Pints With Aquinas - Am I Just Scared? Courage and Your Spiritual Life + Q&A w/ Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

Episode Date: August 11, 2022

Hallow Catholic Prayer App: http://hallow.com/mattfradd Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt New Website Just Dropped: https://pintswithaquinas.com We think about the virtue of courage as important for soldiers and martyrs, but not so much for ordinary Christians. But, what if I were to tell you that it's just as essential for each of us. Tune in to hear more and ask your questions!

Did you know that I'm now hosting a live daily podcast called Morning Coffee? Every morning at 8.30am you can join me and dozens of other early birds for a caffeinated conversation about theology, philosophy and how to grow in your relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. The podcasts are completely free to watch. All you have to do is sign up on Locals by clicking the link in the description below. Hope to see you there. Hello, my name is Father Gregory Pine and I'm a Dominican friar of the province of St.

Joseph, and this is Pine to the Quinas. As has become Matt's custom during the month of August, he takes a technology break or fast or hiatus or however you want to describe it. So just to plug in a little bit on some live content, I'm going to do a live stream tonight, as is evident from the fact that I am doing a live stream tonight, and then another one in a couple of weeks. And so yeah, I thought that we'd kind of pick up

where we left off, left off, woof, woof, pick up where we left off with live streams from yesteryear, yestermonth. It's been quite a while since I've done one of these. Maybe four months, five months, something like that. So, yeah, it's exciting to reinvigorate the live stream vibe. And in this particular live stream, I thought that we could pose the question

of what to do with our fear. So I think there are a lot of things in the modern world that are fearful or fear-inducing, and we don't always recognize them at the time. And even when we do recognize them, we don't always process them in a way that's healthy or in a way that leads to our growth in the spiritual life. So this is where the virtue of courage comes into play. Sometimes you hear it described as bravery or fortitude is the fancier term.

So, you know, it's an integral part of our Christian lives. It's an integral part of our growth in holiness. But it's one, yeah, that we don't talk about too terribly frequently because, yeah, we might just associate it simply with the soldier on the battlefield or the martyr in the ring in the Coliseum, but not as something that is part and parcel of our Christian existence. So I thought that we could just talk a little bit about the virtue itself and then the different parts of the virtue, and then make some suggestions as to how that fits in to our spiritual lives more broadly. And then, as is our custom, we'll just have some time and space to answer all of your

questions regardless of how appropriate or harebrained they may seem. This is all as welcome in this place. Here we go. So courage. Boom. Courage, or fortitude, is a cardinal virtue. So you've probably heard virtues broken up into different categories. The ones that get the most play in Christian conversations are

the theological virtues. So there you have faith, hope, and charity. They're called theological virtues because they have God for their object or for their goal and they actually attain to God. So by faith one receives the capacity to hear first truth speaking. So the very horizon of your mind is broadened so that way you can take in the very revelation of God and then hope. You receive God who is omnipotent and merciful, makes promises, and you receive those promises for yourself and then you train your heart's devotion on the attainment of eternal life.

And then charity is just the love of God poured into our hearts, whereby we love Him and neighbor with the same. All right, so those are, on the one hand, theological virtues, and then you have intellectual virtues, which you don't hear about as much. And yeah, actually, a lot of times we make light of the intellectual virtues. Some people even suggest that being smart or being intelligent is an obstacle to holiness, which is crazy town. I actually just wrote a book about an intellectual virtue. That book is called Prudence. Choose confidently, live boldly, and you can find it for sale on Amazon and on osv.com

and in other places. So, cheers. Some intellectual virtues include wisdom, well, understanding, then knowledge, and then prudence, and then art. Those would be examples. And basically, they perfect the operation of the intellect in such a way that it engages with its objects better, just to state it plainly. And then the last category of virtues are the moral virtues, which are the virtues which inform the appetite. So these would be like justice, fortitude, and temperance. The thing with justice, fortitude, and temperance is that they are ways of training our desires.

So you have all kinds of desires. Usually we describe the lower desires as emotions or passions, and then those higher desires as pertaining to the will or the rational appetite. And the moral virtues get into all the nooks and crannies of those different aspects. Now when we take prudence together with justice, fortitude, and temperance, we call those the cardinal virtues. It comes from the Latin root, cardo, which means hinge. So they're the very important virtues on which our moral life hinges.

And you hear treatments of these virtues in the pagan tradition. So you might come across descriptions in Plato and in Aristotle and in Cicero. And then it's taken up by the Christian tradition, elevated, right, healed, purified of certain excesses and defects, and it becomes part of our ongoing conversation as to what constitutes the good life, the virtuous life. So courage is that cardinal virtue, that moral virtue, which informs certain of our passions, certain of our emotions. And we pick these out and we call them the irascible passions.

The word there, irascible, you've probably heard that. If not, it basically means, well, it comes from the root era, which means wrath, rage, or anger. So it's those passions which stir us up especially on account of the fact that they have us engaged with some good or some evil that's complex, that's difficult, which might be promising or might be menacing. So these would be the type of passionate responses which entail some kind of difficulty or some kind of complexity. Other examples, or examples I should say, of irascible passions are hope, which is like, all right, there's a difficult good thing to obtain, but I think I can go for it.

And then despair, it's like, oh, there's a difficult good thing to obtain. I can't, all right? Other examples would be like daring, which is when you have to confront something evil in order to attain to some good that lies beyond. Or then fear, which is when an evil threatens you and you suspect that you can't evade it. And then anger, which is when some injustice has been visited upon you and you reach back out towards it in vindication or in confrontation. So courage informs these irascible passions, okay? And specifically the passions of daring and fear.

And what courage does is that it ensures that we cling to the good despite the threat of some pain or suffering or even death. So courage helps us to cling to the good according to the rule of reason despite various obstacles or impediments that we might have to confront or which may in fact be menacing us, even our bodily integrity. So the classic example of courage is the soldier in the heat of battle who risks his life in order to defend the members of his platoon or the polity or whatever it is that they're trying to achieve. So that would be the classic example of courage. But

then there are other lower expressions of courage. So you might not be in danger of death but you might be in danger of bodily harm or of loss of reputation or of you know etc etc and in those cases you need to exhibit courage in order to, yeah, cling to the good despite threats to the contrary. All right, so when we talk about courage, we're talking about a two-fold movement of the heart, right? A two-fold movement of reason as it informs the emotions. And the one is to curb fear so it doesn't overrun our psychology

or overrun our physicality and just have us turn tail and run in the opposite direction, which we would call cowardice. And also it moderates our daring, all right? So daring or audacity is this kind of inclination to confront whatever it is that threatens us and to push back against it. But sometimes we can be rash or reckless in these pursuits and so we need courage to kind

of rein us in so that we actually have a healthy appreciation of what's good and a healthy fear of what could harm us lest we just throw our lives away. And you can have an interesting conversation there about like Alex Honnold and Free Solo and what the legitimacy of or the morality of the types of risk that people take sometimes. Alright, so when we are trying to curb fear, often we would call that movement of the heart endurance. We're trying to endure something difficult, to stand immovable in the midst of dangers. And then this movement whereby we kind of reach back out towards the thing, moderate this type of daring, we're going to refer to that

generally as attack. So there are two basic movements of courage. The one is endurance, and then the other is attack. And St. Thomas will say that endurance makes up the principal part of courage, which is a fascinating thing. You can meditate on that for many minutes hence. That in order to be courageous, in order to be brave in the world, often what is asked of us is to endure whatever hand is dealt, or to endure the types of threats

or difficulties that are sent our way. All right, now we can actually break down the virtue of courage further, and we can like subdivide or distinguish among the different aspects of attack and endurance. So let's treat attack first. So St. Thomas identifies two main parts of this kind of attack impetus. The first he calls confidence, which is just a readiness of the mind, alright? It's a readiness of the mind to confront whatever it is that threatens us, alright? And so this steals us or it kind of moves us or it ballasts us against passivity.

So sometimes there's a temptation in the world just to be overwhelmed by life and let life wash over you as we capitulate or as we surrender. But confidence says, nope, my mind is ready, I am ready to kind of push back and to deal with whatever this difficulty is. And then there is another movement of attack, the second movement of attack, which he refers to by the word magnificence, which to us kind of sounds like a precious fancy word, magnificence, alright? But what it means is magna means great and then facencia or like whatever that word there,

facere, means deeds, like whatever that word there, facere, means deeds, like to do. So the doing of great deeds. So you have to be confident, which is to say ready in mind, and then you can't fail to accomplish what you have confidently begun. Now there's a vice that you may have heard described before called pusillanimity, which is a smallness of soul. It's that whereby the soul shrinks back from great feats, from great endeavors.

And magnificence, you know, it heals, it purifies this tendency of the human heart to retreat from great things. And it sends us into the heat of battle, cognizant of the fact that we're made for great deeds, worthy of great honors, precisely because they're great, because our lives are fitted to the great, because God has made us in just such a way. One of the particular expressions of magnificence is what is called magnanimity, okay? because our lives are fitted to the great because God has made us in just such a way. One of the particular expressions of magnificence is what is called magnanimity, okay? And you'll hear that virtue described in various quarters. So in this attack dimension, we have confidence,

a readiness of mind, and then magnificence, which is seeing through those great deeds that we have envisioned. And then the second aspect we identified as endurance, alright? And St. Thomas will acknowledge two parts, two main parts of endurance. The first, he just refers to his patience, which is fascinating, okay? So we have to endure what reality sends our way and that will, you know, call forth from us or elicit from us the response of patience.

Patience in the Latin, it comes from paciencia,, comes from the word patsior or paterae would be the I think, paterae or paterae, whatever, it depends if it's a deponent verb, but that's a nerd question that I will pass on from. It means to suffer. All right? So the patient person suffers well or suffers with a kind of liberty or freedom of spirit. So when St. Thomas describes patience, he says that the mind is not broken by sorrow and it doesn't fall away from greatness. So it's a voluntary and prolonged endurance of difficult things, of arduous things. And so when we find ourselves

amidst the ups and downs of life, patience makes it such that we can see whatever it is that we're up against, we can see it through, okay? And that we aren't inordinately saddened or inordinately depressed or discouraged or despair-filled on account of the fact that it is difficult, that it does entail trial and arduousness, etc., etc. So patience just kind of steals us against whatever is sent our way so that way we're not overly saddened, alright, and that we continue in the work. And then the last is perseverance. And you've probably heard perseverance described in conversations regarding the end of one's life, okay? So it's a gift. De dono perseverancier is a

treatise written by St. Augustine. And the gift of perseverance means that when we die, we die in a state of grace. So it entails a holding out to the end. So the way that St. Thomas describes perseverance is that it's a fixed and continued persistence and a well-considered purpose and here we can think like against a kind of accumulated fatigue or lack of vigilance in life. So sometimes life just kind of grinds us down, but perseverance helps us to continue plotting along, maybe if we're feeling it to be drudgery, and it helps us to kind of keep skipping along, even in moments of elation. And then it also helps us not to become, what's the word there, like lukewarm, okay? So it helps us to retain the spirit of vigilance so that we're always on the

lookout for ways in which we can consent to and cooperate with God's offer of grace, right, with God's offer of salvation lest we fall away from that great gift on account of the fact that we're just compassed about by difficulties or evils. So I think the application that we can make to our spiritual lives is going to be personal and particular and peculiar depending on your state in life and how old you are and where you come from and the type of formation that you've received. But I think that we can see commonalities in our experience, right? So yes, spiritual death threatens us all. So the world of flesh and the devil are pitted against us and they want to see to it that

we are dragged into the infernal pits of hell. But you know, this comes in a variety of guises, it comes in a variety of shapes and sizes, and we need to be willing to confront that difficulty and to persevere in the good by a sound patience with confidence and magnificence. So lest we be undone by overwhelming sorrow or anxiety or loneliness, which might threaten to paralyze the soul. We seek to cultivate this virtue of courage by prayer, by vigilance, by fasting, in order to be on the ready, like a good soldier, like a good martyr, so that way we can be ready to attack and to endure both, depending on what is called for in the circumstances.

So there are a lot of different vices that can creep in, and courage is part of the story whereby we confront them. So I'm thinking here of like sloth, achadia, that sorrow that we experience at the divine good because it seems too far off, or envy when we grow sorrow, sorrowful at the good of another because it represents to us a kind of threat, or melancholia, which is kind of like depression in St. Thomas's description, or curiositas when we find ourselves wandering hither and thither among trivial things because we're not kind of dedicated or disciplined enough to pursue things in light of God while connecting them to God by the proper means which entails a certain difficulty. So we're going to find difficulty in every aspect of our lives.

The promise of virtue is that life will get easier. It will get easier, prompter, more joyful in so far as we recognize in it the good that is extended to us for our grace and salvation, but that will mean all along the way confronting certain sorts of difficulties. So, we want to pray for the virtue of courage, study up on the virtue of courage, and then seek to live it in our lives, mindful of the fact that there are peculiar difficulties of the 21st century and that we need be prepared for them lest we are caught off guard All right So that's what I want to say about the virtue of courage and I'm just gonna skip them to the top of these questions

And that way we can start moving through them. So here we go Exodus 90 you've heard of them. Haven't you Neil? I have well the guys behind Exodus 90 have started Exodus 21 They've caught they're calling it a 21 day restart. So for 21 days you along with the friends you invite pray and read through the first two chapters of Corinthians while practicing disciplines such as 20 minutes of prayer every day, abstaining from unnecessary screen time that doesn't include points with the coin is obviously abstaining from meat on Fridays and fasting until 4 p.m. On each weekday you can take this short opportunity to introduce your brothers cousins co-workers fellow parishioners and even your neighbors Be kind of weird if you didn't know them just assume they're Catholic and wanna Torch themselves 21 days on how to live like Christ and prepare them for Exodus 90 in January So check it out go to Exodus nine90.com. Exodus90.com.

To get started. I did Exodus 90 once and I lived like a boss monster for the first 31 days and then failed miserably. So Exodus 21 sounds super doable. You would have done great at this. Yeah. I would have crushed it. Although probably because 21 days was the goal. I would have like faded out around the 11th day. I don't know. Exodus90.com. Go check them out to get started. People who have like faded out around the 11th day. I don't know. Exodus 90 dot com slash Matt. Go check them out to get started. People who've done it just says it really rejuvenates their prayer life and helps them. Exodus nine zero dot com slash Matt link is in the description. Click it and check them out. And that starts January. You know, you can start

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And read newspapers, and go and paper newspapers. Yeah, and just read all of the newspapers that I put together. Thanks so much. Gavin asks, I know that Jesus' body, blood, soul, and divinity is present in the Eucharist, but would it be correct to say that all three persons of the Trinity are present in the sacrament? So not in a straightforward sense. So what is made present by sacramental signification is the body, in the case of what is present under the appearance of bread, and then the blood in terms of what is present under the appearance of wine. But by natural concomitance, what is together

in the golephard flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ is then together in a substantial mode, substantial and sacramental mode on the altar. So, his body is present in heaven with his blood, his soul, and divinity. And his blood is present in heaven with his body, his soul, and divinity, and his blood is present in heaven with his body, his soul, and divinity. But it is peculiar of the second of the Trinity that he took to himself human flesh. So we associate that in a kind of ironclad way with the second of the Trinity.

So we don't want to say that the Trinity is present in the same way that the second of the Trinity is present, in the same way that the Son is present, because it's the Son who takes to Himself this human flesh, which brings with it the blood, the soul, and the divinity by natural concomitants. But we can say that the Trinity is present by essence, presence, and power, by grace, and insofar as we can think about the Eucharist as kind of like a fulfillment of the divine missions. Wherever one person of the Trinity is, they or the other two are, insofar as they are sent or sending of that person. So that's a somewhat complicated explanation, but I would say no and yes.

So no in the principal sense, by the principal signification, and then substantial mode. But yes, insofar as the persons in the Most Blessed Trinity are in creation, always acting as a conjoined principle. All right, but that's a great question. All right, Maurizium says, don't be scared, be sacred. Dig. All right, so Matthew Velasquez says, at Gavin, yes, the Franciscans teach the theology of compenetrance where one is, the other two are also. All right. I'm not familiar with the Franciscan teaching on this, but I don't know if that's gesturing towards the theory of natural concomitance, which St. Thomas does talk about.

But I think maybe a background principle, I just know Thomistic theology better, which is to say I know it some and I don't really know the Franciscan equivalent in many cases. But the idea is that typically when we draw distinctions among persons of the Most Blessed Trinity that's on the basis of their distinct origin, alright, and then the processions which give rise, not give rise in the temporal sense but in the principled sense. So the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God. The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is not the Father.

The Father is God from no one, the Son is God from the Father, and the Holy Spirit is God from the Father and the Son. So on account of their distinct origins, right, which is the matrix in which, you know, or according to which we locate the processions, then we say further that there are relations that arise. So, the Father begets the Son, and there arises, not temporally, but principally, a relation of Father to Son we call paternity, of Son to Father we call affiliation, and we can say further for the Holy Spirit.

But the persons of the Most Blessed Trinity subsist as those relations. And so, when we talk about distinction, we talk about distinction in light of origin, all right? And the origin is how we account for the processions, and the processions are the basis of the relation. So that's how we talk about distinction among the persons of the Trinity. And when they act in creation, they act as a conjoined principle. So we're never going to make hard and fast distinctions and say the Son is here, but definitely not the Father and the Holy Spirit.

But in the case of the Incarnation, we talk about the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ as assumed by the second of the most blessed Trinity. All right, and you can find a beautiful explanation as to why in St. Thomas' reading in the Tertia Parish Question 3, Article 8. All right. Can you, should you pray to Old Testament greats? Maybe only those confirmed in heaven like Elijah and Moses, Transfiguration. Yeah, I mean there's a longstanding tradition of invoking holy men and women of the Old

Testament. So I think that you're well within ecclesial bounds to do just that. Nesquik says, heya, heya back. All right. Matthew Velasquez, boom. Psych to be here, says Gabagool. ecclesial bounds to do just that. Nesquik says, heya, heya back. All right, Matthew Velasquez, boom. Psyched to be here says Gabagool, let's go. All right, Dark says, no disorder is not holy, hashtag Catholic light.

Oh, apropos of Catholic light, my sister Rebecca Doherty has a podcast called Catholic Light, L-I-G-H-T, which is a walkthrough of the Catechism, which you might profit from, so you can check that out. She launched it a few months back and doing great episodes, which take you through a littlethrough of the Catechism, which you might profit from. So you can check that out. She launched it a few months back and doing great episodes, which take you through a little bit of the Catechism and then give commentary thereupon. Yep, so Gavin, there you go. In response to Matthew's question, I hope that subsequent reflections that I have provided

are helpful to you. All right. Gavin, why is it okay to put down animals? Is it just because we recognize that there is not redemptive suffering for non-rational souls, although we could feel bad for them, I guess? Yeah, so great question there. So one, I mean, the basis is that we're talking about

a lower life form, which does not have an immortal soul. So it does not have an immaterial soul because it does not have an act of intellect or will which transcends the corporeal organs and as a result of which we would say that it has a soul, like a sensory soul, which is adduced from the matter, from the potency of the matter. And then when the body dissolves so too the soul, which is like the typical Thomistic argument as to why all dogs do not in fact go to heaven.

So that's not an argument that I think we need to necessarily host here. But apropos of this question, it's because we're talking about lower life forms and that man is given dominion over said lower life forms and that these lower life forms do not have a supernatural destiny by virtue of the lower nature that we've just described and that they're not cop-hocs-day, so they can't receive the missions of the Holy Trinity, which is to say the life, the divine life of grace. And so, for them, it's like the evaluation of their pain and suffering is just of a material sort. Now, there are kind of psychological resonances

insofar as higher animals, you know, experience something of a psychological life, but it doesn't take on the spiritual aspect that it does in the case of man. So I think that you're right to point out what you put out. All right, Janet Zekes says, Hi Father Pine, can one strengthen trust that quote, everything will be okay in earthly life? Is that one of the promises that God gives or is he more about ultimate security in heaven? Hope you're well. Hey, great. So everything, all manner of things will be well, says St. Brigid of Sweden, quoted by T.S.

Eliot in the Four Quartets. But we have to understand that in a particular context or in a particular setting, which is to say that God makes all things work to the good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. And then He does not permit evil to befall, except He can bring about from that evil some good. All right? Does that mean that God will make the material conditions of our life to be pleasant?

No, definitely not. And one's life can be filled with trial, tribulation, and even tragedy, which is a terrible thing. But we believe that you are never beyond the mercy of God, and there's no point from beyond which God cannot pull you back, such as the mercy of God, that He can permit you to wander to the very edge of the earth only to pull you back by a twitch upon the thread. So the only true tragedy in human life, and like a final sense in an unredeemable sense, is not to become a saint.

So short of that, everything can be used by God to redirect your gaze to Him. But that doesn't necessarily mean that we're always going to feel physically or you know like emotionally or psychologically or even spiritually copacetic. That's entirely consistent with great great great great difficulty. What is the first... Alright, so Matthew Velasquez, Add Gavin, what is the first luminous mystery and which portion of the Holy Scripture is the basis for that mystery? There you go, the baptism of the Lord, which is recounted in all of the synoptic gospels. So, cheers. Alex Bateman, is it very difficult to skip purgatory and go straight to heaven?

And are there more significant ways to do penance than prayers and small offerings? So, is it very difficult? I mean, St. Therese certainly encourages us to rely heavily on the mercy of God, but to rely on the mercy of God means to hope, which means to make use of the means that God avails us of, which is not presumption, which is not despair, right? It's hope. So if we're going to make use of the means, then I think the question that you ask subsequently is a great one, namely, how do we kind of deepen penitence's hold on

our hearts? The principal way is the sacrament of confession, the first effect of which is to enrich the virtue of penitence in our life. And then you're right, prayers and then small offerings, sacrifices, a typical move is fasting. So Wednesdays and Fridays are traditional days on which to fast, and a traditional fast would be on bread and water. My family is very much informed by the messages of Our Lady Medjugorje, and that's something that she encourages there.

So, I would say pray, fast, and make good use of the sacrament of confession. And then, in conversation with your confessor or spiritual director, you can build out from there. All right. Here we go. Brendan T. This couldn't be more timely, Father Pine. in conversation with your confessor or spiritual director, you can build out from there. All right, here we go. Brendan T. This couldn't be more timely, Father Pine. Cheers to you, Brendan T. Liseth MacLaine says, I need more courage. All right, prayers for you, Liseth. Come Lord Jesus. Amen. Help Liseth. Theology of the Body 83 says, my buddy who's a priest in Cameroon always tells me, courage. Yeah, that's a kind of go-to line in the French language is to say, courage, which means like you've got this.

I encourage you. Boom. Liseth McLean says, not Catholic but love hearing your thoughts and studies. Awesome. Thanks so much for joining. Matthew Devis says, hey, Father, it's my birthday today. Happy birthday to you. Prayers, blessings, may Almighty God bless you in every imaginable way.

Matthew Velasquez, boom. Set yourself to be rejected by people when you interact with while defending your faith. All Catholics who keep quiet in public are afraid of rejection. Alright, that's strong. Happy birthday, super edifying, can parents have a...uh-huh., Gavin, can parents have a baptism of desire for their infant? That's a great question that I haven't thought about. Short answer, I don't know. But the question would be like, okay, so let's two parents are going through RCIA and they

desire to make use of the sacramental means and they also to make desire...they desire to have their child, let's say the child is three, baptized. And then let's say that this whole family is on their way to the Easter Vigil and that they die in a car accident. So certainly baptism of a desire would apply in the case of the parents who are convinced as to the inspiration of the sacred scriptures and the divine institution of the church and the sanctifying power of the sacraments. The question is whether it applies to the child.

Short answer is I don't know, but I think you could make an argument for it. And I think you see, you know, like St. John Paul II doing similar things in the way in which he treats these questions. Stevie, is Father Pine and Matfrad cousins or something? Answer, no. Friends. There you go. Yes, good advice. I'm not Catholic, but I could definitely gain from not being afraid and trusting in God. Yeah, you know, I mean, apropos of Matthew and Liz's exchange, a good thing here about not being afraid when it comes to testifying to your faith. I think sometimes we fear awkwardness more than we fear sin, which is fascinating, but

you know, it's understandable. And I think that when we are bold, we often find that the Lord blesses the work of our hands. So that's to say, you know, I encourage you to be bold in your proclamation of the gospel, but still to be innocent as a dove and crafty as a serpent. It doesn't mean like blunt force trauma evangelization that you bash people over the head with the announcement of the good news, but that you seek to make it known to them in a way that they are able to receive without watering it down,

right, or without compromising on its content. Hecatecae, yeah, boom, these are always excellent. Thanks, happy birthday. Father Pine Trust Matt's Friday, there you go, boom. Happy Feast to Saint Dominic from Teah Cabel. Hey, thanks so much. Cheers to you. Holy Father Dominic, pray for us. All right, Patrick Turner.

Hi Father, just watched your video on what heaven is like. Was wondering though, what can you say about the final battle? If I can't fight sin today, how can I fight in the battle alongside Jesus? So this is a little bit of a tease, but I recorded another video about the general judgment and resurrection, which might answer to some of your questions. But as for the final battle, I think about this in terms of the gift of perseverance, which I described at the top of the thing.

Typically when we talk about the final battle, we're talking about our struggle is not with flesh and blood, but with powers and principalities. So the world of flesh and the devil want to drag us into the infernal pits of hell, and it's for us not only to push back but to advance in the campaign. Alright, and what does that mean? Pray, fast, make vigil? Yes, proclaim the gospel with boldness in season and out of season, certainly, but also, you know, like make good use of the sacraments in our own spiritual life such that we're

cognizant of our own failings and that we repent of them before the throne of grace and then profit from the Lord's gift of mercy. So those are just maybe some simple things for your own present practice. That's a great question. All right. Matthew Velazquez at Liz's, allow yourself to be rejected in real time and also tell yourself if you get defeated by the non-catholic, the nobiggie, at least you tried. Cheers. Janine Marie Lewikowski says, Father Gregor, would you please pray for me and my family? As so many of them have turned away from their Catholic faith, they follow no commandments and just... All right, I just got the first half of that question, but let's just say a little quick prayer for your family right now.

Come Lord Jesus, come Lord Jesus and help Jeannine Marie's family that you might infuse in them a grace of ongoing conversion or conversion and ongoing conversion that they might come to know you and to love you and so be lights unto the nations and salt in the world. We ask all these things for Christ our Lord. Amen. All right. Theo E says, same, I'm the only Christian in my family of agnostic atheists Lord God. Please bless the family of Theo E. Amen See mage says is it wrong to seek professional help as a Catholic when you have OCD or other anxiety issues already praying fast Not wrong The psychological sciences are a subordinated science to the theological sciences, right?

We're like the kind of divine science. So you can make use of medicine and that's how we would describe the psychological sciences under that rubric. All right, what time is it there at Ponce with the Quine as Father Pond? It's 8 p.m. because I'm actually in the United States right now for just a little bit longer. So cheers. Thanks so much for joining. Hallelujah. Hallelujah is an absolute champion of Catholic livestreams. So, boom. There you go. We've got further people weighing in on the question that we just fielded. Thank you so much for this. I needed this encouragement to take courage. Hey, cheers. Party on. You got this. Gabagool weighing in more on mental health. You need help. Good. Theology of the body says, courage to do what? Basically, the courage to know and to love the Lord despite obstacles, and then the implications of that in your particular vocation.

So I would say like the courage for a father to love his wife and children, the courage for a priest to serve the people of God, to preach with a monocum of competence, the courage for etc. But the basic idea here is that it takes courage to live your life, right? It takes courage to live the spiritual life, the life of faith, the Christian life, however you want to describe it, because there are so many difficulties and obstacles that we encounter along the way. All right, Elizabeth says, Father, apart from prayer and fasting, would it strengthen our courage if we cultivated in other areas?

For example, doing an activity that we feel unreasonably nervous about. Yeah, I mean, that's the idea of exposure therapy. But also I think it's good, like for instance, this would be one reason why you might consider a daily habit of exercise, like confronting a difficulty that you find distasteful so that way you can discipline your body and you know there are good health effects thereof. So those would be some thoughts too. Fritz Mustermann, at Pines of the Aquinas had Father Gregory, Christ was an Messiah but many of the Judeans did not believe at the time. Would we believe, direct signs or not, a second coming should it happen in our lifetime?

Great question, also a great picture of Will Smith, French Prince of Bel Air there, kudos to you. There's no guarantee that we would, but the basic idea is that one who lives by faith and charity can have hope that he will recognize the Lord at his coming. So that's a basic idea. St. Thomas teaches that if one is saved before Christ's coming, like the patriarchs for instance, it's by faith and charity. Faith specifically in the triune God and in the Incarnation. And that that faith for the mayores, like the great ones, would

have been explicit to a certain extent. For the menorahs, the lesser ones, it would have been implicit. So the recognition of Christ, you know, so his announcement of the gospel, his performing of miracles, right, the variety of things that he did during his life would be recognizable to one who had the habit of faith and charity. So, it's not magic, right? It's like there's a kind of sacramentality to the life of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is open to the eyes of faith, or to the eyes of faith, or like the heart that is open. I'm just stumbling over words. So at this point, boom, I hope that's helpful.

All right, Theo E. says, Father Pond, what is your advice for someone who agrees with the teachings slash values of Christianity as a philosophy, but still has trouble with bringing that into my heart in real faith slash relation with God. My advice would be to serve with the missionaries of charity. I think sometimes it's helpful to get out of your mind and into your body. Not that your mind is an obstacle, obviously, but I think that sometimes we just need to rehearse the steps. So missionaries of charity would be one thing. The second thing would be to spend time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, specifically in adoration, because things make more sense presence of the Blessed Sacrament, specifically in adoration, because things make more sense before our Lord in His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity.

Good question. Oh dude, Luke Jones. Let's go! Aloha, Father Pond. How might courage and chastity interact in our pursuit of virtue? Would you say there are connections we can make between the two? Yeah. So, chastity is a virtue subordinated to temperance, but it involves us interacting with the passions.

And whenever we push back against one difficulty, we find it easier to push back against others. Food, drinks, sexual intercourse are those most basic instincts, and as a result of which, they're the ones that are twisted most powerfully or profoundly with the fall. As a result, again, we have to work most diligently to heal and to elevate those tendencies or those inclinations by grace and virtue. And when we do, right, we find it easier to engage with the good and to cling to it with uprightness of heart. So the desire for food, drink, sexual intercourse are all related. And so whenever we confront certain difficulties in one aspect, we're going to see that it overflows into other aspects. So, boom. Great question to Luke Jones, two-time, three-time attendee now of a God-splaining

retreat. Jonathan, at Pines of the Aquinas, how can we be happy in heaven knowing we could have sacrificed more for the kingdom and stored up more rewards and thus do not have as great a capacity to receive God's love? Yeah, so I would say that I just recorded an episode of God-splaining apropos of this theme which is going to come out in a bit, whether we're always responsible for doing the maximal, optimal good. And the answer that I render to that is no, okay?

Because we're responsible for doing the good in accord with our state in life, time, setting, circumstances, okay? Because if we were always responsible for doing the maximal good, then like, we would just go to Mass on repeat. We would find a church where Mass was offered every hour and then just do that and then die of starvation after 12 days. Because there's nothing better than our Lord, Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity and the reception thereof.

Canon law permits us to receive Him twice in a day, although that would be somewhat extraordinary or unordinary. So if we get caught in the pattern of thought whereby we have to maximize and optimize at every turn, then we end up paralyzing ourselves and we lose the capacity to recognize the peculiar and particular call on our life, which is to say our vocation, so that we can respond to that. Because like a father, for instance, is called to love his wife and called to love his children, he's not called to love everyone everywhere at all times and places because that actually like dilutes or even dissipates the energy, the drive of his vocation. So I think that human life is part and parcel, well, human life is bound up with limitation

and it's by embracing our limitation that we come into the fullness of our freedom. And so I think that, yeah, you're going to recognize what you did and what you didn't do in heaven, but you'll see it as permitted by God, and in some way, shape, or form, redounding to His glory and your salvation, always and everywhere reaffirming the fact of our dependence upon Him and His mercy on us. It could have been worse. It's like this line in The Mighty Ducks where Emilio Estevez laments the fact that he missed the shot just like an inch and a half to the left, and then I think it's like Fritz or Hans or whoever says, yeah, but it could have gone the other direction, right?

And then you would have totally missed the post. And he's like, whoa, I hadn't thought about that. So I think that we'll find ourselves kind of balanced as it were between the prospect of failure, right? And yeah, the mercy of God which has drawn us back from the brink. Jeanine Marie Lewandowski says, okay, so this is the second half of the question. Do you have any advice that may be of help, may be ever blessed, and may the Holy Family and all the Holy Angels watch over and protect you always?

So we prayed for your family. My advice would be to pray for them, right, to fast for them, and then to testify to your faith in simple and small ways. Yeah, so I wouldn't, again, bash them over the head with the proclamation of the gospel in a way that will almost certainly infuriate them, but to make mention, to testify to the things that the Lord is doing in your life, to lay claim to those graces. All right? What do you do with fear in the form of anxiety and how do you find courage and doubt?

So fear in the form of anxiety. Oftentimes, like, yeah, so a lot of people experience anxiety. For me, it's like if I'm up too late for whatever reason and then I'm having difficulty falling asleep, it starts off like a kind of anxiety death spiral. And what I typically do is I just bop down to the chapel. I think there's a kind of freedom that comes in giving up at the appropriate time. It's like, listen, I'm not going to fall asleep, so I'm just going to check in with the Lord because I'm not going to be productive tomorrow for the first two hours of the day because because I'm gonna feel like I got hit by a two-by-four across the face

But as for this moment I could try to optimize maximize start getting work done clean my like clean my room wash my laundry etc Or I could just be with the Lord because if I'm stirred up if I'm anxious, it's clear that I'm not so much right or I've kind of like I've lost that Godward gaze in some way, shape, or form without trying to attach too much moral significance to the fact that we experience anxiety. So my typical move is just to check back in with the Lord and just to talk it out. Talking helps, right? And then oftentimes He does that for me through the instrumentality of my friends.

So when I'm in a bad death spiral, I usually just call a friend. And how do you find courage and doubt? Yeah, I think, again, out of the head into the body. Serve with the missionaries of charity, fast, spend time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. Spending time in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. I'm more and more convicted of that. K says, are courage and fortitude the same thing they are spoken of? Separately, they are the same thing. King of Hearts, can a and fortitude the same thing they are spoken of separately? They are the same thing. King of hearts, can a sociopath slash psychopath be saved or are they psychopathic because they've definitely rejected God?

They can be saved, yep. So God, give what you command and command what you will. God equips us or outfits us at least sufficiently for the reception of the offer of salvation and we can have confidence of that. God does not create anyone for damnation. Lovely people, pray for me, I'm concerning the priesthood. Alright, prayers for Anthony van Stein. Boom! Matthew Velasquez. At the OE, if you go to a perpetual adoration chapel during the exposition, then you'll have a

best friend and being the only one like you. Boom. Alright, Jeff Kane, why do Jesus and Yahweh appear to have such different character? Wrathful versus peaceful? Great question. And often more is made of that than is justified by the texts. But I would say you can deduce a few principles and explanations, one of which would be that the Old Testament is written earlier, alright, and it's written by God as the principal author, and then the inspired authors are the instrumental authors of those texts, and that God uses them as he uses an instrument.

And as is the case with most instruments, they leave some testimony of their instrumentality in the finished product. So if you cut with an am, what do you call those things, a saw with one jagged blade, you're going to see that little jaggedness show up in every slice. Or if you write with a blue pen, the finished product is going to be blue. So the effect will bear out the instrumentality of whatever it is that you deploy in the process. And in the case of the sacred scriptures, they bear out the instrumentality of the inspired authors.

So they're written in particular language with a certain syntax and grammar. They deploy certain images and metaphors, all right, and they operate within particular genres. And the way in which they convey God, like the things of faith, the things of the moral life is often like characterized in terms of their understanding and the way in which they give expression to that within their cultural setting. So I think you see a lot of that in the Old Testament. And then there's also a sense of pedagogy in Revelation.

So God takes Israel by the hand and leads them into the fullness of Christ. So there are things that he permits in the Old Testament which he does not permit in the New Testament. And it's not because he's changed his mind, it's because he's purposefully leading them further up and further in to the fullness of the truth, you know, which is good and beautiful. So I think that you see some of that as well in the way that the biblical revelation describes events of Old and New Testaments.

All right, Jesungrik says, what advice would you give to someone who believes in all of the principles of the faith but not all of the supposed historical events in the Bible, Old Testament, can one accept one without the other?" So that's a great, I mean, that's a super important exegetical question. I would recommend reading certain documents of the Pontifical Biblical Commission on the inspiration of sacred scripture, right, and on the historicity of the Gospels and associated things. I've forgotten the exact names of those texts, but if you look up Pontifical Biblical Commission

and just scan through things that have been published in like the last 40 years, you'll find documents apropos of the theme which will be helpful to you in your study. Gabby Gould, it's kind of a broad question, but suffering seems to be almost a default state for living creatures on this plane. Why is this the choice of our Lord for his living creatures? So the one thing I would say is that suffering is not part of God's original plan, but it's something that's downstream of original sin. Now, pain seems like it is baked into the material order.

So it seems impossible to have a material world unless certain things are built up by the destruction of other things. And so, you know, like, whatever, herbivores eat plants. The plants are destroyed so that the herbivores might live. Carnivores eat animals, so the animals are destroyed in order that the carnivores might live, etc. Okay? So it doesn't seem that you can have a material universe unless certain things build themselves up by diminishing others. And so then the question is, why bother? This would be like a Buddhist objection. If the goal of creation was to minimize pain, then this would seem like a bad system. But the goal of creation is not to minimize pain. The goal of creation is to tell forth the glory of creation was to minimize pain, then this would seem like a bad system. But the goal of creation is not to minimize pain.

The goal of creation is to tell forth the glory of God and to save the souls of those who have rational, which is to say, intellectual volitional capacities. So that physical suffering is baked in, it seems. But the moral suffering that we introduce by sin is not part of God's original plan. That's something that we have wrought by virtue of our fell choice. But God, in His providence and in His mercy, makes it such that even that moral suffering can redound to a good, right? It can redound to God's glory in our salvation, provided that that suffering is united with the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ, or provided

that it is seen and received with faith, okay, which is born on by hope and love? So that's a great question. Jose Perez is praying. Thank you. Thank you for this most important distinction about the Trinity, Father Pine. Hey, my joy, thanks for your activity in the chat. Super great.

Yajuan Yuan says, hello. Hello, Gavin, getting all the attention. Laugh out loud. Yeah, I'm a little slow and I didn't get far beyond like the first section there, so we're catching up. Boom, Yajun Yuan says, be of good courage, I have overcome the world, the Lord is good. Tasha, should secular tattoos be covered or removed? I don't think that you need to cover or remove them.

I think they're a fact of a thing that has happened, right? What's important in the process of ongoing conversion is that the Lord, He wants you. And He can have you regardless of what's on your skin. So I made a video recently about tattoos, kind of discouraging tattoos or discouraging you from getting tattoos. But the point there isn't to make you feel guilty about past tattoos that you've received. I mean, whatever, you're going to feel how you're going to feel. But the point is just to think about future choices, right? Or whether or not to acquire further tattoos.

Like some people who have secular tattoos feel that they need to fill in the gaps with religious tattoos. I don't think you need to do that. Like you don't need to sanctify by proximity. I think you just need to take the next step forward in your relationship with God, and we're primarily made to the image of God

by intellect and will, which is to say by our minds and our hearts. So we should focus especially on the spiritual dimension and not be overly concerned by the corporeal element. Boom. Fritz, killing it. Craig Attaway says, recently I felt a great pull toward Catholicism. Perhaps it's more of an interest, but it's a strong one at that.

I've been Protestant my entire life. I'm 21 now. Why might that be? I don't know. My inclination is to say the grace of God because if one is received in the Catholic Church is by the grace of God. So the Catholic argument is that the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church and that every, you know, imaginable element of grace and salvation is present there within.

So there are elements of grace and salvation that lie without the bounds of the visible church. So like Protestant ecclesial communions have baptism and Christian marriage, for instance, and they have the proclamation of the faith in certain elements. But those elements of grace and salvation kind of gravitate towards the fullness thereof where they're held together integrally in Catholic communion. So it seems that whatever, you know, working of grace or sanctification salvation is at work in your life is earmarked for Catholic communion. So that you experience that, I mean, it's awesome. Kudos. Prayers for you. Ah, Tasha, as opposed to just living with them, I mean. Okay, so yeah, I think I propose just living with them.

But if you want to have them removed, I don't know. It seems like that'd be really expensive and really painful. I don't think you have to undergo that. As for covering them, I don't think you have to be embarrassed about the fact that you made decisions previously, you know, like that you now repent of. I think that's true of all of us. It's just not always the case with all of us

that we bear the marks of those things in our flesh. So it's a particular penance, but I think you can unite that penance to the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ to good effect. Brad L. Father, if one freely commits what they believe is gravely sinful, but it is not gravely sinful in reality, do they commit mortal sin? Not necessarily. No, not necessarily, because if I think that it's gravely sinful to like take this little

piece of a microphone stand and put it on my left hand, all right, that's a failing of my intellect, but it doesn't render this gravely, like materially grave, and as a result of which it doesn't transmute that into a mortal sin. It just means that I have a deficiency in my understanding of the moral act and that needs to be corrected. Now, there can be cases in which it's kind of like bridging on mortal sin and the fact that you think it to be and that you do it with malice makes it to be mortal, but it's the malice which makes it to be mortal. Christopher Roddice says, if a man has to choose between a job that pays well but has to work on Sundays versus no work on Sundays but provides strict necessities with no room for savings, is the first option morally okay?

I would say that it can be. Yeah, it can be. But it is not necessarily. So I'm not gonna say always and everywhere, yes it's fine, right? Because oftentimes our choice of a vocation is more subtle and nuanced than just a matter of whether or not we work on Sundays or whether or not we make more or less money because there are a variety of factors. Because when you feel like you're caught in a dichotomy, it's often the case that there's a third or fourth or fifth way. So I would say that we should try within our power not to work on Sunday, but there are certain instances in which it's necessary. I'm a priest for instance, I work every Sunday, it's just part of the job. Now that work is of a particular sort and it

wouldn't be seen as like servile work according to certain canonical definitions of the term. But Sunday is the most exhausting day, the most draining day, even though it's a day spent almost exclusively on sacrifice and sacred mystery. So yes, I think that a good principle is to minimize or eliminate servile work. That's the commandment, right? That's what we're responsible for. And it doesn't, by virtue of the fact that it is inevitable, doesn't mean that we can just give ourselves blanket permission to work as much as we can.

We still will want to minimize. We will want to kind of circumscribe the work in such a way that it's minimally invasive or minimally destructive of the piece of the Lord's Day. But yeah, the more money can be a motivating factor because it doesn't mean if you want to make more money than what is strictly necessary, does that mean that you're what? Super selfish? No, you could want to send your kids to a more expensive school where they're going to learn the Catholic faith and that's noble, that's upright, that's an excellent thing,

right? It doesn't mean that you're going to spend every extra dollar on like bonbons and exotic vacations, okay? So yeah, I think it's worth filling out the details and it's a great question. All right, why do Catholics think God cannot destroy the souls of the wicked? Isn't this limiting his omnipotence? So basically, it's not a limit to God's omnipotence. It's actually God bears out the divine wisdom insofar as he made a choice, which seems to indicate a longevity or a kind of perpetuity of that choice, that God is bound by His choice.

So God can bind Himself, but which is to say, like, God renders unto Himself a certain coherence in light of the decisions that He's made, because, you know, God, being omniscient, is not receiving further data when a particular soul chooses to fall away. So it's not like He would repent of that choice because he's surprised by the fact. So it seems that there has to be a coherence or a consistency to the plan of God, otherwise we would imperil the divine immutability. Boom. Boom, we got to it. Does the church profess a specific cosmology? No, but I mean the church recognizes the legitimate yields of science insofar as the Church would

say that there's only one truth and that truth is symphonic insofar as different disciplines, whether like philosophy, theology, physical science, as they approach that one truth that they're going to bear out the same findings. So if science is something that contradicts faith, that we know to be demonstrably false by revelation, then it means that science is not operating within the bounds of its discipline, or it's kind of...what would you say? That's a kind of case of malpractice, you know?

So that would be like scientism rather than genuine science. All right. So Diggy Nomad says, curious what the church is doing with the declining numbers. I noticed lots of elderly, older married couples and some young men, but the sacrament of marriage is in decline. Lots of divorce. That is true. Yup.

John N. The greatest tragedy is wasted suffering. Lily Penelope. I've heard vocation stories from sisters who felt desire for marriage and children but then became religious. How can we tell what we're for if our desires may be fulfilled in either vocation stories from sisters who felt desire for marriage and children but then became religious. How can we tell what we're for if our desires may be fulfilled in either vocation? So I've given quite a few talks on vocation, on pints, and elsewhere. So I would look up like pines, theology, vocation, and you'll find a variety of answers to that question which will be more adequate than anything that I can give in 30 seconds. The

basic idea is pray, make good use of the sacraments, cultivate Christian friendships, introduce a modicum of penance into your life, study the faith, serve the material poor, and as your desires heal and grow you'll become better and better acquainted with what the Lord is kind of calling forth from you by way of response, and that you will be reconciled to that as His will comes to take up more and more of your heart's love and in a certain sense replaces your will, to use some of the language and imagery of St. Catherine of Siena. Contrition is not response to God's gracious love and mercy. Boom. Thioe.

I think it's important to remember that the truth is independent of how many people currently believe it. If one day you were the only one going to church, you would still be right to do so. Double boom. Andiamo di. Hi Father Pine. Boom. His will be done. Amen.

Any thoughts for those discerning the priesthood for older teenagers? Yes. Hey, party on. It's a noble thing to consider. And then CF, the aforementioned comments on vocational discernment videos online, Pine, vocation, etc., etc. All right. Diggy Nomad. Father Pineond, how do you and other

Christians reconcile the Pope and many church leaders bending the knee to the root beer floats, big pharma and government despite the cell lines being from abortion? I don't actually know what that refers to. So I know something about the Hec 293 cells. I know that the original cell, like the germ line was obtained from an aborted child, either in the late 60s or early 70s, and that that became a germ line which was used in a variety of clinical tests and research. And so it became a kind of precious thing for the pharmaceutical industry because there was so much research dedicated within that germline and then you have a question of whether

this germline was used in development or in production or in testing which would signify like different degrees of proximity and so we're not talking about aborted fetal tissue we're talking about a germline derived from an aborted child. And then the degree of proximity is determined as to whether, yeah again production, testing or actual, excuse me, development testing or actual production. So I think the judgment that's made is that on account of the fact that the pharmaceutical industry isn't like using this thing for the promotion of abortion

or it doesn't seem to be the type of thing that directly promotes abortion, although indirectly it tolerates it and in tolerating it, it can muddy the waters, that they make a certain distinction that in the modern world, like in the world at present, it's exceedingly difficult to extricate oneself from all morally compromising matter and form and as a result of which distinctions need to be made about the degree or the proximity of cooperation and that a line is drawn at a certain level. So I made a video for Pines on cooperation with evil where I tease out the distinctions at greater length and hopefully you profit from that.

Alright, Bobby Leonardos says, any advice for being courageous in pursuing a vocation? I'm considering moving to a monastery to test vocation, but I have some anxieties about going through with it. Basically, I mean, if you give your life to the Lord, you will only ever be rewarded for it. Your reward might not look like backpats and root beer floats, but it will be a kind of assurance

that He who has begun a good work in you will see it through to completion. Whether in the monastery or out in the monastery, If you put all your eggs in the God is good basket, you will not be disappointed. Dr. Bowman, Father Pine, how can I as a Catholic engage with Protestants who ever emphasize interpretation of the scripture through the lens of this is what the Holy Spirit has revealed to me? I think it's good just to get back to principles, just determine with them if there's a way that they can verify or explain or if it's even falsifiable. If it's not falsifiable, then okay, it's an occult claim and yeah, you're not going to

have a fruitful conversation. But if it is falsifiable or verifiable in some way, shape, or form, then you can have a kind of conversation about epistemology or like, criteria-ology. And I think that you can get down to your principles of scriptural interpretation and then have something of an exchange on the basis of those. So I don't think it's actually helpful to go straight for the doctrinal points because there's so much unaddressed at the level of hermeneutics, right? First principles and the interpretation of text that I think you need to address first.

So I would go there. Muhammad Isa, any advice on conversation from Islam to become follower of Christ? Oh, conversion from Islam to become a follower of Christ. Yeah, I mean, I think that you see Muslims becoming Christians in the 20th and 21st century at great cost, and oftentimes it entails social isolation, like threat of punishment or death, and yeah, just incredible sacrifice, which is a fearful prospect, but yeah, any sacrifices that are premised on the truth

will be borne out in the goodness and beauty of what follows. So I would say, yeah, the word of the day is courage. Alright, digginomad says, my point was that there's a lot of single young men in church. I can meet women en masse. It's no diff. They're only fans of the club or preferences,

feminism, career, riding the carousel. I don't, digginomad, I don't women en masse, it's no diff, they're only fans of the club, or preferences of feminism, career riding the carousel. I don't see the rest of that. Alright, here we go, James Null, Super Chat. The FBI just raided former President Trump's home, please pray for our country, Democrats crossed the Rubicon and I fear the FBI is trying to instigate civil war. Okay, good to know, we will pray. Brendan T. says, if we lack courage, do we lack faith? If we lack courage, are we sure to be damned?

So he who has one virtue has them all because they're all interrelated, they're all interdependent, and they all come in the wake of charity, which is the form of all the virtues and makes all the virtues to be true virtues, simply so called. So we can be like somewhat deficient in courage or underdeveloped in courage. But, you know, if we have courage, that signals the fact that we have other virtues besides. That's a more fine grained distinction that needs to be made there developed in courage, but if we have courage, that signals the fact that we have other virtues besides.

That's a more fine-grained distinction that needs to be made there when it comes to what unites the virtuous life in the pagan tradition and in the Christian tradition, which I'll leave to the side, but I do address it in the book on prudence. If you haven't yet seen it, do check it out as you will profit from it. All right, we've got time for one or two or three more questions. Is memory a faculty of the soul or does our memory perish with our body? So there's sense memory which perishes with our body but then is reconstituted at the resurrection of the dead and then there's intellectual memory which is just an aspect

of intellect itself. I guess Augustine distinguishes it as a separate faculty and as De Trinitate when adducing different images as ways by which to describe the Trinity. But I think that we would generally associate it with an Aristotelian, Thomistic understanding with the intellect. Stevie, what does eternal life mean? It means the beatific vision whereby the soul and then body and soul as reconstituted at the end of time gazes upon God and has all things in God by an infused lumen glory or

light of glory that strengthens the intellectual capacity such that it can receive that revelation which weds itself directly to the mind and that this is enjoyed communally in the context of the church triumphant so that we rejoice in God and all things in light of God, that we see God and then all things further in light of God. Alright, good will win over evil. Steve in 9-3-7, do you have any tips or advice for people who have suffered from severe trauma and are struggling to reconcile the life experience with the goodness slash providence of God?

Saint Dominic Oropro Nobis. What I would say is that God has promised that he will heal. He has not revealed the timeline according to which he will heal, but we can have confidence that he who is the purifier of all things will make us pure in our time. And that's not to say that to suffer trauma is to incur some kind of impurity. That's not like a fully Christian understanding of the thing. But I think that sometimes we feel like we can be traumatized, wounded, or sullied to such a degree or extent that we're irredeemable. But again, nothing is irredeemable.

And if you are permitted to suffer these things and there's a plan for their redemption, and it may not look like you getting back to your peak potential because sometimes you can suffer injuries or wounds which mark you throughout the course of your life, but that those injuries and wounds will tell forth something of the glory of God and will play a role in your salvation because it's about the kind of differentiation or it's about the spelling out of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection in each of our individual humanities. And the point there isn't a bland egalitarianism but rather that each tells the story that he is suited to tell by the hand that he's been dealt in the way in which

he's played it. So yeah, prayers for you, prayers for those whom you know and love who have suffered. And yeah, we'll leave it at that under the prayers of St. Dominic. All right, so that's it from me. Please be sure to subscribe to Pines with Aquinas if you haven't yet. Again, I wrote a book. It's called Prudence. Choose confidently, boldly, check it out.

I think you'll profit from it. A lot of the questions from today touch on the subject matter. If you haven't yet, please do like this particular live stream, this particular episode so that others who see it in post will benefit from the questions that you asked and hopefully the responses that shed some light on those particular concerns. And then if you haven't yet, please do check out God's Blending, which is a podcast to which I contribute with four other Dominican friars. And we just got our studio all set up. So you should be seeing episodes coming out in a new chic look which I hope will be better able to serve your needs through the platform here at YouTube and then

beyond. Alright, so my prayers are for you, please pray for me and I'll look forward to chatting with you next time on Pines with the Coinas.