Pints With Aquinas - Catholics in Exile w/ Dr. Scott Hahn

Episode Date: October 28, 2023

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So is it in your life and we're live. Dr. Han, thank you so much for coming back on. It's great to be with you again, Matt. I love that you've brought more books to this interview than I have on my book shelf. Yeah. Well, I mentioned to you a minute ago, the five love languages that book should have entitled six because books are my love language, my security blanket, you know, all that. So I remember, I was in your library and I said, do you read, have you read all these books? And I like your line.

You said books are like tools. It's good to have them if you need them. Right, I use them, yeah. And many I do try to read all the way through, but not most. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I mean, not to get off on a complete rabbit trail here,

but that is something I've heard Peter Crave say. Look, it's a silly idea to think that you must read a book from beginning to end. There are certain books just pick up. I hate to admit this somewhat ashamed, but I, I approach books like I approach stores. I know the owner wants to sell me everything, but I come in looking for a few things.

And if I see something on sale that I like are a few other things too, that's good. I usually go and with the target. So good. And the St. Paul center that you've've just that is almost complete now here in student Bill is beautiful Congratulations. Thank you. I mean that is something I can Not take credit for myself personally, but I mean we have a team not only 50 plus strong now co-workers who are really gifted and zealous But we also had an amazing architect Peter BaldwinG, a convert from Presbyterianism

out in Grand Rapids, and then Massaro in Pittsburgh. I used to work with the Teamsters in college one summer, you know, loading construction trucks with all kinds of supplies, and most of them were Massaro. So to have them on track, on budget, you know, we could possibly move in within the next four to six weeks You know, we'll have to have to have a permit for occupancy and that sort of thing inspections But nobody imagined that it would actually get up and be built and ready practically on schedule and so

Just last week. I had the whole family came into town. I was telling before we started that all 21 of our grandkids were at our home for several days and we joked that Steubenville has never had a zoo until last week. And it was so much fun to actually take them on a tour for about 30 minutes of all 25,000 square feet, you know two acres and Yeah, we're all excited to enter into our new digs this headquarters and I should probably issue on a modest scale a general invitation that if you are in Steubenville and you You know come visit the university right across from the university will be the st. Paul Center headquarters And we'd love to have lots of visitors

And I'm pretty confident that will be opened up by December for visitors and for all kinds of events as well That must be quite Having to orchestrate moving from your old place to this place must be quite the ordeal Well in especially our case because we have a studio out at the mall. We've got one down in SCOTUS. That is the old hotel that slants. And we also have it up in Assisi Heights. And so we have it down at the bottom of the University Boulevard. So it really will be coordinating troop supply. I mean, it really will be troop movements. Yeah. For those who aren't aware, what's the mission statement for St. Paul's

Synod? Catholics reading scripture from the heart of the church. And, you know, to inspire Catholics, both clergy and laypeople, the goal would be biblical literacy for the laity, biblical fluency for the clergy and the educators, but to recognize that the goal of our Lord for each and every one of us was what He accomplished on Easter Sunday, more than just the marvel of the resurrection. It was this long walk for hours on Easter Sunday with two apparent nobodies, Clovis and his unnamed friend, you know, and, you know, they looked back and finally admitted

what they'd been feeling for hours, did not our hearts burn within us as he opened the Scriptures, but wait, their eyes were only opened in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread. And it's that coordination of the Eucharistic liturgy as the goal, but the liturgy of the Word as the means. And the very fact that Jesus would spend his first day back from the dead, leading this long Bible study with two lowly laymen, and then wait until the

Eucharist, you know, he takes, he blesses, he breaks, and he gives and reveals his resurrected body, blood, soul, and divinity in a moment, and then he disappears. And then he circles back and meets them up with the eleven in the upper room, and then he leads a second Bible study. I mean, that is, Emmaus Road is the blueprint, the vision, the template for all that we do. In fact, Emmaus Road is our publishing arm. But if we reflect upon that, as I always love to do, you realize that he was crucified. He was dead.

He was buried. He descended into Hades. And then he came back. And on his first day back from Hades, he decides to lead to Bible studies. I mean, that would not have been on my to-do list. And yet it's obviously on his, you know. I probably would have spent time with Pilate and Caiaphas just upbraiding these idiots.

But unless he has a case of PTSD, you know, he did it and he wasn't wasting his time. And so if we do it, we won't be wasting hours. But to recognize that Scripture grew out of the Church, it was for the purpose of proclamation and the liturgy, among other things we can study and all of that. But it is a liturgical document. And the only time Jesus ever used that phrase, the New Testament, was when he was instituting the Eucharist. This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, the New Testament, was when he was instituting the Eucharist. This is the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant, the New Testament.

He didn't say write this, he says do this. And so, you know, if the New Testament was a sacrament before it became a document according to the document, then why do we call the document the New Testament? Well, you know, by the 190s, by the end of the second century, the Church had discovered, you know, it was because these books were written and then gathered to be proclaimed in preparation for the Eucharist. You know, you can read and study and teach them in any other setting, but this is the main event. And so this is a liturgical document. And if Catholics have to go to mass every week that they can, then why not impart a biblical literacy to the lay people

so that as we began teaching at the start up of the St. Paul Center 22 years ago, the Lamb's Supper had just come out. And so this electrifying discovery for me was we don't have to die in order to go to heaven. All we've got to do is go to mass. And the angels and the saints are who we're with. And this isn't like puffed up holy hyperbole, you know, kind of projecting these wishes onto, you know, the church and the parishioners and all of that. It's the reality seen through the eyes of faith. And if that's the case, you know,

then not believing in it for, didn't make it less real when I came to see that the real presence is real and true, and that, you know, we're singing the same songs as the angels and saints in the book of Revelation, holy, holy, holy, the lamb of God, you know, they really are in our midst. Well, why in the world don't ordinary Catholics get taught that? And it just brings the Old Testament, the new together. It brings the scripture and the Eucharist together. It brings clergy and lay people together, the beginners, the intermediate, the advanced. And this is why I get a sense that our Lord wanted me to do this with Kimberly.

I had no idea, you know, 22 years ago that we would end up with over 50 people, this massive headquarters. But you know, if he had shown me that 22 years ago, I'd unplug the set. But I mean, gradually this team, and it's just so gifted, so excited, yeah, it's like a kid who loves candy and ends up waking up to a candy store that he can't even eat at all but he has to share it. Well, thank you for helping Catholics love scripture. I really appreciate that. I'm still trying to, still trying to love it more. You have a new course, a new platform that helps lay people, knuckleheads like me, kind of enter in at the base level and get taken to the heights with wonderful teachers.

to end at the base level and get taken to the heights with wonderful teachers. Yeah, we have amazing teachers. It's called Emmaus Academy, and you can sign up for it. You can go to the St. Paul Center's website, stpaulcenter.com. And Mike Cirilla, we also have Dr. Feingold, a convert from Judea, he's an amazing professor. I shouldn't have begun listing the names because I'm going to forget so many of them. But Jeff Morrow, a dear friend also in the theology of work, we have a course on Introduction to Scripture. Dr. Bergman has done one on the Psalms and another two courses. And you know, it's designed, there are so many online programs for bachelors, for masters. This is for people who are too busy to bother with that. So there

are no quizzes, there are no midterms, there are no finals, no grades. You just basically take the courses that seem to be of interest and you know, there may be eight or ten lectures and there are, you know, guidebooks and that kind of thing. And some are for beginners, others are more advanced, and there's a lot of in-between. Well, I felt exposed when I signed up, right? Because I said, well, I'll do this course. I clicked join the course, and I said,

how many hours a week are you willing to devote to this? What days? I'm like, ha ha, ha ha. Because sometimes you just sign up to things on a whim, thinking, yeah, I'll probably get to it. But I love that. I love that. OK, well, if you're going to sign up to it,

how much can you devote to it? How serious are you? Yeah, but I love that. I love that. Okay. Well, if you're gonna sign up to it, how much? How serious are you? How serious are you? Yeah, so that was that was great All right. Tell us about your new book Catholics in Exile. I Wrote this book with a dear friend Brandon McGinley. He's many years younger than me, but certainly wiser than me He's got six kids. He lives in Pittsburgh he's a native Pittsburgh or like I am and And he went to Princeton, studied under Robbie George, our mutual friend.

And we began our friendship several years ago in conversation about the society, about the church, about all of the confusion, the chaos, the anxiety and anger that people are feeling. And I grew so much from our conversations. We worked together on the final stages of a book I did right before COVID called The First Society, The Sacrament of Matrimony

and the Restoration of the Social Order. I never wanted to write a book on marriage until I was an empty nestor, where I couldn't be haunted by all the blowback, you know, with the kids. And so it was when we became empty nestors. I'm like, okay, it's safe now. But what I discovered was the starting point of this book was actually way back in 85 when

I was becoming a Catholic, taking a course. And I shared this with Brandon, and he's like, I think that might be a better opening for the book I'm like, okay, and he had a lot of other suggestions, but I was in this doctoral seminar Discussing religion and society with the amazing father Donald Keefe and it was a seminar with about ten students ten doctor Five Protestant five Catholic and it was Jerry Fall the moral majority. It was Reagan You know, it was the first time where Catholics and evangelicals were working together in the pro-life movement. So there were lots of things to talk about. And as we were debating issues, at one point, for whatever reason,

Father Keefe just started staring out the window. And so we stopped talking. We were looking at him like, what is it, a flying saucer, you know? And then he just turned around and looked at us and opined out loud, you know, if Catholics simply live the grace of the sacrament of matrimony, in one generation we'd have a transformed culture. We basically would have a Christian social order. Oh, but I digress. And I'm like, keep digressing, please, because it was like a laser beam that lands it on

my retina. It's like burning and yet illuminating. And I started thinking about the power of the sacraments as things that we don't do for God but that He does for us, to give us all that we need to make up for what we lack, but to really transform sinners into saints. And so, that began what became a trilogy, so that after the First Society came out, the Sacrament of Matrimony and the Restoration of the Social Order, Brandon and I decided to team up on It is Right and Just. We've talked about this. And this came out in the last

presidential election at the end of it all, you know, because I just felt as though no matter what promises the politicians make, they're going to break them. And we're going to have our hopes dashed, you know, and so let's not be cynical, but let's be honest. You know, it is right and just, focuses on the power of the sacraments in the church, in the liturgy, in our lives. And that this, you know, the subtitle is, Why the Future of Civilization Depends on True Religion. And it was sort of like a response to something that had come up like 15 years ago, I'm not religious, I'm spiritual. You know, which to me just is like the ultimate expression of individualism and of a kind

of spiritual pride. You know, I don't want to bind myself to others I'm just spiritual, you know And so looking at scripture looking at the catechism the tradition and discovering that even for Seneca Cicero Plato Aristotle worship religio Observance this is a form of justice It's the highest form of justice. Aquinas would call it

the vertus veritutum in question 81. And so you're like, it is right and just implies that it would be wrong and unjust. Always and everywhere to give him thanks and praise, are these just lines lifted from the liturgy? Or is this tracking the highest form of justice, the one to whom we owe our existence, our life, our happiness, our eternity? And it was just sort of like, this is so reasonable. This is entirely logical. It is right and just. And so, we had a blast working on that. And afterwards, you know, the effect of it is right and just was really interesting because people got excited about the civilization-forming power of the Catholic faith. It's unique. There is no other religion with the capacity that ours has, and yet Jesus said, Seek first

the kingdom and these things will be added. So it really exists more for the purpose of forming saints than civilizations. But you know, those two come together. And yet, when we were done editing and when people were done reading it, it's like, get real. I'm not gonna ever see this. My kids aren't gonna ever see this. Our grandkids.

So what do we do in the meantime? And it's like, okay, Catholic's in exile. And so this book, Catholic's in Exile, Biblical Wisdom for the Journey Home, completes what was an unintended trilogy, exile. And so this book, Catholics in Exile, Biblical Wisdom for the Journey Home, completes what was an unintended trilogy, beginning with the first society, and then it is right and just. And the three are written separately. You don't have to have read the first two.

No, in fact, it might be even easier to read Catholics in Exile first and then work your way back, because I think this is where most people are. And Brandon and I talked about writing a book that we didn't want others to read, but writing a book that we both need. And it's like, okay, you know, you would hear people describe what it's like in America today or what it's like in the Catholic Church and where we just have a kind of vacuum of leadership. You know, and so over the course of time I began to sense through prayer that a Lord was saying, you know, look, I've given you great leaders in the past, especially with John Paul and others too, you know, so that you could find me.

But don't fall back on them. I am your leader. I always was. Follow me. And it's like, okay, that'll get us through all of life. That'll get us to heaven. And right now, I think that is the most practical down-to-earth wisdom that I needed to kind of hear and remind myself of and then develop with Brandon into a book that just kind of caches this out into all kinds

of practical ways. When I wrote that book for you on Thomas Aquinas and happiness, that realization, that distinction he makes between felicity and beatitude, to this imperfect versus imperfect happiness, realizing that I cannot experience perfect happiness in this life, you kind of breathe a sigh of relief. You're like, ah, okay, like I'm in exile. This is, there is no abiding city here. So the tension that I feel that I'm not there yet or we're not there yet is what we're, we're always going to feel to one degree or another.

That's exactly right. Yeah. You know, there's a narrative arc, I suppose. I see it only when you're done. But in the beginning of the first society, I warn against the danger of nostalgia, falling back into this idea of like, precancel your Catholic, you know? And then like the 1950s American culture. And you know, I talk about how when I was born, Leave the Beaver was just produced, you know?

And then when I graduated from high school, Saturday Night Live, you know, and the seismic shift of these tectonic plates of American culture, and they're reflected in the Catholic Church as well. And so what do you do to adjust when change comes so fast, but it's not mostly good? It's ambivalent at best. And so this was the fruit of prayer, of research, but of also conversation and friendship. And I think of that as another aspect of pilgrimage, of exile, and that is find fellow sojourners,

find like-minded brothers and sisters to pray together, to go to a concert together, to have families gather together, and that sort of thing. And I believe that recipe is what a lot of other people might find beneficial, too. One motivational speaker whose name I'm forgetting talked about the sort of sphere of interest or concern versus the sphere of control. And he says, the more we're interested in things we can't control, our sphere of control shrinks.

And vice versa, the more I put my interest into the control and the authority that God's given me, the more that increases. And it seems to me today, how many of us Catholics, if we would be honest with ourselves, would say, yeah, I'd probably spend more time listening and reading political news media or even ecclesiastical kind of politics media, more than the Scriptures. So I love the two things that we've already spoken about today is this getting back to the Word of God and getting back to the importance of what's under our authority, namely our beautiful wife and children. Pete Slauson Yeah, I mean, I think it was Stephen Covey, I'm not sure, but I think the sphere of concern

is so vast. And we feel so helpless in the face of all of these bad things that are happening that we really can't do much about. And we're forced to be concerned about them. When you put images on a screen about wars that are taking place, you have to be concerned. To not be concerned is to not be human. And yet I have no control over this and so I feel helpless, not to mention what's coming out of the Vatican with the synod and things like this.

Yeah, I think that cable news networks as well as podcasts and other things want us to be concerned to the point of being consumed because then we become consumers, you know, and they bank on our appetite for more negativity and you know It doesn't take much reflection to realize that's just really stupid I mean that is gonna drain our energies, you know So the sphere of concern versus the sphere of influence and so what can I do? What difference can I make? Okay, you know gathering gathering my six kids, our 21 grandkids, spending time together,

singing, you know, eating together, playing games, all of that kind of stuff, and then sending them forth, exhilarated and quite exhausted too. You know, I think that if you could have like a Geiger counter for spiritual reality, you know, it would have been going wild at that point. And so I think of the things that I do in writing books or in teaching at Franciscan University or all of the

exciting projects at the St. Paul Center. And don't get me wrong, I think those have lasting value, but I always remind myself that the single greatest accomplishments for me, for Kimberly, are our kids and our grandkids and our prayer and the idea that 44 years of marriage we've survived, you know, and the sacrament didn't make it easy. It's what made it possible. And that's another thesis that I recycled in First Society, as well as in Right and Just and Catholics in Exile, that if we really do prioritize our married life, as you do with Kim, as I do with Kimberly, you realize, OK, this is not romantic idealism.

This is really what Jesus was talking about when he said, if anyone should follow me, he must take up his cross daily. Because, you know, I say this, you know, I say this with humor, but I say this with honesty. My cross has a name. My primary cross is Kimberly. And likewise, she has a much heavier cross in me, you know, but apologizing, forgiving, enjoying. I didn't know that a married couple could have this kind of friendship.

I never saw it growing up. I saw it in her folks when we first got married, but I thought that's unrealizable. I also had no idea that if you really want to work on a marriage, it is going to at times be the single most frustrating thing, you know, and parenting. Nothing has made me feel inadequate like parenting our six kids, especially when three of them were teenagers. Nothing made me feel more like a failure. And yet now, and even then, nothing even came close to the fulfillment that we had as family with your kids. When they're going through hard times,

when you're praying with them, when they don't want you to pray with them, and all of the stuff. And to me, this is what exiles do, and this is what gets us through, and this is more than jargon or rhetoric. This is like reality therapy. And I think that the book is going to walk us through therapy and I I think that the book is going to walk us through you know life as a pilgrimage but even if we were you know living in 1274 you know in Paris with st. Bonaventure and st. Thomas teaching down the street at the University we could sign up for their courses you know and then the aftermath of fourth Lateran and innocent the third were bad you know what we would discover from Aquinas and Bonaventure is that they see themselves in exile. Isn't that wild?

Yeah. Yeah. Because I would think that maybe back even in the 80s, right, so post-sexual revolution with all that's going on, Christians may have thought that they had more in common with the cultures than they in fact did. It feels like the lines in the sand have been so boldly drawn at this point that you're seeing Christians wake up. Is that like an experience you had growing up? I mean, when you were an early Christian, what decade was this?

BD This was the 70s, the early 70s. And so I had an experience that was not unique, but I had been ensconced in what you could describe as juvenile delinquency. And so the police record that I had that is now sealed included sales and possession, shoplifting, burglary, mail fraud, forgery. That's what I was caught at.

I was fortunate not to be sentenced to Warrendale, like my next door neighbor who hung himself the second day in. And so when I found Jesus or he found me, it was not too soon. And the experience that I had in the 70s, there were a lot of people in the Jesus movement who were converting and it was sort of a Christian version of peace love and a woodstock, you know So all you need is love was the Beatles song, but it was sort of like that syrupy sentimental love in a lot of the Christian circles and so I Wrote a book called holy is his name that came out a year ago

Which which was a tribute in part to my mentor, Dr. R.C. Sproul, who lived in western Pennsylvania, not that far. And he was working on a series of talks called The Holiness of God, and that was what I needed. Holiness, it's like he is holy. He alone is holy. But I am called to holiness without which you will not see God. If he alone is holy, then he alone can sanctify me. My power to sin is pretty great. His power to sanctify, it's got to be even greater.

So it gave you a hope. It gave me a hope that if I apply myself to the holy scriptures and just pursue Christ as my Lord, and I didn't always do it well. You know, I back slid like most of the teenagers I knew. And so that to me was the recognition that, you know, we might be living in a conservative culture under Nixon or later Reagan, or we might have liberals in charge, but the fact is the distance between the Republicans and the Democrats, the most conservative, you know, it's just this Grand Canyon. I mean, what you discover from the Word of God in Christ, and then I discovered the early

Church Fathers, it's like there's no mistaking the two. American culture was already secularized after World War II. There was a sort of veneer that made it seem sort of Christian, Fulton Sheen winning an Emmy, Bing Crosby playing a priest in the Bells of St. Mary. How good can it get? Listen pilgrims, you are in exile, and even if the Babylonian culture adopts some of the songs of Zion like we hear about in Psalm 137 Sing us, you know, we miss hearing those songs, you know Well, okay, but that is also a kind of wake-up call to realize. Okay, we're in Babylon We're tempted to despair But we have work to do, you know, what are the base texts as you know?

for our book, Catholics in Exile, is Jeremiah 29. And, you know, everybody has verse 11 as one of their favorites. I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord, plans for welfare, not evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me. But when you look at verse 11 and back up and look at the previous verses you realize that the letter That the prophet Jeremiah was basically commanded to write to the exiles the first generation of the Jewish exiles in Babylon Was addressing their anxiety their fear their anger and their depression And so what was the advice?

Well, build houses and live in them. So if you had a tent on the way, you know, start thinking in terms of the long... start thinking in terms of the future. Don't just plant, you know, the fall crops so you have food through the winter. Plant forests so you have the lumber for your kids to have furniture

and grandkids to have houses. So build houses and live in them. Second, plant gardens and eat the produce. So settle down and recognize that it's God's providence that sent you there. And thirdly, take wives and have sons and daughters. Prioritize your family life, not just your interior, prayer and all of that, and then take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage. So you're thinking generationally. As Americans, we think in terms of election cycles.

We're called to think in terms of, well, eternity ultimately, but generations, kids, grandkids and that kind of thing. And then the fifth point is, so it's build houses plant gardens Take wives and have sons and daughters take wives for your sons and give your daughters and marriage then multiply there do not decrease Okay, and this is all advice to those in exile right God's people in exile Yeah, and even though it's a 70 year time frame that Jeremiah gave them You'll be 70 years in Babylon they ended up being there a lot longer as we discover in the book of Daniel and then number six is probably the hardest pill

to swallow seek the welfare of the city to which the Lord has driven you and the word for welfare is shalom you know which is not just peace in the sense of an absence of war, it's peace in the sense of a harmony of interests that you cultivate with one another, even the pagans, you know, who are neighbors down the street. But the seventh one is the seventh one. It's the ultimate. And that is pray to the Lord on behalf of the city. You know, you've moved to Steubenville, you know, we moved 33 years ago, but I grew up in Pittsburgh. You know, the joke was, you know, you've moved to Steubenville. We moved 33 years ago, but I grew up in Pittsburgh. The joke was, if the Lord were to give the world an enema, this is where he'd have put

it. It was just so, you know, Pittsburghers, people look down on Pittsburghers, but Pittsburghers look down on Steubenville. I mean, this goes a step beyond anything good come out of Nazareth, you know? And so to see the economic decline that continues, but to see the Catholic family subculture and to see how you can have culture renewal even while you're still suffering from an economic decline, you know, I believe that the Jeremiah option is the best thing we can do because, again, it's waking up to reality and realizing God hasn't lost control, even if it feels like we have.

Now I like how Jeremiah says, don't just live in tents, build houses. I wonder how that could apply to us today. Maybe it's this pining for yesteryear, refusing to admit this is the reality in which we find ourselves and to get to work. Maybe it's a desire to just complain about the way things are, hoping that they would be better instead of planting ourselves. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think there's a time

to be honest with each other. If you're sipping pints with Aquinas, you can talk about all of the challenges we face and some of the negativities and all of that. But at the beginning of the day, at the end of the day, the mid end of the day, and the midpoint too, we have to cultivate gratitude. I'm a Pittsburgh, I'm living in Steubenville, my fellow Pittsburghers are like, oh, I'm so sorry to hear that. I'm like, come on in, the water is fine. And you

think of the number of Catholic families that have moved here, and non-Catholic families too. And some have converted, others haven't. They might not. How many would you say, just from your own experience, do you think have moved here and non-Catholic families too. And some have converted, others haven't. They might not. How many would you say, just from your own experience, do you think have moved here in the last two or three years if you had to? I would guess, I mean, this could be overstating, but I don't think it is. I would say somewhere around a hundred. Families. Yeah.

Yeah. I keep running into people. Yeah. And if you consider those who are homesteading outside of the downtown area, I think it could be north of a hundred, but I think you've been a catalyst, the harmonium project with Mark Barnes and new polity as well, the St. Paul center, you know, before it used to be almost exclusively the Franciscan university of student veil and those who went here and either their families moved here or they decided to stay here after graduation and I think that was the first wave and then you know in the late 90s in the early aughts you have a second wave just an initial trickle of families realizing but then after covid when you realize that I don't need to be going to work, I can work

remotely, but I can also kind of choose where to plant my family, where to build a house, and you've been a catalyst in that. There's no question in my mind just describing things, but also having people come to the conferences. I remember when you had me speak on, your supporters came. And I remember I spoke on St. Thomas Aquinas and the unnatural law, the law of FOMAS. And meeting all these people who were like, dang, I never thought there was so much spiritual culture in a town as drab as Steubenville.

And so yeah, it's exciting, it really is. I had someone ask me, I was in TAC the other day in California giving a talk, it was exciting. It really is. I had someone ask me, I was in TAC the other day in California giving a talk. It was just an honor. And one of the kids asked about, TAC is often said to be a bubble. So what do we do after TAC? And I said, find another bubble.

And by that, I didn't mean bunker in and not evangelize. So maybe help us understand that kind of distinction. So when we're talking about building Catholic culture, be that in Steubenville or Ave Maria or near Christendom or wherever, where's that balance? And there's a long list of good Newman Guide schools. I don't wanna forget Benedictine College, and even Belmont Abbey and Ave Maria.

And there's a tug of war inside of me. It's sort of like Scott versus Kimberly because Scott says it's a tug of war inside of me, you know, it's sort of like Scott versus Kimberly because Scott says it's a bubble you know and and so Most places need orientation for the freshmen coming in. I think what we need at Franciscan and other schools like us is a sort of reorientation program for the seniors who are graduating to give them a plan of life for prayer a plan of life for prayer, a plan of life to prioritize family,

but a plan of life to really work hard and not to pietistically take shortcuts in your work but realize, okay, Saint Joseph and his workshop became a saint precisely because of that hard work and he had coworkers,workers I'm sure and he sanctified them without them even knowing it. That kind of you know when you leave the bubble you know you really need to have a reorientation to the hard realities that you will face not only in the world at the workplace but even

perhaps especially in your own local parish where you go to mass and it's like, what? They've never heard of Steubenville or TAC? And I think you can get whiplash. And I've seen our graduates do that. On the other hand, there's Kimberly, who says, no, this isn't a bubble. This is not Amish Catholicism, because that's another thing that I sometimes target. She says this is reality. Yeah. I mean, if Christ is Lord of Lords, and you have a place that acknowledges and celebrates that, that's not a bubble, that's reality. And she's not entirely wrong. She's not entirely right either, you know.

But I recall a conversation we had about six years ago before COVID, where she was really in a strange state, because she's so happy. She's, what I describe as pathologically positive, whereas I'm much more negative. As a melancholic, that just must be infuriating. It's challenging, it's sanctifying too. But she came to me one day and she said, what is the world that we're passing on

to our kids and our grandkids? And I said, that's really the wrong question. Because we don't have any choice. We're not handing over the world to them. What we're handing over to them is the faith and a faith that will overcome the world in the 21st century like it did back in the first. She looked at me, she said, thank you. I needed that.

I didn't expect that from you. You know? Don't you know how many books I've written, Kimberly? Yeah, in spite of that, I still have some wisdom. Yeah, well, you know, it's Thomas Aquinas makes it clear that our battle is with the world, the flesh, and the devil, as do most of the saints. And I think Christians have, good Christians,

who are engaged, right? We understand the devil exists. We pray our same Michael prayer. We're very aware of the saints and I think Christians have a good Christians who are engaged right there We understand the devil exists. We pray our same Michael prayer We're very aware of the flesh. We feel those pulls those disordered desires I still feel like the world is this sort of nebulous shapeless thing that we still need to get clear on um I've been yeah Thinked about this a lot lately this idea that it feels like the world is like being in a crowded elevator and everybody has a cold. Oh, that's a good analogy.

Yeah, it's not mine. I got it from John Eldridge, but I like it a lot. I've been ruminating on that. You know, how do I know what the world is? How do I battle against the world? And you know, this came home as other Christians may have suggested entertainment for my wife and I to watch you know Right and we'll start watching it and then we got to stop it and we think I this is horrible Like I'm pretty sure we shouldn't be watching people having sex

I'm pretty sure Christianity is down on that you know or the the violence that you see and you think how how Do how is it that we like the frog in the, the, the pot come to this place where we think it's okay to, yeah, you know what I'm saying. So by the way, let me just insert a parenthesis here and just thank you for standing up for the truth about purity and fidelity and chastity in your conversation with a Jewish sage who I greatly respect, but not on that, not in that circumstance. That was really a gift that God gave you the

opportunity to speak up on behalf of chastity, fidelity, and purity in the face of, you know, it's all right to see Playboy, and it's just not. And deep down we know it, and if we don't know it, then we really have to get an X-ray of our own conscience. That would be an example, wouldn't it, of how the world influences us, so that we start to adjust our standards to the world and we start to justify the perversions that we engage in. And especially today, it's just Playboy. Uh-huh. It's just mortal sin.

Oh, okay. You know, and I think what we need again It's always therapy in the form of the faith the reality I'm reminded of a book that I was working on with Emily Stimson Chapman a good friend called hope to die and Talk about a providential tragedy I mean it came out, I think, a couple of weeks after COVID was announced. Hope to die? You know, you gotta be kidding.

But it was the Christian meaning of suffering and the resurrection of the body. And so it kind of surprised us, becoming something of a best seller. But it starts off by recognizing that if you're in the elevator and everybody's got a cold, sin is infectious, and that's a good illustration of that.

But the basic reminder that I shared with my family on the night of 9-11 when we gathered for prayer and a decade of the rosary afterwards, I just said, Hannah was pretty young at that point, and she said, are we going to die, Dad, from watching these planes crashing into the Twin Towers repeatedly throughout the day. And I looked at her and Kimberly was like, give her some consolation and hope.

And I said, definitely. Again, there's that melancholy streak. And I said, do I need to remind you that the mortality rate is 100%? None of us are gonna get out of here alive. I stretched out over a two or three minute period, but I said, probably not today or tonight or tomorrow.

And she's like, that's really all I want to answer to. I'm like, I get it. But I said, we have to remember too, individually but together as a family, that the immortality rate is also exactly 100%. You know, I was just reading a sermon by Newman on individuality of the person, and he points out that every Babylonian who ever lived alongside of the Jews, every Egyptian who enslaved the Israelites, you know, all of the neighbors of the patriarchs who were sojourners back in Genesis, all those who ever lived still do.

In one state or another, one state would be grace and glory, the other state would be disgrace and dishonor. And so everything we do in this life, not just the patriarchs and the prophets, but every single person, everything we do really matters for eternity. And so prayer ought to be the beginning of work, but at the same time we can turn our work into prayer and then come back at the end of the day to family and to friends and just thank God, not only for the family, for the friends, for a job, but also I think the real mark of spiritual growth is when people look back on their lives and realize that God, you know,

the trope is God's strength is made perfect in weakness, but the truth is only through experience. When I failed, when I was frustrated, when I gave into anger, when I lost my job, thank you Lord for every one of those as well. I mean, retrospect, you know, hindsight is 20-20, but I mean, so is faith. And this is why, you know, if we lose this issue one on abortion, you know, in Ohio, where $35 million has been poured into our state from Planned Parenthood to produce this amendment that is such trickery. It's treacherously worded so that it's just reproductive freedom that we're giving to all people.

Yeah, but I mean, it's abortion up until and beyond birth. I mean, it's sort of the afterbirth, the born. There are no limits. And so when you face this sort of thing, and I hope we win, but on the other hand, you and I have discussed this a little bit, if we lose, and it's kind of hard to fight against $35 million. And I suspect we, yeah, I suspect we will.

I'm thinking of California, where that first vote for gay marriage was the California people said, no, we don't want this. And then they just pressed again. Yeah, and then Kansas of all places, our Gabriel and his nine kids live in Kansas, and yet when they had that abortion referendum, all of the money led to Kansas voting

in favor of abortion rights. And so, I mean, I don't wanna just start the list and pile things up, but we don't need any help in doing that. We just have to recognize that, again, as you were saying, Stephen Covey, the sphere of concern versus the sphere of influence. And we also cite Pope Benedict throughout this book in his essay, The Morality of Exile. That for me was the breakthrough when I read that essay of his

I'm like of all of the time periods in scripture this captures where we are as Pilgrims so journeying through a society that is breaking down and yet The Jews I mean, you know We have to recognize that exile is not like an exceptional experience that we have, but that most of our spiritual forebearers never... No, it's the norm. That's good.

And when you recognize that exile is not a new reality, then you can turn to the saints. We dedicated the book to the Holy Family. You think of people who want to be virtuous and yet find themselves afraid of the leaders, and not just the secular rulers like Herod targeting the Holy Family in Bethlehem, but even the chief priests who were seemingly complicit in saying, oh, where is the King Messiah to be born while Micah says Bethlehem? I mean, they must have known that Herod was not going to go worship the baby Messiah. And so you want virtue, you have fear, and you're afraid of your leaders. And not just in the

secular state, but even in the church. I mean, that's not just the first century for the Holy Family. You fast forward and you see what happens to the Messiah, the triumphal entry, and then crucify him, crucify him after Hosanna in the highest and Barabbas, you know, and we point out that Barabbas is kind of like a photographic negative. It's almost a doppelganger. It literally means son of the father, and they're opting for this revolutionary, violent Barabbas. And so you realize this has been from the dawn of time, this is in the fullness of time, with the coming of Christ. And again, we just need the Word of God to illuminate the mystery of our own mortal existence.

Well, I mean, this is the anxiety many Catholics feel today, rightly or wrongly, under John Paul II and Benedict, it felt like the world is against us but the church is for us. Today, many Catholics, rightly or wrongly, believe that even the church is against us, even Pope Francis is against us, even the ambiguities about do we bless people in same sex unions and what does that look like and his seeming weakness on the German bishops, what's happening in the Catholic underground church in China, and it goes that look like and his seeming weakness on the German bishops, what's happening in the Catholic underground church in China, and it goes on and on and on and on. I mean, there are a lot of Catholics right now who are just like, I understand I have

to be in exile in the culture, but I didn't understand I had to be or feel I was to be in exile in the church. And I'm seeing two sides to this, right? And I think it's a way, I said this in a video of mine, I think it's a way to try to ease the tension. Like I don't like living in tension, I want an answer. It's like when I pray to ask God, what do I do here? Love it when He says yes, don't like it when He says no, hate it when He says wait.

I hate waiting. I want it resolved. And so today I'm seeing these two extremes in the church, and maybe I'm wrong, but this is from where I stand You know this on one side you've got those saying there's actually really nothing terribly wrong like things are fine Yes, some ambiguities. Yes. Yes. Yes, but ultimately fine and you need to just calm down and fine I know I need to calm down, but it doesn't seem like and of course on the other side you've got people saying that the go Leo as they would call him isn't the Pope. Both of these seem like

ways to resolve the tension and I'm seeing Catholics kind of drifting to one or the other because if I can just adopt one of those positions I can go ah, okay we have an answer. Might not be a good answer but here's our answer and now I can sort of relax in this. Of course if Begoglio is not the Pope then everything's on fire. The church on earth is Peter's bark and you can fall off the right side or the left side into the storm and the waters. There's no doubt about it. There never was a shortage of false

prophets at every point in Israelite history, and that's true for us as well. But I think what we need to do is to step back and take stock of what do we mean by the church, because it certainly must include the parish down the street, you know. But that's not what the church is in its essence. And so if we approach the church strictly in terms of our parish or the other parish that we want to go to, but the friends will know that we've left, you know, and all of that kind of dynamic. This is reductionistic. It's practical, it's realistic to an extent, but if we recognize what you see is not all you get and what you don't see, heaven, the angels, the saints, the Lord of lords enthroned, you

know, what you don't see is even more of what you get. And this is where the faith alone can illuminate the reality of what we mean by church, because the pope is not the head of the church. Perhaps we develop the bad habit of thinking that way, but it's not just a bad habit, it's heretical to say that the pope is the head of the church. Christ is the head of the church. We are the body of Christ, not Pope John Paul or Pope Francis or whoever happens to be our favorite pope, like a flavor of the month sort of thing.

No, Christ is the head of the church. The pope is not the object of our faith. He's not the head of the church. He's the vicar of Christ, we love him and we pray for him because he's got a humanly impossible task and all of that. But I think when you recognize that we are Catholics for a reason, but the truth, the meaning, the definition of Catholic is not global, it's not planetary, it's not international. It's universal. It's the the whole loss. It's the totality of creation and so

There are two churches one up there and one down here There's not two churches one of the Vatican and then one in our diocese or one in my neighborhood There is one, you know I believe in the Holy Spirit the Holy Catholic Church one Holy Catholic and apostolic And it's not just because the successors of the apostles now run the show, it's because the apostles aren't dead. You know, from Revelation 21 and 22 we discover they're more alive than we are. They're more alive than they were back in the first century.

Their prayers are not going unheard, they're powerful, and they're in communion with the High Priest and the King of Kings. And again, if we conclude this is really beautiful religious rhetoric and fail to see that this is reality, we're dead meat, we're toast. If we recognize this is what we've been professing ever since we learned the Creed, now why is it we don't possess these twelve articles of the Creed, or at least allow them to possess and transform us? Because this is the power of the faith that gives us the endurance of hope to recognize we love God more than self.

We love our neighbor as ourself, but we love them for the love of God, you know, because they're sons and daughters of God as much as we are. Okay, then when you go to Mass and you remember that we're not just surrounded by parishioners who can't really hold a tune in a bucket, they don't sing anyway, you know, and you need a shower or whatever, the fact is we're surrounded by the saints and the angels, and we're in the presence of the God who became man to die for sinners like me. Okay, let's just adjust our screen and look at reality through the eyes of faith and confess the obvious.

My fault, my fault, my most grievous fault. And just get with the program. The sacraments don't make it easy to become a saint, but they certainly do make it possible. And the church, you know, it's like Noah's Ark. If it weren't for the flood waters, you know, on the outside, the stench on the inside would drive us overboard. And so, this idea of Catholic doctrine, Catholic talking points, these things that we affirm, but we don't ponder, we don't prayerfully contemplate. We have a natural view of a supernatural church, is that? That's exactly right. And so, we might see naturalism in the atheists and the agnostics

and the secularists, you know, and all of the scientists who say we can't know whether there is a God or not. Yeah, and we should do that. But the naturalism is also something that creeps in within us as well in our homes Where we just walk by sight and not by faith I mean, that's not just simple. That's a default. That's what I wake up to every morning This is why you know If I were fully converted I would not need to pray the rosary at least once a day. I would not need to go to penance reconciliation the rosary at least once a day. I would not need to go to penance reconciliation once a week,

but the fact is conversion is ongoing because we're never fully converted. Clopas and his companion who spent hours with our Lord, it wasn't because Jesus had to evangelize them for an initial conversion. They had been following him for years. They thought of themselves as converts. He thought of them as needing a renewed grace of conversion. Well, that would be me. That would be Clopas. That would be Pope Peter back in the Upper Room after he had denied our Lord three times. I can picture Clopas coming back to the 11 and saying, guys, you won't believe what just happened today. The Lord has risen. Oh, we've heard that from a number of witnesses. But he just spent time with us. Yeah, we heard that. No, he spent hours and hours walking mile after mile to Emmaus of all places, Abugosh.

You know, and I could see Peter like, wait a second, you know, you're trying to get us to believe that he was with you the whole day? I mean, we were here, the clergy, the hierarchy, you know, the first pope. And I could picture Clopas getting defensive, well, you hadn't denied him three times, maybe he'd have been here with you instead. Well, it wouldn't have taken us hours to recognize him, you blind dog. But Jesus appears, right, as their bearing witness. Take it or leave it, believe it or not, he was with us the whole time. And then he leads this second extensive scripture study beginning with Moses and the law, the prophets, the writings, the Psalms. Why? Because they needed to be converted anew.

And this idea that we're just out to reach them, we forget we are them. We need to be reached. We forget we are them. We need to be reached. And not just me privately, but me as a husband and a father. I need to not only receive mercy when I come back from confession, I never share what I've said, but they never complain that I go too often, you know, because they know Dad comes back gentler and kindlier, you know, and more eager to extend mercy. So if your parish is sort of like, oh boy, you know, assess the situation with spiritual directors, you know, because you're raising a family and the scandal that it might bring to your kids, the kinds of doubts and questions and wrong opinions that might end up coming to you

or to your family members. I mean, if it is potential for scandal, I think it would be justifiable to kind of go someplace where you're going to bloom and bear fruit that will be beneficial to you and to your family members. On the other hand, you know, if you encounter all kinds of personality conflicts, well, I mean, that's family. If you encounter all kinds of personality conflicts, well, I mean, that's

family. If you encounter all kinds of dysfunction, we had a great priest and now we have this guy and he can't preach, or, you know, he just confuses us. Again, you have to really weigh things naturally and supernaturally. But when you go, remind yourself and remind your family members, we don't have to die to go to heaven. As Catholics, all we've got to do is show up at Mass, mostly or at least half awake, and we're going to realize that we are entering into sacred mysteries so that I believe in God the Father Almighty, He's there, and in Jesus Christ, who's only

Son, we're going to receive His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity, and the Holy Spirit, the holy Catholic Church. The idea that we are Catholics means that the Church in its essence is only in heaven where they are in a state of glory. They can't sin against their Savior. We can because we're in a state of grace. We're the Church militant, they're the Church triumphant, but they're not two churches. And they're a cloud of witnesses, they're the church triumphant, but they're not two churches. And they're a cloud of witnesses, they surround us, but not to kind of take bets on whether we're going to make it home. They're witnessing, they're praying for us, God is hearing their prayers, they're praying

for us more than we're praying for ourselves and each other. And again, this isn't turning up the volume to 11. This isn't causing the Catholic faith to sound truer and better than it actually is. It's really still at like three and a half. Yeah. I think what I'm struggling with here is, to make an analogy, it would be like if I was having difficulties in my marriage and someone gave me this beautiful talk, this beautiful general talk about what marriage actually is.

I could affirm all of that and still be struggling with these individual things that are driving me crazy. And so I hear everything you're saying, and I'm like, amen, I need to hear that more, I need to ponder that more, you're exactly right. I need to look at my own sins and my own wretchedness before I, you know, complain about the wretchedness of another. And yet, there are these particular circumstances, like the beautiful Latin Mass community that gets broken up because the Bishop of Rome on the other side of the world has said that it ought to be, and now what do they, like how do they process that stuff? Do you see what I'm getting at? Oh, I do.

Okay. It's not just like, huh, is that how the other half lives and thinks? That's how I live, and I think, you know? And so these are all coping mechanisms that I have been sharing with you But at the end of the day you really have to pray and there's no substitute for that But you also have to learn from the only book of the Bible that the church prays 24 7 the Psalms They're 150, you know, but roughly 40 42 percent of them are called Psalms of Complaint and You're like, what do you mean Psalms of Complaint. And you're like, what do you mean, Psalms of Complaint?

Where you're complaining about God? Well, no, you're complaining to God. Well, I would never do that. No, we usually prefer to complain about God. But you don't complain to someone unless you trust them, unless you believe that they can do something. And so, this is a gutsy kind of prayer, but it's already inspired and canonized and used by the Church around the world, around the clock. And that is, why have you forsaken

me? Now, Psalm 22 begins there, and Christ quotes that, and then it goes on to describe the suffering where his hands and feet have been pierced. We feel like that. We have never been crucified. But we feel like we have been crucified at work or in the parish or even in the extended family where we feel betrayed by siblings and that kind of thing. But learn to approach God as my children learn to approach me. Because, I mean, my children complained to me growing up

a lot, perhaps more than I ever wanted, but they trusted me and they thought I could do something, and I tried to do something. But ultimately, we as father figures are just signs that point to God the Father, and if we try to do this apart from prayer, we are destined to fail. If we do this and pray from the heart, honestly, even when we fail, we'll succeed. We'll go to God and say, I don't understand the Holy Father. I don't understand our bishop. I don't even understand our priest. And then look around and, you know, just say, do I love Scripture more than you do? Because lately, it seems that the way Catholic scholars chop it up and throw it out,

you know, if I were God, with all due respect, I'm not, I know it, but if I were God, I wouldn't allow these kinds of things to happen to the liturgy, to the scripture, to the doctrine of the faith, to morality, you know. This kind of dysfunction is usually a sign of an absentee father. So, and he's going to be like, how dare you blaspheme me? What I find every time I can pray like this, and it's not nearly as much as it needs to be, let that just thunk. But what I find whenever I pray like this, Jesus will say to me, do you really think those concerns, the anger, the complaints originated in your heart? You really think that you feel more concerned about the faithful in my church than I do?

Look again. You're echoing just faintly what's going on in my sacred heart and in her immaculate heart. So let's get with the program and make prayer your breath, make scripture your bread, you know, and make the sacraments your wine, you know, your sustenance. And that too will end up sounding like that's great rhetoric, you know, but if we don't put that into practice, and that's why I go to confession once a week, I mean, in Opus Dei, that's the advice and the counsel we get. But I know that the mercy of God is the only way we're going to get out of here and get home. Mason- Another way you could have called this book, Catholics in Exile, could be Catholics in the World. I want to go back to that for a moment. What is the world? I mean, I have

my idea of kind of describing it, but what is this world that we're battling against? And then how can the Israelites in exile teach us how to exist in the world without being absorbed by it? Yeah, I mean, that is the $64,000 question. You know, what is the world? Well, think of an onion, you know. What is an onion? Layers and layers and layers. And I think you have to look at recognize, okay, God made the world and pronounced it good. And so God so loved the world that he gave his only son. And yet friendship with the world is enmity with God. Well, which is it?

You seem to be talking outside of, you know, out of your, both sides of your mouth. And that's because there are two polarized dimensions to the world that was created good but that has fallen. And the world to me is sort of like an appetizer. The temptation is we're so hungry, we're just so anxious. All we want to do is just gobble, swallow it all. But wait, there's a main course. There's a wedding supper, There's a banquet in heaven.

Okay, so we look at the world, the flesh, the devil, and we realize that we could pig out on all of this stuff and end up so sated that we will just sink through our own moral gravity to the bottom, you know? On the other hand, we recognize that even the Greek philosophers like Aristotle said you can't achieve virtue apart from habitual doing of good, and then the virtue becomes a habit. But you can't just choose the good. You have to choose the higher good and then kind of step back from the lower good. What does that mean?

Fasting. Not optional. Jesus doesn't say if you fast, but when you fast. And so that kind of thing as well. I like that a lot. I heard somebody say that the world can be thought of the sin of Esau, where he trades his birthright for porridge. And maybe it's something like that. We don't even hope for heaven anymore. We don't think about it. We don't look forward to it. This is all we have. You know what they say, when you forget metaphysics, all you're left with is politics.

So we look at everything through this two-dimensional lens, and yet we're aching for heaven. See that again when we abandoned metaphysics? Metaphysics, you're just left with politics, right? Or no? Oh, that is... I needed to hear that today. Right, didn't you? And so we think that same thing in the church. Like, we just look at it from a political point of view. We've lost sight of heaven, our hope for heaven. And so then I just turn to whatever I think will satisfy me here, what we're all doing, just trying to satiate that hunger for God.

I think that has to do with something about the world. Two lines of thought you've just opened up. The one is Esau and a mess of potage, but he's famished. What good is being the firstborn? What good is the birthright if I die of hunger? And so the relative sort of blinds us from the absolute, the relative good of a good dinner. But there really is a sense in which he despises birthright as we hear in the book of Hebrews.

And you don't hear Esau saying, I despise my birthright. I have contempt for my own primogeniture. No, but when you absolutize the relative good of a meal and then you relativize the absolute good of what God has called you to, you know, your ship is taking on water. It's going down. You might be up on the Titanic's deck for another hour playing music, but I mean, your destiny is pretty obvious. The other thing you mentioned about when you reject metaphysics, you end up with politics. I mean, that is the truth that even the natural reason can perceive. As a Thomist, I think

we need to get back to first principles. I think of my friend Father Katjotin Cuddy and other Dominicans who are just so good at illuminating precisely what is being and why we need to kind of just adapt the way Aquinas taught us to. On the other hand, because I'm an evangelical convert, I sort of privilege the supernatural revelation that we find in Scripture and tradition. And so Chesterton is sort of the one who provides balance for me because I don't exactly remember the line, but it goes something like this, that when you forsake the supernatural, all you're left with is the unnatural.

Okay, not the natural, but the unnatural. Not the natural. It's sort of like when the elevator cable snaps, you don't end up on the floor you were going down, you end up, and that might have seemed sort of like rhetorical or hyperbolic back in the 30s when he said it, but I mean, it was probably as true then as it is now, but it's more empirically obvious that when you abandon the supernatural, you just don't lapse back into the natural law. supernatural. You just don't lapse back into the natural law. No, we'd be Pelagians if we thought that way. That's heretical. And so the supernatural grace is not just going

to supernaturalize us, it's going to naturalize us. And so we're going to go to work and be better workers. We're going to get home and be better husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, that sort of thing. And this is, again, C.S. Lewis' line, that faith is not my crutch, it's my iron lung. I couldn't breathe without it. And so you don't want the supernatural to swallow up the natural. Grace assumes nature. It builds upon nature. But it also needs to heal nature of the wounds

that are so unnatural, and then it can begin perfecting nature and then eventually elevating us to be made partakers of the divine nature as we hear in 2 Peter 1, 4. But I think at the end of the day, I've shared this with you, I'm almost certain, but it comes back to my mind, and so, I remember going to confession for the first year or two as a new Catholic. Kimberly wasn't even a Catholic yet. I remember coming home and realizing that Michael and Gabriel were at each other's throats

and acting like anything but archangels. And she said, you're gonna have to deal with your sons. And I'm like, they're our sons. She's like, not anymore. You know, and I'm like, okay. And I'm looking at them and they're always just blaming each other. And so at dinner, at the end of dinner, and I just been to confession, I think the day before I announced that tomorrow will be a day of Jubilee.

I just want to butt in here and say, I have learned that from you and I've implemented it several times. And I'm so grateful for it. And I want us to talk about it because I want parents to do it. How I did it recently and is I say anything you've done wrong. If you've and I'll offer some absurd example, you've stolen someone's bike, set it on fire. You've stolen things from a store. You tell me today there's no punishment and I completely forgive you.

Do you just have to come to me today at any point? It has been such a blessing. So I'm so grateful for that, Scott. Thank you. I announced it, it was on a whim. It was sort of like an impulse that felt right. And so I announced it. I hadn't premeditated.

So how did you do it? How did you? I just said, tomorrow's the day of Jubilee. And we were already done with dinner. And I just said, so, you know, and Cameron's looking at me like, what? Check with me first, you know? And so I explained the year of Jubilee in Leviticus 25, all debts are forgiven.

You go back to the inheritance of your family. So I said, tomorrow, no matter what you've done, if you come clean, you will go unpunished. You know, and the boys are like, oh, you're right, you know. And Kimberly's like, no, no, no, they can't. And so I just said trust me and she did and the next day in the morning did you remind them again or no I didn't need to I mean I don't think I made it clear no when I tucked them into bed I I did or they reminded me um I think I think the one of the reasons I said if you've stolen a bike and set it on fire is I really

I just want transparency with my kids I don't want them to hide their lives from me. You know, that's my greatest fear. Just please be honest. I love you. I want to know all of you. So, and I don't want them to think, well, they can bring some of the sins, but not the deeply shameful ones. Is there a way you tried to do that when you were like, anything you've done come to me? Yeah, I mean, it was what they had done to each other that I was focusing on. And it turned out the next morning when my firstborn went through his list, it was like, okay, that's longer than I expected. That's a little worse than I thought, you know?

And so he braved himself for the punishment, you know? What did Archbishop Fulton Sheen once say? It's not called rearing children for nothing. And so I said come over here and he said you promised and I'm like, I know, but let's come over here and let's pray. And he was thinking is that where it starts? No, that's that's all it is. And so I prayed and then I led him in prayer and he prayed. And what kind of what did you remember? Yeah, I just prayed extemporaneously. I just still a new convert. So I just, I thanked God for Michael's honesty. I thanked him

for the opportunity and I thanked him for his mercy, his forgiveness. And I just said, I want him to know that I forgive him as you have forgiven me. That's beautiful. And I just, I said, you know, and then as he's walking backwards, like, you know, one thing I said, okay, I will ask you, what could you do to undo what you've done to your little brother? Yeah. And that's on you. Yeah. And at that point, his eyes, he knew and by lunch, you know, whatever the things that, you know, I think he hit a frisbee or a baseball or a bat or a glove or the GI Joe's or whatever it was, they were back, you know, and after lunch, his little brother came in and I mean, my, I don't have a good memory, but my, if, if my memory serves, sorry, how old were they at the time? How old were they at the time for perspective? So let me think, uh, I came into the church in

86. This was probably 86 or 87. So they were like seven and five. No, I've done this recently. Like my oldest is 15. Yeah. It's, yeah, I, I, I just want to emphasize this to everybody watching. This is a beautiful thing. I mean, at dinner, after Gabriel had come in and gone through his list, which was... It seemed twice as long as his brother's. And I'm like, you're lucky to be alive, little guy, little guy, you know? And at dinner, Kimberly was looking at me like I was Merlin

the magician. What kind of wand did you wave, you you wave to get them back? And I just told her, I said, I fathered them like God fathers me through Father so-and-so when I go to confession. You don't get scolded, you don't get... And I forgot about that for a year. I just did. It didn't come up again for quite a while. Kimberly told me years later, you gave me all of those books, all of these articles, all of these arguments in favor of the Catholic Church. She said, seeing what a difference it made in our home was more convincing than all of the arguments. And so we've probably implemented a day of Jubilee maybe south of 100 hundred but probably north. Yeah And after a few years the kids caught on and they could ask for a day of Jubilee

And no priestess ever refused to me Absolution and so I've never refused to them a day of Jubilee and I got to tell you in at least one case we averted a Catastrophe really that had already begun, but because it was still in the early stages, we were able to dig up a deadly weed that had already begun to take root, but after, but only after like a month. No, because I mean, when you go to confession, you're, you,

you don't need someone to tell you, don't you know that what you did was wrong? That's why, that's why I'm here. So I've, I've done this before and I've had one of my children come up in tears because they stole something. This is a long time ago, or they've, they've lied to me and this, this, this particular child said, I don't even know why I lied. I'm just hugging him. Thank you so much. Like I just love you. Like there's, there's, I don't, I want, as I say, I don't want there to be exiles within you. I want to know every bit of you. I want to know all of you, you know, it's a great thing, I think, for parents to

do. Because you want your kids hard, don't you? You just want... You do. And you know, it's messy. It's very messy. I just alluded to a situation that I can't go into the details because every family has dysfunction, every child, every parent, you know, and we're just all wounded healers. We're just kind of limping along towards heaven as sojourners, as pilgrims. But there was one situation that took close to a year. I don't remember for sure.

My memory is just getting spotier. But I would go and be with this child, you know, in early teens, and she would say, you know, I don't want to spend time with you or anybody. And I'm like, I know, but I've got a lot of other things, but this is so much more important than all the other things. Just being with you.

I have nothing to say. I said, you don't have to say anything. You know, I feel like I'm crawling into your cave where it's just totally dark, it's pitch black, but this is where I'm supposed to say. I said, you don't have to say anything. I feel like I'm crawling into your cave where it's just totally dark, it's pitch black, but this is where I'm supposed to be. You're the one I'm supposed to be with. This isn't wasting a single minute. And naturally, I'm running through the things that I've got to get to, but it was just so clear to me as I was praying for her that this is the thing.

And it happened again twice that week and then three times the next week. I don't remember exactly. But looking back on that, the bond that we have today is due to a lot of things, but in large part to the fact that I convinced her and myself I wasn't wasting a single hour, even though it was probably over the course of months, more than 20 hours. And there have been other kids that you just spend time with, even though you don't have the words to say, you just look and I tell them, I feel like so inadequate.

As a father, I feel like a failure, but we'll get through this. You know, I get some parenting advice. I'd like you to give me and all of our parents listening, you know, these are beautiful stories and in a way they're stories of how the Lord led you to do this beautiful thing. But how, as a father whose children are grown, do you deal with failures and not failures that you can say, well, but then they end up, you know, but like the, we all fall short and we're all what do you do with those failures that maybe even you see still affecting your children today I don't want to assume that you of course I see what I mean yeah of course I do I mean I said

it before you know nothing has frustrated me more than fathering nothing has made me feel like a failure more than fathering at every stage, you know. And it's one kid at a time, and it's one year at a time, and you never stop parenting, you never stop praying, you never stop feeling inadequate, you know. And so, what do I do? Well, there are 101 tools on my belt, you know, and none of them are like the wand that you wave and fix everything. But I think the one thing I have learned to do, I learned it before the Catholic faith, before entering the church. You know, I learned it from my older brother, and that was to apologize fully, freely, you

know, sincerely. You know, it's like make friends with your accuser before he drags you to court. I mean, Jesus wasn't kidding. If you can apologize for whatever you've done wrong, even if it's only one-tenth of what has been done wrong, even if the other person, the perpetrator, did much more to you, you can at least extend the olive branch and try to reconcile. And so what I have done, and my kids I think will vouch for this I've apologized to them many many many times And I I tell them I I love you. I would lop off a limb for you if it would help it wouldn't help at all

Y'all didn't come with manuals, you know It isn't you know on the Karen feeding of Michael Gabriel Hannah Jeremiah Joseph and David They've turned out better than I deserve, you know It isn't on the Karen feeding of Michael, Gabriel, Hannah, Jeremiah, Joseph, and David. They've turned out better than I deserve. But when we had this great family reunion, this staycation last week, you can still feel the fault lines in the fraternal rivalries. You can also see their attempts to kind of overcome them little by little, year by year. It's like, we are in exile, we're not home

yet. You know, you look at my face as a father, just you wait until you see the face of our father. Oh, yeah. And I think that's important for fathers to realize and for us to remind ourselves that us apologizing to our children doesn't make us seem weak or something. I mean, I just think that the times that my father said, I'm sorry I just loved him more my heart softened immediately. It wasn't like well now I've got something on him I just did it. Yeah, yeah my kids I mean, I think this might be true for you as well for others But I mean my kids have seen me apologize and my eyes aren't dry

They know that when I did something to hurt you, when I did something to break my, your trust in me, you know, my heart is not unbroken. My eyes are not dry. This breaks my heart. Cause you matter more to me than I matter to myself. Have you ever had a moment where you apologize for things that you did a long time ago that either you didn't have the courage to apologize for then, or you didn't realize how it affected them then. Does that make sense? So not just immediately after a blow up or something, but hey, I used to do this and I feel terrible. I mean, you know, when you start off parenting, you are young, you're perfectionistic because you're proud. Yes. Yes. You know, and anything that your kids do wrong

makes, you know, it's a bad reflection on me. You know, I'm not much, but I'm all that matters. You know? And so you end up reacting as a perfectionist, as a proud, you know, and over time, it isn't just because, you know, with your first child, you always, you know, the pacifier falls on the floor and so you boil it, you know?

And then there's your third child, and you lick it and put it back in. But it's not just outgrowing that perfectionism. It really is recognizing that they're polishing you, they're training you. The child is father to the man as the old adage goes. And so, when you're raising your children, God is using them to raise you. God is using them to show you. I remember when I first burped my firstborn child at 3 a.m., and he burped as I'm walking down the hall. He threw up on me. And nobody had ever vomited on me before. I'm looking at him like, you're the only person who's ever vomited on me. And I'm looking at him, I'm like, you're the only person who's ever vomited at me.

And I'm feeling not anger, not frustration, but it's like, it's okay, cause you feel better. And I wasn't gonna lay him down. And so I just sat in the rocker next to the crib and I'm like, whoa, rocking. He's falling asleep, he's rocking my world. And it just felt like God was there saying, you think you'd love your child more

than I love my children? And I'm like, I'm a first time dad, you're love your child more than I love my children? And I'm like, I'm a first time dad. You're the eternal father. If this is a pop quiz, I got a pat, you know, of course not. And then I realized it wasn't a quiz. It was like, you mean you love me? Like I love him only more. And it was, it almost seemed trivial, but it just struck me as so profound because I immediately thought of all the times that I'd kind of vomited on God, figuratively,

and thinking, you know, he loves me, but he loves me a lot less, and then less still. Then I'm looking at him and I'm loving him more, even though my pajama shirt's just stuck to my back, you know, and I'm like, okay, okay, so my goodness is not what causes your love, your love is what causes me to grow in goodness and all of that.

Yes, first things first. And I mean, sound Catholic theology from scripture and tradition could almost retire psychology, psychiatry, and psychotherapy if we really took to heart the truths we profess. But so often it's like a parrot saying, Paul, you want a cracker? We don't really contemplate. But as laypeople in the middle of the world, as laypeople who are just stuck at home feeling like I've reached another impasse with her, with my bride, or with my kids, or with my in-laws, or whatever,

thank God. In the last 40 hours, maybe it's because I've been thinking about our conversation. But I have made a list of all of the things that really bugged me. And I've been saying, thank you for this, thank you for him, thank you for her, thank you for them. And it's like... It's funny you say that.

Yeah. It's a strange thing. It's funny you say that. I woke up in the middle of the night. I was awake for three hours last night, Scott. I have no idea why. I just woke up and I couldn't sleep. And for some reason, it was a blessing.

I just had a thanking God for everything in my life. Usually I'm complaining or wondering what's next. I was like, thank you for my beautiful wife. I'm just laying on the pillow. Thank you for my son. Thank you. Gratitude. Yeah.

And I was, I was targeted. I mean, I do that not enough, but fairly frequently, but what I don't thank God for are the scourges, the crosses, the people who don't understand me, who don't give me what I don't thank God for are the scourges, the crosses, the people who don't understand me, who don't give me what I deserve, who don't show any respect, who don't give to these people that I admire anything but grief. And it's like, you know, all of the... I remember reading back in high school when I first converted this book by one of the

pioneers in Christian psychology, people writing, you know the key to happiness the key to success and he begins this one chapter The key to feeling miserable Is not just to think about what other people owe you but to dwell on it Yeah, I mean it caught me at the moment like oh Have you been studying me without my awareness? You know Think about what other people owe you and really dwell on it. I mean, that is the master key to every door to deeper misery. But if you, if you, if you are accurate about what they owed you, namely,

much less than you think, maybe it wouldn't be. But I mean, even if you were a hundred percent right about what you think they owe you, you know, this world is not going to be a payback machine. If the Lord of lords, the redeemer of the world gets crucified, spat upon all the... Who do we think we are? Expect better. I think a lot of fears parents have, and then we'll get back to this book. I think a lot of fears parents have about their children is, I don't want my child to

have the same relationship with me as I do maybe with this estranged parent. And I was speaking to someone recently who said that his wife said to him, I'm afraid she'll hate me. Like I'm afraid she'll just grow up to resent me. And he said, okay, well then put first things first. If you're afraid of your child hating you, then you focus on not hating them. Because I think too

often we're like, how do I kind of manipulate external circumstances to make you love me, make you respect me, as opposed to putting first things first? Well, I'm going to focus my energy on actually loving you, not being hateful to you, being a blessing to you, you know? Yeah. I mean, that's absolutely true. And also, I have people who've done things to me that I wouldn't have done to my worst enemies and I thought they were friends. And so to ask our Lord to pour out a super abundance of blessing upon them, their marriage, their family, their work, you know, and everything else, it isn't just like, Oh, that that's helpful. It is, that is a life or death sort of thing. If I don't do that,

I will stew in my juices into the boiling over. I wanted to ask you, what can we learn back to living in the world? What can we live? What can we learn from the Jews? I mean, you've given us these seven points that Jeremiah suggests, but when they lived in exile, how were they not consumed by it? Because I would imagine that's a good analogy for us Christians living in the world today. A. You know, well, there were two groups of Israelites, you know. There were two kinds of Catholics.

There's the weed and the tares, you know, and Augustine finds fault with Taconia for just simply reducing people to weed or tears to the good or the bad that are growing up in the same field, because after all, we can be wheat this morning and tears this afternoon. We can become weeds in less than an hour. But I think what you have to recognize is this idea that we're in exile, that if we pray our Father who art in heaven, if He's our Father, then He's not just my Father versus yours, but He's ours.

But if He's our Father, then we are a family more than the Hans will ever be, you know, or the Frads. And if He is in heaven, then none of us are home yet. And so before we even started the first of the seven petitions, we've reoriented our whole way of thinking. And we have to kind of persevere. One of the most important virtues we speak of in Catholics in exile is longanimity, which is endurance, perseverance, forbearance. And that's one of the fruit of the Spirit that Paul lists in Galatians 5.

It's the least understood, where it's like a long obedience in the same direction, especially when you just don't feel like it, when you feel like giving up, longanimity, perseverance, forbearance. You know, that to me is the virtue without which, you know, you really can't make it. I forgot your question. Well, no, that's okay. It's about how do we not be absorbed by the world in the way that the Jews weren't absorbed by Babylon. Oh yeah, that's it. Yeah, when we introduce the idea of longanimity, we're talking about the patriarchs who didn't own, you know, an acre of the promised land. And, you know, then they end up in Egypt. And so the first time Israel is identified as a people, I think it's Genesis 47, 27, they're living in Egypt, in Goshen, which is compared to the Garden of God, so it's really good. Out of the 400-year period they spent in Egypt, the first 200 years they were privileged sojourners

living in Goshen. The last two centuries they're slaves because a new dynasty has arisen which knew not Joseph, as we read in the opening of Exodus. In other words, all the alliances are broken. We have a new order, and that means the Israelites are slaves. And this is what God predicted to Abraham back in Genesis 15, you'll be sojourners, then slaves. But the idea that Israel is first identified as a people living in Egypt is sort of like a misleading thing. Okay, what about this promised land that our forebears never owned, even a slice of it?

And so that's a little confusing. That's kind of a mixed message. And then when you realize they lived there for 400 years after the patriarchs never owned, they just sojourned and pilgrimed. And so we're coming back to our homeland that none of us have ever lived on. It seems like a really bad painting until you realize that what we call the promised land, whether it's Israel, Palestine, or the Middle East, it was always intended by God to be a geographical sacrament that pointed to the promised land, to heaven.

Now you might think, well, that's just a Christian imposition. That's alien, that's extrinsic, you're ridding the old by foisting the new upon it. But the fact is, Hebrews 11 goes through all of the saints, all of the souls of the faithful departed But the fact is, Hebrews 11 goes through all of the saints, you know, all of the souls of the faithful departed from the Old Testament, beginning with Abel himself, then Abraham especially, and shows that they have the exact same faith as we do. Faith in the coming Messiah, faith in Christ. It's theirs by way of anticipation. It's ours by way of realization. But this idea that they were in exile, for most of Israelite history, but no, for all of it. If they're not in heaven where our father lives,

they're not home yet. And so we also draw a lot from the letter to Diagnetus, because Christians are basically exiles wherever they live, even if they grew up in that same town. And yet they're also atiles wherever they live, even if they grew up in that same town, and yet they're also at home wherever they go, like Jeremiah told them when you get to Babylon, build houses, plant gardens, pray for the peace of the city, the welfare that the Lord has driven you to. So, you know, we have dual citizenship. Philippians 3.20, our polytuma is in heaven.

That's the technical legal term for citizenship, commonwealth, and yet 3.20, our polytuma is in heaven. That's the technical legal term for citizenship, commonwealth. And yet, in Philippi, you are also to build houses, plant gardens, raise families, and all of the rest, because we are at home wherever we are on the planet, and yet we're also in exile until we are at home together as the family of the Father. And this tension, sort of like accurately, it's sort of like a template that should be allowed to put our life in perspective. And how does that cash out?

Well, again, one of my favorite chapters is the Exodus as a liturgical pilgrimage, where Brandon and I are reflecting upon the fact that we had this family vacation down on the beach more than 10 hours away. Brandon and I are reflecting upon the fact that we had this family vacation down on the beach You know more than ten hours away and invariably it was usually the youngest child the first hour Yeah, are we there yet? You know by the fourth hour the fifth hour you want you know you want to strangle them or just put tape over their mouth because And Brandon's daughter the youngest when she was like four just said why don't we just basically crash and die? the youngest one, she was like four, just said, why don't we just basically crash and die?

Oh dear. You know? And he told me, I'm like, okay, we put that in the book. You know? Because that's what the Israelites did when they got out of Egyptian bondage, they end up in the wilderness supplied with miraculous mana. You know, but no matter what we had for the kids in the van,

they just like, you brought us out here to starve to death. You know? the kids in the van, they just like, you brought us out here to starve to death. And what you begin to see is yourself on every page of Scripture, in every age of salvation history, you realize that never have the people of God not been in exile even when they finally conquered the promised land, even when Solomon had finally built the temple. Solomon's prayer of dedication in first kings emphasized the fact that you don't live in houses made by human hands. So the temple of Jerusalem was always intended to be, again, sacramental architecture, that there

is a heavenly Jerusalem, there is a temple not made with hands. And again, that's just pietistic twaddle? No! No, you discover that during the period of exile, you know, like, something like 5.9% of the Bible is written during the period of the exile or described in the exile. So it's a fraction. Whereas you'll discover that, I mean, they lived in exile for hundreds and hundreds of years starting in 7 through 733 when Galilee was taken 722 when Samaria was taken 605 when Judah and then 586 when Jerusalem is conquered

Hundreds and hundreds of years in exile and listen Crickets chirping, you know, there's just not much about what exile is like except from the prophets who are predicting it, and then from the prophets like Jeremiah saying, okay, now that you've arrived, here's what you do. And you know, the lesson for me is that we tend to approach the Bible like, you know, Confucius and his maxims, you know. The Bible says, and we look for a verse that comforts us. What I think what we ought to be doing is that, but also, let's look and find the verses that discomfort us so we realize how unique our situation really isn't.

And then we take comfort, okay, God is our Father, we are His family, He is in heaven, so what is the first of the seven petitions? Hallowed be thy name. Well, that's Old English. What does that mean? Make us saints and nothing less. The first petition points to the first order of business. That is, we are here to become saints.

And if we realize that, then we'll realize, okay, then if that's what He made the world for, we can live here. We can even thank God for the world, because it's a saint-making machine. And if that's what it is, it's working just fine if we let it. And again, I hear myself and I realize and I echo chamber, you know, that this is all going to sound to people like pietism. But to me, it's what's got me through 66 years of life, and, you know, it's got me through 66 years of life, and it's got me through 44 years of marriage. And there were times when our neighbors would have given our marriage a 50-50 chance.

When we first moved here, Kimberly just entered the church, and we discovered we've really accumulated some bad habits in communication. 50-50, maybe less, in the summer when the windows were open, they could hear us. But I've always felt that if God can get through to me with this truth, then he can get through to anybody. Well, it seems to me that recognizing that we're in exile can bring us peace in the sense that we're recognizing the world in which we find ourselves as it truly is. This life which we find ourselves in, it's not a sitcom, it's not a romance comedy,

it's not survival, it's battle. And once you recognize that. Which is a tragicomedy. I mean, it has elements of both. But it's never going to just be sit back and laugh. Yeah. And I guess, do you agree with me then, that we have to recognize

that we are in exile so that we can recognize reality? And once you recognize reality, life actually goes better for you because you don't, you have, you don't, you have appropriate expectations. But I think we tend to treat our faith as dessert, you know, we just want to eat what we want to eat, and then in the end, you know, oh, the sweets come, and in the end we get to heaven and all of that. But the meat and potatoes of Catholic doctrine and moral teaching is the only safe way to form the conscience, to make decisions, and to form our families. And for that matter, to be leavened in the loaf of our parish, because we're called to

be leavened. Without it, the loaf won't rise. You know, one of the things that I really enjoyed about Brandon, what he contributed in this book, I mean, he contributed so much. This insight into the asymptotic relation that we have, an asymptote is this curve that gets closer and closer and closer to the line, but never actually touches it Okay, it's like that's real life You know, I want to strive for holiness and I'd like to think I'm getting closer to closer to heaven but you know another thing that he did I

Contributed the notion of prolepsis that is an anticipation of the future good of heaven in every mass and through the sacraments but Stefan Cardinal Waz, I didn't realize just how massive of a figure this man was in Polish history in the 20th century until Brandon kind of said, you know, the last three or four chapters of the book are really practical insights into how to live out what Jesus is saying to the disciples there in Matthew 11, if I could find the table of contents. Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And we touch upon things like how to live the Lord's Day as a family, how to live the Lord's Day personally.

But when it's remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy, you work for six days and then rest the seventh, and not just you, but your wife, your sons, your daughters, your manservants, your maidservants, and even the sojourners who are in your gates. In other words, all of you are my children. Act like it. Don't lord it over the people who are looking up to you. You let them rest, you let them pray, you let them worship. And that's what Christ is promising. Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. But it was mostly theoretical, theological, you know, experiences of trying to live the

Lord's Day, you know, as family. But this guy, you know, we all, I suspect, admire Pope Saint John Paul II as much as anybody who ever lived in our lifetime. But he is the son of Cardinal Wojcinski. You know, there would not have been a John Paul if there had not been a Stefan Cardinal Wojcinski. He was forged in the fires of a Polish Catholic culture that, been dominated for years, centuries, by the Russians, and then beaten and occupied by the Nazis.

And then the Soviets come in 45, and he writes this book in 46, which is the worst English translation imaginable, Working Your Way into Heaven. I know, I was just thinking that, was put the hair up on the back of the neck of all Protestants. Yeah, Pelagius would be proud. How to make work stress and drudgery a means to your sanctity. Whereas the Polish title is simply the spirit of human work. And he wrote it after the Nazis and during the Soviets. And you know, I have not found a book that has been more helpful to me in terms of, you know, getting to work and praying before, during, and after, but doing the

best work I can, loving the hard work, especially when you don't see the fruits of it, and loving the world and entering back into the world and not just the bubble of Franciscan University, but into the mess of my own extended family, into the relationships that have been, you know, strained and that sort of thing, but especially the labor, the to-do list, you know, and not putting things off and yet at the same time admitting that at the end of the workday, I haven't gotten to half these things. Or if I did, I'm going to have to go back and redo some of them. And just the toil, you know, at one point we were actually going to labor,

we were going to name the title, uh, after this, our exile, because the Salve Regina has become sort of, you know, a mainstay in the arsenal of prayers. But this book is featured in the last three chapters in a way that I hope really causes a revival of Wazinski's genius, his sanctity. You know, truly, John Paul, as the spiritual son of Cardinal Wazinski, got the double portion, you know, as they say in the Old Testament. But this kind of man, this kind of leadership in the worst imaginable circumstances, led Polish Catholics

through the furnace, like Daniel, like, you know, his three companions. And the thing is, I'm not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, as the prophet Amos once said, but I think things are going to get much worse. I think we've already begun to see that with the Middle East, with Hamas, with Ukraine, with – all of these things are like pots that are boiling and beginning to boil over. And I think that we're going to see the cumulative result of some extraordinarily dumb decisions that have been made by leaders in the church and in the world, the federal, state and local levels and that kind of thing. And so, I'm not a prophet, so I can't say, don't go to Egypt, go to Babylon like Jeremiah put it, you know. But I can say that wherever we go,

our Lord will be with us in ways that we won't even notice, but in ways that we'll look back on and realize that he carried us, he carried our family as well. And so we want things to feel at home. We shouldn't ever feel too much at home if we're not in heaven. And God has this gentle, sometimes harsh way of reminding us that your exiles, your pilgrims, the only place you ever really know

is home will be heaven, and the first minute of heaven will make a lifetime of prosperity and pleasure look like a garbage dump in comparison. And again, that isn't like, oh, some rhetorical trope that will get us through hard times, but it isn't really true. Well, if people who are watching right now feel like they're in exile, they would benefit from this book. And I know you have a couple of things that we're doing.

There's a discount code. There's also a signature. You're signing certain books. Yeah, so Catholics in Exile came out just a few days ago from Emmaus Road, our publishing arm at the St. Paul Center. And so what we have is this offer that from October 24th through October 29th, we will be sending copies to people who order them by going to the St. Paul Center website, or just, let's see, I was given this, if you go to catholicsinexile.com, you can order the book for 20%.

We'll put that below, people can click that link below. Yeah, so between October 24th and 29th, we're going to be sending out signed copies for 20% off, and you can go to stpaulcenter.com or catholicsinexile.com. I don't necessarily enjoy signing books, but I sure do enjoy talking to people who have read. And this book, I think, is going to, of all of the books that I've come out with

in the last five years or so, I feel as though, and I think Brandon does too, this is the book that we needed to deal with the confusion, the chaos, the anxiety, the anger. And to just kind of- If that sounds familiar, then this book might be something you've been looking for. Exactly. Good. I have questions from our local supporters.

Fire away. Can we do our prayer first? Sure. Yep. grow in your prayer life, please check out hello.com slash Matt. If you sign up on their website at hello.com slash Matt, you can get the entire app for free for 90 days. That's ridiculous. After those 90 days, if you don't agree with me that it's worth the money that you're going to get charged after that monthly, which is a relatively small amount, you can just cancel, you won't be charged a cent. They have sleep stories, they have my Catholic lo fi on there, they've just added the gospels, a dramatized version of the gospels, they have daily exegesis

on mass readings which you can listen to. It is fantastic! So if you haven't done it already, hello.com slash matt, sign up over there, try it for free for three months. I want to tell you about a course that I have created for men to overcome pornography. It is called strive21.com slash matt. You go there right now or if you text STRIVE to 66866, we'll send you the link. It's 100% free and it's a course I've created to help men to give them the tools to overcome pornography. Usually men know that porn is wrong, they don't need me or you to convince them that it's wrong. What they need is a battle plan to get out. And so I've distilled all that I've learned over the last 15 or so years as I've been talking and writing on this topic into this one course. Think of it as if you and I could have

a coffee over the next 21 days and I would kind of guide you along this journey. That's basically what this is. It's incredibly well produced. We had a whole camera crew come and film this. And I think it'll be a really a real help to you. And it's also not an isolated course that you go through on your own, because literally tens of thousands of men have now gone through this course. And as you go through the different videos, there's comments from men all around the world encouraging each other, offering to be each other's accountability partners and things like that. Strive21, that's strive21.com slash Matt,

or as I say, text STRIVE to 66866 to get started today. You won't regret it. All righty, and we're back. All right, so haven't read these questions ahead of time. There are a lot. We will get through whatever, however many you would like to get through. Okay. Slordy says, we shouldn't feel too much at home if we're not in heaven.

Thank you so much for this interview. It was beautiful, especially as I and probably many more supporters are struggling with everything going on in the world Something told me to clear my schedule this morning. I'm so happy I did Next interview Kimberly and Cameron my wife should chat with you. I'd love to chat with your wife. She's wonderful. She's amazing Dr. Hahn do you this is from who's this from Chris Manardi? Thank you says dr. Hahn Do you have a process that you follow when writing a new book? Well, I did.

Back in the 90s and the aughts, the early years. But now it just depends upon what the topic is and also who the partner is. Because what I've discovered is that I enjoy co-authoring so much more. When I write and I hear my voice I'm just blah blah blah. When I hear my voice and I see the insights that came from another person, a friend, a sage that I really have learned a lot from, I feel like that kind of book is safer going out to help people than just my ideas. I live in my own head too much.

I've got to be pulled out. When I work with Brandon or when I work with Jeff Morrow or when I worked with Mike Aquilina, I just learned that there's just, it's much more of an enjoyable process. And a lot of it ends, a lot of it now begins with Rob Corzine bringing us together with a recorder and we have a conversation that lasts for an hour or three or three and a half and then we either transcribe it or outline it and go back and discuss it and then from that an outline emerges that might look like the table of contents eventually. But that is where I find my deepest inspirations. I have some seed ideas that are really

fundamental, but I find out that other people have seed ideas that I shouldn't do without. Yeah. James Strawl says, thanks from a fellow Grove City grad. You're a big part of my journey towards Rome. My question? My family and I, wife and four children, are currently Anglican and my wife is still not ready to swim the Tiber. At what point does my patient praying and visiting mass become disobedience? In other words, how long can I wait to make the journey as a family? Yeah, I mean, I think you have to respect her freedom, because you're not the source

of it, God is. You know because you're not the source of it. God is you know You're just recognizing and respecting it But you also have to ask her to respect yours and that is I don't want to put a strain on our marriage I don't want to put a strain on our family But I don't want to put a strain in the most fundamental relationship of all and that is with the Lord of Lords the Lord of My life and so when I finally came clean and told Kimberly Delaying obedience to what I know is true is feeling more like disobedience every day, it hit her heart.

And I'd rehearsed that line. She could tell. More like on my knees. But you know, it was the breakthrough. And she said, I don't want to take away your freedom to obey your Lord. And I said, I don't want to insert myself or impose myself on you and your freedom.

That works differently in every marriage. And so one size doesn't fit all. But I think you ought to approach her that way and just say, I love you, God loves you, and I feel like I need the sacraments to love you more like you deserve to be loved. And that is not just rhetorical, you know, tricky. Yeah. It really is what I would say in passive holograph. And see where the chips fall.

And you could say to her, you know, if you really aren't ready, in fact, if you are so unready that if I become a Catholic, you will leave me and take the kids, then let's circle back and pray together for God's timing in this. That's really helpful. And when I shared for the first time as a new Catholic with a group down in South Milwaukee about my conversion, I came back all excited. Kimberly's like, oh, gee, I mean, you're a Christian, okay? You become a Catholic. And so you're all excited about becoming a Catholic and you share that with people, you know,

why don't you share with them? Well, I did, you know? And she said, well, if I ever become a Catholic, I don't want to share my journey to the Catholic faith. I said, I don't want you to become a Catholic unless you long to share that. And only when you want to share my journey to the Catholic faith. I said, I don't want you to become a Catholic unless you long to share that. And only when you long to share it is it the right time for you to become a Catholic. Then it's no longer pressure or you feeling forced to do it. Golly, that probably just gave her the space.

It was like we hugged, you know? And it's like, I mean that, it isn't just clever. I love what you said, yeah. You can't control her freedom, you're not the source of it. I like that line, that's good. Right. And again, truth is the best form of therapy, you know, just discovering more and more of the relevant truths that apply to a difficult situation. But there's another thing too, and that is recognize and affirm wholeheartedly that we

agree on like 80, 85, maybe 93 percent. Look at the Creed, look at the New Testament, look at all of the things we believe about Jesus, and if she's Anglican, the Eucharist, you know, let's not be sloppy and just paint over the lines, but at the same time, let's affirm the fact that we share so much more in common than where we disagree. But like typical spouses, we will obsess about our divergences and our differences. Instead of focusing and celebrating the fact that we share more in common than most couples we know. And then let's just ask, we'll just continue walking on the common ground we share, recognizing where we don't agree. It matters. But what we share is greater and it matters more and let's build upon that common ground

not only for the sake of our kids, but for your sake, for my sake, to get my soul safely to heaven. I have to love you as God loves you and you're his daughter, not just my bride. And so, I mean, just lining up all of the truths that we tend to neglect and just saying, okay, let's take stock of all of this stuff. You know, I must admit, I do think that people who have been Anglicans for a long time have at once a great advantage and a great disadvantage.

The disadvantage is that it's a lookalike. In some ways, it might even be more pious and transcendent and irreverent than The parish down the street on the other hand the advantage is you know If you've come to believe in the liturgy and if you recognize the real presence of Christ in the sacrament Then recognize the unbroken line of apostol whatever else you need to recognize, you know, it's a hop skip and a jump You know tomorrow I'm gonna be driving I think between three and four hours to Wehr Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, to be a sponsor for a lady who's coming into the church, who

I met 40 years ago. In fact, in Rome's Sweet Home, I just checked this, on page 47 of Rome's Sweet Home, this ninth grader came up to me at lunch and said, we took a vote in the back of the class and it's unanimous. We think with all this covenant theology from the Bible, you're going to become a Catholic. And I'm like, Rebecca, no, no, no. This is the antidote to the poison of Catholicism.

She was so bright. She was the whiz kid and she was smug. She was like, no, no, you're going to going to Catholic. And she walked back. I got home. I told Kimberly, you'll never guess what Rebecca said today, cause she was always the wise guy. And, uh, I thought Kimberly would laugh and she did anything but she stared holes right through my head. Are you? I'm like, Luther, she's like, you feel like Luther in reverse, you know? And I'm like, Luther in reverse, yikes. You know,

I didn't even know how to respond to that. And so tomorrow I get to be the sponsor 40 years after for her coming into the Catholic church, the fullness of faith from being an Anglican. That is amazing. Okay. Aquinas Pius says, good morning, Dr. Hahn and Matt, would either of you kindly share your recommendations on sacred traditions slash chance slash other private devotions? Thank you, birth. So in a nutshell, what is that chair?

I think they're asking about what sacred traditions or devotions that you use. Be careful here when you're inquiring into other people's devotions, because I think it's sort of like putting on somebody's sport coat or something, you know? It looks so nice, but it might not fit. That's good. That's helpful.

But it might, too. I mean, I've picked up a lot of things over the years, but I do have a gentle and slight aversion to devotionalism, as some people call it, where you just kind of either heap up more and more devotions, or you're just kind of going through devotions like you might go through rental cars in your travel or something. A few done well, and then if they begin to really kind of dry up and get stale, then add one or two more. My favorite prayer, as you well know, is the rosary. But I know a

lot of people for whom it is not their favorite, their least favorite prayer. I would say, say it anyway, daily if possible, but not in some kind of, you know, dread. And if it is something you dread, then lay it aside, ask Our Lady, help to renew that. But I would say the most basic things would be like the rosary, morning prayer, 10 or 15 minutes minimum, if you can make it 15 or 20 or 25. But don't make it so open-ended that an hour and 23 minutes later, because that's not practical. You want to schedule your prayer like you schedule your breakfast or your coffee or your lunch and that sort of thing. I would also say a little bit of the gospel every day. If you can squeeze in, especially if you have a Bible that is tuned into what the church will be reading for today's Mass, it's usually

a real, it's a bite-sized morsel. I would also say keeping up on the saint of the day and turning to him because the church has privileged that person with special graces and intercessory power. I would also say if it's practical to make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament on the way home from work or during your lunch break, just stop in and say, I'm really distracted but I wanted to say hi. I'm not sure what else to say to you, Lord, but I'll kneel, a glory be, and our Father, and a Hail Mary, and can you come with me? I need you.

But I mean, unglamorous. To me, the devotional life, spiritual life in general, is not about the Fourth of July. It's not about fireworks. And so the less you depend upon the constellations, the pyrotechnics of like, oh, I felt so close to you. That's awesome. Thank God for the grace, the constellation. But then buckle up and get ready for the, you know, a desolation or two. What else? I would say spiritual reading. I mean, St. Teresa of Avila and others too. I mean, Therese, spiritual reading to me is sort of like the meat and the potatoes. But again, if somebody recommends this

and it doesn't resonate, then move on. You know, I find Benedictus by Pope Benedict to be my best spiritual reading, even though I've recycled that book for now. What is the book? Benedictus, it's daily readings that Ignatius Press published it. And my oldest son, Dr. Hahn the Younger, Michael also still reads that years later.

And it's just amazing to me how Ratzinger could come up with insights into what otherwise just seems to be the same old, same old. And you're like, wow, I'm gonna keep that all day. But spiritual reading to me, along with the gospel and just praying to the saint, and especially if you can fit in a rosary, and I would say this, that if the rosary just doesn't seem alive anymore, just say to our Lord and to our lady, I dare you to make this come alive. Because obviously, I don't have matches in my pocket, I can't light this up, you know,

but I need it and I dare you to do it. And I think you won't be disappointed. There's a line, I think it was from Jose Maria Escobar, I saw it many years ago, I can't find it, but someone said, there are many devotions within the church's treasury, choose only a few and remain faithful to them. I agree. I'm obviously a messiah. But then sometimes what happens is you mistake that sense of piety for just novelty. You kind of get bored with something, you move on to something else.

So you move from one island of consolation to the next. I would say this, that if you have a home, a family, wife and kids, the enthronement to the Sacred Heart is what we've done in both of our homes, with a priest who came over and did that brief but profound ritual of consecrating our home to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and then to the Immaculate Heart as well. The Divine Mercy Chaplet is another one of my favorites and it has been for years, even though I think when I pray I get to heaven, I find out if they rewind and play it over half the time, like the rosary, I'm distracted, but for the sake of his sorrowful, passionate mercy on us and the whole world, it's just like

these days, I feel like it's a powerful prayer, especially. There's a wonderful novena called the Surrender Novena. Oh, yeah. And it says something to the effect of Jesus, I surrender everything to you. I surrender to you, take care of everything. But something I started doing is I'll just take a minute at different points throughout the day. So before the interview or after the interview, before I move on to the next thing, just spend a minute and I'll just say, Lord Jesus, I give everything and everyone to you.

Is it as if all of these concerns and fears are clamoring for our attention, right? And sometimes we're not even aware that they're there. We just feel agitated or anxious. But just to take that minute to go, yeah, this child, this friend, this thing that's happening, this fear I have, I just surrender it to Jesus. That's just, I think sometimes that devotions can be too difficult to fit in and so we don't end up doing them. But to take a minute, it's amazing. Just I just thought of something. Yeah, I should have thought of it But I didn't until now and that is yeah What is this book that just came out a couple of days ago that I co-authored with Ken O'Gorek

I love that you're running so many books you're forgetting. I've been working on this one for like I Think 13 or 14 years. So beautiful. Good job Emmaus road. Thank you It's called breaking the bread a a Biblical devotional for Catholics. And the reason I thought of it is because we have an opportunity to attend daily Mass here in Stubbenthal because we've got so many times at the university and elsewhere, and as a family or a married couple, you know, but we also know that every Sunday we've got to go. And so sometimes the homilies are like the 4th

of July, but most often they're not. And so, what I've tried to do with Ken here is to go through all of the scripture readings and connect the old and the new. And so, what is this? Is this one year? It's one year. It's year B, which is coming up. And this is every Sunday, then it goes through the- Through every Sunday and feast day. So, year B, a biblical devotional for Catholics so that if you can't go to daily Mass, but you want to get ready for Sunday Mass, this is for you. If you can go to daily Mass, but you recognize that Sunday Mass is special for you and your

family, this is obviously from Luke 24. You know, did not our hearts burn within us while he opened the Scriptures, but our eyes are open in the breaking of the bread. And so connecting the old to the new, connecting the document to the sacrament, and then connecting the Eucharist to our life in the world. And they found the most beautiful sacred art, and they bound us in a way that I never anticipated. And Ken O'Gorick pulled together, he was the head of the National Catechetical Association for years. Really solid.

And I met him when he was in Pittsburgh, then in Indianapolis. So he wove the catechism into all of the scripture readings for all of the weeks of the upcoming year B. This is wonderful. Yeah, that's yours. Thank you. weeks of the upcoming year B. So, uh... This is wonderful. Yeah, that's yours. Thank you. You can also order that through St. Paul Center or Emmaus Road.

I love how it's just beautiful. It'll fit in a purse. It'll, you know... Yeah, you and Bishop Robert Barron with Word on Fire really seem to be leading the way in beautiful things. Well, Bishop Barron is leading the way. Did you see that Peter Crave, whoops, did you see that Peter Crave put out that commentary on the scriptures, the three-year cycle?

I just heard about it. So he does a commentary not just every Sunday, but every single day, and not just on the cumulative readings, but on every single reading. So here's the psalm, here's a reflection, here's the Old Testament reading. Right. Now, I don't... I don't know where he finds the time. I don't mean to make this something for priests and deacons.

Dr. Bergman has Breaking the Bread, which is four volumes of commentary for homilists, and it is in a class of its own. Yeah. All right, let's see. Food for the Soul by Peter Crave. Yeah, it's from Word on Fire, it's Peter Crave's new book. He's unreal. I just love him. I was gonna just send you Slack if you's from it. Yeah. It's from word on fire. It's Peter Crave's new book. Yeah. He's unreal. I just, I just love him.

I was just saying you Slack if you want to read it. Okay. Thank you. Here's an interesting question from Lucy. And it's such an honest question. How can I fully forgive my earthly father who has been abusing our family for decades? Yeah. I mean, there is no easy answer for this. Um, Yeah, I mean, there is no easy answer for this. Yeah, I mean, you have to go to our Lord Jesus and ask Him, help me. You bled and died for your executioners.

As they were torturing and spitting on you, you were redeeming them. That's not humanly possible for us, for me, for anyone. And yet, you wouldn't have added to the Our Father, forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. The catechism actually states that is the most daunting of all the seven petitions.

That is precisely what we are not able to do. And so we've got to get our daily bread before we can forgive as we have been forgiven. And I would also suggest that you get a confessor who can hear your heart, a spiritual director in addition or alongside of the confessor. And I would also suggest at least the possibility of Catholic Christian counseling because those wounds, the father wound is so deep, you know, and it comes out in ways that you don't really foresee. Now it might be sexual abuse, in which case I would strongly recommend finding a sage of a counselor who

knows, you know, who knows how to patiently walk you through the process. Um, but I mean, forgiveness is not an option, but forgiveness is not easy. And in these cases, it's not humanly impossible. How do you know when you forgive in someone? Because they say forgiveness is a choice since you go, well, okay, I choose to forgive him or her. Um, And in these cases, it's not humanly impossible. How do you know when you've forgiven someone? Because they say forgiveness is a choice, since you go, well, okay, I choose to forgive him or her.

But then you still don't necessarily feel any kind of resolution and you're still plagued with all these thoughts towards the... Yeah. I mean, after the Second World War, when people who had been bitterly divided in conflict had to kind of move back, and you had Catholics who had been in the Nazi party and people who had been imprisoned and all of that. How are they? Well, I wouldn't recommend you sit in the same pew the next week, next Sunday, you know.

But who was it, you know, that we just celebrated St. Margaret Mary Alacocke, you know, and when the priest asked her, you know, what was the last mortal sin? You know, Jesus told her, I forget. You know, that's how God can forgive and forget, because He's eternal. You know, He sees us the way we'll be as a result of being forgiven. We're finite creatures who walk through time. And so, the idea that I have already forgiven Him, I shouldn't need to forgive him again is nonsense. You know, you keep forgiving, just as God keeps forgiving you. And just admit, you know, it's sort of from the heart, but not so, you know, increase your grace that I can love my enemy.

But Jesus says, love your enemy. He doesn't say have no enemies, just make sure everybody likes you. And especially when it's that close to home and so a deep wound in the heart, you know, it is, you go before the Blessed Sacrament and just say, I beg you to do something that I can't even imagine how you'll accomplish. Thank you. Dave Pasitti says, as Catholics, we know we need to listen to the pope and the magisterium. Many Catholics are leaving the church and going to Eastern Orthodoxy because they think

Pope Francis has been changing doctrine. What do we say to the many influences that keep spouting out these mistruths, he says, and also calm down Catholics and help them remember that this is still the church Christ established? I mean, you've said a lot of this already. Yeah, yeah. So let me try to summarize it. For 2,000 years, the Catholic Church has gotten by with, what, 265 popes.

And some like Benedict IX have just been ranked scoundrels, I mean, perverts. And most of them have been good. Some great, some holy, but only a few saints. And we're not in a personality cult because the Pope is not the head of the church. He's the vicar of Christ and he alone is the head. And so I do think that we went through a phase where John Paul's Theology of the Body coming out every Wednesday in a theater near you or on the internet, the flavor of the month. And it seemed to me to represent something really cool, really good, really true, but

really distracting from the Word of God, from sacred Scripture, with indulgences attached for those who want them. It just seems to me it's meat and potatoes. It's not just whatever topping you have offered this month. And I don't mean to say that to criticize John Paul or Francis or everything else before and after. I just think that if the Catholic Church has expanded and flourished in all kinds of places for centuries where they didn't even know for sure the name of the Pope, because he might have died last year and you haven't heard yet who the new one is. You pray for the Holy Father, you love the Holy Father, and then you pray some more for

the Holy Father, but as though you've got to keep up with every daily release from the Vatican. I think it's unhealthy. Yeah, it is. I think it lends itself either to a personality cult or ecclesiastical gossip, and a kind of critical spirit that will invariably lead to divisions within the church.

We love Pope Francis. We don't have to read every single word that he publishes. We wanna pray for him so that he is teaching with clarity, and when he doesn't seem to be, we want to pray for him a little bit more and try to find the good. You know, it's always the Philippians 4-8 principle. That is, if there's anything true, anything good, anything excellent, anything worthy of praise, think on these things.

So when Amoris Laetitia comes out, all we think about is Chapter 8 and that controversial footnote that is still problematic in my interpretive matrix, but you read the first seven chapters, he quotes Pius XI's Castic and Ubi more than John Paul ever did. That was one of our favorite documents when we were becoming Catholic. There is so much good stuff in Amoris Laetitia. Okay, there is that flashpoint Let the experts adjudicate that over time and all of the rest

But I think we just live in terms of the news cycle and we live in terms of the election cycle And we've got to break out of this kind of straight check and and think as Catholics live from an eternal perspective think in terms of the generations and Build houses, you know, and avoid cable news, at least more than you have been. That's good advice. All right, a couple more questions here. Uh, add Hock. Okay, I don't even know. Says, being only a few feet short of fully crossing the Tiber,

the last piece of the puzzle I am truly struggling with, apologies for the mixed metaphors, are the Marian dogmas, in particular, the bodily assumption. I can accept the typological arguments for the papacy. Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant, but there seems to be no grounds for the bodily assumption, typological or scriptural or early tradition. a typological or scriptural or early tradition. And given that this is dogmatically defined, I really need some guidance on how to accept this one. Every talk or lecture so far seems to brush this one topic off at best. Dr. Hahn, if anyone is up for it, no pressure here, I am sure it would be you. Thanks and God bless.

Okay, so three names come to mind. The books by Ted Srean, Our Lady, especially Brant Patri's classic Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, and then I wrote a book a few years back called Hail Holy Queen, the Mother of God and the Word of God. So what I can't say in just a few minutes, those books I think would fill in the gaps. I would point out that the idea of Mary as New Eve, Mary as the Ark of the New Covenant, and Mary as the Queen Mother of the New Solomon are, in effect, triangulated in the vision of the woman in Revelation 12.

I saw a sign in heaven, a woman appeared, and clothed with the, you know, the woman appeared, clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet crowned with twelve stars, and she's giving birth to the Messiah, the male child destined to rule the nations. And this comes immediately after the preceding two verses which identify, I saw the ark of the covenant, the new covenant in the heavenly temple. And then he doesn't describe a box covered with gold containing the manna or the Ten Commandments, he immediately describes the woman, clothed with the sun. So you recognize that she is the ark of the new covenant in a way that box never could be. The word made flesh is what her womb contained. She's

also the woman being attacked by the ancient serpent, so she's the new Eve. She's also crowned with twelve stars representing the twelve tribes of Israel, giving birth to the son of David, the son of God, the Messiah. So she's the new eve she's also crowned with 12 stars representing the 12 tribes of Israel Giving birth to the son of David the son of God the Messiah So she's all three in one but the fact that she's clothed with the Sun the moon is under her feet And she's got a crown on her head implies that she's not like the disembodied souls that you read about in Revelation 6 I saw the souls of those under the altar They don't have their bodies. Where she's clothed with the sun, the moon is under her feet, and this is not at the end of time. This is the fullness of time.

And since there is no gravesite ever attributed to where the pilgrims would go to venerate the remains of the Blessed Virgin, there is some discussion as to a dormition or did she go straight to heaven without falling into the sleep of death? Those things we can discuss as intermural matters, but I think that the vision of Revelation 12 has always been sort of the basis for understanding that what John the Seer is describing can only make sense not by reduction to, well, that's just a symbol of the church. Oh, I see. So the male child destined to rule the nations of the Rod of Iron is just reducible to the Davidic dynasty? No, it's corporate, but it's personal. It's Jesus.

It's corporate, it's the church, it's the synagogue, if you will, but it's personal. It's a woman who is the mother of the Messiah. It's a person named Satan, the devil, the dragon, but seven heads and ten horns, you realize he's the head of a corporate enemy. And so St. Michael is not doing it as a solo act. He's bringing the army of angels, but there is a person named Michael, Jesus, Satan, and Mary. And she's up there in heaven body and soul and so at the end of the day

I would say that that vision only makes sense if you're differentiating the disembodied souls that are under the altar in Revelation 6 and elsewhere From a woman who's fully embodied in heavenly glory as the new Eve defeating the dragon the ancient serpent as the ark of the new covenant as the Queen Mother of as the ark of the new covenant, as the queen mother of the new Jerusalem, of the new Solomon, etc. I'm squeezing an ocean through a funnel, but that's where I'd go. Yeah, then what do you say to him if he's like, yeah, heard all that, I've heard the responses as well. At what point do you say, well, I'm open to submitting to the church's authority, I see there being enough evidence in the scriptures and the patristics that the church has the

authority to make these sorts of things. And so maybe I'll go with this even if I don't personally find myself convinced. Yeah. I mean, if you find yourself just impeded, prevented, I don't believe it, then realize that it's been a lucky thing for you that on 99 out of 100 points of doctrine, you agree with the church, the church agrees with you. But that's not the act of faith.

The act of faith is ultimately accepting sacred mysteries on the basis of divine authority that comes to us through the organism that is established by Christ. And so at the end of the day, I think the best advice might be yours. That is, if you study and you're open to it but you're not completely convinced by it, then accept this on the basis of the authority of Christ who said on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Okay, thank you so much. We have a ton of questions.

I'm so sorry to everybody who's putting these questions. We're not going to have time to get to them all, so let's do one more. This comes from Marshall. How can I learn to love myself in light of the fact that without God I can do nothing good, therefore I am not good. Therefore, how am I worth loving? Another recovering Calvinist like me, you know, I'm totally depraved. Well, you know, first of all, you know, the idea that original sin is what we're all born with is true,

but the idea that original sin is what we're all born with is true, but the idea that original sin is being born totally depraved is completely wrong. The Catholic view drawing from Romans 5 is that we're born totally deprived of divine life that our first father had, then forfeited by committing a mortal sin. The day you eat of it, you surely die. They committed it, and they died a divine death, the death of the soul, as the Catechism calls it. And so, if we're deprived of divine life, but the Father sent the Son of God to become the Son of Man,

to suffer, die, and rise to fill you with His Holy Spirit and to feed you with His own resurrected body, blood, soul, and divinity, then either call yourself a child of God or call God a liar. either call yourself a child of God or call God a liar. Because that's who we are. That's not plan B, C, or D. That is plan A. And if our first Father hadn't failed us, we'd be really well off. But because of the new Adam, we're infinitely better off in Christ than we would have been in Adam. And so, God has arranged for the phoelix culpa, the happy fault, an upward

fall. And so, his strength is made perfect in weakness, where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. Romans 520, let God be true and every man a liar, especially when you're lying to yourself about being sinful and just too evil to be loved by God. You know, I know that when we tend to love Catholic tradition, we tend to poo poo things like praise and worship that maybe we once loved, but I don't think we should have that kind of- I agree.

Yeah, yeah, we should be a little more open minded than that, I think, but there's two songs that came to mind as you were saying that, you know, there's this one song by Hill Song, it says, I am chosen, not forsaken, I am who you say I am, which is just what you just said. I'm not who I think I am who you say I am, which is just what you just said. I'm not who I think I am. I'm not who you say I am.

And you've said it. There's a hymn, I don't remember the lyrics, but we sang it yesterday at noon mass on campus. And Kimberly, I looked over at her and her eyes were kind of moist and mine were too. Abide with me, Google it, abide with me. Talk about a song that embraces the misery of self-worshipping wretches who are dying like we are. And then you realize that God's sovereign power to

sanctify sinners is unimaginably greater than our capacity to sin. You are not sure if you are familiar with Sarah Kroger. She's a beautiful Catholic musician. She sang at a lot of student book conferences. She's got a lovely song that people need to check out. It's good belovedness. Here's just some of the lines. She says, you've owned your fear and all your self loathing. You've owned the voices inside of your head. You've owned the shame and reproach of your failure. It's time to own your belovedness. Yeah, I like that. Like you've done that. How did that go for you? All right. Well, just for a second, let's see what he says about you and see if you

can stand it. Yeah. But she wouldn't write a song like that if she hadn't learned that this becomes something you need to do almost every single day and sometimes two or three times a day because it's just so easy to lapse into that default mode of self-contempt. And the saints also were the ones who, as they got closer and closer to authentic sanctity, became more and more aware of their own sinfulness. You know, I'm the chief of sinners, St. Paul would say. So the idea that in the light you can see the residual darkness of

your soul, that shouldn't come as a shock, but it also shouldn't cause despair. Right, because the source of your hope is the one who loves you. Right. Not you. My favorite book to give to people who are struggling with scrupulosity is, I Believe in Love. Isn't that just a wonderful book? It's a reflections based on the teachings of Therese of Lisio. And there's one line in there I just love, I'm paraphrasing, he says, I'm not telling you, you believe too much in your own wretchedness. We are far more wretched than we can ever imagine. What I'm telling you is you do not believe enough in merciful love.

That's where it is, I think. It's not about downplaying your sinfulness. It's about upplaying the reality of his love. Yeah. Exactly. That's a good note to end on. Thank you so much for coming. You're so welcome. And thank you for the opportunity to discuss Catholics in Exile because I am very excited about the good that I hope that it does. Have you done the audiobook? Are you gonna read it? I'm going to. Yeah. I haven't had the chance yet. I bet I heard that you're really good at that, that you'll just... Who's the fella who I sat down with in your studios to... Was it Rob Corzine? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Rob is, I mean, he'll sit there for hours and if I read a line, you know,

and I see his eyebrow, okay, let's do that again. How would you say it? He said you're really good. I kept having it. I'll also I'll read a sentence and thought I read it perfectly on it. You missed a word. I'm like, I don't know how I did that. Let's do it again. You know what I have discovered and he attested this as well. I'm like, I don't know how I did that. Let's do it again. You know what I have discovered, and he attested this as well. I mean, giving a talk is one thing. Writing a chapter is another thing. But reading a chapter that's being recorded.

It's tiring. It's exhausting. It's like doing three things at once. Because you're editing yourself. You're trying to say properly what you're reading. And there's like an echo chamber, and it's easy to get caught up in that, you know, but I, I do hope and plan to give an audio version of this book mission.

Good stuff. Catholic in exile. Yeah. You've written so many books, you forget the name of them. I do too. Well, the conversation is so exciting and also I forget my own middle name. Well, God bless you. Thank you very much. So much, Matt.