and, and, and being, if you look at it, you know, if you had
• 1:02:05
  but for one second, you know, you know when that fainting
• 1:02:09
  little glimmer of cosmic emptiness, alienation and
• 1:02:12
  loneliness are popping up, you know, and before it gets really
• 1:02:16
  bad, which it will, I mean, it'll just keep getting worse
• 1:02:19
  and worse. You're not going to get over it
• 1:02:21
  by getting more money and more power and more prestige.
• 1:02:24
  You need God. You're radically incomplete
• 1:02:26
  without God. You're radically guilty without
• 1:02:29
  God. You're radically empty without
• 1:02:31
  God. You're radically not.
• 1:02:33
  Blind without God. And radically blind without God.
• 1:02:37
  And so I'll take the physical blindness just as long as you
• 1:02:40
  don't get the spiritual blindness, which would really
• 1:02:43
  make me, you know, all the worse, you know, for that.
• 1:02:48
  And that's what Christ is doing. He's coming into the world to
• 1:02:52
  give us all of this. He's going to, I mean, my life
• 1:02:56
  without the church would be, you know, you know, one billionth of
• 1:03:04
  what it is. I mean, it's the church that
• 1:03:06
  fills me up with the, the grace and, and the joy that's really
• 1:03:11
  meaningful that the one that does have dignity and destiny
• 1:03:17
  and meaning and hope, you know, and, and I, you know, an anchor,
• 1:03:23
  you know, in it, You know, that's the kind of joy I, I want
• 1:03:27
  the joy of being with God and in God, he'll take care of the
• 1:03:31
  little challenges and sufferings I have from my blindness and all
• 1:03:35
  those things. He's going to take, you know,
• 1:03:38
  charge of, you know, when I feel like, well, maybe things are out
• 1:03:41
  of control here and, you know, and God, you know, just just
• 1:03:46
  pray, you know, some Spitzerian prayers.
• 1:03:49
  Lord, I give up, you take care of it.
• 1:03:52
  That's a good one. Or Lord, you know, you know,
• 1:03:56
  you're the just judge. You take care of it.
• 1:03:59
  You know, when I have to forgive somebody.
• 1:04:01
  And so he's just done terrible thing to me, you know, and and I
• 1:04:04
  just feel like, you know, I I just, I can't forgive the guy,
• 1:04:09
  you know, it's just been so dastardly, you know, and you,
• 1:04:12
  you think for a second. Well, yeah, here's a good
• 1:04:15
  prayer, You know, you're the judge, Judge Lord.
• 1:04:18
  You take care of it. I'm dumping this on you.
• 1:04:20
  I am not. I don't want to be bogged down
• 1:04:23
  by this anymore. Will you take it?
• 1:04:25
  Of course. She says I'll take it.
• 1:04:26
  Just pray for your enemies. I'll take it.
• 1:04:28
  And, you know, you don't have to worry.
• 1:04:31
  I'm the judge. Judge you, you, you know, I'll
• 1:04:34
  take care of it. You keep living.
• 1:04:36
  It works sometimes. You know how you have that
• 1:04:39
  foreboding and sometimes you think, Oh my gosh, something bad
• 1:04:42
  is about to have maybe something bad is about to happen.
• 1:04:45
  Because it really is a spiritual sense of foreboding, not just a
• 1:04:48
  psychological 1. And so of course, sometimes when
• 1:04:50
  that happens, I just say, dear Lord, just push back the
• 1:04:54
  foreboding. Just push back the cause of this
• 1:04:58
  foreboding. You take care of it.
• 1:05:01
  And he does, you know, the foreboding just simply, you
• 1:05:04
  know, the depression, the darkness seems to go away right
• 1:05:07
  away. You know, I say it sometimes 10
• 1:05:08
  times, you know, but he does, he takes care of it.
• 1:05:12
  And so there's these all these prayers were if you really
• 1:05:15
  trusted like thy loving will be done right, you could do do
• 1:05:19
  things that, you know, you say, well, I maybe I shouldn't do
• 1:05:22
  this debate, you know, with, you know, Hawking or something on
• 1:05:26
  the Larry King show. There's guys who could do a much
• 1:05:29
  better job than me. You get you, you, you really
• 1:05:32
  feel that way sometimes. Oh, every you know, because you
• 1:05:34
  think about it and go the brilliant father.
• 1:05:36
  Rapper Spitzer You're saying maybe someone could do this
• 1:05:38
  better than. Well, I do sometimes.
• 1:05:41
  I want to. I'm asking.
• 1:05:42
  Because I'm surprised. I'm also asking because
• 1:05:44
  literally almost every time before I do one of my things, if
• 1:05:47
  it's a bigger thing, I'm like what am I doing?
• 1:05:50
  What am I doing? Oh yeah?
• 1:05:51
  Well, that's exactly right. But I'm also not the brilliant
• 1:05:54
  Roberts. That you are, oh, you're sharper
• 1:05:56
  than than steel. I'm telling you, you you are
• 1:05:59
  something else. But the the main point I'm
• 1:06:02
  trying to get to is, you know, it's God's grace.
• 1:06:06
  He just says, well, I need you right now.
• 1:06:08
  OK, well, if that's what you want, you know, I'll go ahead
• 1:06:12
  and give it. As I say, the the the best
• 1:06:16
  college try so but he does he told you.
• 1:06:19
  Did you, did you hear that thing?
• 1:06:21
  Mother Angelica is said to have said that she would say to the
• 1:06:26
  Lord, Lord, why me? Why am I founding EWTN?
• 1:06:29
  I'm a cloistered nun. What are you?
• 1:06:31
  What are you doing with this? And the Lord told her.
• 1:06:34
  And this kind of rubs me a little wrong.
• 1:06:37
  It's a little intense. But apparently Jesus, she
• 1:06:39
  believes Jesus told her that. Well, I didn't first pick you,
• 1:06:44
  mother. I picked a couple other people,
• 1:06:46
  but they said no. Oh, it's a little heavy, isn't
• 1:06:50
  it? Well, it could be, you know, in
• 1:06:53
  my case, you know. Or is she joking you think when
• 1:06:56
  she says that? No, I don't think so.
• 1:06:58
  Maybe the Lord could have said it, but generally he's not that
• 1:07:01
  blunt. Not at least with me.
• 1:07:03
  Sometimes he'll. Say she was a her personality.
• 1:07:06
  Maybe it's a personality thing. Yeah.
• 1:07:08
  Oh, and that's right, it does. God measures things according to
• 1:07:11
  the definite, distinctive personality of everybody.
• 1:07:14
  So I mean, sometimes, you know, my novice master Tony, you're
• 1:07:17
  the kind a guy that needs to be hit on the side of the head with
• 1:07:20
  a 2 by 4 occasionally. And so I thought, well, that's
• 1:07:23
  probably true, you know, because I was kind of stubborn and
• 1:07:27
  arrogant when I was in then of a shit.
• 1:07:28
  I probably was I no, I was so. The would Jesus talk to you in a
• 1:07:33
  tough way or more sweet nothings, or he let the
• 1:07:35
  blindness talk to you and then he gives you the.
• 1:07:38
  Sweet not. Nothings but sweet everythings.
• 1:07:41
  Yeah, well, not sweet nothings, that's for.
• 1:07:42
  Sure, everything. But he, he certainly Jesus, you
• 1:07:46
  know, he does it in two ways. You know, generally if he wants
• 1:07:52
  to get my attention, sometimes around two or three in the
• 1:07:55
  morning, I'll get a sense of emptiness and alienation, sort
• 1:07:59
  of like the stuff, you know, where he's not present.
• 1:08:02
  Now, sometimes I can get that same sense if evil is around and
• 1:08:06
  I can tell when evil is around, you know, they're up, you know
• 1:08:10
  the evil spirits up to no good. And I can see he's doing
• 1:08:13
  something. I do get that feeling of
• 1:08:15
  emptiness, alienation, etcetera. But also when God's trying to
• 1:08:19
  get my attention, I wake up at 3:00 in the morning and I go,
• 1:08:24
  what are you trying to tell me? Am I getting off the track here?
• 1:08:27
  You know, what are you saying? And so he gets kind of blunt
• 1:08:31
  that way, you know, where he'll like remove that Grayson, that,
• 1:08:34
  you know, what I call the consolation.
• 1:08:37
  That's the normal part of a Christian's life, right?
• 1:08:40
  So all of a sudden, that consolation disappears.
• 1:08:42
  So I'm on the alert at 3 and I go, OK, Lord, what are you
• 1:08:45
  trying to tell me? What are you trying to tell me?
• 1:08:47
  You know? And so sometimes I know what
• 1:08:50
  he's trying to tell me here, going down this path.
• 1:08:52
  Don't go down that path, but sometimes I I'm kind of
• 1:08:56
  genuinely curious, like am I supposed to do something
• 1:08:59
  differently? Persevere, push through or like,
• 1:09:02
  walk away from the thing. Yeah, that's right.
• 1:09:04
  Exactly. So, you know, it's, you know,
• 1:09:07
  often times it's, you know, a matter of temperance, but he can
• 1:09:11
  be rather blunt that way. But also, you know, I can
• 1:09:16
  recognize when he's guiding me. He's not blunt to be blunt.
• 1:09:20
  He basically, you know, when he's taking that consolation
• 1:09:25
  away, he's definitely guiding. So I'm looking and I'm looking
• 1:09:29
  and then all of a sudden I go, is it this, you know, is this
• 1:09:32
  where you want me to be? Is is this where you're leading
• 1:09:36
  me? And sometimes I get that sense
• 1:09:39
  of the emptiness being filled right at the moment.
• 1:09:43
  So the consolation is returning and I go, I've got it, I'm all
• 1:09:49
  ears. I'll give it my best shot.
• 1:09:51
  But a lot of times too, it's to persevere, you know, just
• 1:09:55
  there's, you know, there's always going to be somebody who
• 1:09:57
  wants to bust your chest. I don't have to tell you this.
• 1:10:00
  Gosh, people, you know, you get your fair share of, you know,
• 1:10:06
  people want to, you know, stop your ministry and, you know, and
• 1:10:09
  that, you know, who's animating them, you know, So you know
• 1:10:13
  what, you know, So I, I have to say, you know, he hasn't been
• 1:10:18
  quite as blunt to me as he has with Mother Angelica, but maybe
• 1:10:22
  because I couldn't take it, you know, oh, gosh, or maybe I would
• 1:10:26
  just, you know, go, oh, you know, there's somebody better,
• 1:10:30
  you know, wouldn't you want to take that?
• 1:10:33
  Fine, I'll walk. I'll.
• 1:10:34
  I'll leave my ball on the field and walk off.
• 1:10:37
  You don't want me anyway. He's God.
• 1:10:40
  I'm like come back father or come back Robert.
• 1:10:42
  I guess he's a call your father. Sorry, but no.
• 1:10:49
  God is the wise physician of the soul.
• 1:10:52
  There. Is no doubt he knows just how to
• 1:10:55
  guide me, you know and as I say, my destiny has complained when
• 1:10:59
  he's finished trying to shape this old stubborn coot so.
• 1:11:08
  You know, all of this makes me think about the Lord, his
• 1:11:11
  incarnation. Then he comes and he unrolls the
• 1:11:13
  scroll when he is announcing his, you know, he's opening his
• 1:11:17
  public ministry, the wedding fees at Cana.
• 1:11:18
  I think it's already happened, right?
• 1:11:20
  And he's now beginning to teach his teaching ministry.
• 1:11:24
  And so much of the teaching ministry was about obviously the
• 1:11:26
  Kingdom is here, but it was also heal the, heal the sick, give
• 1:11:29
  sight to the blind, lift, raise the dead even.
• 1:11:33
  But Jesus says, you know, he goes to the temple and he says,
• 1:11:36
  and I think this is in Matthew, I think.
• 1:11:40
  Mark and Matthew. It's in both Mark and Matthew.
• 1:11:42
  Well, Luke's got the one where you know, you know, he cites the
• 1:11:45
  whole of Isaiah and says this day, this prophecy is fulfilled.
• 1:11:49
  In your ear this day and he begins by saying the Spirit of
• 1:11:51
  the Lord is on me. So Jesus is saying because he
• 1:11:54
  has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor that I need you
• 1:11:58
  Jesus people. He has sent me to proclaim
• 1:12:01
  freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind
• 1:12:05
  to set the oppressed free to proclaim the year of the Lord's
• 1:12:08
  favor. Today, the Scripture is
• 1:12:10
  fulfilled in your hearing. Took it right from the scroll of
• 1:12:14
  Isaiah and read it. And of course, people will like,
• 1:12:18
  what do you mean fulfilled in your hearing?
• 1:12:21
  Of course they want to throw him off the Cliff, you know,
• 1:12:24
  because, you know, no prophet is accepted in his own place.
• 1:12:28
  But the main thing, though, is that's what he's doing.
• 1:12:32
  That's why he's coming to the world and he's come to defeat
• 1:12:35
  Satan. There's no doubt.
• 1:12:37
  You know, we've got the church now.
• 1:12:39
  We've got the grace of forgiveness that's given to us
• 1:12:42
  every time. You know, we receive, you know,
• 1:12:45
  the absolution and reconciliation, right?
• 1:12:48
  We're receiving the absolution, the, the love that was wrought
• 1:12:54
  in his complete self sacrifice, right?
• 1:12:56
  No greater love that a man can have than to give his life for
• 1:12:59
  his friends, right? That no greater love, that
• 1:13:01
  infinite unconditional love that's given in that act.
• 1:13:05
  Every single time we receive the Holy Eucharist, we're receiving,
• 1:13:08
  yes, the row body and blood of Jesus into us.
• 1:13:10
  We're receiving his unconditional redemptive love
• 1:13:13
  into us. That's why we're being
• 1:13:14
  transformed through it. That's why I got transformed
• 1:13:17
  through it. That's why we're basically
• 1:13:20
  receiving into us too. You know, this protection from
• 1:13:23
  evil because you know, as evil has, you know, it tries to, you
• 1:13:28
  know, get us the more we receive the Eucharist it worthily daily.
• 1:13:32
  And you know, just say, Jesus, I thank you, I love you right back
• 1:13:36
  when we're doing this, it's clear, you know, that we're
• 1:13:40
  being protected from evil that we're being healed from, you
• 1:13:44
  know, the the the the difficulties with past sin,
• 1:13:48
  right. So all of these, you know, we do
• 1:13:50
  need healing from past and affects us and all of these
• 1:13:53
  gifts we're getting because of the love that he gave to us on
• 1:13:57
  the cross. But that love would not have
• 1:13:59
  been possible had Jesus not come into the world in person, in a
• 1:14:04
  human nature. Why was it important he came as
• 1:14:07
  a baby as not just a newborn baby?
• 1:14:10
  Like that's the other thing. It's not like he just appeared
• 1:14:13
  as this little baby in the arms of his mother.
• 1:14:15
  He came into the world inside of his mother as an embryo.
• 1:14:19
  That's right. There's no more by the way
• 1:14:20
  pro-life message than that in the all of Holy Scripture.
• 1:14:23
  God himself is an embryo, like a single cell embryo at the very
• 1:14:27
  beginning. And that little embryos, a
• 1:14:31
  guardian Angel is looking right into his Heavenly Father's eyes.
• 1:14:37
  So it's the child is the child in utero, as Jesus was all the
• 1:14:43
  way up to the point of, you know, growing into an adult.
• 1:14:48
  So the the point is, of course, for Jesus, I tell you, you harm
• 1:14:52
  one of these little ones and you should that includes those that
• 1:14:58
  are in utero. You know, they're they're angels
• 1:15:02
  are looking into my father's eyes.
• 1:15:04
  It's just not going to be good for us to be harming, you know,
• 1:15:09
  pre born human beings, you know, post born human beings, you
• 1:15:13
  know, children are sacrosanct in in Jesus's view.
• 1:15:18
  And their innocence is, you know, you what have they done to
• 1:15:23
  deserve any kind of maltreatment?
• 1:15:25
  So Jesus is very blunt on this, really very forthright.
• 1:15:31
  And you know, I have no doubt about the fact that of course he
• 1:15:36
  means a child in utero. I mean, why would he exclude it?
• 1:15:40
  What a sophistry is that, You know, I mean, Jesus, of course
• 1:15:46
  it pertains to to a helpless child who's born already.
• 1:15:50
  Imagine how helpless A preborn child is.
• 1:15:54
  So of course we have to have double the respect for the
• 1:15:57
  preborn and. Double the respect for the
• 1:15:59
  preborn of the born, because they're even more helpless than.
• 1:16:02
  They're even more helpless. They even need us more, need God
• 1:16:07
  more, need love more. You say, oh, how can you love a
• 1:16:11
  child? Believe me?
• 1:16:12
  And in utero child is already in empathetic connection with his
• 1:16:17
  mother or her mother. It's, you know, I mean, the
• 1:16:21
  power of empathy, right, is just, you can see millions of
• 1:16:26
  instances of it, right? A child who can't understand a
• 1:16:29
  single word right outside the mother's womb, right?
• 1:16:33
  And so you pay no attention to the child.
• 1:16:35
  And if you do that for about 3 weeks, you got a good sociopath
• 1:16:39
  on your hands, of course. And you think, well, that's
• 1:16:43
  because the mother's touching him.
• 1:16:45
  It's the mother's empathy in the touch.
• 1:16:48
  She is connecting with that child.
• 1:16:51
  She is loving that child. That child is being filled with
• 1:16:57
  the love of that mom. And by the way, the mother is
• 1:17:01
  being filled with the love of that child.
• 1:17:04
  Sometimes I don't have to tell you hard to carry a baby to term
• 1:17:09
  because of course there's all kinds of challenges that go
• 1:17:12
  along with that. But I've never felt more love.
• 1:17:15
  I mean, there's even my husband's love and even
• 1:17:17
  experiences of God's love before the Eucharist.
• 1:17:19
  But on a very primal and and also spiritual level combined,
• 1:17:24
  you have both of them fully present human nature and our our
• 1:17:27
  soul and our body. Holding my now my third.
• 1:17:31
  It's like more with each baby. There's nothing like it in the
• 1:17:34
  world. Oh no.
• 1:17:34
  That I've ever experienced. Oh, no, perfectly stated, you
• 1:17:37
  know, coming right out of the mom of three.
• 1:17:40
  I mean that that's that's perfectly stated because I have
• 1:17:45
  to tell you there is something about that.
• 1:17:48
  And that's why, you know, you look at post abortion syndrome,
• 1:17:52
  right and you say, oh, you know, why would you know 82% of women
• 1:17:59
  who have an abortion have a much worse emotional condition after
• 1:18:05
  the fact then they did previously like a four times.
• 1:18:09
  If you know that great study that was done for the British
• 1:18:14
  Journal of Psychiatry and if you look at that study, she she
• 1:18:20
  basically did 3/4 of a million women compared those who had an
• 1:18:25
  abortion with those who did not have an abortion, brought their
• 1:18:29
  babies to term and those who are not pregnant.
• 1:18:31
  You put all the data together. The person who is worst off by
• 1:18:36
  far is the one who you know has had an abortion.
• 1:18:41
  In other words, a four times increase in suicides, 2.5 times
• 1:18:46
  increase in suicidal ideation, 1.4 times increase in
• 1:18:51
  depression, a two times increase in substance abuse, and a 1.3
• 1:18:55
  times increase in in anxiety. So you look at that and you say,
• 1:19:01
  well, what the this can't be good?
• 1:19:05
  And you say, well, why is it that they are having such a
• 1:19:09
  radical negative effect? And the answer to the question
• 1:19:15
  is that empathy, that child is giving life to that mom, while
• 1:19:19
  that mom is giving life to that child.
• 1:19:22
  It's almost the perfect love relationship.
• 1:19:24
  And if you dash it into the ground by homicide, it's kind of
• 1:19:30
  damage your psyche. It just has to.
• 1:19:33
  And it does. It absolutely does.
• 1:19:37
  And so, you know, all I can say is, you know, you know, empathy
• 1:19:44
  is super important. And God built us this way.
• 1:19:49
  And little children do give life to us and joy to us.
• 1:19:52
  I mean, sometimes there's no better reason for living than
• 1:19:56
  coming home and having some kid. Go, Mommy.
• 1:19:59
  You know, I'm glad you're home. It's almost like your whole
• 1:20:02
  being wells up in in, in a sense of, you know, just truly being
• 1:20:08
  filled to the brim with this little child's love or sometimes
• 1:20:14
  the adolescence love. And, and you know, my mom told
• 1:20:18
  me, you know, well, you know, you, you, I didn't always
• 1:20:21
  understand you, you know, you were always, you know, looking
• 1:20:25
  at some theory somewhere, you know, and she, my mom was a
• 1:20:28
  genuine intuitive, you know, she'd just say, Oh, you don't
• 1:20:32
  need all of these arguments and proof and evidence and science
• 1:20:36
  and thoughts. Just skip up.
• 1:20:38
  Just hold a baby. You hold the baby, you know,
• 1:20:41
  it's a miracle. And you say God exists.
• 1:20:44
  So I'm holding the baby and I'm literally saying to mom, it's
• 1:20:47
  not working. Well, I I didn't have the same
• 1:20:50
  kind of empathetic, you know, reaction she did, you know, but
• 1:20:53
  later I I definitely with my. Nieces and my nephews.
• 1:20:57
  I mean, I love them so much, you know, I mean, it's, it's, you
• 1:21:01
  know, crazy how much I, you know, just having them around
• 1:21:04
  and, you know, just conversing with them and so forth.
• 1:21:07
  Oh, it's sway. God meant it.
• 1:21:10
  And so I don't know how I got off on all that, but but
• 1:21:13
  definitely. Every child is the Christmas
• 1:21:16
  miracle. Every child.
• 1:21:18
  Jesus is in that child. Absolutely.
• 1:21:21
  And you're living it every day, Father Spitzer.
• 1:21:23
  Well, thank you, I. Father Spitzer, thanks for
• 1:21:26
  coming in today. And I, I love our conversations.
• 1:21:29
  I enjoy them so much. Me too.
• 1:21:31
  You're such a blessing. Tell people I I know we'll link
• 1:21:33
  it all of your great work, but tell us where people can find
• 1:21:36
  your work. OK, so I'm at majacenter.com,
• 1:21:40
  magiscenter.com and you can get a lot of things there from the
• 1:21:45
  website. We also have a Facebook for
• 1:21:48
  that. And right now in the midst of
• 1:21:51
  making an app, stay tuned for the Majus app that has an answer
• 1:21:55
  to 10,000 of your science reason, faith questions.
• 1:21:59
  Amazing. Almost getting it done.
• 1:22:00
  And I've got a bunch of books. If you just go to Father Spitzer
• 1:22:05
  at Amazon or Ignatius Press or OSV, you can find a whole lot of
• 1:22:09
  the books. There.
• 1:22:10
  Amazing. Thank you, Father Spitzer.
• 1:22:12
  Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas to you too.
• 1:22:17
  That was wonderful. Thanks so much for listening to
• 1:22:19
  this episode of the Lila Rose Show.
• 1:22:21
  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.
• 1:22:23
  I always loved talking with Father Robert Spitzer.
• 1:22:25
  I hope you all have an extremely merry and blessed Christmas.
• 1:22:29
  We don't just celebrate Christmas on Christmas Day, but
• 1:22:31
  we can celebrate it for the days afterwards.
• 1:22:34
  And I hope you really enjoy your time with loved ones and you
• 1:22:37
  feel God's love during this special season.
• 1:22:39
  I also want to take a moment to thank you so very much for
• 1:22:42
  listening to the podcast. For those that are supporting
• 1:22:45
  the podcast on locals and Patreon, thank you so much.
• 1:22:49
  And for all of you who show our sponsors some love by buying
• 1:22:51
  their amazing products and subscribing to their services,
• 1:22:54
  thank you so much. From the bottom of my heart,
• 1:22:56
  thank you and have a very blessed and Merry Christmas.
• 1:23:00
  A huge thank you to our partner. EWTNEWTN is the largest
• 1:23:05
  religious network reaching millions of people with the
• 1:23:08
  truth of the faith, entertainment and news.
• 1:23:11
  Check them out at ewtn.com.