Pints With Aquinas - Answering YOUR Objections to the Rosary | Gabriel Castillo | Last Call Ep. 34

Starting point is 00:00:00 What if a few minutes with God could change the direction of your entire day? With pray.com, you can begin each morning with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories, and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life. Download the pray.com app today. There is no more Christocentric prayer that I'm aware of that takes you through the life of Christ in that way. Specifically, ask Jesus. Jesus, do you want me to love your mother?

Starting point is 00:00:42 If so, I ask for you to give me the grace to love her. Help me to love him like you. All right, Gabby Castillo, thank you very much for coming on last call. You have written a book called The Power of the Rosary. And you even said before we went on, you're like, no, no, no, we don't need to promote it. I'm like, no, we have to promote it because it's an excellent book. Thanks for writing it. Well, I appreciate you promoting it and giving your full-throated endorsement of it. Honestly, your opinion means a lot to me because I know you think critically and you reach a lot of people.

Starting point is 00:01:14 So the fact that you're promoting it, I really appreciate that. You're welcome. So I was on YouTube recently and in the community section I asked people, what are your biggest objections to the rosary? Hundreds of comments. Most of them are what you would expect. Right. Praying to Mary.

Starting point is 00:01:28 It's not in the Bible, that sort of thing. I chose three. I'd like to read them to you and have you respond to them because I know it's going to answer questions of everybody out there who might have similar questions. Feel free to stop me as I read these if you want to address them. So can I say something before we get started just to lay it out there?

Starting point is 00:01:46 When we say the rosary, what do I hear and what do I mean when I say the rosary? Just so that we're clear. What's the rosary? For me, the rosary is meditation on the life of Jesus Christ. and in the background, I'm saying the angelic salutation, which is the cornerstone of the New Testament. It is the pivotal moment where the second person of the Holy Trinity,

Starting point is 00:02:10 the alpha and the omega, we cannot wrap our minds around the fact that the infinite God is going to take on human flesh, walk amongst us. It's incomprehensible. We will be pondering it for all of eternity when we're pondering the majesty and the love and the glory of God. So when I say the rosary, personally, many people think, they think, oh, Mary in devotion, focus on Mary. I think focus on Jesus Christ. This is all about the life of

Starting point is 00:02:39 Christ, and it's all about his incarnation. So I just want to be clear, that's the way I see the rosary, and we'll see if that's how other people see it. Okay. This first commenter says, I have looked deeply into Catholicism who was considering converting, but because my background does include the occult, praying the rosary feels very pagan. to me personally. Period. Okay, sorry to interrupt. Yeah, no, I asked you. So you're considering Catholicism. Why consider Catholicism? What is the Catholic claim? The Catholic claim is that Jesus Christ, second person of the Holy Trinity, founded a church, and this is the one true church being headed by St. Peter, and it will not make mistakes concerning faith and morals.

Starting point is 00:03:21 So a person entering into Catholicism has to give the Catholic Church the benefit of the doubt because it's making this extreme claim. And if it's wrong at any aspect of faith or morals, it's not the church founded by Jesus Christ. When it declares them authoritatively. So we want to be as distrustful of my own interpretation as possible. And then you mentioned that this person has a history in the occult? Yep. Okay, keep continuing. And he says, the beads remind me of print.

Starting point is 00:03:51 Beads in Eastern religions paired with mantras that seem to lead to a set of meditation, which gets you to an altered set of consciousness. In the Bible, Jesus says, but when ye pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathens do, for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them. You're fought. So I get the gist of this part of it. So you don't like the beads because they remind you of pagan or occult practices, I want to first acknowledge the fact that that is good. I'm glad that you are cautious about things that might be occult and that you have goodwill and you want to be away from that lifestyle. So I want to affirm you 100% for being cautious. I would add to your caution that the

Starting point is 00:04:37 occult steals a lot from Catholicism. So they will do black masses. They will have all sorts of beads. they will put up pictures to saints and things like that. But that doesn't mean that the Catholicism from which they are perverted isn't true. So I appreciate that, but just because something uses beads, don't let that keep you. Yeah. And then vain repetition, but let me finish. He says, then Jesus goes on to teach them how to pray the Lord's Prayer. He does not tell them to go find beads or describe the rosary in any way.

Starting point is 00:05:10 I also believe we have no need to pray for Mary, or they're. dead, seeing as they are not God, Jesus taught us to pray directly to the Father in his own words. He never teaches us to pray to anyone other than the Father. So one that is a common question is the vain repetition. And I agree saying things vainly and repeatedly for no reason isn't ideal. But there is repetition that is good. In Psalm 136, there's the repetition. I forget now what it is.

Starting point is 00:05:39 It's like the Lord's love endures forever. And it's repeated over 12. 26 times. And the book of Revelation, we hear that the angels repeat holy, holy, holy incessantly. They do not stop because words do not express the sacredness of God. So all repetition isn't unholy. And it's interesting to add that Christ says they think they will be heard for their much speaking, which is not at all why a Catholic recites the Hail Mary. Yeah, no, exactly. So that's one important point. The point about praying to dead people, this is essential to grasp. Christianity is special because when you die, you're not dead. You're more alive

Starting point is 00:06:19 and you're more alive in Jesus Christ. So a common objection that he has not pointed out, one that I hear a lot that maybe will come up later, is that how could you pray to Mary? How could you possibly hear all of these prayers? Is she omniscient? Is she omnipotent? How is it possible that she could be concerned with all of your concerns all at the same time? God is omnipotent, God is omniscient, and when a Christian dies and is in the presence of God, you only exist in God. And so you are now a participator, as St. Peter says, in the divine nature. So God alone is omnipotent and omniscient, but the Virgin Mary lives unified with God for all of eternity.

Starting point is 00:07:03 So in him, she hears us. In him, she has her life and her being. Yeah, and I think a human analogy sometimes helps. I mean, I grew up in the 80s. If you had to have explained to me what I could do on this little magical device that I have in my pocket, what Spotify was? When I was a teenager, you could fit, and this was amazing, five CDs. Yes.

Starting point is 00:07:24 If you tried to explain Spotify to me, my head would have blown up, much less email, much less the internet, much less YouTube. I wouldn't have had any understanding of it. And so even in this little human analogy, if we can see that technology has made it such that we can things that we would have considered completely impossible, then perhaps those glorified in God have more powers than we're willing to understand, are able to understand, and also to recognize to be more powerful is not to be omniscient or to be omnipotent. Yeah, and I want to give this person the benefit of the doubt. They're looking into Catholicism.

Starting point is 00:07:59 They're defending the life of Jesus Christ and his teachings. And so that is beautiful and that is the goal and the rosary doesn't want to take away from that. What the rosary is doing is putting you in the various stages of the life of Christ. So I would ask this individual, do you have a systematic way of putting yourself in the various stages of the life of Christ so that you can appreciate him more at every stage of his life and fall deeper in love with him? Yeah. I just can't imagine that they have that. And using the beads is kind of like a timer for repeating the cornerstone of the New Testament, the angelic salutation. There is no more Christocentric prayer that I'm aware of that takes you through the life of Christ in that way. And so this is one of those circumstances

Starting point is 00:08:53 where you're coming into a new religion. You obviously have multiple questions. You have questions about the role that's the saints play, about what happens to us when we die, about does everything that we do have to come from scripture? Jesus didn't say find beads. Jesus didn't say have prayer meetings on Wednesdays. So there's a lot of things, just because he doesn't say it, doesn't mean that we can't utilize it. So I would encourage you keep going.

Starting point is 00:09:20 Specifically ask Jesus. Jesus, do you want me to love your mother? if so I ask for you to give me the grace to love her. Blessed Mother, if you're listening, I am open to you. If you really are a follower of Christ, Blessed Mother, help me to love him like you because nobody on this earth loved him like you. So there's a lot of good things in there that I don't want to be lost, and I want to give this person a good push towards the good...

Starting point is 00:09:49 No, I love it. And he asked it in good faith. Yeah, of course. 100%. But it's just like you wouldn't dismiss the Bible because pagan religions have holy texts or just like you wouldn't dismiss or reject gathering in a building to pray because pagan religions have been known to do that. There's many other examples that we could point to. And I think you would understand those things. Yeah. Oh yeah, okay, fair enough. That's different. Well, this is different too. No one is saying you have to hold beads in order

Starting point is 00:10:16 to pray. It's just a helpful. Can I throw something else in there? Because you mentioned the occult a couple of times. So I was never, actually, I did a couple of pagan things that I didn't know were occult when I was younger. And I was deeply involved in pornography. And so when I hear that somebody's involved in the occult, I know the kind of stronghold that the devil can have in a person's life. I'm not saying that that's the circumstance for this individual, but there's definitely the possibility. Doors have been opened. And in my own life, I had a diabolical incursion, a diabolical influence in my life. And the devil allowed me to be intrigued by Catholicism. devil allowed me to go to mass. It wasn't until I got close to the Virgin Mary that there was

Starting point is 00:11:01 this manifestation in my life that was truly, really tangible. He penetrated my room and attacked me. And that didn't happen until I got close to Our Lady. So it could be that a lot of these like, don't do this. And it's wrong with this. And all these things, they could be like a last ditch effort from an old demon that it's just a possibility to. consider that and to pray to the Holy Spirit to cut any ties if this might actually be something from God, especially because so many Catholics have found it beneficial to grow in Holland. So I am happy to say that I just got restocked on seven weeks coffee, which was excellent timing because apparently the amount of coffee consumed in my house is becoming a financial

Starting point is 00:11:46 liability. I have an espresso machine right by my fridge that I approach after my prayers every morning and seven weeks coffee is there. And I love it. love it. But there's something actually really cool about seven weeks coffee. They recently crossed two million dollars donated to pro-life organizations across the country. Two million dollars. And that money has helped organizations serving women, supporting families, and protecting unborn children, all because people bought coffee they were going to buy anyway. And that's what I've always loved about this company. You're not choosing between good coffee and supporting something you believe in. you actually get excellent, ethically sourced coffee, and your purchase help support the pro-life movement.

Starting point is 00:12:30 So if you're already drinking coffee every morning, why wouldn't you make the coffee you're buying actually do some good? So congratulations to seven weeks on $2 million donated and let's help them get to the next million. Subscribe to save 15% forever on 7weekscoffee.com slash pints. Use promo code pints for an extra 10% off your first order. 7weekscoffee.com slash pines. One of the difficulties with prayer is that we can spend more time thinking about how we ought to be praying than actually praying. We imagine we need a quiet house, clear mind, half an hour we don't have, but you can

Starting point is 00:13:06 begin with a few minutes today. That's what I appreciate about Hallows 21 days of prayer challenge. Each day, someone from a different walk of life shares how they pray and then invites you to pray alongside them. You'll hear from people like Coach Prime and Gwen Stefani as well as priests, pastors, parents, and others. Their routines may look different, but the invitation is the same. Make time for God. I myself have a specific prayer rule, certain prayers that I am committed to pray in the morning and in the evening.

Starting point is 00:13:39 And I think this is really important. It's just too easy otherwise to not pray. And so if you're somebody who's trying to get your prayer life in order, you really should check this out by Hallow. The thing is, we have no shortage of things competing for our attention. Phones, work, news, social media, there's always a reason not to stop. Hallow is asking you to do something simple instead. Give God some of that time. So go check it out. Download Hallow for three months free and join the 21 Days of Prayer Challenge at hallow.com slash frad. That's hallo.com slash fred. Here is the second comment. It comes from Captain B. L. Fek. I guess I should have said who the first

Starting point is 00:14:19 guy was, but it's the name is. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. He says, it's not that I don't believe she is in heaven or that she, like the other saints and in the cloud of witnesses can hear me. He's referring to Hebrews 12. There is just an uncomfortable feeling in me when I look at how the rosary is prayed. I feel like it's too Mary-centered, duh. And anytime I try, he says duh, not me just so we know. anytime I try praying it because I think it can be a helpful and healing tool of faith, instead of pondering the mysteries, I'm way too focused on my anxiety of putting someone else above God. And the Mary-centeredness thing is just a universal feeling I get from Catholics. I feel like outside of the very reverent mass where the sacrifice of Christ is presented again for our sins,

Starting point is 00:15:02 Mary gets all the attention outside of that. Something that when taking into consideration... Okay, let's stop before we get into too many different topics, if you don't mind. Yeah. So the first part about it, it appearing to be too Mary-centered. Part of that is on the church's shoulders. I personally have noticed, especially when the rosary's prayed in groups or in churches, that a lot of times it's like, mention the mystery and our fathers and go. And so it's like very much, it's not conducive to what I'm saying that the rosary is. I'm over here saying it's all about being in the gospels and meditating on the life of Christ. But when I actually go and pray it and people are like, the third joyful mystery, the birth of the child Jesus and Bethlehem, Our Father who art in heaven, all I'll be then. It seems as if the mystery is really just a small part, and the words are the most important part, that's on the church's shoulders. So a healthier way would be to do a little scriptural reading, allow a pause for people to adequately form a mental picture. So things could be

Starting point is 00:16:03 done differently in the circle that the people might be observing the rosary in. That's really helpful. Yeah, I think that that, at least for me, I'm praying in a group and I'm like giving a talk on how important it is to meditate, but I'm leading the rosary and I'm not giving any time for meditation. I'm contradicting myself. The second thing, it's too Mary-centered. I want to, again, address that. It's not so much an invocation to the Virgin Mary. It's undeniable. There is an invocation of the Virgin Mary. But the Hail Mary is unique and important and specific because it is the beginning of God, the Father, initiating something that is going to take place in time and in history that is going to forever change the course of salvation history. So we're saying this over and over again, not because these are man's words, but because these are God's words to our lady through the angel Gabriel and they are the foundation of every mystery that we have forth.

Starting point is 00:17:02 So although it sounds like Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary, Mary, they are about Christ. Mary is only special because Christ, but I'm not going to die. This is a Marian invocation. But when you're praying the rosary well, which we'll get to his next point, when you're praying the rosary well, you're at the feet of Jesus. You're holding or present in the presence of a baby Jesus. You're listening to the child Jesus preach in the temple. Now, he brings up a good point.

Starting point is 00:17:30 So he acknowledges that I need to meditate. I should be doing that. but my motivation is getting in the way of what I'm meditating upon. So it is really important that we, I want to say follow the steps of mental prayer, but if you've never heard of them, they're really short. So you make an act of faith in the presence of God,

Starting point is 00:17:51 which is recollection, but it's really important that you actually pause and consider the mystery that you're in. So whatever baggage of life you have, you have to make an act of the will to the best of your ability. Maybe life is really, really hard, and you can't just say, Lord, I can't. But you really want to put the mystery before your eyes as if a person who's really

Starting point is 00:18:11 present because it is the mystery of the life of Christ that gives the grace. So let's say you just lost your job, you're meditating on the carrying of the cross. I know you have this weight upon you. But just for a moment, to the best of your ability, either visualize Jesus carrying the cross. You can do this interiorly. One of the things that I have been doing lately, because I'm like driving or I'm working is I will imagine what would it be like if Jesus just kind of walked across the room. Oh, that'd be weird. What are you doing carrying that cross through here? That is enough. That is considering. I've thought about it. It's in my imagination. And then put your pressing intention upon him. Lord, I just lost my job. He says, it's just the way I see how saints are treated

Starting point is 00:18:59 in Catholic and Orthodox churches that I'm like, I understand. It's not literal worship, but merely asking for prayers, but I also feel like it's threading a delicate line where someone who has a favorite saint they relate to or really like that they might slip into turning them into Batman or Superman in terms of the level of reverence. So he's like, I appreciate, I appreciate it, just, you know, wants some, and I also appreciate too, he's not, he's, this guy's awesome, he's very thoughtful, he's clearly not falling into the old falsehoods that Catholics worship Mary or he's, he's open to the saints hearing our prayers in heaven.

Starting point is 00:19:36 He's just like, it's this way too much about Mary. Right, sure. And it seems like there's a consistent theme of the role of the saints in the life of the Catholic Church. I view the saints as an expression of what Jesus Christ is living in a particular vocation at a particular time and place. And so there are saints that I am drawn to, like let's say, for example, Maximilian Colby, because as a guy on the internet and I'm navigating personally, what role does AI play?

Starting point is 00:20:05 What role does these various technologies that give me an upper hand play? I can look to a man who the church is saying, like he had heroic virtue, he had wisdom and insights. So I look to Maximilian Colby as, like, he said, used the greatest technology possible. AI is a technology. How can I use it?

Starting point is 00:20:24 So the saints are, one, yes, are intercessors. But then I look to the saints as inspirational role models. but also as a friend. Like, I do talk to them because they're living people, and I have found that the Lord speaks to me through them. Speaking of AI, I want to tell people who are watching about an app that I co-founded called Truthly.

Starting point is 00:20:47 Yes. I don't know. You don't have it. I don't have Truthly. I'll set you up with it. Please get me in a count. Truthly is like chat GPT went through OCIA and became the world's greatest evangelist.

Starting point is 00:20:58 I love it. It'll only give you authentic Catholic answers, and it's very sophisticated and it's getting better every day. So I recommend people, if you have questions about the Catholic faith and you're like, okay, I just want an authentic answer, not just what some blue heart on the internet says or what some Protestant says, but maybe he hasn't researched what the Catholic Church teaches.

Starting point is 00:21:17 Download the app truthly. It's really good, I think. Yeah, and we're living in a time where answers to questions, there's really no excuse not to have the answer. Asking truthly some of these exact same questions. Of course, they're not going to have AI is not going to have the personal experience and anecdotal evidence that I have concerning the rosary. But they're going to answer doctrinal questions with the Catholic position. So, highly recommend it.

Starting point is 00:21:43 So maybe you're listening to this and thinking, I don't really have a porn problem. And it's like, okay, maybe you don't watch it every day or every week or even every few weeks. Maybe you can even go a month without it. But, I mean, saying I don't look at it every so often, therefore it's not a problem, is not a problem. a good argument, since pornography is so destructive. You don't have to give yourself some dramatic label. You can simply say, this isn't the man I want to be, so I'm going to do something about it. And that's what I appreciate about relay. So relay helps you dig into what's actually happening underneath the behavior. What are your triggers? Why are you turning to porn in those

Starting point is 00:22:20 moments? And then it connects you with real community and accountability so you're not just trying to white-knuckle this thing by yourself. The church is taking notice too, a growing number of dioceses, parishes, and seminaries are using Relay to help their communities. You don't need to wait for a crisis. My listeners get a seven-day free trial with code Pints. So visit joinrelay.com slash pints or click the link in the description and start your journey today. Now some of this is maybe repeating ourselves here, but this person, Nomis Charis, says, appreciate the question, basically, too much Mary, too little God, that's it. Yes, I understand. the meditations are Christ exulting, and the mysteries are beautiful, but the words themselves,

Starting point is 00:23:03 the things I'm physically saying out of my mouth are Mary, Mary, Mary, Jesus, Mary, God, repeat 50 times. To me, that is a dissonance, a disconnect between what my mouth is doing and what I'm supposed to be thinking about, and for that reason I much prefer the divine office or simply praying the Psalter. Secondly, I believe that prayer should be made exclusively to God. That is the universal pattern throughout scripture. Never once in the Bible is prayer made to anyone but God except sinfully. So for me, bringing dead saints into my devotion and praying directly to them instead of God would be floating too much with idolatry. Let me say something. Please. First of all, great. So glad you're praying the Salter, the divine office. And the Catholic

Starting point is 00:23:45 Church isn't saying to you, you have to pray the rosary or you're sitting. So awesome. Just so that's clear. And but then secondly, I think it's important to recognize that since the Protestant which is over 500 years ago, it's perfectly reasonable to appreciate that language has changed or how we use terms has changed. And maybe you've heard this, but I still think it's a valid point, that when a Catholic uses the word prayer, he's often using it in the old English sense, you know, when you'll read like an old fairy tale or something, it'll say, I pray thee, or privy as a contraction. It's a request. So if the Protestant thinks prayer is synonymous with worship. It's no wonder he's horrified to hear that Catholics pray to Mary, but you have to understand

Starting point is 00:24:33 that by prayer we don't mean worship in that sense of offering Latria, right? I got that right to the Blessed Virgin. But yeah. So I want to kind of pivot a little bit and mention that the mother of God loves you individually and specifically, and that the goal of the Christian life is to be as united to Christ as possible. That happens through reception of Jesus and the sacraments. That happens through discerning God's will and doing it. That happens through mental prayer and praying and spending time with God. But that also happens, becoming a full Christian, also happens through the intercession of the mother of God. So one of the things that we call Mary, and maybe this is bringing up a can of worms, is we call her the mediatrix of all grace. That's a controversial term.

Starting point is 00:25:24 Maybe it is, maybe it isn't. But what does it mean? It means that grace, Jesus, entered this world through the mother of God. And her desire is not to take away attention from Jesus. So if I'm going to have a well-ordered Marian devotion and a well-ordered rosary devotion, it should be 100% Christocentric. And if you're praying the rosary in such a way that the focus in the overwhelming majority of the mysteries, is the life of Christ, I would argue you might be praying it wrong.

Starting point is 00:25:59 Like, Mary wants you to love Christ and spend time with him. And in my personal experience, there is no greater, and this is like the thesis of my book, there is no greater prayer outside of the sacred liturgy that puts you into contact with every aspect of the life of Christ, gives you the grace is necessary to discern God's Holy will and to actually do it to combat vice to overcome temptations from the devil. But it is because Mary has a very powerful intercession. So I think that's something that grace alone can help some of our listeners to overcome. But it's just the greatest prayer for overcoming vice in my personal experience and for

Starting point is 00:26:43 increasing my love for the sacraments. Like I people will accuse me of being like one of the most, you're so crazy Marion. I know you think that's crazy, but if you knew how I treat the Eucharist and how I, I'm like, addicted to adoration. Like, if I don't go to adoration, like, I can't function. I get all my ideas. I wrote the book in front of the Blessed Sacrament. Like, I'm there, and that was the fruit of allowing the mother of God to play a role in my life. My biggest piece of advice for anybody who's struggling with the rosary is to ask for the grace.

Starting point is 00:27:18 can I have the grace to see the blessed mother the way that you see her Lord? So you're talking to Jesus. Jesus, you love her. You obviously loved her because she's your mom. Give me your eyes so that I can see her the way that you see her. So I can see her is not as an obstacle to my relationship with the father,

Starting point is 00:27:36 but as a means of helping me to fulfill God's will for my life and give me your heart that I can love her like you loved her. And I personally, this is one of the most powerful prayers I do. I prayed it before we hit. record, I said, blessed mother, give me your eyes so that I can love Christ like you loved him. That's the greatest prayer ever. Nobody loved her. Nobody loved Jesus more than Mary. Give me your eyes so I can see him the way that you saw him. Give me your heart. That is a pure prayer. Like, is there more pure prayer than that? Oh, that's a great prayer. And then I also ask,

Starting point is 00:28:09 because Mary loves, like you have to understand all, all listeners of all stripes. It doesn't matter. The mother of God loves you personally and individually, and she would die for you if she could. She would do anything possible, but we have to be open to her role in her intercession. And the reason why many Catholics are like, Gaga for Mary, is because she's awesome. And she comes through and she hears our prayers, often not in the way that I want. But I can say that she's never failed me. There have been times because I publicly speak on Our Lady in the Rosary where I'm like going through my own crisis.

Starting point is 00:28:46 Life does not change because I pray the rosary. It doesn't mean that everything goes well. But I'll be praying at night and I'll be going through a crisis. I'm like, Blessed Mother, I'm going through it. How can I go tomorrow at this conference and say how amazing you are when I'm struggle busting it?

Starting point is 00:29:02 And then I will check my email and it's like two hours ago I got an email that this whole thing that I've been worried about resolved itself. And I'm like, sorry, please forgive me. Please forgive me. I'm a big fan of analogies and I just thought of one while you were speaking.

Starting point is 00:29:16 Because another reason people should consider praying the rosary isn't because they understand why it's a great thing, but because they see the positive effects in the lives of others. And here's the earthly analogy. If you had have told me when I was going to get married to my wife that 18 years in, she would be eating strict carnivore, I would have went, oh my gosh, she'll die. Or she'll be very fat, or she'll die of heart disease or something.

Starting point is 00:29:44 Okay, so my wife was very sick. She heard the examples of other people. I only eat meat. What? How can you? You need vegetables or you'll die. This will happen. Your blood pressure will go through the roof.

Starting point is 00:29:59 Okay, but person after person, who I think is legitimate and respectable is saying, just try it. Because what do I know about nutrition? I got no idea. So my wife started it and she immediately, no. I'd say it was about two weeks. sin. She then started experiencing the effects. And obviously this is an analogy and all analogies limp and I'm not necessarily recommending the carnivore diet, but you see the analogy. One of my

Starting point is 00:30:25 favorite quotes from one of your favorite people, Dr. Peter Craft, he said that one of the greatest untapped sources of evangelization in the church is the lives of the saints. And so that's exactly what you're saying. We're listening to witnesses about health and fasting and good will. but let's listen to the people who got really, really holy and how they overcame temptations. I'm wearing the socks of one of the greatest Marion people of all times, and he has a quote that's, I don't know, but it's a nice quote. Padre Pio.

Starting point is 00:30:55 Yeah, exactly. He's a kind of a rough guy. He said, there are some people who are so foolish that think they can go their life without the assistance of the mother of God, love the Madonna, and pray the rosary as often as possible. The rosary is the prayer of those who are victorious over every one, and over everything. My recommendation is to try it for a week,

Starting point is 00:31:17 but try it using the methods of mental prayer. Will you really take a couple of moments to pause, visualize the mystery as if you're present, if you can't visualize, just analyze the data. For example, the birth of the child Jesus in Bethlehem. You don't have to visualize it.

Starting point is 00:31:35 I'd recommend you would because it'd be more powerful. But if you can't, the second person of the Holy Trinity became a defenseless, innocent baby, an infant that could be dropped, that could be forgotten, that could get sick. Wow, that's incredible. And then you address any petitions in that mystery to Jesus as the little infant from the heart. And yeah, I just, if there's a better prayer, I'm willing to try it, but I haven't found one. Gabby, God bless you.

Starting point is 00:32:02 My brother, thanks for having me. Appreciate you. We'll put links below to your book, to your excellent YouTube channel, which people should check out. Thanks. God bless. What if a few minutes with God could change the direction of your entire day? With pray.com, you can begin each morning with powerful daily prayers, inspiring Bible stories, and messages created to strengthen your faith. Whether you need peace, encouragement, or a fresh start, pray.com helps you make prayer part of your everyday life.

Starting point is 00:32:40 Download the pray.com app today.

Pints With Aquinas - Answering YOUR Objections to the Rosary | Gabriel Castillo | Last Call Ep. 34

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