Pints With Aquinas - Demonic Attack, The Holy Rosary, and Lives of the Saints w/ Gabi Castillo

Episode Date: April 15, 2024

Gabriel is a Catholic Lay Evangelist and videographer. In addition to giving talks, he is popularly known for his youtube channel  @gabiafterhours . His talks, documentaries, and videos have more than 28,000,000 views. Gabriel’s favorite topics are the Eucharist, the Virgin Mary, the Rosary, and the Lives of the Saints. Support the Show: https://mattfradd.locals.com  Show Sponsors: https://hallow.com/mattfradd https://strive21.com/matt Petersons Interview: https://youtu.be/e4uWemSfpwk?si=zZcvvC4jHtiFkPXb John Bosco Short Film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bk11hy6hgsM  

Gabriel good to have you. Are we starting? Yes. I love it. Great. I love that you brought a shrine with you. Dude. I this is fantastic.

I'm a naughty boy and our lady has to keep a short leash on me because this lips sink ships as they say. Hmm. Yeah, I've nearly been sunk by my own loose lips multiple times, but it's really nice to have you. Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be here. I think the first time I ever saw you you were giving a talk and it was on YouTube. And this must have been, I don't know, maybe 10 years ago even. And I just remember thinking that you were very much like Jason Everett. Do you know Jason? Yes. People used to tell me that you're like the young Jason Everett. And then I would respond, he's like the old me.

But there's like a, you have this sort of stability, you seem to have, because I don't know you. You seem to have a sort of stability in your spiritual life that seems very constant in the kind of devotions you promote and talk about and engage in. And the two of you seem very devoted to Our Lady. It's a big compliment. I love Jason Everett, dear friend. And the thought came to me that you have to maintain the charism of the founder.

He's not my founder in any way, shape or form, but he was influential in my life when I was in college. One with the chastity stuff. But what stood out to me the most from him was he was giving a talk to teens and he told them my spiritual director, his spiritual director told him that to do a talk without first making a holy hour would be an act of pride. And so that for me stood out. I was like, oh my gosh, I better do a daily holy hour would be an act of pride. And so that for me stood out. I was like, Oh my gosh, I better do a daily holy hour if I want to impact lives.

And then he also wore the miraculous metal as a sign of his consecration to Mary. So I wear the miraculous metal people like, Hey, Gabe, you're the miraculous metal guy. Jason was the miraculous metal guy first. You were inspired by him. Yeah, that's beautiful. The first time I ever met Jason ever it was in an adoration chapel because I flew to England. I was living in Ireland at the time and he was giving a big chastity talk and he, you know, they do a holy hour every day. And then I would visit the blessed sacrament before he would talk just for a short amount of time. So that's funny that that's where I met him.

What a great reputation. I met you in front of the Lord. Yeah. Yeah. So that's good. And then I've just been noticing your videos. They're so beautifully done. And obviously saw the one you did with Tammy Peterson recently. So thanks for all the work that you're doing. It's it's truly the fruit of the message. So I've got a message that I promote and it has been the fruit from the very beginning, the very first time we hit record, just sitting in my car to large scale productions. Have you always been involved in production?

No, not at all. Everything I learned, I learned watching YouTube. Okay. I literally started out with a phone. And so Mother Angelica, as you know, she was very big on if God is calling you to do something, do it and he will provide the means after the fact sometimes. But so yeah, we literally, I have no background in anything other than I got a degree in theology. So all the stuff that takes place in your channel, like the beautiful testimonials and all that,

are you the main guy who's setting up the lights and the camera? So that's the crazy thing. People think that we have a production team. Yeah. It is literally just me. I have an assistant. Like, her position is literally assistant to youth ministry director. Like, that is her full-time job. And she just helps me with editing. She helps me set stuff up. So like this is like garage. We make it look polished.

It does. It looks excellent. So you were youth minister then? Yes, youth minister full-time. Okay. In Houston. In Houston. One of the biggest parishes in Sugarland.

Okay. Yeah. And we've got a great, great community. Yeah. You probably know I got married there and lived there for a little bit. Yes. Yeah. I think were you at St. Anthony of Padua in the woodlands?

She, my wife used to be there. I met her and when, and she was working at St. Thomas Moore. Oh, wonderful. Oh, St. Thomas Moore. Yeah. I don't know if you know Annie Hickman.

Yes. I know the Hickman. Yes. Wow. What a small world. Sometimes I go to adoration at St. Thomas Moore. Yeah.

It's incredible. Wonderful stuff. So how did you get into the faith? Are you, uh, I mean to adoration at St. Thomas More. Yeah. It's incredible. Wonderful stuff. So how did you get into the faith? Are you, I mean, you and I are the same age. Right. People will think I'm 10 years older, but that's not true. No, no, no, no, no, no. You look great.

No, seriously. But you, how did you, I mean, my conversion, I was 17, but what about- I was raised by my mom, single parent, only child. My mom did the best that she could, but she had to take two jobs. So most of my life, I was a latchkey child, which is 50% of the country today.

I was raised by MTV. I was deeply impacted by a terrible television show called Sex in the 90s. And so it was giving me all of, because I not having a father, not knowing anything about sexuality, not knowing anything about the meaning and the purpose of my life.

It was saying sex, freedom, all these licentious activities. And so that was my mindset through high school. Fortunately, my mom did a good job in sheltering me and not giving me money or freedom to go to parties. So that kind of like closed me in a little bit and I did very good academically. And so I received a very large scholarship to go to the University of St. Thomas in Houston.

And there the philosophy and the intro to theology really opened my eyes to the truth of the Catholic faith intellectually. So I was like, that's why concupiscence. I get it. That's why I'm so messed up. That's why I make my mom cry. That's why I ruin all the up. That's why I make my mom cry. That's why I ruin all the relationships that I really care about.

It's because I have a disordered inclination to do bad stuff. That makes so much sense. But I wasn't converted in my heart. And so a lot of my classmates, I hung out with the best of the bad kids and the worst of the good kids. So they were like not horrible, but they weren't good.

They weren't good, but they weren't terrible. They were like doing drugs and alcohol and things like that, but that's what many college kids were doing. And they were going into the RCIA program to receive the sacrament of confirmation. And so I was like, these guys are barely Catholic and they're getting confirmed. I wanna get what they're getting

because I believe this stuff intellectually. So I can do the same stuff and receive the sacraments. I have no... So you're in college, you hadn't yet been confirmed? No, I had not. So I made my first communion when I was in the eighth grade and then after that I never went back to church. It was just kind of like a formality, check the box, you know, make my grandmother had passed away and she had mentioned that that was important to her before she died that I make first communion But other than that the only prayer I knew was like a superstitious Prayer to st. Jude that all Mexicans seem to have and my mom thinks what she says that she's Mexican

Are you Mexican? Okay. Exactly. Yeah, so I don't know like I my skin is white. My mom's skin is white But she speaks in Spanish, okay, and answers the phone in Spanish So I think she thinks for Mexican. Love you mom. I mean you are your great is your grandparents from Mexico but she speaks in Spanish and answers the phone in Spanish. So I think she thinks for Mexican. Love you mom. I mean, is your grandparents from Mexico? Our family tree is very shady. Okay.

Everybody that I've ever met looks really white except for my mom's sisters, which look very Mexican. I have no idea what I am to be honest with you. I don't even want to do 23andMe because I don't know what's going to come out. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So I went on a retreat through the campus ministry and I didn't know anything about the Eucharist. I didn't know anything about Eucharistic adoration and they're like,

we're going to go do a holy hour with Jesus. And I'm like, all right, what do you mean by that? I don't want to look like an idiot. What are we going to be doing? He's like, we're just going to sit there and look at Jesus like a picture of Jesus. What are we looking at? No, the Eucharist. I was like, that little circle? Yeah, that's Jesus. I was like, no.

Yeah, that's Jesus. I was like, so what do I do when I go in there? And there was a philosophy professor, his name is Dr. Rebhard. He said, you just go in there and repeat the Holy name of Jesus. It's like for an hour? It's like, yeah.

So I went in there for about 10 minutes. I just repeat the Holy name of Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. And then about 10 minutes in, a warmth came over me and I heard an interior voice say, my son, be quiet. And I was like, oh no, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Like, stop talking. I was like, Jesus, Jesus. And in an instant, it was as if the finger of God touched my

soul and my heart was like a rock and everything inside of my heart melted and I just started bawling and weeping. And this was before the passion came out and I was having, so I didn't have this in my mind before. I was having what I didn't know was like a moment of mental prayer where I was visualizing scenes from the passion, Jesus looking at me in the face, telling me how much he loved me, how much I was loved. And I was just bawling for like 45 minutes straight, nonstop, afterwards people were like, are you okay? Like, is everything all right?

Like that's not normal. Well, you're like sobbing like hard. Like a little bit of crying would have been fine. This was like ugly crying, like get this guy out of here. He's a distraction. And I just kept repeating. I was like, that's really Jesus. Like God is really there. But, and so I became radically Eucharistic. Like I would spend every day in the church, but I didn't stop sinning. Like I was still, so I became a Eucharistic minister and I didn't know better at the time. I wouldn't do that now.

But I was becoming a Christian minister, giving out Holy Communion. And then I would go and commit public mortal sins like every night because I was just like I was living two different lives. And the campus minister, an amazing, amazing sister, she'd previously given me a brown scapular because she told me that I was on the highway to hell. And I was like, sister, is this how you start conversations? She's like, when I see somebody who's on the highway to hell, sometimes I have to say hard things.

Well, she is St. Thomas more, St. Thomas. She was one of the sisters there. Is it the one with the black veil thing? Yes, yes, yes. And the long brown simple habit with like a cross that's two nails. She came up to you and said, you're on the highway veil thing? Yes, yes, yes. And the long brown simple habit with like a cross that's two nails. She came up to you and said you're on the highway to hell? Yes.

How did she know that? She was a spicy sister. It sounds like it. She was spicy, but I loved it. I loved it. Because there was like a talent show and it was for campus ministry and I went up and told a dirty joke during the talent show. And she was like super offended by this.

And so after I had this major conversion, she saw the changes in me, she saw that I was Eucharistic minister, she also saw that I was living a life that is not compatible with Catholicism. And it was around Lent and everybody in campus ministry was like, what are you giving up? What are you giving up? And I was like, I don't know, you know, I was like doing the typical chocolate soda thing. And she said, how about you give up sin Gabriel? How about you stop sinning mortally and publicly now be a good how did she know you were doing this because everybody knew? I was well you're going to parties. I was going to parties. I was it was just very obvious

He was like I was I had girlfriends It was just very obvious that I'd like public displays of affection. Yeah Yeah, and did she say this to you in front of other people? I don't remember. I just remember her face in my face telling me give up sin for Lent. Now because of your pride, we were offended by that. Or did you feel? No, I was shocked.

I wasn't offended at all. When somebody she confronted me with the truth, but I had never thought about it. I thought that it was okay. It was really strange circumstance. So that day I said, I'm not gonna sin for Lent. And I went home and if this was a cartoon, it would say two hours later. And I had looked at pornography

and committed solitary sin within two hours of making a very, very, very firm resolution that that's what I was gonna do. And so that night I recognized I have a problem. I've been sinning my entire life, not because I want to. Like I really didn't want to and I did. I have no control. And so I had a moment, I guess of true contrition

and I was in my room and I was crying like a hard cry and begging God for mercy, God have mercy on me, I'm a poor sinner, I'm a slave, I didn't know that I was a slave, help me. And when I said that in my prayer, I heard the exact same words repeated back to me audibly from a diabolical voice. And it was like, it was a very high pitched screeching, mocking, insulting. And I don't know where it came from,

but immediately I said, "'St. John Vianney, pray for me.'" I have no idea where that came from. I had no devotion to St. John Vianney. Maybe I had heard about him somewhere, but it was like instinctual. The moment that that happened, voice goes away. So the next day, I was afraid to go home

because I audibly heard this. This was not a mistake. This was not an interior. This wasn't like I felt guilty for sinning against the Lord. I did feel guilty the night before, but this was not like I was not dreaming this up. So I went to campus ministry. I got a pamphlet on the rosary. I went into my room.

I'd never prayed the rosary by myself before. At that point, I got on my bed and I just sat there and I was like, opening this packet and I said, all right, how do you do this thing? I believe, I believe in the second that I said, I believe a force grabbed me by the throat, pins me on the bed, holds me down. The room is like spinning in ice cold. I try to scream for help, but it's I'm being choked. I could still breathe, but I couldn't communicate

because I was trying to yell for my mom in the other room to come and help me. And I heard an interior voice say, I believe it's my guardian angel now looking back on it, pray. And so I was like, I couldn't pray. And he said, pray the Hail Mary. And I was like, I couldn't say the words. And finally, the interior voice was alive.

And this all happened within, like, it feels like an eternity, but it was like a 10-second, like, lockdown. Say it in your head. And so I got the words in my head, Hail Mary. And internally, when I said those words, I felt like a release.

And then so I said it audibly, Hail Mary. And the words, Mary left my lips, the presence left the room, I came back to, and after that I was freaked out. And so I got on the internet and I typed in Google,

demon choking you, pornography, masturbation. You gotta be careful typing that in. Yeah, and thanks be to God, a website that doesn't exist anymore, which I wish it still did, because it was very helpful to me at the time, called Padre Pio Center for Deliverance came up,

and then they used the language of, do you have hooks in your life? Do you have intrinsically disordered things in your life that are entry points for the devil? And they listed out, you know, bad movies, bad books, bad music, new age books, false God statues, pornography. They had a whole list of basically every possible mortal sin.

And I was like, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And then my mom at the time, she was very much into New Age because she didn't have an authentic Catholic spirituality. So she had Buddha statues, African little faces, elephants all over the house, which apparently she just likes elephants. That night, I went to bed, I made a resolution, all that stuff is gone out of this house.

So she went to work, I took everything, put it in a trash bag, I took her statues, smashed them in the front yard. It was not a pretty day when my mom arrived home the next day. That is powerful. Wow. Yeah, it changed me. I was never the same after that. I'm trying to think what I would do if something like that happened to me. Yeah. I mean, did

you speak to trusted friends or about it? I talked to another sister. I think part of me would be afraid that I was overreacting or imagining it or just got sort of emotional and a sort of prayer experience. Of course, what you're describing is far beyond feeling emotional. And somebody tried to tell me, oh, you had sleep paralysis. I was like, I was standing straight up and something was holding me down, trying to get in my chest. And I said the name of Mary and I don't have a relationship with her. And it went away in an instant

Yeah, like instantaneously and so I told this sister who's now I think deceased God bless her sister Madeline grace about everything that it happened She's very famous at the University of st. Thomas as not as like being strict all these strict good holy women She's like you did the right thing. She's like you did the right thing If I was living in your house, I would have burned and trashed all of those things I was just like just just deal with the punishment. But then this is the greatest blessing of my life. Like I don't say it out loud, but in a way the devil saved my soul because one, I saw that this is all real.

I saw the power of the Virgin Mary, the power of the Virgin Mary so great that a mortal sinner, years of mortal sin. And I had had that demon of lust. I believe it was a demon of lust. I don't know for sure. I had had that since I was probably in middle school and I had never known it. I'd never realized it. I thought that I was just doing what would make me happy.

And with just saying the holy name of Mary, I was freed. And not only that, but I was given the opportunity to see that I was a slave and I needed help. And I had to, again, this website was very helpful because it said, if you're going from darkness to light, you must go completely all the way in into the light. Everything about you must be Christo centric, rooted in Christ. The music you listen to, the programs you watch,

the art in your home, everything must belong to Christ or the devil will not leave you. And so that started a journey of fighting against mortal sin. I ended up changing my major. I was doing very bad in my theology courses that were required. Like I think I took Intro to Sacred Scripture three times

because I failed twice or I got Ds in it. And then all of a sudden after that moment, all my theology grades went from Ds and Fs to hundreds. And the theology where before it was so foreign to me was like second nature, just all made sense, which is the Catholic faith just makes sense. So I wouldn't even take notes in theology class anymore because I was just absorbing it

and it was making a huge impact on me. And the Lord through divine providence He would put the best spiritual books that I needed at the time like I had no I had no History in spiritual classics like I ran into the story of a soul by st Therese I ran into the life of Anthony by st. Athanasius One that was profoundly impacting was the practice of the presence of God by brother Lawrence Which is like like the essence of all. I just reread it last week. It's gold.

Like, and I come back to that. I'm like, why do I ever make things so more complicated than they really are? Um, so that, and then I came across the biography of mother Angelica, which was who wrote that one by Raymond Durio. It's excellent. Oh my gosh. I read that audio book Nominal go down like like it's life hack audio book that it is really worth it and people love mother Angelica For the things that she provided on her program. I love her for the way she did it

I love her for the way she did it. So she provided for me a living Concrete example of a person who's alive today, who acted in faith, who did not follow conventional wisdom, who saw Christ as a person who was journeying with her, asking her to make difficult decisions, and she did them. She did them even though it didn't make sense, even though the church was against her, even though her friends were against her, even though the church was against her even though her friends were against her even though Her family was against her and God provided because she thought she was doing God's will and God's not gonna lead anybody astray That I read that book like six times but one chapter in particular really really stood out to me because I love the University St. Thomas, I love it my my priestly professors

Incredible they formed me to think very very powerfully. I've got a very analytical mind. Great. But there's a chapter in that book where Mother Angelica is confronted by this priest who actually also lived in Houston for a time. His name is Father Robert de Grandis. He's very big in the Charismatic Renewal, very charismatic priest and on a regular basis, he would pester Mother Angelica, kind of pray over you, Mother. And she would always say, no, I don't need the Holy Spirit. I was baptized. I received the sacrament of confirmation.

And so week after week, he would constantly come back and she would constantly say, no, no, no. But on one occasion, she said, if you will just leave me the you know what alone and I let you pray over me,

can you just bug off? And so he said, oh yeah, I just want you pray over me, can you just bug off?" And so he said, oh yeah, I just want to pray, Mother, I just want to pray. And so he prayed over her and nothing happened. And a couple of days later, she was in her room reading the Gospel of John, and a sister comes into the room,

and when they say, Mother, dinner's ready, she speaks in a foreign tongue, and she can't stop speaking in a foreign tongue, so she just covers her mouth. And then from that day forward, there was a fire in her that, although she was a faithful woman, that she didn't have previously. And that when she read the Scriptures, and she's very famous for reading the Scriptures in a way that the common man can comprehend and feel like if you're there, From that day forward, her love for scripture, her zeal and her confidence in the Holy Spirit was never the same. So I was like, I want

that. I want that. I want a living faith because no offense, again, my, my priest, Nimu dot quote, non habit. They, they teach you a lot of things like you cannot give what you do not have. They didn't have a fire and a spark that I was feeling like from the gospels Christ wanted. He said, I've come to set the world on fire and how I wish it was already blazing. You're going to do greater things in my name. And everywhere I was going, it felt like those things don't happen anymore. But in the life of mother Angelica, I saw that they were happening. So I wanted that. So I asked my friends, I was like, Hey, you guys want to go with me to the charismatic center? And they're like, heck no, dude, those people

are possessed. Are you crazy? I hear they cast out demons over there and they don't even use the name of Jesus. They, they were acting like what I was suggesting was absurd and mad. So one night I got the courage to go to the charismatic center and the cross. The cross. Yes. Yes. They're incredible. I'm so glad we kind to go to the charismatic center. And- Companions of the cross. The companions of the cross, yes, yes. They're incredible. I'm so glad we kind of run in the same circles. So what I witnessed there was people acting crazy. There was a man running up and down the aisles,

praising the Lord. There was an old woman in a wheelchair, moving her wheelchair back and forth, praising the Lord. The homily lasted 45 minutes to an hour, but the priest was crying. And like, on his heart was bleeding. And he was begging people to repent of their sins and to come to Christ and just surrender your burdens

right now and come forward. And so, and they were like, put your hands in there. And I was like, and I'm not that kind of guy. So I was like, nope, not putting my hands up. Like, put your hands out. So I was like, not gonna do it. You're not gonna emotionally manipulate me. You guys look like idiots.

But then the little voice inside my soul, my conscience was like, yeah, but don't they act like they have faith? Don't they act like the gospel is real, that the Holy Spirit is real, that God is real and he keeps his promises? And I was like, yes, fine. I'm not putting my hands out,

but I'll open my heart a little bit to this because I was like freaked out, especially because all my friends were saying they're crazy. So afterwards they were doing this, like praying over each other, healing service. And I didn't have the courage to go up. And there was an older gentleman and he was walking out. And I like, I stared this guy down hard.

I was like trying to stare a hole into his soul. And he felt it. I was just staring him down and he's walking down the aisle and he's like, young man, is everything okay? I was like, no. He's like, what's wrong? I was like, I need you to pray over me so that I can receive the Holy Spirit.

And as he was praying over me, I had an awareness. I have the Holy Spirit. I've had the Holy Spirit. I was baptized. I received the sacrament of confirmation. I'm in the state of grace. I have the Holy Spirit. I don't need this. But so that was my awareness then that God was wanting me to just give my entire life to Him. And although I said to myself and I heard interiorly you have the Holy Spirit, you've always had the Holy Spirit, you just didn't want it bad enough. I was different after that. That night I went home, for better or for worse, mom, I'm sorry, I went home and I convicted

my mom of all the sins that she had been committed, that she was away from the church for so long. How did you do that and how did you receive it? Not well. Nobody does. away from the church for so long. How did you do that and how did you receive it? Not well. Yeah. Nobody does. But did, no, but not, not just how did she receive it, but did you, did you share well with love? Do you think I was too zealous?

Yeah, I've been there, man. But it worked. So I don't know if I was too zealous. So I, I convicted her and I said, I've been going to mass every day, every Sunday by myself. I went to Christmas mass all by myself. I went to Christmas Mass all by myself. I went to Easter all by myself. You're the only person I have in my life. I need you to come to church with me.

And so she'd start going to church. Later, I'm a very strong man. There was a lot of butting of heads, but I will tell you, my mom is probably the holiest woman I've ever met today. I look at her and I'm so proud of her. She goes to daily adoration. She's like a rosary warrior.

She fasts for me 48 hours straight, no food. She is a warrior. So I wanna say I was too zealous. I could have been more loving, but I don't know that it would have worked. And I did that with a lot of people in my life and it worked. Yeah, I know it's a good point you bring up because I did that with a lot of people in my life and it worked. Yeah, I know it's a good point you bring up because I certainly in my early days of my

conversion I was extremely zealous and if I could tell you a list of the things that would just sound crazy and which I wouldn't do today. But I think it might be even my pride that looks back and winces kind of cringes at that. Whereas like, no, the Lord uses you in the moment with the amount of knowledge you have. And so, yeah, I mean, I had similar experiences where I was proclaiming the gospel at parties, reading the gospel of Matthew to people. You're not, dude, that's crazy.

I love that. Yeah, but, and so, is it like, okay, have I learned more or have I become more of a coward? Sometimes we just look back on our early days of enthusiasm and we think, well, that wasn't so prudent. It's like, well, maybe. Or maybe I'm making excuses right now. Yeah. I don't know. I think we do the best we can in the present moment and then our Lord brings good out of it. I was still struggling with mortal sin and thanks be to God, there was a great priest at the University of St.

Thomas. He's also passed his name was Father Kelly. He looked like Jabba the Hutt, very large man, very large. He could not stand or walk. And he had a very booming voice. Mr. and he called me Mr. Garcia instead of Castillo. He said, Mr. Garcia, I want you to talk to me after class. And then I'd go and I'd go into his office. He's like, you need to go to confession. I said, excuse me. He's like, you're sinning and you're struggling with sin and I'm going to help you. And I said, all right.

And so I confessed, I looked at pornography. I've committed solitary sin this many times. He's like, the next time you do that sin, you come in here and you tell me. And I said, okay, yes, father, I will. And he says, and for your penance, you're going to pray the divine mercy chaplet and a rosary for the souls of those people that you're watching degrade themselves. And I said, all right, anything else? He's like, no.

And then I went to confession with him every single day for like a year. I don't recommend people do that. I don't think that's a good idea if people are struggling with pornography. I do not, because it can become a cycle. Yeah. I do not recommend people go to confession every day. Right. I do not. That's, I just wouldn't recommend it. This was a special case. He was giving me counseling. He was being a father to me, a father that I didn't have, showing me the

mercy of God, the father, forgiving me seven times, 70 times. And were you ever afraid as many people are that he'd just kind of get fed up with you? No, not at all. This man had the heart of a father. Oh, he was so good. He was brutal and he was vicious. And he even threatened one time to hit me in the private spot with a cane. He said, boy, if you don't get an A on this test,

you're gonna be singing soprano. I was like, what? He's like, I'm gonna rack you with my cane. All right. And what I found was that when I prayed the rosary, I had a special strength and temptation, although it existed, didn't impact me as much as it normally would.

And so it took me personally, praying four rosaries a day for me to stay as it normally would. And so it took me personally praying four rosaries a day for me to stay out of mortal sin. Is this back in college? This is in college. I never put two and two together. I never put like the idea of this is the, you know, the rosary is Our Lady presented to Dominic was the Salter, the 150 Psalms.

I never put any of that together. It was just a period in my life where I recognized I don't want to sin anymore. I'll do anything necessary. And if that means dying four times a day to pray the rosary, so be it. I mean, absolutely. I mean, you think about the amount people endure for bodily health or fitness to look well, the amount they put themselves through.

They get up at four in the morning, they have a cold shower, they work out of the gym. And so you become become Mary's athlete. And we live in such a soft time where people will say, that's too difficult. And I love reading Teresa of Avila because she's like the, she's a doctor of prayer, but she's also like a tough woman. And Teresa of Avila because she's like the, she's a doctor of prayer, but she's also like a tough woman. And she said, you find meditation difficult?

You find it dry and boring? There's no way in God's green earth you would have made it at the crucifixion. You're called to be a follower of Christ and sometimes that means taking up your cross and following him to difficult places. And if you can't pray, if you're going to quit on prayer, are you a follower of Christ? Like these are her words. And I'm like reading this, I'm like, whoa, sister, you're a tough woman. I discern, I try to discern my vocation to the best of my ability. I didn't, this is back in a time, this is like 2004 or five, there aren't as many resources. So I just would go to the blessed sacrament and surrender my life and say, Lord, what do you want for me? Do you want me to become a priest? I'll become a priest. You want me

to become a teacher? I'll become a teacher. What do you want?" And one day very clearly I felt like he was saying, I want you to become a teacher. You have a spirituality that I want you to share with others. And I said, okay. And so I focused my degree track on theology and philosophy and I said, Lord, I'll give you three years. Like I've got, I want to have a family. If I'm going to be a father, if you're not calling me to the priesthood, I need to be able to pay bills. In Catholic school education, except for very few churches, the wealthy parishes don't really pay the bills,

especially I want to have a lot of kids if this is your plan for me. So thanks be to God, got a job at the best, the wealthiest Catholic school in the archdiocese of Galveston, Houston. The best, top 1% in the entire world. And I was thoroughly disappointed in myself because I was ineffective as a teacher. I wasn't reaching them.

My goal was I'm going to share with you what got me out of it. This is the high school you're saying you're teaching at? Sixth through eighth grade I taught. And so I thought I was going to go and I'm going to help with you what got me out of it. This is the high school you're saying you're teaching at? This is middle school, sixth through eighth grade I taught. And so I thought I was going to go and I'm going to help these young kids to avoid the pitfalls that I had in high school. I'm going to warn you, I'm going to give you spiritual weapons and tools. And for the first year and a half, completely ineffective, completely ineffective. And thanks be to God, I don't know how it happened.

I do know how it happened, but it's a long story. I went on a retreat for a religious community from the Philippines whose priest was purported to have gifts of reading souls, working miracles. I don't wanna say his name, because he's not public right now. And I went on this retreat and he was preaching a lot of things.

This was around the time before Benedict XVI did the reform of the reform, started giving communion kneeling down on the tongue, et cetera. This priest who happened to also have been, I think a canon lawyer under Ratzinger at the time, was saying at this retreat, very private retreat, don't receive communion on the hand for these reasons. And he gave all these specific reasons about the particles, about lex orandi, lex credendi, how you pray impacts what you believe, impacts how you live, your union of a body and a soul united.

So things I'd never heard before, he said, receive Holy communion kneeling down if you can because your posture impacts your disposition. And then I was like, well, I've got to go to confession because everything this guy is saying is true. And he was saying, you need to make it telling the community there, you need to make a general confession. I want you to confess everything you've ever done that you can remember from the age of reason And so I prepared for like two hours made a general confession

Balling the entire time because when you make a general confession, which you shouldn't do regularly maybe like Very few moments in your life. You look at every mortal sin you've ever committed and so even if you've been going good for the past three or four years you you look back at a lifetime of sin, a lifetime of breaking people's hearts, a lifetime of disappointment and failure millions of times, maybe, I don't know. I was in tears and bawling and the priest said, you know, you've heard a lot of people. And I said, yes, father, I know. He's like, and that's making you feel guilty. Yes. And I said, yeah, I feel really guilty about it. He's like, do you want to make up for it? I said, yes, I feel really guilty about it. He's like, do you want to make up for it? I said, yes, I'll do anything.

He said, for one year, pray the entire rosary every single day for 365 days. After that, don't look back. Offer this in reparation for all the people you've hurt. Ask our lady to bring good out of all the mistakes you've ever made and don't look back. So I was praying the rosary before, but then it became a lifestyle for me, a rule of life.

And I didn't know how much discipline is needed to make this a rule of life. But then my teaching exploded. My students became like saints. Literally, I have documented miracles that happened in the classroom where students were laying hands on other students who are deaf and healing of deafness.

All right, now you need to explain this. So what happened? So I've got a lot of stories. Let's do the deaf one. Okay, so when I started praying the rosary more, when you're praying a lot, our lady begins to break through and speak to you. So she began to make my lesson plans. And she said to me, again, this is all interior.

I'm not having visions. This is all common to every man, the discernment of spirits. She was saying to me, what converted you? I was like, well, you did. And the Holy Spirit and how real He is and treat the gospel like if it's real. And so she said, so you make the kids write out a list

of surrender of their entire life, accepting the charismatic gifts as you believe that they are distributed and do that. And so I gave these kids a list of surrender, renouncing lies, accepting Christ, denouncing the devil and all these things. And the most unsuspecting of all my students, the quiet kid in the corner that nobody pays attention to. And I'm embarrassed to say I didn't pay attention to him. I barely even knew his name. I know it now. He came up to me after adoration one day and he said, Mr. C. I was like, yes. It's like Jesus told me to sing to him. I said, what? He's like, yeah. So I sung to him and I was like, what? And I was like, what did it sound like? And then he's like, you want me to do it right now? So he was talking about speaking in tongues.

Okay. I had a student whose mother worked in the school and she was partially deaf in one ear and losing hearing rapidly in the other ear. So she was like at 75%, no explanation, bones, some movement in the bone was closing off the hearing in her ears. I should also add that as I began to preach and teach our ladies will, I began to have

conflicts with administration. The kids were wanting to go to confession weekly. The kids were wondering why they only offered confession at their school once a week. Why does Father ask the kids to come to the altar to hold hands and sing? And so there was like, there was some, why are all these eighth graders going up to communion with their arms crossed all of a sudden, like out of nowhere? So there was, Catholic education in the United States at this point was not prepared for authentic Catholicism, like a rich living of the sacraments, unleashing the lion that is the teachings of the Catholic Church in their fullness, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

So there was a lot of fire going around when this healing happened. And one of the student who was deaf, her mom worked at the school and she had just told me at lunch that same day, my daughter says y'all are doing some charismatic weird things in the classroom. I don't want any of that stuff going on. So it was kind of like, oh dear Lord. But anyways, I'm not thinking that when this is happening. So this young boy comes up to me and he says, the Lord told me to sing to him. And I'm like, dude, to sing to who? The blessed sacrament. He said, oh, okay. The Lord told me to sing to him in And I'm like, dude. To sing to who? To the blessed sacrament. He said, he was singing. The Lord told me to sing to him in the chapel.

And I was like, well, sing to me now. And then as he's saying that, this young woman comes into the classroom and I said, stop, sing to her. And I said, and I'm not gonna say her name, I think she went to Franciscan actually. I said, come over here. He's gonna sing to you.

And so he's like, what do I do? I was like, I don't know, dude. Put your hands out or something. Cause I don't see this in the Trinity broadcasting network. This is the only exposure I had to this other than the charismatic center. And so he like puts his hands out and then he's like,

show me a little bit later, but then he like starts shaking and vibrating violently that he's holding the chair. He's like, Mr. C help me. And I said, dude, what I'm like, not a teacher at this point. I'm like, what the heck is happening, man? He's like, I feel like electricity is flowing through me.

This is eighth grade in between classes. This girl is like, her eyes are as big as like silver dollars and the bell rings. I was like, dude, go to class. Afterwards, the young woman is sitting in the back and I talked to her, I was like, I'm so sorry. Did you feel anything?

I was like, he said he was gonna sing, I'm sorry, I don't know what he was doing. If that was weird for you, I wanna apologize. I was like, please don't tell your mother. I was just trying, how did you interpret what just happened? Because I recognize now how imprudent it might have been, especially for me academically, I might lose my job over right and So she's like well, it was beautiful. I was like what it's like the singing was so beautiful

I was like I didn't hear any singing and she's like I did it sounded like angels were singing and I was like Wait a second. Can you go stand over there in the car? If I this is the death girl? This is the death girl Okay so I was like can you go stand over there in the corner. To clarify, this is the deaf girl? This is the deaf girl. So I was like, can you go stand over there in the corner and I'm gonna say left or right and I'm gonna turn around and you turn around. And you knew she was deaf at this.

Yes, yes. Because I felt like she was gonna be healed somehow. I didn't know how it was gonna happen. I had to lick my finger and stick my finger in her ear. Like I'm telling you. You wouldn't have to, I would. I thought about it. I'm telling you, I was like, the gospels are real.

Let's see. I'm not Jesus, but darn it, he is and he can do this. And so I would be like, so she turned around, she raised her right hand, left hand, I'd be like left, left, left, right, left, left. And this is across the room at the same volume that I'm speaking in. And then I was like, you should go see your mom. And then, and did she realize at this point that she got a hearing back? I think she was starting to freak out a little bit. This is right after class. She was in my home room at the end of the day.

She walks down the hallway. She's all the way at the other end of the school in the same hallway. I turn around, I stick my head out the door and I say, I'm not gonna say her name. I said her name and she turns around. I just said it in a low voice and she turns around and I said, you can hear.

And then her mom heard this coming. She comes out of the classroom in tears and I said you can hear and then her mom heard this coming She comes out of the classroom in tears and she said you healed my daughter. I said I didn't touch your daughter Brandon did And she said you facilitated the healing of my daughter I was like that was all the Lord and we had moments like this So kids were having visions One kid was saying that he was praying and he felt like a fire was burning up the school. And I was like, well, what did you interpret that as?

That sounds pretty bad. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? He's like, no, because people were worshiping God in this fire and they were happy. And I was like, wow, this is incredible. But the administration- Real quick, ear woman. Yes. That's what we're gonna call her. And, oh, let me tell yeah. Ear woman. Yes.

That's what we're gonna call it. Oh, let me tell you. So that was Friday. The next day she comes back, she had a medical exam on Monday. That's what I was gonna ask. And the doctors claimed they have no idea how, but the bones moved back to where they were originally.

Oh, that's so cool, dude. Wow. Wild. So what, I mean, did this get around the school? Did people hear about this? Yes. What about those who are sort of against this weird charismatic stuff you were doing? How did they respond?

This is the thing is I was too charismatic for the traditionals and I was too traditional for the charismatics. I was doing both and. I was telling the kids, I was teaching them, well, you can receive. Yeah, kneel to receive. Yeah, yeah. And I wasn't letting boys, I wasn't letting girls be altar servers. I was saying having the girls do the readings. I distributed to them chapel veils. I was talking about everything.

Everything that's in the catechism that an eighth grader needs to know. And so although the miracles were great and we were having prayer sessions afterwards, I got a message and this is all no offense, but you can only blame the man at the top. It's just a different generation of priests, good priests, men who stepped up when nobody else was becoming a priest, but they're just a generation of, I don't want to say boomers, just a generation of men who are soft and aren't stepping up to be a sacrificial father for the sake of the sheep. And so the vice principal, whom I loved and loves me,

her son became a priest. He had to come and say, father says you can't do this anymore. Like what? Pray. I was like, you can't pray anymore? He's like, yeah, this is not a healing ministry. And I said, all right, we won't. And then more run-ins with father where they said,

you can't talk. And I have the paperwork. I saved all the documents. You're not allowed to talk about mortal sin. You're not allowed to talk about purgatory. You're not allowed to talk about hell. You're not allowed to talk about human sexuality. You're not allowed to give out sacramentals. You're not allowed to X, Y, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W,

W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, W, And you can say God is nice and he likes you. Right. And so they hired a teacher to sit in my classroom because it was, it was, it was the kids were loving it. The kids were loving it. The parents were loving it. It was, it was just something. All right. So I can see there being an argument for why you might want to dial back the charismatic stuff. Yeah. Because that can get really weird really quickly.

Yeah. Like all humans, especially when you bring emotion into it in any respect, it can get weird. So I guess I could see an argument for, especially if maybe there was weird stuff happening. There wasn't, there wasn't. By weird stuff, I don't mean inappropriate stuff. I just mean people getting carried away. No, no, we're just praying over each other.

Like the kids would, I wouldn't touch the kids. The kids would pray over each other and then they would but that was really the low like the charismatic stuff wasn't the bigger issue So like the promoting of the rosary promoting a frequent confession. That was the thing Yeah So I got called in so they hired they hired a woman to sit in my classroom whom I love and she converted She started being more fervent praying the rosary every day. It was just God's providence. It was the Lord's will. The Lord was showing me everything. I say everything I learned about evangelization, I learned teaching middle school. Everything I learned was in middle

school. So they put her in the class to sort of monitor you. To monitor me, yeah. That's going to be awkward for you. It was great. It was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. One of the best things. A lot of good things. Why was it? Because I had somebody over my shoulder and I had to weigh everything that I said, which was very stressful and left me very, very cynical afterwards. Because this was my only, cause I hadn't been Catholic before. So I didn't

have a spiritual father at a parish. I did not grow up with priests around me. So it, it made me sad and depressed and dark feeling because I said, man, everything that Mother Angelica said about the church in the United States in the 60s and 70s was true. Like these men don't, they're not, they're good. They stepped up, they're offering the sacraments when nobody else would, but there's more to be done and they don't want to change to the establishment. They're very much like the Pharisees. When Jesus showed up, I'm not saying that that that I'm just saying when authentic Catholicism

like the true religion shows up and they just didn't want anything to do with it. And so they called me into the office, even though I love the principle, I love the advice principle. I love the woman who is with me at that, uh, throughout this time, we became such good friends. Um, they, one of the questions he said, he said, it's like, did you really say that when you die, you're gonna regret not having prayed the rosary every day?

I said, yeah, absolutely. Because when you pray the rosary, you're saying pray for me now and at the hour of my death. Think of the thousands of Hail Marys that are gonna come to help you at that moment. Just one rosary a day. And he said, I would never say that. And I said- Yeah, I wouldn't say that either. Well, and we can go back and forth about that.

We'll talk about that later. And then he said, you're gone. I said, guys, I responded, I was like, well, father, maybe you should say that. Maybe you should be concerned with people's eternal salvation. And he says, you don't have, I was going to offer you your job back, but you're done here. And so, but it's not bad. Because if that didn't happen, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing right now. So when did that happen? This happened in 2009.

And so a lot of my students were converted, deeply, deeply converted. Praise the Lord. And their parents, because of it, were also converted. And so they took their money out of the school and reached out to the neighboring pastor and said, this is what happened. We will pay for him to work here for an entire year if you'll take him. And that pastor, this is a man after my own heart, Father, I love you. This is a man's man. Sugarland, Texas, baby, that's where I'm from. And you're still there? I'm still there.

You can't get rid of me. He says, you have one year to make yourself useful. This is in a private conversation. And he says, and I hope you stir the pot. And I said, to which direction? I said, to the right, of course. I was like, this is going to be great. And so I was given a position, made up a position called the promoter of evangelization.

And if I'm going to be honest with you, what does that mean? It means do whatever you want as long as you're helping people. And so at St. Teresa's, I took what I learned from daily preaching to my students, daily teaching, and I honed it for an adult audience, and I would have classes, adult classes weekly. So I was practicing my live communication regularly. Then my old students started to ask me, will you make some videos for us? We're really struggling in high school. Just little fervorinos please. We need you. Like little from the hearts from Mr. C. So I said absolutely.

And so that's when I began to compile videos, put them on YouTube, not myself, because I didn't feel called to be on YouTube yet. And then I came across one of my friends, his name is Steve Jobs that nobody seems to like even though I love this guy. So I came across these Steve Jobs videos and they're old Steve Jobs before he invented the iPhone, before he invented these other things. You say you don't mean he's your actual friend. No, no, no, no, no.

I see. I have a problem. People that I think about a lot or saints that I talk to a lot, I will say they're my friend. That's okay. All right, so these videos from Steve Jobs. So one in particular, he said,

when you recognize that the world is made up of people who are no smarter than you and no better than you, and that the way we do things for the most part is simply because somebody who wasn't as smart as you thought that that's the way you should do it. And when you recognize that and you realize that if you push in on the world, something's going to come out on the other end. If there's something you don't like, if there is a change that you want, if there's an end that you want, you have the ability to impact it and change it. And at the same time, this worldly thought was

entering my mind about the state of the church. And Benedict XVI at that time, that's when he started giving out Holy Communion kneeling down and on the tongue. That became something very passionate about mine. Our Lady and the Rosary became very passionate for me. And so I recognize that the number one way to make impact on the world is through the media, that the church has failed by and large to be in the media, to do it well, to make it free, just like the Church of Old and the Renaissance times. We're known for the most beautiful art, the most beautiful music in all of history came from Catholics. And now it seems as if too many people are afraid to be on the front lines, to use a

technology that God has made available through good men or bad men. It doesn't matter. The technology is available. And so that led me to begin to dream about and pray about and discern again, all of this is the fruit of praying the rosary, mental clarity, little tugging on the heart. I came across a film contest. I'd never made films before. There was a film contest called the Goodness Reigns Film Contest.

It was to go to World Youth Day in Spain in 2011. And they had a lot of money. People give a lot of money to a lot of things. You should give your money to Matt Fradd and to myself, just because we're reaching a lot of people. You gotta support good ministries. So I came across this contest that had a lot of money involved.

And they had various film categories, sacramental life, moral life, all these categories. And so I had been a really big fan of St. John Bosco. His life was very miraculous and mysterious. And so I had heard of a story about how he had been in the confessional and he had a line full of boys who hadn't been in the confessional and they weren't coming in to go to confession. And so John Bosco offers a prayer to the Lord, Lord, why are these boys not coming to confession? And the devil appears to him and says, well, there's three traps that I used to keep boys from coming to confession.

And then he goes on to these traps or whatever, right? And so I was like, this would be a great short film. This would be great. Because I've got, you know, I've got a camera. It's a long story, but God help me. So when my wife and I got married, I told her that God was calling me to make movies. And she said, sounds great, you have no money.

I said, if the Lord gives us six to $8,000, I'm gonna use that to buy a film camera. And she said, great, if the Lord gives you six to $8,000, be my guest. So at our reception, we're at the DoubleTree Hotel, very famous event, we call it the DoubleTree event. Everybody got food poisoning. And the hotel offered me specifically $8,000.

You're kidding. No, I'm not kidding. This is at your wedding, the reception? The wedding reception, yeah. Everyone got food poisoning at your reception. Except, yeah, everybody had diarrhea and vomiting. They're shooting out of both ends. I mean, how was your honeymoon? We didn't have one. Yeah. We didn't have one. Cause my wife almost died. She like, I found, I came home from school that day. I was sure you could have

got so much more money. My wife, I love you. I'm sorry that Matt and I are talking about how much money we could have gotten if you died. No, I don't mean that. I don't mean that. I mean, the fact that you nearly died. I know, but my wife doesn't like suing people. No, I don't either. And I'm glad you got, so that's amazing. So how do they, this is amazing.

Dude, I'm telling you, this is like crazy story after crazy story. So I had $8,000, so I had a film camera. How did they, did they write to you, call you? They called me because a lot of people went on the news and they're like, please get up. Don't go on the news protect us Don't tell anybody. It's like sure. I won't tell anybody next on pints with Aquinas talks about Just kidding. Yeah, no a grand is nothing. That's nothing. Yeah, I didn't know I was a kid sure and I spent eight thousand dollars on a camera in

2007 which the cameras aren't like all the suffering of that diarrhea and vomiting go you the camera But so I had this film camera to do this film contest Okay, and I'd never filmed anything with it besides family videos and this is like one of these shoulder cams. Yeah, so I Win the contest hands down easy. I should say Gosh, so I made the kids parents sign a waiver about film and photo. I said, okay, boys, this is what I'm doing. You go in there and you pretend like you're confessing. I'll pretend like I'm the priest and I'm pretending like I'm absolving you. I'm filming myself, et cetera. So I won the contest.

Is this video online? Yeah, it's called intersplice it here. Please do. Yeah. I'll send you the link. All right. And so I win the contest, my pastor calls me into the office and says, Gabriel, I saw that film you made. Next time, one, ask me. Two, please don't rub your hands all over the confessional screen. Because I don't know what the priest does on the other side. So I'm like, may God absolve in the name of the Father. What a line. Please don't rub your hands all over the confessional screen. I know Father, but I asked, I'm sorry, I'm asking for mercy instead of permission. So I won the prize money. Now, what about filming these boys in line?

I had the waiver signed. Yeah, yeah. But did their parents get upset after that? No, they didn't care. They were thankful. So are you proud of the film? How long ago was that short film? It's really good, actually. I think that you could show it to a group of high school students today. Yeah, they watch it. They'll go to confession. Wow.

It's not so much the quality. And what are you having these boys confess? No, they're just pretending. They're just pretending. Oh, you don't hear them. They know you don't have words. Right. But I pretend to be the devil over their shoulder whispering, ah, this and that.

Oh, murder. All these just made up sense. Um, some of them boys might've committed. Um, so I went into film contest, I went $4,000 because I need a new camera because technology, food poisoning money, but it's not bad. No, it, it, because now the technologies with mirrorless cameras. So I see you're using mirrorless cameras. You know that the, the size is much smaller. The quality is through the roof. And then the owner of the company, of the film contest company says, I know I promised

you $4,000, but we really need you to come to Spain. And I said, not coming. I need the money. And she said, please, please just come to Spain. I was like, I'm taking the money. And she said that was like their alternative gift. Yeah, you could either go to World Youth Day or you could take the $4,000 cash prize.

And I said, how about this? I will go to Spain if you give me the money. And she said, fine, but can you do some films? Can you do some documentaries? And then maybe how to make videos, which I had no experience in making videos at this point. This camera was totally automatic that I was using prior. Again, I have to reiterate, all of this is the fruit of praying the rosary.

All these crazy ideas are the fruit of praying the rosary. I can take no credit. I am a bad sinful boy from Houston, Texas with a single mom, not raised in the church. I have to reiterate this because it sounds crazy. So I go to Spain, go to World Youth Day. I absolutely hated it. I almost died. I will tell you a story that I almost died in Brazil at World Youth Day also, but no

offense. God bless World Youth Day. It's wonderful. Everybody should go to World Youth Day. However, I did not like it. It just seemed too many people and they made it sound like you're going to see the Pope. What do you mean you almost died though? We'll talk about it in Brazil because I literally had a gun to my head in the Brazil

World Youth Day. So I go to World Youth Day, I have a miserable time because it's hot, there's thousands, a million, almost a million people in a small town. There's no way on God's green earth you're going to see the Pope. I actually did get really close to him. It's crazy, long story. I really did. I told them that I was the press and so they gave me a press pass. They didn't want to give me a press pass at first, but then I was just

standing there and a guy was like, what are you doing here? I was like, prensa. And he's like press, photographer. I said, see, he gave me a press pass. So I got to go on a bus. All right. So the reason I'm telling you this story. So On Sunday night, it was like five o'clock at night I hadn't gone to Mass yet and the only church that had Mass that evening was the church where st. Dominic was baptized So I went to Mass there after Mass. I Was praying before a statue of the Virgin Mary and take this with everything I tell you that I hear or discern Take it all with a grain of salt. It doesn't matter. I heard interiorly felt very strongly a strong tug of St. Dominic saying,

you must preach the Rosary. You must promote the Rosary. And it was an understanding that I have tools available to me right now that were not available prior. We have the ability to touch souls all over the world. I must promote the Rosary. I must study the Rosary. I must study it. I need to know every word.

I need to know the history of every mystery. I need to know the history of the Rosary. I need to know everything about it because if this came from God, if this came from the Mother of God and she's promoted it at Lourdes, she promoted it at Fatima, she promoted it at Akita, if the church had said this happened and the Mother of God left her throne and broke into human history, it's because it's perfect. And you need to convince people and convict people, and if you do, souls will be saved and yours will be saved in the process.

This wasn't a long story that he told me. It was like an instant absorption, an instant understanding, and it was so strong that I for a long time, I thought I was in front of a statue of Saint Dominic. It was so overwhelming that it was Saint Dominic. So I come back and I have my mission. I have my mission. And so I started making videos on the Rosary, on Marian devotion, and everything on my channel, I'll be very, very clear and transparent. Everything on my channel is to get you to love Mary and pray the Rosary more. I'm posting people's testimonies.

I'm posting lives of the saints, only so that I will get more subscribers. So I know how to make videos that reach hundreds of thousands of people. I've done it. I can take an average person from the pews, have them give their testimony. Nobody's ever heard of them and that video get 200,000 views. I've seen some of them. Yeah. And they're just random people.

Unbelievable. Random people. But that's not my goal. My goal is to get you to watch the videos on the Rosary. And so the videos that I care about only get 20,000 views. But that's what I love. That's why I'm doing this. So the more of those big videos I make, the larger the collection of people that I can

bring to that no longer is it 20,000, maybe now it's 24,000 or 25,000 or 26,000. So every video is only a stopgap to promote the Marian devotion. And it's not devotion, it's science. It's science, it's theology that Mary's the fastest, quickest, most effective means to Jesus Christ. And if you do what she wants, you'll do God's will in the easiest, best, most effective manner. Quick questions I want to throw at you because I know we have- Hit me, hit me, come on. I've been talking a lot. You need to hit me. No, it's all been excellent. Believe me, I'd be throw at you because I know we have been talking a lot.

You need to hit me. No, it's all been excellent. Believe me, I'd be interrupting you if I was bored, but I'm not. It's fascinating everything you're saying. But I know we have a lot of Protestant good willed men and women who watch this. So I got a quick questions I want to throw at you and just have you answer them quickly. I'm gonna hit you. The Catholics worship Mary.

Can I give you the real problem? The problem is that they don't understand Christianity. They don't understand Mary. Wow, I was trying to give you a... No, I'm helping them. I'm helping them. They don't understand Christianity. Why did Christ come? He didn't come to save me.

Yes, He did come to save me for a second. Yes, He did come so that I can go to heaven. But to be honest with you, that's very shallow. Jesus came to make me like God. God became a man so that I can go to heaven. But to be honest with you, that's very shallow. Jesus came to make me like God. God became a man so that I can become like Christ. All the promises of the New Testament, Jesus says, you will do greater things than me. I have come to set the world on fire. I have to leave you so that the Holy Spirit will come upon you.

And then you're going to do these things. You're going to have the life of God in you. The fathers say God became a man so that man can become like God. The essence of Christianity is that you become like Christ. We receive the Eucharist so that you become like Christ. You go to heaven because you were one with Christ. If that's, that is Christianity, that is Christianity, holiness, deification, theosis, that is Christianity. When you understand Christianity, that Jesus isn't to shield me from the father

Jesus is to make me Christ and his will is so intimate so personal that he has a plan for every single Individual and he will reveal it to you in the moment at every moment if you so desire for him to do so and When you do his will it is no longer God who lives It's no longer you who lives, but it is God who lives in you. If you simply did God's will, Jesus said, it's not those who say, you know, Father, Father, who are going to enter the kingdom of God, but only those who do the will of the Heavenly Father. And so Jesus' goal is for me to become like Christ. And so when you understand the goal is union with Christ, holiness is union with Christ, then and only then do you understand Mary.

The role of the Virgin Mary yesterday, today, and tomorrow is to make Christ. And so if I am one with Christ, if I am a member of the body of Christ, the mother of the head is the mother of the body. For me to love Mary is for me to become like Christ. For me to hate sin is for me to become like Christ. So if you

have a problem with Mary, your problem is really about Christ's goal for Christianity because for me to say Mary, you're my mother is simply to be a member of the body of Christ. And the goal of the Virgin Mary is not to steal from Christ, is to make me like Christ. So by loving Mary, so there's three steps. I love Mary, makes me like Christ. I spend time with Mary. I begin to resemble my parent, just as Christ resembled his mother. And finally, her only desire is by the power of the Holy Spirit to form Christ in the womb. Saint Augustine said that there is no saint in heaven that was not made a saint by the hands of the mother of God.

She is absolutely essential. Do you know where he says that? Saint Louis de Monfort quotes it in the book, The Secret of Mary and like within the first 20 pages. Yes. And it's true if you're in heaven, if you're a saint, I just wonder if that's an accurate quote. Oh, it's, I don't know if it's accurate. I don't know if it's accurate, but it's true. Yeah. And all the great saints agree. I agree that it's true. And sorry, sorry, Protestant friends. I didn't mean to get you with a two by four. No, that's okay. And I'm sure a lot of them will appreciate your candidness.

And yet I think they have from their background, from their sort of, they look at us and like, you've been talking about Mary for the last hour now. It sounds like maybe you should be emphasizing Christ more. I'm telling you this because this is what all the comments say on all of you. Me, I can't get enough of this. I know, and I am trying to change the trend. I'm trying to stop being sorry for my mother. On the defensive, amen.

I'm sorry, I'm not sorry for my mother. I'm not playing games. The problem isn't us, the problem is you. You don't know what worship is and you don't know what Christ is. What you do on Sunday might be praising the Lord, but it's not a sacrifice of worship. I appreciate that. I really like that. Yeah, but it is not a sacrifice of worship.

I appreciate that. I really like that. Yeah, that's good. We got to be stronger and we're going to win. She's a mediatrix of every grace. We'll talk about that. I got Colby right there, will to love. I love that man. But you know, I always like when I talk about the blessed Virgin Mary to begin with what de Montfort says at the start of true devotion to Mary. And I share this not for your benefit, but for those who are watching. I love him. He feeds me. Is that I don't, I think he's fine. You know, he have some saints, you're like, I know objectively you're great. The problems with me, I just don't get you.

Yes. I've got a lot of saints like that. So he's kind of like that for me. But you know, he says that Mary is less than an atom or nothing at all compared to he who is. So I like to begin with that. It's like if I was talking to a Muslim and they misunderstood the Trinity and thought I worship three gods, I would begin by explaining what I don't mean, what I'm not saying. And once they believe me, when I say, no, I'm not saying there's three gods, you have to understand that.

And they go, okay, I understand it. Then I can talk sort of effusively about the Trinity, poetically about the Trinity. Likewise, when talking to a Protestant friend, I think it's important to realize we don't worship Mary, we don't think Mary's God, she's merely a creature. God, and this is the other thing Louis de Montfort says, has no absolute need of her. Never, not then, not now. The planet says the same, yeah. So now that if you agree, if you believe that I'm being honest, now let me speak effusively about the Blessed Virgin Mary. So I think that's important because I think a lot of

Protestants are drawn to Our Lady, they're drawn to the Rosary, drawn to Mary and devotion, but they're a little nervous about it because they've been told that attention to the Blessed Virgin Mary, devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary would somehow be offensive to Christ. I always start all my major talks to Catholics as well, nailing down the true Jesus Christ. Like you've got to start from Christ. His goal is to make you one with Him. And then I go through scripture, the book of Genesis, God the Father says to the serpent,

I'm going to put a war, I'm going to put enmity between you and the woman. He doesn't say between the serpent and the man. He specifically says the woman. And then if you go, and of course you all know this, you go to the book of John at the tree of life, the cross, it's the man and the woman. And then you go to the book of Revelation, the dragon goes off to make war against the woman, not against Christ directly. He attacks Christ.

He attacks the children of Mary through Mary. If we're honest, if we're not being, if we're not trying to uphold our team's side of the opinion and you're being true to what Christ really wants. If God loves me, he wants to give me everything. He wants to give me his body, blood, soul and divinity. He wants to forgive me. He wants to give me infinite mercy. He wants to give me his complete presence and he loves me so much he's going to give

me his very own mother and that this is the will of God the Father. And we see that at the wedding feast of Cana where John says, there was a wedding feast of Cana and the mother of Jesus was there. He does not say there was a wedding feast of Cana and Jesus was there and Mary was also there. He says the mother of Jesus was there and Jesus was also there, which happens on the seventh day in the book of John and the book of Genesis. It's a parallel. So it's all there. If people have the courage to scratch and they look

at Catholicism with unbiased eyes and without fear and without taking a look at the current state of the church, they will find God's church and they will find the great plan that God has for them to make them like God. Now one thing I appreciate about the work that you do is that you don't tend to get embroiled in ecclesial politics or what Pope Francis just said. I actually am open to people discussing these things. I am very open to it.

Especially, I mean, it's hard to do well, but I think there's way more people leaving the church today than there are joining the church today. And I think a lot of this has to do with the confusion around the liturgy with Pope Francis, yes, with weak bishops, with heretical bishops, bad people like me who represent the church poorly. And yet you don't get embroiled in that. I want to. I'm tempted to,

but I feel like my special calling is to bring everybody to Mary. And Mary is the road that leads to the heart of God straight away. And so if I were to comment on Pope Francis, on any of the current topics, I would unnecessarily close people off to Mary, because they would say, I'm not listening to him because he's too trad.

I'm not listening to him because he's too charismatic. I'm not listening to him because he's against this person. I'm not listening to him because he's for this person. Oh, he likes that program. I can't believe any good Catholic would like that program. So I'm very opinionated and I'm very strong, but I'm not going to do that on my channel, Mary's channel, because it's not my channel. It's Mary's channel and I can't die. So in the life of St. John Bosco, there's a story that at his judgment, he saw, I don't know how this may be a dream, he saw a large field of all the souls that he impacted and then his guardian angel took him

to another field and said, now look at all of these. He said, who are these people? These are the ones you could have saved had you only had faith. And I don't want that to be my life where the Virgin Mary says to me, if you only kept your mouth shut, if you only didn't think that your opinion was so freaking important that you drove away my children. So I want to, I'm tempted to, I'm very opinionated as you know. I just can't. And thanks be to God she hasn't let me yet. Wow. But I'll tell you whatever you want to, I'm tempted to, I'm very opinionated as you know. I just can't. And thanks be to God, she hasn't let me yet. But I'll tell you whatever you want to know.

Well, wow. Yeah, it's a wild time. Here's what I've been realizing lately, like you and I, same age, right? So we grew up in the same church. I know we had different times we came back to the church. But it's almost like Catholics who grew up under the pontificate of John Paul II, we have like a memory of the church, an understanding of the church that those who are coming into it don't have. It occurred to me recently, I'm teaching a class in Garming, Austria right now on love and responsibility. None of these students were alive when John Paul II was the pope.

And so a lot of them don't have the same affection that we have or interest we have. Just you saying his name makes my heart pump. I love him so much. I remember when he died, how it brought the world together. To watch him die gracefully, oh my gosh, just the grace that was around my college campus at that time, so powerful.

But I see, I think that Pope Francis is a divisive pope. I'll leave it at that. But I also think that I'm not sure what could bring us together now. It feels like Satan is sifting us like wheat, not just in the church, but in culture, in different religions. You see this conflict within groups, within those religions. Things feel so divisive now that I think even if we had John Paul II elected to the throne today, you'd find a lot of the same. Jared Sussman I don't think so. So I agree, but I disagree. So our lady has a plan. She's going to be the one that brings in Christ. If she has somebody, let's say the next pope is a mama's boy and he prayed faithfully. I would love an African. I've not met an African that I don't love.

Yes. And let's say he was a mama's boy and he prayed the rosary. Our lady's a master strategist. She has children all over the world that if this person, whoever this pope might be, played his cards right, he could change the world. So because of technology, I'm going to be completely candid. I don't believe that there's any bishop or maybe Father Mike Schmitz is doing it.

There's no bishop who's properly utilizing the media the way they should. If we had Saint Peter or any of the apostles as our leader, they would be all over the internet. Saint Paul would be all over the internet. He would be making the best, like I should, my, my Bishop, my Pope has the ability to talk to me directly. I don't need to hear from a third person party.

He has the ability to speak right into my home and to the lives of my children. And if somebody did that effectively, if somebody was an effective communicator, I would turn it on and say, children, listen to this man. This is the leader of God's church. Not it and I think I think he could do it I mean there are some there are some people who are clearly called not to use the internet I am so thankful that many of them aren't and faithful Catholic. Yeah, I'm thankful that many of them aren't There's very few strong Catholic voices. Well, who do you thinks doing a decent job? I think Bishop Baron does an excellent job. He does to people give him a hard time. I love him

I love him. I think he's doing great. I think that they want him to be job. I think he does too. People give him a hard time. I love him. I love him too. I think he's doing great. I think that they want him to be their savior, but he's not their bishop. Well, here's the thing. I also think that no one can be the answer to everything except our Lord. And so your channel isn't going to appeal to certain people. My channel is not going to appeal to certain people, and that's okay. We're all different organs in the body of Christ even online.

But just because someone isn't the answer to everything doesn't mean they're not the answer to something. Yes, exactly. And that's what I love. We talked about this before, like there's different members of the body of Christ. If you do what God's will is for you and I do what God's will is for me, I'm the kidneys, then together we're going to do incredible things. And I do believe that our late sin abounds, grace abounds all the more. Our Lady has her people in place. I really believe this. She's not going to lose.

She's not a loser. She never loses. Our Lady of victory is one of her titles. She does not lose. The difficulty is that our heroes aren't going to look like what we imagine. Just like Christ didn't look like this grand general, victory to Our Lady looks like crucifixion. And so she has her children all over the world

waiting for her right moment, and she's gonna strike and she's gonna win. No doubt about it. Not to bring down the passion of this conversation. No, bring it. But it reminds me of Princess Leia. Aren't you a little small to be a stormtrooper? I love it.

The same way that the hobbits took the ring to Mount Doom. It wasn't the army outside the gate that won it. They were necessary. Yeah, no, I love it. Because I think we often, people who complain, and I sometimes do, about the failings of our leadership, it's not like that alleviates us of the responsibility to do what we're all called to do. You know, if it is the case that the Pope or the bishops or the priests or whoever you look to for spiritual guidance and are disappointed by is failing to proclaim what needs to be proclaimed, condemn what ought to be condemned, okay, well, they'll have to stand before God in judgment. But that doesn't alleviate me of proclaiming what needs to be proclaimed and condemning

what needs to be condemned. So in a way, it's like, well, not a lot is going to be different. Right. And this is why I am a big proponent of the Rosary, mainly because every time we've had a situation like this in the world, the Virgin Mary said, pray the Rosary, that this will bring about the revolution first happens in one's own heart. When she appeared to Dominic, she said to him,

in this type of warfare, the battering ram has been, is now and forever will be the angelic salutation, the cornerstone of the New Testament. And I like the word battering ram, because Jesus said that the gates of hell shall not prevail. And I'm sure you're aware that when he said that He didn't mean that we were gonna hide and that hell won't break into the church. He is a very offensive individual He's a winner. He's strong

He was talking very strongly that we are gonna break down the gates of hell where there's darkness where there's sadness where there's despair By the power of the Holy Spirit one man man, twelve men, are going to break down the gates of hell. And so how did Christ break into this hell that we live on earth? Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. It is always going to be those words that bring down the power of the Holy Spirit that are going to bring about the reign of the Sacred Heart of Jesus here on earth. Because that's how it happened the first time. Love your passion.

Love how you talk about the Rosary. Wouldn't ask you to change anything. I'm not. Good. Good. Glad we're agreed on that. But I suppose here's maybe where I might differ from you and get the sense I'm not going to win this argument.

I think it's important that we distinguish between what the church commands, encourages and forbids. Okay. The church doesn't command Catholics pray the Holy Rosary every day, but your language makes it sound like she, it is doing that. Now again, let me finish because I'm glad that you're not nuancing what you're saying because the saints didn't like the champions of the rosary did not nuance the rosary. They're like, Hey, well technically the church doesn't command this. You don't have to. They didn't do that. And I'm glad

they spoke with the kind of passion that they did. And I'm glad that you're speaking with a, with an analogous passion. And yet my fear is that when people gravitate to a particular devotion and it means a great deal to them, that they then talk as if this is essential in that sense of the definition and thereby place burdens on people that the church isn't. And that might be the great scapular, the brown scapular, the divine mercy chapel. There's too many devotions. And if you look at every individual devotion in the West, there's a lot of promises that are usually associated with them. And those who were encouraging that particular devotion certainly didn't talk about that devotion as if it were

optional. Right. And yet it is actually a hundred percent. Okay. So I'll be the first one to say, and I'm so thankful as well. I love you. You're a great listener. I'll be the first one to say so and I'm so thankful. I so I love you. You're a great listener I'll be the first one to say it's not even a venial sin. It's not a sin or The mother of God is not there's no there is no mark against you for not praying the rosary But if the church said that this happened that the mother of God you can believe this that we there's no theological error It does appear that our lady did this and she worked these various signs. It is worth looking at what she suggested. And so this is where my research came in.

So if it's true that the rosary is from Our Lady, then the fruit one, the fruit should be true and the ingredients that make it up should be true. And so the first ingredient that I experience when I pray the rosary is death. Like I don't, I'll be the first one to tell you I do not like to pray the Rosary. Is that still the case? I guess it comes and goes. It comes and goes. I now see the Rosary no longer as a burden. It used to be a big burden for about 10, 15 years of my life. It was a huge burden and I would look at it like I got to get a Rosary done. But now I see it as my path to victory because I recognize now what she's trying to do

She's trying to to kill independent Gabe. So the selfish in you if you sign filled reference I didn't get it, but I like what you said I was trying to kill independent Gabriel Jesus said unless you deny yourself take up your cross and follow me You cannot be my disciple. And so when I pray the Rosary, 195% of the time, I don't want to. I don't. And when I say the Hail Mary's, the angelic salutation, and I pray the Our Father, I'm saying Holy Spirit-inspired words that I notice a difference by the time I'm done, that when I'm driving on my way home from work, and my initial instinct is to

go home, give me some quiet time, let me just veg out for like 30 minutes, I pray the rosary, by the time I get home, something happens inside of me that that selfish guy who only wants reasonable things, just give me some peace and quiet for like 30 minutes, that guy dies. And I hear the voice of God. And by here, I mean a tugging on my heart saying, you know who's also tired? Your wife. You know who needs you?

Your children. And so I go into that house and I say, here I am Lord. This is me carrying my cross. And then it's just so brilliant because you're mixing the most fruitful words in human history, Hail Mary, full of grace, our Father, with meditation on the life of Christ. We'll talk about this more hopefully in a moment,

about how to meditate well using mental prayer, the way Teresa of Avila, the way St. Alphonsus, the way St. Francis of Sales, the way Ignatius, all the greatest doctors of the church promoted to meditate in this one way that I just learned in the past year. That's why I no longer see the rosary so much as a cross that I have to carry.

So the ingredients appear to me to be perfect. Their meditation on the life of Christ, there's a saying, grace remembered is a grace renewed. By me meditating upon the Eucharist, meditating upon Pentecost on a regular basis, the graces of Pentecost, the fervor of the first discipleship is stirred up in me. But then also the fruit that I've seen. So I mentioned that I taught Catholic

school and I'm still friends with many of those kids. I would say 70% of them left the Catholic Church. At my high school youth group, and we have one of the best high school youth groups in the entire city of Houston, and Houston's amazing, so it's probably the best in all of Texas. And Texas is incredible, no offense, but it's probably the best in the entire United States. We have confession available every Sunday. I don't have a dog in the fight, no being from here, so I'll just agree with you. So I'll tell you why it's great. One, we have great speakers, we have confession available every single Sunday for an hour

and 20 minutes for any kid who wants to go. The lines are always to the wall. We have Eucharistic adoration every single Sunday. It's incredible. But even in that fertile environment where sacraments and the Gospels bring proclaimed full-throatedly, I would say 70 to 80 percent of those kids do not keep the Catholic faith. The majority of my friends who have been to Catholic school, K through 12, in recent times, they would say out of 70 or 100 kids,

five or 10 keep the Catholic faith. So it's not for lack of catechesis. What do you mean by keep the Catholic faith? You mean intentionally seek after holiness? They frequent the sacrament of confession and receive Holy Communion in the state of grace. Got you. Like have some objective hope to be in heaven. Yeah.

If we're going by the church's objective standards. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the 30% to 20% that keep it, like of my students that are really good, I ask them, do you guys pray at home as a family? And they say, yeah. I was like, what do you guys pray as a family? It's like, well, my mom and my dad make us pray the rosary. And I say, okay, do you like it?

And they say, no, not really. I was like, me neither. Just checking. Yeah. Family rosary is very difficult for me, but I, so I do not, I do not ever demand it or require it, but I will say I have seen hundreds, maybe a thousands of conversions and testimonials from people who have taken the rosary into their own life. And that was the breakthrough that they needed.

And in, in it's partially that it's a regimen. So I'm friends with Father Ripperger. He says that he puts people who have diabolical obsessions on a protocol that requires morning prayer, 6 a.m., prayer at noon, prayer in the evening, very regimented because it builds discipline. So partially because to pray the rosary like that requires a great discipline. But on top of that, you're invoking the mother of God. On top of that, that's the spouse of the Holy Spirit. You're invoking the mother of God. On top of that, that's

the spouse of the Holy Spirit. You're invoking the Mediatrix of all grace. You're spending your entire day with Christ in mental prayer. So it's not required, but it's darn fruitful. Yeah. Yeah. If when you look at the saints and their great love and promotion of the rosary, I think humility requires that we go, okay, maybe I don't get it, but maybe that doesn't matter. So I'll give you a quick witness from my own son. So when he was in about... How many kids do you have? I have four. So I have a 15-year-old, a 12-year-old, a 6-year-old, and a 2.5-year-old. Oh, fantastic.

So I don't... The only prayer that I force upon my high school students is when we do rosary as a group, on our retreats or on the bus. And upon my family, we pray a daily rosary. I don't like it. I'll be completely honest with you. I don't like it. They don't like it. Can I have you expand upon that? And the reason I asked that is because I think a lot of people listening go, well, I don't

really like it either, but I got a feeling that I don't believe you when you say you don't like it. So help me understand just very plain, boring, psychological. Is it just like, and then let me come back to my son after, okay. Cause yeah, cause his testimony is very important to me. So when I'm at home and I've begun to relax, it is human nature to want to continue to relax,

to call together my, to be as the father, I'm the one who has to do this. To be the one to say to my family, first to say to myself, and you probably can relate to this again, like, Hey everybody, I know you're all doing what you really enjoy doing and you're all doing what you want to do. And I was currently doing what I wanted to do. What if we stopped that? We're going to stop that. I'm going to give you a nice little warning as if you had a choice. You have got about in 10 or 20 minutes, we're going to

pray the rosary and then 20 minutes comes by and I do it starting. I'm being completely candid. I hope nobody judges me. This is just me. I'm kind of like, here we go. My wife, great woman. She's the same way we're doing it. We're being obedient to father.

My kids aren't fighting with me because I've raised them in obedience, et cetera. My son will kneel down with me. My middle daughter, she'll sit and she'll kneel down for her decade. My six year old will lay on the couch. My two year old will run in circles, pull people's rosaries. I'm so glad. My wife. I'm so glad no one's levitating.

Nobody, nobody, nobody. But I'll tell you what happens. Around the third or fourth decade, something happens and my wife and I look at each other and we're like, thanks be to God we're doing this. This is the first time. So true, this is the first time nobody's looking at a screen. This is the first time nobody's has an agenda for themselves. And we're together as a family trying our best to follow God. And just because it doesn't feel good doesn't mean it's not fruitful. And I can see that difference in my children because I don't know about people who homeschool, but if you have a kid who goes on average,

goes to public school or goes to private Catholic school, the fact that they're in Catholic school does not mean that they're gonna keep the faith. I have seen it time and time again, and I know this is true for my own family, that when you get the children to say, Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death, even if they don't mean it,

even if they're saying it half-heartedly, that child has Mary as their mother. And although they might leave your house and forget about her, she won't forget about them. And at the hour of their death, those 50 times 365 days times 10 years of their life, they will not, I don't believe that they will go to hell because all those Hail Marys are going to come upon them and the Mother of God is going to

rescue them. So you're doing four a day. I'm doing more than that, but I'll tell you about my son real quick. So my son was struggling. He was about the fourth or fifth grade. He was having trouble at school, just growing pains emotionally, whatever. He comes to me and he's like, dad, I'm struggling. And I said, well, we'll get you counseling. We'll take you to a counselor, but something that you should consider, try praying four rosaries a day. Like consider it. Like I'm not going to force you.

I'm not going to check on you, but consider it. He's been praying four rosaries a day since he was in the fourth or fifth grade. Holy mackerel. And, and he is a good, he is a good kid. He's not perfect. I'm not perfect. He's not going to be, you know, he is my child. So he's got his own quirks and austen, whatever the word is, weirdnesses. But he's a wonderful young man and I'm very proud of him. And I'm not worried about him whatsoever.

And I let him hang out with the kids in our youth group whose parents don't shelter them. And I have seen, I've just seen it, that if you have four pillars in your spiritual life in families, these four pillars our lady gave at Fatima to Sister Lucia after the other two shepherd children died. She called them the first Saturday devotion, which is confession, 15 minutes meditating with the Blessed Sacrament, praying the rosary, receiving Holy Communion. If you have confession, adoration, rosary, and Eucharist, in some part of your family's life, I've just seen your children are going to be great.

Like the power of the sacraments, the power of Our Lady's promises, I just have no doubt, I've never seen it go wrong. And people have told me, well, aren't you afraid that by forcing your children to pray the rosary that you're gonna drive them away from the Catholic faith and in all honesty I can say from a clear conscience my experience is if they don't pray the rosary they're destined to leave the Catholic faith I even had two I had one gentleman come up to me who became well it would be one thing if you were demanding that your son pray his rosary no no no no no no, no, no, no never right?

That's never that's different. Yeah, I don't push it on anybody. I'm not my own children on my wife or anybody I just propose yeah And I say are you open to trying it and I always help people try it for seven days a lot of times because Many people again father ripper juror. I'm friends with other exorcist They would they would argue that one in three people suffer from a diabolical obsession Just for the listeners context, you already know. This is where you have an obsessive thought. Maybe it's about lust, maybe it's about self-harm or self-hatred or a depression.

It feels almost as if you're trying to drive the car of your life and there's another outside force trying to grab the wheel and lead you where you don't want to go. So he would say that, Fatheripper George say one in three, I would argue maybe it's one in two, because I'm not working with college Catholic university students, I'm working with run of the mill, daily public school kids. Yeah.

So I would say maybe one in two, I would say the majority of them have addictions to pornography, a lot of them are doing drugs. And when somebody begins to pray four, sometimes their obsession will get worse. Like they'll say, man, I started praying the rosary and it brought more curses on my life. My life was bad. Now it's miserable. You've met people who've said that.

Oh, oh, oh, a lot of people. I just got a testimonial from a man whose wife had a diabolical obsession. He just sent me this in an email the other day. His wife had a diabolical obsession. She was watching me this in an email the other day. His wife had a diabolical obsession. She was watching ghost stories. She stopped frequenting the sacraments. She had an aversion to the sacred. She felt like God hated her.

I told him, do you want to save her? I can't promise you it's going to work, but I've seen success. If you do a 54 day novena of four roedries a day, he said, towards the end of the novena, his wife randomly out of nowhere went to confession. She came back, did a 33 day consecration to the Virgin Mary, began wearing the miraculous medal. And now this is just within the past two months.

Now she prays four rosaries a day every single day and goes to the blessed sacrament frequently. So it works when people are desperate. When you've got a problem, Our Lady will rescue you. So I have found in families like that, I even had somebody who I think also went to university here. He said, Gabe, I disagree with you. My father made us pray the rosary every single day. My mom left the family and I hated that he made us pray it.

And I said, tell me about your life. He's like, well, I'm becoming a priest. And your brother? Well, he made us pray it. And I said, tell me about your life. He's like, well, I'm becoming a priest. And your brother? Well, he's also a priest. I was like, do you understand to have two vocations in one family is not normal? Do you understand to have two vocations

in a family with one parent is not normal? If it made you despise the Virgin Mary, maybe it's because your mom left the family and not because the mother of God was being invoked in your house on a regular basis. I, if I were you, I would take a careful look and say, perhaps the only reason you and your brother have vocations is because of the mother of God protecting you.

So definitely, definitely do not impose whatsoever. I personally believe that it needs to come in prayer because you can go to one of my talks or one of my watch one of my videos. And if you say, Gabe told me I should do this, it's not going to stick. But if in prayer, you genuinely imagine using mental prayer, I hope we can talk about mental prayer. It's so powerful in mental prayer. You look at the eyes of the Virgin Mary and she says, my son, my daughter, try this for

seven days. And if she says that and it, my daughter, try this for seven days. And if she says that and it touches your heart, it's not just here. It goes here. Got to try it. Now I want to talk about the luminous mystery. So I've seen you talk about it actually. I'm very passionate about this. I am.

Well, first of all, is it the 1962 missile? The kind of the regular Latin mass? I don't go to land mass, but that kind of missile has this section on the rosary. Yes. And it says that here's what the rosary is. It's the five mysteries. It's the Alpha of the 10 Hail Marys. And anything in addition to that

is not specifically part of the rosary, which made me so happy. I don't know if you've heard me talk about this. Yeah, no, me too. Piety spool. Oh my gosh, get out of my house, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Let's get it done, baby.

I like to get it done as well. I don't know where I was going with that. But the luminous mysteries, many people will say, that's yeah, if the mother of God gave the rosary, it was perfect the way she gave it. How are you going to have a pope, especially John Paul the second suggest we do more suggest is the right is the key word. So the premise that they're suggesting is that the mother of God gave the rosary a specific way and therefore it's perfect. That's a false premise. So when the Virgin Mary appeared to St. Dominic and said, preach my Psalter, a reference to

the 150 Psalms, which people may have already been using 150 beads to pray Hail Mary's at that time, the Hail Mary was only the first half. Mason Yeah, no, that's so true. And that's nobody has a problem with that. He was a pope. So if your premise is John Paul II shouldn't add anything to something that is perfect, why are you just giving pious the past? Yeah, right. That's a false premise. Right.

Because he doubled it. Right, and then when you take into account the fact that John Paul II said, here's a suggestion, don't have to do it, but you know, and it's beautiful. Yes, and he's a- No, honest question, because as somebody who's now an Eastern Catholic who loves praying

the Jesus prayers and loves incorporating my breath, the rosary would be much more enjoyable if I just got to pray that first half. And when I preached about it and I talk about the power of the words, Hail Mary, full of grace, those words in the importance of the incarnation would be more present. You know what I mean? If you're constantly just saying that first half, the incarnation would be more present upon my mind. And I think Protestants, there's no way you could deny that it's not 100% scripture.

But I personally believe that the Holy Father, Pius V, was a very saintly man. He won the Battle of Lepanto through his promotion of the Rosary. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for me a sinner now and at the hour of my death is very reminiscent of the Jesus prayer. He just tacked on a whole nother prayer to my Hail Mary. Fine. But I think that it was a wise and prudent decision that he made under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. What would you say to somebody who said, I agree with you and yet I'm going to stick to the original Rosary and I just pray the first half? Go for it.

But let me, let me go for it. Do what you want. But I think the mother of God honors the papacy. Yeah, yeah. No, it's a good point. I like your point that if you're going to have beef with John Paul II, you ought to have. Right.

And I, as you, like when you mentioned John Paul II, my heart fluttered because I believe he was a mystic. He wasn't perfect. He was human just like all of us. And if you look at what the luminous mysteries are, I had mentioned earlier that a grace remembered is a grace renewed. And the aspects of the life of Christ that John Paul II is encouraging us to meditate upon are the exact problems we have in the church.

We have a major crisis of baptized unbelievers. We have a major crisis in the sacrament of Holy Matrimony and the belief of the Mother of God as a Mediatrix and Intercessor. We have a major crisis in preaching what Christ preached was the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe in the gospel. We have a major crisis in the divinity of Christ, which is a transfiguration because philosophers don't glow dazzling white and fly in the sky. And we have a major crisis in the Eucharist and in the priesthood. And so John Paul II is giving us a solution to the problems of our day. And I will say again, from experience,

miracles that have happened, I've witnessed so many miracles. I'll just give you one that happened recently. So there was a woman who approached me at a Catholic date night. It's an event we have at St. Teresa's. She came up to me and she said, Gabriel, I do not like you.

And I said, I'm sorry, you're not the first. And I was like, is there something that I did wrong? She's like, you were constantly promoting four rosaries. Don't you know that luminous is the Illuminati? And if you divide four by whatever number, it's 6666. And I was like, I'm like, you are why we can't have nice things, woman. And I was like, so why, I'm sorry, like I can't help it.

I was just enjoying my dinner here. And she's like, but I want you to know, I had ulcers, I had styes, I had all sorts of stress related health issues. And I heard you say, try the four rosaries. And the first day that I prayed the fourth rosary, all my health issues miraculously went away. And I've had time and time again, where somebody was praying for an important intention, some people cured of cancer, after they've prayed their fourth rosary.

I had several seminarians that I'm friends with or that have shared their testimony with me. They were going to leave their vocation because of desolation, which everybody knows spirituality. You don't make a decision in times of desolation, but they were going to. And somebody challenged them to pray an ovena of four rosaries a day, and at the end of their fourth rosary, an outpouring of graces came upon them. They had a sense of the presence of Mary, and they are holy and faithful. Some of them are now priests, some of them are continuing their vocation.

So although it's not necessary, I will say that from experience, Our Lady honors it. No, yeah, I'm in agreement with you about the beauty of the luminous mysteries. My concern though is that sometimes in encouraging it, it does sound like a mandate. Right, well, I have to be, I'm the promoter, I gotta be to the far right. I can't be promoting it right down the middle. Yeah, all right.

Because if I shoot my arrow over here, I might get you halfway. But if I shoot halfway, I might just get you a quarter of the way. So when you asked, do I pray for, I pray more than four because I have to be so convicted that this is powerful that in order for me to be that convicted, I have to be doing more. And so when a man comes up to me and says to me, Gabriel, I don't have time to pray for, I can look at him in the eye and say, that's nonsense. And then he said, what do you mean? I was like, wake up 30 minutes earlier. It's complete nonsense. Of course wake up 30 minutes early and we spend doom scrolling and

On your way home from work on your way to work So wake up 30 minutes earlier on your way to work on your way home from work before bed with your family I haven't impacted a single thing in your life. I just made you stop listening to talk radio I haven't impacted a single thing in your life. I just made you stop listening to talk radio. So, but I can say that with like a firm wall thing, you're full of it because I'm doing more than you. But I'm not doing, but again, it's not, I need it. I need it.

I am the worst and the most sinful of all men. I am. So why don't you pray the seven sorrows of our lady Rosary? I do. I pray to a day. And why don't you do more? Why? Cause I need it. And why don't you pray the seven sorrows of our rosary? I do. Every day? I pray two a day. Why don't you do more? Why?

Because I need it. And why don't you do more? So I just have discerned a certain, well, one, I think it all depends on your season of life. So there are certain seasons where I pray more. There are certain seasons when I have big things coming up that I sacrifice more for because I'm desperate. The point I'm getting at is there's a, I think it was Escriva. It may not have been.

I can't find it online, so I'm going to claim it soon if no one can find it. There are many treasuries within the, many devotions within the church's treasury. Choose only a few and be faithful to them. I like that a lot. I think there's a lot of wisdom in it. I love that. I love that. I'm with you because I get really irritated with people and they're like, purple rosary,

purple scapular, green scapular, black scapular, no. And so how do I personally differentiate which devotions to get? At Fatima, which is the largest, most popular apparition, there was a vision in the sky, according to Sister Lucia, that Our Lady appeared as Our Lady of Mount Carmel. She said to Sister Lucia, I am Our Lady of the Rosary. She had an image of Saint Joseph and an I am Our Lady of the Rosary. She had an image of St. Joseph

and an image of Our Lady of Sorrows. So those are my major devotions. So it sounds like a lot of this comes to discerning, probably with the help of a Holy Spiritual Father, what your prayer rule ought to be. Yes. And I recommend above all, learn the steps to mental prayer. I want to get to that. I want to have a break before yeah

Let's do that. But before we do how do you even hold that rosary? It's way too. I love this bad boy I know I can't even put it in my pocket. I have to carry it on my belt I joke with people because I'm from Texas. I open carry. Yeah, and I double give us a look So you double fist so like I have I have a rosary on my belt. I have a rosary on my pinky. So it's like I'm an old West cowboy. I got little pistols everywhere. That's beautiful, man. Thank you.

All right, let's take a break. Let's do it. We'll come back. I want to tell you about Hello, which is the number one downloaded prayer app in the world. It's outstanding. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. Sign up over there right now

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to be each other's accountability partners and things like that. Strive21, that's Strive21.com slash Matt, or as I say, text Strive strive to six, six, eight, six, six to get started today. You won't regret it. What can you talk about? So your wife did a very good job evangelizing about carnivore. I know. If only we were as passionate about Christ and our lady as carnival people are as passionate as carnival. So when I was growing up, I got on medication for attention deficit disorder when I was like in the second grade and they did a lot of food testing before and they were saying that I'm allergic to these various foods and the reaction that I'm having is mental and

emotional and so it's making me have brain fog and all these things. And so I had to go to school in the first grade with a thermos of like beans and tuna fish. And of course I got made fun of because I was a little kid at a public school with my thermos and my beans and tuna fish. And so I opted for taking Ritalin and Adderall up until I was like 30 years old. Really? Yeah. And then I began to become addicted to the Adderall. I was taking more and more to have the same effect Yeah, so I'd be taking like 30 milligrams three times a day, which is a lot of Adderall and it was Barely having the same impact but it was making me

More edgy and so if you look at my early YouTube videos, I you might say that I'm like edgy now But my early YouTube videos, I'm very bitter Angry, it seems like I'm likegy now, but in my early YouTube videos, I'm very bitter and angry. And it seems like I'm like, what is this guy angry about? But it was because I was going through withdrawals from Adderall. And so I gave it up, slowly worked my way out of it, got rid of all my medication,

but I knew in my heart that diet was the answer. And when I would eat certain foods, mainly foods that were made by human hands in factories, in packaging, in boxes. And again, I didn't want to really keep that diet so I used intermittent fasting. Yeah. Spiritually, for spiritual reasons, also for health reasons. And then I would eat at night and then I could become a vegetable and go to sleep and all these things. But then when Cameron talked about her venture

into carnivore and how that impacted- Yeah, this is just recently. Autoimmune stuff. Yeah, I know, I've only been doing carnivore since like January 1st. Okay. I was like, I've got to try this. Okay.

I've got to try this. And mental clarity, I'll tell you right now, mental clarity- It's remarkable. Through the roof. It's too much clarity sometimes. Too much. Now I'm off it now. I did it in January. And it's funny.

I went back to normal food and I lost that mental clarity, but I didn't care because the bread just tastes so good. I miss bread. I miss bananas. I miss peanut butter. So my question for you is when she travels, like she all went to Austria, how did she fare on the plane? Did you take steaks with you? What did you do? Yeah. So we took, she did a lot of chips, like meat chips that she put

in the oven and we just ate meat the whole way. But what's funny is now we're in Austria, she's tried to open up her diet to a few things. Some things have worked. So she's incorporated berries from time to time. So blueberries in full fat, you know, yogurt with nothing else in it. But then she tried to have a glass of wine, okay? Messed her up. A whole week. Oh my gosh. She was destroyed.

Yeah. And I'm someone, I have a lot of compassion on my wife. I love her. I want her to be happy, but I'm like, don't ever do that again. Please just eat the meat. Right. So she hasn't gone off. It's been like six months and then we bought a whole cow in Austria, butchered it, not a live cow. No, she's terrific. She's off all of her meds.

And do you think that this is something she's gonna do long-term for the rest of her life? I think it's going to have to be. And I'm sad to say that, but there's also a part of me that's like, but babe, like I need you. And I don't need to tell her that. She knows that being in pain is worse

than just eating meat. So you need her to be able to be a providing member of the family. It's been three years of brutality. I mean, she's months, there'll be days she'll just wake up, she can't leave her chair. She can't wake up. I mean she does She's very self-motivated cleric individual. She gets up. She puts in an effort, but it she's always and she's always been in pain always

But these last I said this on the show a month in carnivore She started losing weight and I was getting really nervous because she does not need to lose weight. I want to fat actually. Yes But I'd say two or three months in I touched touched her leg. I'm like, honey, you're getting muscle. She just, she looks good and, and she's not working out. She's just eating meat and she looks like she's working out. I was doing carnivore and I was, so when I started, I was a little bit underweight because I'd been doing a lot of fasting. And so I was like, I'm going to do carnivore straight for like two weeks. I gained weight and I was like,

so I was like 155, 156, 157 fluctuating between there. And then when I did carnivore straight, my weight went up to like 163 and it stayed there consistently. So I think that if you're trying to lose weight, I don't know this for a fact, but it feels like if you're trying to lose weight and you need to lose weight,

carnivore will bring you to where you should be optimally. And if you're underweight and you're doing carnivore, I think it's going to bring you to where you need to be optimally. So I do, I do meat, cheese, eggs and berries, but I'm doing too many berries. Like I'm in confession of sin here. I'm eating like 50% berries, two cartons of strawberries, two cartons of blueberries. No, it's, it's, it's really amazing. And you know, video. Yeah. And usually on videos, any kind of video, you've got people pushing back, being upset, being critical. If you go to that, I think we've got over a thousand comments.

Yes. And they're all saying the same thing. It's like what you just said about the rosary. Like, here's what I know. When I do it, this happens. And then people come in and they say the same thing happened. So all these comments are like, I had this wrong with me, that wrong with me. I started eating meat. It's every video on carnivore. The comments are the greatest testimonial. Like people are like, I was,

cause there's old people who are like, I don't want to have cholesterol problems. So like, I was 78 and dying and now I'm like looking like I'm, my body's not stood. So did you do that to help you with ADD to help help me with ADD, mental clarity, yeah. And has it worked? Yeah, well, I'm- Has it continued to work? It seems like it's sharp. I feel, I feel.

Do you plan on using this long term? I want to start adding things back, but I don't know what to add back. Like I toyed with bananas and apples just because I love peanut butter. I don't know why. Oh my gosh, peanut butter's the best. I know, I loved it. But then I would notice- Especially with then I would notice I would wake up and I would like have puffy eyes. And so I'd be like, I know that it's causing some inflammation. So I'm discerning. It's a work in progress.

I think that's it. Now I'm not an expert. My wife knows a lot more on this and she's not an expert. But I think it's just that food that causes inflammation. And then when you cut out everything but beef, you're no longer having inflammation. Like right now my elbow is hurting. And I can't, I was at the gym today, I couldn't do many pull-ups. And I know that if I- Was doing carnivore, you wouldn't be hurting?

Yeah, I know that. And yeah, I kind of don't care. That's kind of like sin. That's kind of like me when I was taking my Adderall. I was like, I'll just give me the pills. I'll eat whatever I want. I got questions about Adderall and this sort of stuff. Cause I'm quite sure I have ADD.

And here's why. And I don't really- I'm not gonna diagnose you. I don't know what ADD is. I don't really know what ADD is. So you can help me. A lot of the time it feels like there's a million trains of thought going through my head at once.

And it's hard to kind of connect to one. But then when I get really into something, I get so into that thing. It's like, it freaks everybody around me out. That's one thing. The other thing is if I go to like a mall or something like that, I get exhausted really quickly

because there's too much to look at. And my brain, it's like it can't process or zero in on this information. So I've shared that with someone and they say, well, it might be ADD. So I tried one of these, Ritalin or whatever. I don't know what I tried, but I tried it. And it had a similar effect to drinking like too much coffee.

Like I was just zoned in, right. But in a way that I didn't like now, I might because of the dosage or whatever. What's your like recommendation for people? How did you on carnivore? I mean, it's fantastic. But did you have with your with were all the That's a really good question. I remember on. Okay, so Aquinas in the, I'm going to get to it. Aquinas in the Sumer gives three benefits for fasting. And one is that it allows us to contemplate God. And this is a natural way of viewing that benefit.

And that is to say, I think when we're eating crap, bread, soda, whatever else, our body spends so much time just trying to process crap that we can't recall things as quickly, we can't think through things. You get rid of all that junk and the brain has a lot more energy to be focused on. So I noticed that recalling things was a lot easier. I remember being like really aware of that. Like, wow, I just, I'm not usually that quick. And I know it was cause I was just eating meat.

Yeah. That was the, but I don't know about the ADD stuff. I don't know. Cause ID stuff. I don't know. Because maybe you do, or maybe you just have food sensitivities. Whenever I talk to people about carnivore, those who do it, like swear by it, but then those who don't,

they're like, you're crazy. Because what really stood out to me was the podcast, some guy was like, plants are trying to kill you. And I was like, wait a second, what are you talking about? Plants are trying to kill me. And he was this guy.

And I don't know how true it is. So maybe I'm just spouting ignorance, but I think it kind of makes sense that if you go outside and you eat any leaves or grass, you're going to get sick because the grass and the leaves are trying to protect themselves. So they have toxins that they release, but they want you to eat their berries because that's how they thrive. And so berries that have seed bearing plants that are going to spread, if you eat them, they want you to eat them so they taste good and they're good for you. So I know Jordan Peterson was, is on the carnivore diet. He had a lot of psoriasis and skin issues when he gave up leafy greens, all of his skin

issues went away. So it's like, I don't, I don't, I believe in it. I personally believe in it because I've seen the effects, but at the same time, I don't necessarily want everybody to do it because then the cost of meat is going to go up and it's going to make it more difficult for my lifestyle. But if you're struggling with mental clarity, skin issues, autoimmune disease, joint problems like your wife, like seriously try it. Has your wife noticed a difference?

Um, I don't know. Is she joining you in this endeavor? I've got a lot, she does not support me in this endeavor. No, but this is what I love so much, I love my wife for many reasons. But one of the greatest things about my wife is that she allows me to do all the things that I believe God is calling me to do. Even when that sounds like never eating a broccoli or an asparagus or a Brussels sprout for the rest of my life. Now, I will say this.

About a month into doing carnivore, I had people saying, you look thin, but the way they said it, it was not in a good way. People tell me that too. You look sick. You don't look sick. You look good. No, I feel good. And a lot of people who tell me that are overweight. So I think I actually look sick. It don't look sick. You look good. No, I feel good. And a lot of people who tell me that are overweight. Oh, so I think I actually look sick. It might be a transition time. You look at your wife and you think, man, you're looking good. She looks great. Yeah. Now, but what was funny was I got to a point where I got really sick of meat.

Oh, man. Tell me about it. Oh, okay. So let me flesh this out and you tell me flesh this out. No pun intended. No pun intended. This is fun. This is a beautiful one. I would fast all day. Yeah. And then around 3 p.m. my wife and I would drive, and we'd get this glorious steak. Oh man. And in the beginning, I'm sucking the cartilage, I'm chewing the fat, it was beautiful.

But one day we went, and I was just like, oh, I can't do it, I can't do it. I think that's why I started losing weight in a bad way, because I wasn't eating any food. All of my signals, when to eat was messed up. And I would say even up until now, I'm a little, the smell of mince meat, it really turns me off.

I'm hoping to get over this quickly cause I would like to get back to that. Right, so were you doing berries? No, not at the time. So this is the key. So sugar makes you hungry. And so if you have some berries before dinner time, you're going to turn into an animal

and you're going to want that beef big time. Cause I noticed that. Cause I was like, I'll have berries. Normally what happens with me is I eat steak or hamburger, whatever it is, or eggs. And then I'm like, ah, too much grease, too much grease, too much fat. And then so I'm like downing trays of strawberries. And then afterwards I'm starving again because of the sugar. Interesting. So keep that in mind. If you're, if you're ever struggling to make yourself want to eat because you're not hungry anymore, because beef doesn't have that effect on you. And the reason why beef is so good for you if you have a lot of autoimmune issues is because cows have multiple stomachs with which they process all of these toxins that they

are eating. They do it for you. They do it for you because your stomach doesn't have that same ability. But I will say that during those times I would just eggs and cheese. Yes. Okay. Eggs and cheese. Just can turn of eggs and cheese worked for me Do a medical advice disclaimer for me, please says Thursday We are not advising that anybody do this speak to your doctor before trying anything like everything I've ever learned. I've learned on YouTube Technologically and medically we're not suggesting you do that. I'm not

Fantastic now earlier you want to talk about mental prayer. Yes, you said this is something you've gotten into the last But we're not suggesting you do that. I'm not suggesting you do that either. Fantastic. Now, earlier you wanted to talk about mental prayer. Yes, mental prayer. You said this is something you've gotten into the last years. Oh my goodness. It is the game changer. What is mental prayer? So it's the game changer.

It is. So, you know, people say the greatest attack of the devil is to make people believe the devil doesn't exist, which is obviously false because I believe that the devil existed and I was not living the commandments afterwards. Yeah. The devil's biggest attack on the church and on society is to keep people from mental prayer. So I had no idea. I went through a large like year-long dryness, interior desolation, and I knew I was missing something.

There was like some piece of my spiritual life that was missing and through a couple of chain of events it turned out that some of my friends were like, oh, we just did this thing called mental prayer. It was very fruitful. And I was like, imagination, I'm not doing that. That sounds so effeminate. I'm like, you keep your imagination to yourself. But then I was researching it because these seminarian friends of mine had gone to the Institute for priestly formation and they were like telling me, they're like, you won't believe this. I spent the day with the Lord and me and him are friends I'm like that doesn't sound extraordinary to me you're friends with the Lord that's what you're

supposed to be but they were talking about an experience with God that they really believed happened and it happened in here and in here and it was so real that they were acting different and then so I went and researched it and I looked up Teresa of Avila because she's a doctor of prayer and she said the devil knows when a soul has begun mental prayer that he has lost that soul forever. And then another quote she said, which really took me off guard. She said, those who do not practice mental prayer have no need of demons because they

cast themselves into hell. And then I looked at, okay, well, there's got to be other doctors of the church who've talked about this. St. Alphonsus says, every saint was made a saint through mental prayer. Without mental prayer, you will not be able to overcome your sins. St. Francis de Sales, St. John of the Cross, all of the great saints were using the word mental prayer and meditation interchangeably. And so when I heard meditation, I thought, think of a picture.

Think of a picture, okay, there's Mary with the baby Jesus. Okay, I got it in my head. But that's not what they meant. So I have boiled it down to three steps that if you do this, according to Teresa of Avila, mental prayer is the gateway to all the higher forms of prayer that when darkness enters the soul, which it happens to every individual, even devout people, there's an interior darkness that can settle in, that you can't seem to shake, that's like really can be crippling. The ordinary means of removing interior darkness from the soul is mental prayer. So I didn't have this in my life, and when I was reading this, I was like, this is what I've been missing. And once learning mental prayer, before when I was praying,

it was like I was squeezing oranges a lot just to get a single drop of juice. But with mental prayer, even on a bad day, when I use these steps promoted by Teresa of Avila, St. Francis de Sales, St. Alphonsus, even a bad day of mental prayer was more fruitful than no mental prayer whatsoever. Before you get to the steps, can you give us a quick definition of what it means? So mental prayer is essentially using your interior faculties.

So you and I are talking to each other, we're using our eyes, we're using our mouth, but God does not communicate exteriorly. He communicates interiorly. And you and I have two essential interior faculties. So we have our will, our heart, our emotions. If we didn't, if that's all we had, you and I would just do whatever feels good. We also have an intellect, our rationality, our imagination, our intuition, our intellect informs our will.

So I have to engage God in my intellect, in my imagination, and that's where he's going to communicate. And sometimes he'll communicate directly to the will. But ordinarily, I get I engage God in my intellect, in my imagination, and that's where he's gonna communicate, and sometimes he'll communicate directly to the will, but ordinarily, I get him to talk to my heart by using my intellect and my imagination and encountering him there. And so Teresa of Avila, when she says, the devil knows that he's lost you,

when you do mental prayer, it's because the devil's primary attack on you and on me, at least for the majority of my life, was in my intellect. I would sin by imagining, by lusting, by going... I'd have panic attacks and anxiety attacks because of the things that I was entertaining in my mind. Sins of my past, worries about the future, were keeping me from God right here, right now, in the present moment. And so what Teresa of Avila, and this is a difficulty because when I try to teach this, some people will say, all the doctors are saying this is necessary.

And I have so many quotes from so many saints about the necessity of mental prayer. Some people will say, I can't use my imagination. I don't have that ability, which is completely false. Like if I were to say, imagine the face of your wife, Cameron, anybody who's ever seen her could use her imagination to imagine what she looks like. We could do it. Maybe we're not good at it. Maybe it's not always clear, but that act of the will,

that using of your imagination impacts your heart a little bit. It makes you think of her, makes you love her. So that's one big area that a lot of people will push back on, using your imagination to encounter Christ who is present. Now, you may be getting to this, but I think another thing people would push back on is like, surely this could also be dangerous. It's not always the case that what I'm imagining comes from the Lord. Right. I might be deceived. Yes, 100%.

So then the basics of discernment of spirits are when it is the Lord, in the words of Teresa of Avila, when he speaks, he acts. So you could be in a moment of trauma and interior darkness and you could be saying to yourself, Matt, God is with you. And we do, we say this to ourselves. God loves me. The blessed mother's with me. My guardian angel's with me.

And you say these things over and over again. Be at peace. God is with me. And you say these things over and over, be at peace. God is with you, God is peace. And you know that's you by what's going on here. But when the voice of the Lord comes upon you and he says, my son, Matt, I love you, be at peace, you feel it here and here. And it flows through you because when God speaks, he acts. And so it's very important for everybody so that we're not, you know, being pulled around

by lies, that we discern all the movements. And even you could be, and people tell me this, I was doing a mental prayer and Jesus was yelling at me and he was telling me that I'm ugly. And I said, well, how did that make your soul feel? Ashamed, dirty? I was like, then whose voice is that? He's dressing up as Christ. But according to many of the great saints, is that when you start to do this type of prayer, it is the safest place to encounter Christ. So again, to sum it up,

mental prayer is, you talked about imagination and will. Right. So it's a framework, it's a step process by which you encounter Christ. If you encounter Christ in step one, you don't need step two and three. If you encounter Christ in step two, you don't need step three. So it's a framework, it's a set of systematic guidelines to encounter Christ in the safest, most fruitful place possible, which is the Gospels. The Gospel, encountering Christ in the Gospels, you trying to use your imagination to encounter Christ in the Gospels brings the power of the Holy Spirit, you're in a safe place. The devil, the flies do not land on boiling water, and the Gospels are boiling water. And when you invoke your guardian angel and you invoke the Holy Spirit to come upon you,

you're surrounding yourself in the safest place for prayer. Is it possible to be deceived? It's possible, but you will know it in your soul, because God doesn't want you to be deceived. Those who are deceived only want to be deceived. The devil only steals those who want to be stolen, because God is good. And if I want to encounter him,

he's not going to hide behind a devil, maybe for some rare trial. But God wants to speak to every single one of his children. Amen. So that's good. So there's three basic steps and I'll share them with you. And you can do this. Oh my gosh, it is so powerful if you do this at Mass. It is so powerful if you do this before the Blessed Sacrament. It's so powerful if you do this at any prayer, transforms everything. The first one, you and I already discussed, make an act of faith in the presence of God. Make an act of faith saying, Lord Jesus, Son of the living

God, I believe you are here with me. I believe you're holding me into existence. I believe that I'm a member of the body of Christ. I believe I'm a temple of the Holy Spirit. I believe you're here. That's a prayer. That's a prayer. Sometimes if you're going to have a long prayer session, I would recommend saying, Holy Spirit, help me to pray. Saint Michael, guardian angel, wrap your wings of protection around my mind and my heart so that I won't be distracted. But if you're working, all you have to say is, Lord Jesus, son of God, I believe you're here.

Step one, make an act of faith. What you're saying is what the saints have also emphasized, placing yourself in the presence of God. And Teresa makes a big deal about this as she ought to, right? Often we just talk to God like he's either not there or not worthy of all of our worship and honor. And so if you make an act of faith in the presence of God and all of a sudden you're overwhelmed with his presence, talk to him there.

The goal of prayer is communication. Talk to him. Let him speak to you. She recommends St. Francis de Sales recommends this too. And this is what really caught me off guard is that they said the ordinary means of meditation is to visualize the person and the scene as if you're present there. So let's say you go to pray. You're like, okay, I'm gonna do my evening prayers. Lord, I believe you're really here. Don't feel it. I don't feel like you're here. Then I go to the next step.

So let's pretend like we're praying the third joyful mystery, the birth of the child Jesus in Bethlehem. You imagine the child Jesus as a real fat baby in your arms and you're looking into his eyes and you just look to the best of your ability. Maybe you can't see his face, but you can see fat baby hands. Anything that touches you in the gospel, it's inspired word of God, focus on that. And when that touches your heart, so step one is active faith in the presence of God. Step two is consideration because what the consideration is doing is it's stirring up

the Holy Spirit in you. So now I'm imagining a fat baby. Is God really present in this room with me? Yes. Am I imagining this baby? I am, but is God present? He is. So now I'm going to talk to Christ this baby. This is step three. So consider the gospel scene as if it's really present. Step three is talk to the baby. Lord God, you are so tender. You are so loving. You are so merciful. My wife is suffering terribly.

I beg of you, give her some comfort, give her some relief. And then you look at the eyes of the Blessed Mother. Blessed Mother, you never was it known that anybody who went to you was left unaided. And then you pause. This is what most Catholics do not do. A lot of us, myself included, are afraid to hear what God has to say to us.

And so he doesn't speak. The saints say that God does not want to speak to those who are not willing to listen. And so you say that prayer, whatever's on your heart. This is so important. We have to communicate what's on the soul. Stop playing games. You're bothered about something that you don't feel is fair. Tell baby Jesus, I don't believe this is fair.

You pause. You will let him, if he wants to speak, you can just look at his eyes and be like, don't you trust me? Like you're holding me. I trust you to hold me. Some, he will either move in the heart or an idea will enter the mind that affects the soul or you'll have an overwhelming understanding or you'll just have peace. It takes literally, if you're doing this with your rosary, it takes an extra 20 seconds. And if at the very least you don't hear God, you did a good job of presenting to your imagination

that God loves me so much that he became a child, and he'd be willing to let strangers hold him. So mental prayer, if you do this at Mass, and you, like let's say you guys have a good liturgy, the priest walks up, he says the blessed sacrament, the prayers over the, uh, the host words of consecration lifts the host up. He does it so reverently, so slowly with so much love and fervor. That's a good day at mass. But imagine if you closed your eyes and you imagine what's really happening, you're at the crucifixion, you see the feet of Christ that are crucified. You look up his, his legs,

you see blood dripping down, you look at his chest, barely that are crucified. You look up his legs. You see blood dripping down. You look at his chest, barely able to breathe. You look at his face and you see the heavens have opened up above the altar. Is that your imagination? A hundred percent. Is it really happening? Yes. And the person who receives Holy Communion at a mass where they've opened their heart

to that divine reality receives far more grace than previously available. St. Alphonse says, God rarely answers those who do not do mental prayer. And then when I've pondered that quote, I took that to mean because that's the real God. So is the opposite of this way of praying that you're talking about treating God more like a syllogism than a love affair, Chesterton's kind of idea, right? Where I know the right things to do, I know the right prayers to pray, I know that it's right to do this, but I'm not praying with the heart. I'm not engaging. Yes, this is the prayer of the heart. This is the prayer of the heart to a God who has

a will for me here and now. I think that the biggest... This is why I love the Charismatics. Me too. And this is the biggest problem in the church. We are so easy doing the same stupid things over and over again and getting no results. We're not willing to change. I liken it to if I had financial problems and I went to Dave Ramsey, yeah, Dave Ramsey. I hate getting him confused with Gordon Ramsey because he's like the chef. So if I had financial problems and I was going on Dave Ramsey and I said, these are all my

issues, he would say, we're going to need a major overhaul here, baby. You cannot keep doing the same things you're doing. And the church year after year does the same things over and over again, even though they're not working. And that goes for the faithful as well as the hierarchy. And it really, I believe, comes down to a lack of true authentic prayer where God has the opportunity to speak back to me. This is good. I want to dwell on this for a moment. I believe comes down to a lack of true authentic prayer where God has the opportunity to speak back to me.

This is good. I want to dwell on this for a moment. The reason I just said I love the Charismatics is because it's easy to live a Christian life that looks good enough from the outside, but it's as if God doesn't even exist, that he's not even interested in me here and now. That he loves me here and now. That he has a plan for my life that's very concrete here and now. Whereas the reason I just said I love the Charismatics is these people who they act as if God works now. That he's alive now.

Here's an analogy. Sometimes you'll be on a busy street and there'll be an entertainer right who's got silver paint all over themselves. They pretend to be a statue. And sometimes they look so real that you might even kind of go up to them and look at them. Now, just imagine you think this person's a statue and they move. That reaction is the reaction God wants us to have. And that's his reality. That he's alive.

He's on the move now. I love it. So beautiful. So this is what you're saying that mental prayer helps us. Mental prayer, it helps you because it is God who consoles. It is God who speaks. And if you make decisions well-discerned, God will have you do things that you're not ordinarily going to do. After the apostles met Christ, he said, come follow me.

And he meant that. And on a daily basis, he tells us that to deny ourselves, take up our cross. This is a little scary. Walk over here with me. Let's see what happens if you allow me to live and act through you. I've brought up the Charismatics a lot, so people might think that I'm a very Charismatic individual. I'm also very traditional.

I believe in the Charismatic renewal. They need tradition. They need structure. They need the disciplines of the church. they need structure, they need the disciplines of the church, they need devotional life in the sacramental, the fruit of a beautiful liturgy. It's a both and. You will fail without both and.

But yeah, so mental prayer, it changes everything. So one of the big things- So what were you doing? You said this has revolutionized your prayer life and that you only really discovered this a year ago or so. Now, clearly just from the stories you've shared with me, you've encountered mental prayer in the past. I just didn't know it. Maybe you weren't intentionally doing it. I didn't know the steps.

So what were you doing wrong before that this has changed? If this has revolutionized your prayer life, then you must have been praying a year ago, obviously. So what weren't you doing? So the beautiful thing about the rosary is that a bad rosary is still a rosary because the ingredients are so powerful, even with dryness, even with distraction, just saying, our Father who art in heaven, saying the Hail Mary's over and over again, calling upon the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit. Even if you're so depressed because you lost every member of your family and you prayed

the rosary, you will be a little bit more light after the rosary than you were before, even if you couldn't focus whatsoever because the ingredients are so powerful. And so I would slip in and out of mental prayer not knowing it because I was steadfast on step number one, the practice of the presence of God. But there was so often where I didn't have a sense of God's presence and I didn't know what to do next. Whereas now I know when I don't feel the presence of God, I just need to go to the Gospels and I need to imagine Christ speaking to me as a character or imagine the scenario. It's changed so much.

Now, I think a response some people might have is, I'm afraid that this is weird. Like, yes, I agree with you. I should use my, you know, the Lord works for our imagination. I get all that. But I've also encountered people who say things to me like God told me. I'm pretty sure God didn't tell them that. Even if what they're saying isn't objectively wrong,

they seem like weird people. I don't want to be a weird person. Therefore, it's probably just a lot safer if I stick to what the church has encouraged or mandated and I don't get too involved with this imagination stuff. You can appreciate the pushback. Yeah. 100%.

And so that's where I was at, because I don't let, and I get turned off, like every woman at my church is like a mystic, and then Jesus told me this, and Mary told me this, and I'm having visions of this, and they told me this for you, Gabe. And I'm like, you know, God's very capable of talking to me directly.

He doesn't need you to tell me. So good rule of thumb, if somebody says, God told me to tell you, I automatically am like, you can tell me, but I'm not going to listen until the Lord speaks to me when I go to pray all the times that I'm praying. But it was the doctors of the church that really convinced me, especially Teresa of Avila, the doctor of prayer, St. Alphonsus is a doctor of moral theology, St. Francis de Sales, the universal doctor, St. John of the Cross is the doctor of mysticism.

Their testimony about how important it was, I was just like, okay. And then again, it sounds like I'm a big Fatima guy. And to a degree I am, but I don't like go around thinking about Fatima like some people. When Our Lady told about the first Saturdays, she said, spend 15 minutes with me meditating upon the life of Christ. And I never understood what that meant. I was like, we just did the rosary and you want to spend 15 more minutes doing that without Hail Mary's? I was very confused. But then when I understood mental prayer, like what the definitions were, I was like, Oh, she wants me to be in the gospels

and have her kind of just sit next to me with her arm around me. And that changed things. So again, this is something that I encourage, I cannot enforce it on anybody, but for me, it's been extraordinarily fruitful. And you can look at at least my ministry and within the past year of learning mental prayer for me personally on a spiritual level things have exploded.

And I feel like in prayer that Mary sang promote the rosary. Yes, but you must promote the rosary where people encounter my son and me in the Gospels so that they will bear more fruit than just saying the Hail Mary over and over, which is very fruitful. It's a great prayer, but encountering Christ is our goal. Mason- Tell me about how your video with Tammy and Jordan Peterson came about and glory to Jesus Christ for that video. I believe that's going to bring many people to the faith. David- It's already gotten three million views, my goodness. And you understand I'm just a youth minister from Sugarland, Texas. You understand that, right? Mason- Well, yeah, but you're also a very talented videographer, obviously, thanks to YouTube and everything else.

So quick history, just so that people know that I'm not just some random youth minister. In order to make my YouTube videos better, I would charge equipment that I couldn't afford. Maybe you're not supposed to do that, but Mother Angelica did it, so I did it. And sometimes God would provide, and other times he wouldn't,

and he would make me get to work. And so I would have to sell my video production services to pay for the equipment that I bought, and also to help pay the bills, because I am a youth minister making a youth minister's salary. And one day I was working on a production, it was very well production with the owner of Bex Prime,

which is a famous restaurant in Texas, and I was filming, and I had a guy holding the was filming and I had a guy holding the lights and I had a guy holding the sun shade and I felt like our lady was saying to me, look what you're willing to do for money. And I said, excuse me? Like this is interior. This is deep movement of the soul. It's not like I saw her face.

She said, look what you're willing to do for a dollar and you're not willing to do for me. And I said, oh, I see what you want. She's like, I want you to quit making video productions to pay the bills and trust me that I'm going to take care of you. So that's when things started getting more professional because I was no longer dividing my time between making videos for the business world and myself. So I do have a little bit of a history with it. So I recently got back from a pilgrimage to Fatima in Spain

and Portugal, I'm sorry, Portugal, Spain and France. This was about, I got back October 5th and when I came back, I was working on a documentary on St. Maximilian Kolbe. And so we have his relic in a shrine in my church that I received from Poland from his monastery. What is it? Part of his clothing? It's his hair, church that I received from Poland, from his monastery. What is it? Part of his clothing? It's his hair. It's his beard. Excellent. Wow. So many stories. But I was praying with him for this documentary. We also next to him

have a shrine to St. Josemaria Escriva. And I never prayed to that guy. Never talked to him once. I would walk right past his shrine, right past his statue. I worked at that church for well over 10 years. That was in 2009 that I got at St. Teresa's and I walked past his shrine for, it's 2024, 2023, when this happened. So I was coming back from my Maximilian Kolbe visit that I was making, asking him in mental prayer, Maximilian, I believe you're present,

guide me in making your video. I was walking back and I looked at the shrine of St. Josemaria and I felt like he rebuked me. He said, you're so rude. Mason Hickman It sounds like something he would do, given what I know from his writings. Jason Kuznicki Yeah, I didn't know anything about him until I studied him. He said, you're so rude. And I said, excuse me? He's like, you believe Maximilian Kolbe is there and that's why you pray to him on a regular basis. And if that same theology that my relics are here, a part of me is here and you don't

stop, you don't say hello, you don't offer a prayer, you do nothing. And I said, excuse me? And then so I went and I knelt down in front of his shrine, his relics, his statue. And I was like, I'm open. Using the methods of mental prayer, I'm a member of the body of Christ. You're a member of the body of Christ. Lord, let me talk to St. Josemaria. So he started moving things in my heart and he was very strong with me.

He rebuked me first for not doing a good enough job to protect those who've been entrusted to me, just personal things, little things that I had let slip up just over time that were not on my radar at all, that he convicted me hard. And I was like, okay, I'm listening. He's like, your life is about to change. And I said, tell me. He said, well, after you finish this Maximilian Colby documentary on a spiritual level,

you're gonna reach many more souls. And I said, okay, whatever. Like in one ear out the other, like this other thing where you convicted me, I felt that in the depth of my heart. This, whatever. So whenever you hear things like this, whatever. Like I don't care.

I don't know if this is true or not, or I'm making this up. Like I feel nothing in here. So I go back to my office, I've got so many stories. I go back to my office and my assistant says, Gabe, you're not gonna believe this. I said, what? I just got an email from Father Jose Maria of the Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate.

And I said, yes. He said, you have to check this email. They want you to do a documentary. They want you to interview Tammy and Jordan Peterson. The Petersons are both going to be there in Toronto in November. You have to tell them yes or no like immediately. So I reached out to Father Jose Maria. I was like, can you give me some more details?

And he said, and he's a very Marion guy. And he said, so this opportunity to film Tammy Peterson's testimony came up to him. I don't know if you know the Franciscans of the Immaculate. They have their own YouTube channel. They're dedicated to the media. They're dedicated to Maxime and Colby. This is their project. Father Jose Maria said.

The past three nights, I have not slept. Excuse me. Yeah, can you elaborate? Well, in prayer, the first night, the Virgin Mary told me, this is for Gabriel Castillo to do. This is for Gabi after hours. And I resisted her. And I didn't sleep that entire night. In the second night, I resisted her. And the third night, I finally said, fine, Blessed Mother, whatever you want, if you want it for Gabi, I'll give it to him. And so I said, sign me up. But I was, I discerned everything very carefully and I did not have a strong, like I didn't know the Petersons. I didn't know their story.

I was, I was just kind of like, I know they're famous. I know Jordan's a very famous Canadian. So I was like, is this God's will? I don't know. I don't feel a personal attachment. Yeah. The Jose Maria, St. Jose Maria, the father Jose Maria, that's a cool connection. But my assistant was like, are you crazy? She was like a big Jordan Peterson fan. She's like, are you crazy? You have to do this. I was like, and then she was like, I want to go to, I was like, no, cause I'm very, I'm very big on prudence. So I'm not traveling with you. Like you're a girl. Like I, my office is in the complete opposite side of the building just so that nobody will be like, you spend, you know what

I mean? I'm just like, I'm like, no. And then she's like, well, I talked to my spiritual director. I really feel like I should go. I was like, I haven't discerned it. I haven't prayed about it. We'll just tell them you're going to do this. I'm, I'm, I'm detached from it. You trusted that she'd do a good enough job.

No, I trust. I don't know. No, I don't know. She's, she's great. She, she don't know. She's great. She edits my videos. She sees me setting up cameras, but to go to a foreign country, Canada, and take equipment and set up a lighting interview. Do you think she would have done it if you had have actually landed on that? I'm not going you go. We did land on that. This is a miraculous story, Matt. Come on, go. All right, keep going.

So, so I'm like, fine, you're going to do this documentary. You're going to go. I talked to my wife about it. We're in agreement. Talk to some spiritual advisors. Yeah, let her go. Like you don't need to be there. You've taught her.

We went through the scenario. Okay. You set up the main light here, 45 degree angle. You have another camera light here. You have this, this and this. The Franciscans of the Immaculate, they do video production. They can help. They'll be there. They'll give you some guidance. All you have this, this, and this. The Franciscans of the Immaculate, they do video production. They will be there. They'll give you some guidance.

All you have to do is do the interview. And let's be honest, I'm difficult to deal with. I'm so strong-minded. It's very possible that Jordan and I can not hit it off because of something that I say, my beliefs. And he's like, I'm out. I'm not doing this documentary. So several weeks pass, so our interviews on Monday, November the 5th, the Friday night,

the Friday before, my wife sends me a text. She says, I think you really need to go to this Jordan Peterson interview. I was like, yeah, but there's no way I, like, I'm not going to travel with her. Like I'm just not doing that. Like it's not prudent. They said, well, I just, we just got an email that Bishop Lopes, the Bishop of the ordinary of the chair of St. Peter, that's where my son goes to school, said that they canceled school on Monday. Why? Well, because the headmaster there, the principal there, she got her PhD.

And so to celebrate her getting her PhD, he canceled school for Monday. And I was like, all right, looks like I'm going to Toronto. So I bought my tickets immediately. I don't have a lot of money. So I used all the money that I had. I charged it to get the tickets for my son and I to go to interview the Petersons. So I'm at the store on Saturday.

We're leaving in two days. I tell the blessed mother, I'm like blessed mother, if I'm gonna be honest with you, because we only have 30 minutes to do the B-roll. We have an interview with Tammy, then an interview with Jordan at 10 o'clock. This is going to happen at a girls' college. I need another camera.

I have three cameras. They're great to get all the angles, but I need to have two cameras on my body, wide angle, close-up shots. I need it. If you want this to be successful, I need the money. I get a text message literally as I utter the prayer from a woman that I went on pilgrimage with saying, Gabe, if you ever need any money, feel free to ask me.

While you're praying. While I'm praying. I have text message screenshots, I don't know if they're still on my phone, but. And then so I say, actually I need $2,300 for a new camera. She's like, fine, I'll put it in the mail on Monday. I was like, I need it. Like it's 11 a.m., the camera store closes at five today.

Can you please have this to me? Like, can you PayPal this to me? And she's like, done. I had the camera that I needed within two hours. After that, we go, we fly to Canada. My son and I, I'm a bold guy. I've got a lot of vices. One of them is choleric-ness.

So we're driving through the streets of Toronto I'm blaring I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free so I'm being myself. We go we set up the woman who facilitated the conversion of Tammy her name is Queenie wonderful woman I didn't know this, Opus Dei, Numerary. We're filming in an Opus Dei center. Are you connecting the dots? St. Josemaria is the one who told me at this shrine. The priest, Father Josemaria is the one who made the connection.

And now I'm filming in an Opus Dei center. I don't know the story yet. And she's like, so tell me about your videography business and career. I was like, well- Who's asking you this? Oh, the Queenie Queenie. Yeah. And so like I made her jaw drop. I was like, I'm a youth minister from sugar land, Texas.

And then she's like looking at the Franciscans, like, what are you doing? Why did you bring this goon? She hadn't seen any of your work prior to this. She kind of saw it, but like, why is this like, honestly, this is a big breaking story. Like why not give this to the daily wire? Michael Knowles, why not? Yeah. Pines with Aquinas? Why not EWTN, Bishop Barron? He did a great job with Shia LaBouf, whatever.

Like what are we doing? Like Jordan's not gonna be okay with this. And then so she was a little spooked, I could tell. But I was relishing in that. I was like, here we are, baby. You gotta make, we're gonna do this. And so I didn't hear the testimonial. was like, here we are, baby. You got me. We're going to do this. And so I didn't hear the testimonial.

That night, something spooks Jordan. So he sends an email to Queenie at like 11 p.m. at night saying, I'm not doing the interview. And I was like, oh gosh. Did he say why? He didn't say why. I imagine why. I can, I'll speculate.

I don't know. I don't know. Jordan, if you're watching this, please forgive me. I would imagine that this sounds all very odd. Like is he said yes because he wants to support his wife He loves that man loves his wife. He talks about his wife tears will come out of his eyes. He loves her so much She's very devoted to her very noble and honorable But I know Catholics and I know Catholics who have been writing letters to Jordan, asking him to convert constantly. Like, I can't imagine, like I've had friends who said,

I went to the Jordan Peterson thing. I gave him a rosary. I went to Jordan Peterson. You know what I mean? It's gonna be brutal to have different religions vying for your allegiance. Right. Like that.

And kind of treating you just like we need a big man on our side. Right, yeah. So what is that like? I imagine that honestly, that was, I don't know, I can't read his soul, but that's what I felt. Like, if I honestly that was, I don't know, I can't read his soul, but that's what I felt like if I do this, if I do this video, I'm not going to get stopped bugged about this. And so he said no. And then so did he say no, he's not coming or no, Tammy's not coming.

He's not coming. Tammy's all in. Tammy loves Queenie and Jordan loves Queenie. But this is her testimony. Like I don't really need to do it, but Queenie made a big deal. I'm really sorry if this is not like for public knowledge, but it happened. So this is the truth. So Queenie made a big deal. Hey, we have a book signing at this college. People are showing up. You need to at least show up for the book signing.

Sure. I'm going to show up for the book signing. I messaged my friend, Father Jose Maria. I said, Father, you need to pray. You need to pray because this is not going well. Like, we were getting some interference. It's not going to happen. He emails me back so confident.

Father Jose Maria of the Franciscans of the Immaculate. Seriously, I love that guy. His confidence was like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? This was organized by the mother of God. Do you think that he's going to get in the way of reaching so many millions of souls? I was like, are you kidding me, Gabe? Don't even worry about it. And so the next morning, we still don't know if Jordan's going to film.

Tammy gives her testimonial. We film it perfectly. It was good that I went. It was good that I went because the lighting was a little off. They had some blue lights in the background. Not ideal. Like for, like, it's a very cozy shot that I designed. It looks like you're at their house. That was at the, in the, like the bottom floor of the Opus Dei Center, this girl's college. My assistant did the interview because again, she's far more enjoyable to talk to than I

am. Okay. So Tammy does her interview. Jordan, at this point, is not doing it. He's not going to do the interview. He's not doing it. Is he there? He hadn't shown up yet. He was just going to show up for the book signing, go straight to it.

The Franciscans are like, hey, should we cancel this? Should we just go ahead and tear everything down so you can go film the B-roll? I was like, no. Like Father Jose Maria was in my soul talking he sang So I said no set up the interview just as if Jordan's gonna do it. Mm-hmm So we set up the interview. We got the lighting perfectly next my son. I don't know what's happening my side So this is just coming from my son. So my son was with Queenie and Jordan I think I don't know for a fact, Jordan went down

the wrong hallway where he shouldn't have been. Queenie is overcome by the power of the Holy Spirit and says, you're doing the interview. I don't know if she meant it as a question, but it came off like very strong. And then so all I hear is, is well looks like I'm doing this interview What are we talking about guys and then my assistant's like, oh, we just want to talk to you about your wife your perspective on it and It was great and I got a lot of spiritual warfare when I was editing it So when I was editing it the shots would come in and out of focus, the lighting would change, it would lose the

footage. But when you're a child of Mary, this is one of the benefits, when you're a child of Mary, the devil is on a leash. As long as you remain close to Mary, if there's any diabolical attacks, it is only so that she can crush his serpent head and further humiliate him. So the editing that I did, the first three or four minutes, I knew exactly what to put in the video because those were the exact parts

that the devil kept dropping. Like we would come in and out of focus and the colors and the red lines would happen. It was like dropped media. I was like, oh, look, this happens to be the juiciest parts. Let's lead with, oh, she's got 10 minutes, she's got 10 months to live. And then let's lead with his oh, she's got 10 minutes, she's got 10 months to live. And then let's lead

with his heart breaking that his beautiful wife is, you know, going to die. And how are you going to? So I knew what to put in because our lady let, let the monkey off the leash just for a little bit. Wonderful. So this is even better. I forgot to mention this. So when Tammy was healed, it was on the fifth day of a novena to which saint? Moshe S I had recently botched St. Maximilian Colby. Okay, so the documentary you were- Yeah, so I had, because of my own pride, because of my own lack of discernment, I made an editing mistake and I was so eager to get it out

that I uploaded it and then I had to delete it immediately after because the images didn't fill the full frame because I made it cinematic aspect ratio and not all of the images transferred Okay, and so it was on par to be up with five hundred thousand six hundred thousand views And I and I'm still sorry to this very day that and then so I I deleted it And then it had been up for like three hours And so all the normal viewers all the normal subscribers that YouTube uses

to check to see if this is good or not had already seen it or they clicked on it for two seconds and it didn't get the views that it deserved. And so I had a major like stored in my heart from that. And even when I arrived in Toronto, the head or the one who was in charge of the Franciscans of the Immaculate were like, great video on Maxime and Colby. Too bad I heard you botched it and you did not because of you thousands of souls didn't get it. Sorry, what? Who's saying this? Just just just a priest. It was true. I botched it. And so he was just questioning my judgment, which is true. I did. I made a mistake. I failed. I made a big mistake and I learned

from it. But he's accusing you like no, it's not it Well, it wasn't accusing. He was just asking if I'm if I It was just questioning it was the will of God. I needed it. I needed it. I needed to be put in my place He did the right thing and it helped me making this the documentary for Jordan and Tammy Because people will see the maxima and Colby documentary who need to see it documentary for Jordan and Tammy, um, because people will see the maxima and Colby documentary who need to see it. Um, and I didn't, I didn't watch this one. Thanks be to God. But it was because I finally said, blessed mother, you're in charge. Please get, and I had so, so humility is distrust of self, great confidence in God. So I had so much distrust of myself and my

confidence in God was extraordinary. Yeah. Before I forget Thursday, let's put a link to that video below for this, for Tammy Peterson thing, because I want more and more people to see it. And let me tell you something. Okay. So something that there's a lot of signal graces that came along with this. So I mentioned that I was praying at St. Maximilian Colby Shrine, and then I went to St. Josemaria and the video, the documentary that I made was St. Maximilian Colby.

The very next one was Jose Maria. Yeah. The birthday of St. Maximilian Colby. The very next one was Jose Maria. The birthday of St. Maximilian Colby is January 8th. The birthday of St. St. Jose Maria is January 9th. So it's just funny how like all these patterns, the saints are so alive. What feedback have you got from that video?

The most important feedback I got was from Jordan Peterson. What'd he say? He said, excellent, excellent editing. Seriously. Top notch. And on, and I got a feeling he's not the kind of man who would say that if he didn't mean it. He really meant that meant a lot to me. It was you did an excellent job.

The day of the filming, I could tell I was again, this is he's opening himself up to everybody asking your wife is becoming Catholic. When are you going to become Catholic? So, I don't know, but I got the impression that he wasn't going to do this again. But then when we turned it around and it was amazing, it was the hand of God who edited and produced it. I think that that was a big deal for him, that Catholics aren't just gonna,

because I could have, you know, I could have exploited, I could have taken out of context. I could have made him sound more Catholic than he was. And I gave him a fair, I told the story, the parts where he was a doubter, I made it clear. He's like, well, you know, medically, this could have happened. I just can't explain how it happened

the day that my wife prophesied, which happened to be our 30th wedding anniversary. That I just can't explain. So I gave the pauses. I was... Good for you for doing that. Yeah. I didn't, you know, my soul was on the line, so I had to take it very carefully and I already botched something previously.

So... Praise the Lord, man. But we've had... Can I tell you one more miracle story? It's incredible. Always. Always more miracle stories. So we were doing a documentary on St. Maria Goretti.

Lord, help me to tell this well. My assistant went to... So first of all, Father Carlos Martins, a good friend of mine. He came to Houston to talk about spiritual warfare, to spread his test podcast, The Actresses of Spiles, excellent podcast, very spiritually nourishing. So he came to town and he asked, hey, Gabe, he gave the talk for free at my parish. And he said, Gabe, do you mind filming my relics talk? I said, sure father, of course. I would love to film your relics talk.

I felt like, hey, this guy's doing me a favor coming to speak at my, I'm gonna upload this talk to YouTube and get hundreds of thousands of views. I'll do this filming for you for free. Afterwards, he made a donation to me for like $2,000. And I asked, Hey, can I pull the part of your talk about Maria Greti and make a documentary about it?

And the $2,000 donation that you gave me is exactly what I would need to pay for my assistant to go to Italy and film at Maria Greti's house. All that happens. She comes back into town. She gives me the footage. I have father Carlos. I have the footage she filmed in Italy in the tuna.

I'm editing it. For some reason, the footage goes red. Diabolical attacks. I don't know what it is. It works on her computer. It's not working on my computer. I have a very, very, very high end computer. So I say, all right, I'm going to go edit this in the church. I go to the church. Everything's working fine.

And then Father Carlos goes on this long explanation of how Maria Grety's first miracle was a young man whose foot was crushed and they were going to have to cut it off. And then so I'm like, I don't have I don't have five minutes of footage of broken foot. This is not good. And then he goes to the next part where he says, and then a young man just recently, he had a broken foot. And I said, why don't you pray to Maria Garetti? And he was miraculously healed. I'm like, again, now I've got 10 minutes of no footage of a kid. What am I?

I'm venting the same frustration that you're experiencing now to the Lord and the blessed sacrament Lord. What the heck? Like, what am I supposed to, I don't even know what it looks like. I can't wrap my son's foot up. So he's like, you're done. This is all interior again. You're done. Go inside. You're done. Don't talk to me that way. So I'm like, I'm sorry. Please forgive me. It's like, you're done for today. I'm walking to my office and I'm going to change the name of this individual. I'm walking to my office and my pastor is talking to my assistant. You need to pray for Kevin. I was like, what happened? She, this is not my conversation. I said, what happened to Kevin? Last night he was working and a crane fell and broke his foot and they're going to have to cut it off. And I said, that's great. That's fantastic.

He's like, what? I was like, I was just, I was just editing a video and I need a foot that's about to be amputated. Oh my. And he's like, what? He's like, no, no, no explanation. Doesn't make this better. Okay. And it's a long story, but I had just received a first class relic of St.

Maria Grady in the mail. I know this is a lot of info. I know, I know. No, are you kidding? This is what long form discussions are for. Don't leave out a detail, man. Go. It's really going to open up a can of worms. Okay. So, oh my gosh, bless her mother, have mercy on me, poor sinner. So I was doing a silent retreat at a Passionist Retreat Center in like 2021. I know. And I had an overwhelming sense that I needed a relic of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows. I don't know why. I don't know how it just

overwhelm. I don't know anything about him other than my name is Gabriel and his name is Gabriel. Yeah. Overwhelming sense. I needed his relic. So I go home. I message Father Carlos Martins. I sent him a couple relics that are on eBay. Do not do this. Leave this poor man alone. Please out of obedience. If you're getting anything from the story, do not bug him about if relics are real or not real. He does not want to hear it. He didn't want to hear it from me either way.

He said, yes, this relic is real. And I said, is it a sin to buy it? He said, no, I discourage it, but it's real. And if you wanted to buy it, it's all you. And I said, I promise I'll never ask about this ever again. I was about to buy it and the spirit of the Lord spoke to me and said, don't buy it. Wait until Monday. This is a Friday. Wait until Monday. I said, okay. So on Monday I'm going to my parish office and a gentleman named Wayne, whom I love Wayne and have abuse. Gabriel,

I came to see you. I said, Oh, tell me. He said, I got you a prayer card of saying Gabriel of our lady of sorrows. And I was like, cool. I was going to buy his relic. And he said to wait till Monday, but this is just a prayer card. It's not a relic. Great. I recognize the hand of God. At least I'm not nuts. Yeah. And I might be a little bit nuts. So I took a picture of the prayer card. This is June 21st, 2021. I remember the exact day I took a picture of it and I put it on Facebook. I said, such a coincidence. Just thinking about him. Five minutes later, I get a text message from a priest, Father Kennedy from Alexandria, Louisiana. He says, I saw your post on Facebook. I have access to a first

class relic of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows and St. Gemma Galgani. Can I give them to you? I feel like it's God's will that I give you this relic. Of course. Pause. Now we're going back in time to my St. Marie Garetti documentary. I'm buying a prayer card of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows on eBay. In the sidebar is a picture of a relic that looks exactly like my Saint Gabriel one from the Passionist Monastery from Rome that I know is real. And I see it says Maria Garetti, but it looks exactly like my Saint Gabriel one. So I'm like, why would Maria Garetti, she's not a Passionist. I didn't know that she went to a Passionist parish.

And so the Passionist claimed her as her own. And so I forwarded that picture to that priest. And I said, Father, I hate to bother you. I know this is not normal. Why does this look exactly like my other one? He's like, oh, there's no shadow of a doubt. Like, I can't tell you 100% like don't venerate this in a church because you're getting it on eBay.

So there is like a 0.0001% chance that this relic is not real. But I have a moral certitude that chance that this relic is not real. But I have a moral certitude that that's a relic of Maria Garetti. And it was under the price of like 200 bucks. So I ordered it and it arrived the day before I found out about this poor kid's foot

gonna get amputated. So I'm trying to convince my pastor. I was like, father, I'm making a documentary about Maria Garetti. She healed a man whose foot was broken. You're trying to explain to him in five minutes what you've just taken this long to explain to me. Yeah, whose foot was broken. It was very bad. It was very ugly. He was not happy. And he's

a very calm, discerning individual. And I have a relic of hers that just came in the mail. Can you just tell me what hospital can you give me the name or the email of the dad or the mom and I can contact it? He's like, absolutely not. You are the youth minister, minister, not exploit her. You're not going to exploit this young man's foot so that you can make a YouTube video. I was like, but father, this is perfect. I got the relic yesterday and I just was like editing this and I didn't have the footage. This is God's will.

He said, no, absolutely not. So I go back to the church, I'm like, clearly this is your will, Lord. Clearly this is your will. And he's like, it is my will. I was like, go back and talk to your pastor. And I said, fine. At the same time, you have to understand, this is not normal.

You grasp this is not normal. So sometimes as a sign, I asked for little signs from our lady. Can you give me some confirmation just that external signals of things that are going on in my heart that I'm not insane, that what you say to me in prayer is real, like I don't need it. But this is not normal. So I asked her for seven lions. What does that mean? I have no idea what the heck that means, dude. I was like, give me seven lions. I don't, what is that? Toys? Is that stickers? What do you

want? I've, I just said it. Okay. I just said it without really thinking about it. I can assure you, I was not thinking. I was thinking about one thing. I was thinking about one thing. Get to that hospital. I need this footage. This is like the Friday before the Feast of Maria Goretti, which is the next week, and I want this documentary out by her feast day because that's prime time to get people to share videos. So I go to my pastor. He's having a meeting with somebody, a friend of mine who's very devoted to Maria Goretti. So I interrupt the meeting because I took that as a providential sign. I was like, hey, I know you're having a conversation. You're going to love this story.

Father, so can you please, I promise you I will not film him. I will not film him. Can I just go and pray with him, Father? Just want to pray with him. Just offer some support because he's a young man and he's probably questioning God's timing of all of this. And he's a track star. He's an amazing track star, one of the best track athletes ever. So he said, fine, I'll give you the dad's contact info and you can, you guys work this out. Don't exploit this young man. I said, I don't want to. I only

want the will of God. So I take my relic of St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows. I take my newly relic of St. Marie Guretti and I'm driving to the Texas Medical Center and I'm praying. I was like, what, what, how do you, how, what is the process? Lord, I have never prayed with somebody who is actually like traumatized and who might be emotionally vulnerable. What is the, like, I have never prayed with somebody who is actually like traumatized and who might be emotionally vulnerable. What is the, like, I don't want to put you on the spot because I think you want to heal this child. What should I do? And so he said in prayer again, this is my discernment, go over there, you know, tell him the story of Maria Garetti, tell him that there's no guarantee that the ordinary means is to let nature take its course. But sometimes God can break the laws of nature, but that's

not the norm. And that doesn't mean that God doesn't love us, etc. And then I felt like he was saying, and then pray a rosary in thanksgiving for the grace that he wasn't killed, that he has a family that loves him, that he has the Catholic faith. And I was like, hmm, we'll put a pin on that one because we'll just see how this goes, right? Yeah. So I get out, I don't even know where the hospital room is. Like I've never been to the medical center.

So I get out of the car, I'm holding two relics, going through the lobby of some garage. I just see the first nurse I see and I get in the elevator with her. And she, I didn't tell her what floor I was gonna go to she automatically hits floor seven and then I'm like, well, that was weird. We're going to the seventh floor All right, so we're going up this elevator. I exit the elevator and I see oh, we're not in the hospital We are still in the parking garage

But I did ask for seven lions and this kid is gonna be on the seventh floor and this nurse took me to the seventh floor. So my spidey sense is on spiritual heightened alert. So we go in and I come back out. I'm like, all right, I got to text the dad. Where are we? He's like, we're in the seraphim wing of this medical building, et cetera. We're in the seventh floor. Come over here.

So I go in and the boy is so overwhelmed with the power of the Holy Spirit. He looks at me and he says, Gabe, this was not an accident. When it was happening, it was happening as if it was slow motion and I knew the hand of God was involved in this. He's like, I am not sad. I'm not in desolation. He was so confident. And I explained him, I was like, exactly as I rehearsed in the car, I'm going to put the

prayer card in your cast. Like the doctors thought that worst case scenario put the prayer card in your cast. Like, and the doctors thought the worst case scenario, we're cutting your foot off. Uh, best case scenario, one day, maybe you can walk. We're going to do a, we're going to put a lot of pins and a lot of plates and a lot of everything in here. Hopefully you can walk. I wouldn't count on running ever again. All right. So I, we do the prayer. I give him the relic, he puts the relic to his head. Part of the prayer is forgiving everybody, including yourself, for all, anybody who's ever hurt you.

Forgive yourself as well. Afterwards, he's overwhelmed with peace and he says, Gabe, can we pray the rosary? And I said, excuse me? He's like, I just want to pray in thanks Thanksgiving that my life wasn't lost and that I've got a father and a brother and a mother and all these siblings who absolutely love God. And I'm just so thankful. When we pray rosary, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is crazy. So we kneel down, we pray the rosary.

And afterwards, like I'm, this is probably one of the most powerful spiritual moments of my life and nothing has happened. I'm like, like I'm just overwhelmed by this kid's faith. And he's like, after we're done, he's like, thanks so much for praying with me. It meant so much that you came up to visit me. And I was like, dude, you're the lion. You're a lion. Like you've got the heart of a lion.

You're a fighter. You've got God with you. And he's like, I am. I was like, no, no, I mean like you're a lion, like you're, he's like, no, no, I am. I am literally the lion. I am the mascot for my school. Like I wear the lion head and I run through the thing at football games. And I was like, wow. I was like, can I, I know this is kind of absurd. I'm making this documentary. Can I, can I film your foot? It's like, absolutely for the glory of God, I want God to be glorified through all of this. And so I film him. So in that documentary

of St. Marie, Garetti, there is about five or six minutes of footage in a real hospital with a kid whose foot was really crushed by a crane who is supposed to have it amputated. I left, I did not reach out to the family one time after that because I don't know, I don't know where they're at spiritually, so I was just reached out to the dad. I was like, how are things going? Fine, you know, he's in pain, he's at home, he's suffering, he's questioning things, which is normal. I was like, I'm gonna leave it alone.

Because here you are in a documentary about two people whose feet were healed by Saint Maria Guerretti. I didn't wanna mess with it. I was just like, all of this was in the providence of God, there are no accidents. There's no accidents, I don't know. And then a week later, I see the mom and I say, how's my boy doing?

And she just starts bawling. And she's like, so-and-so didn't reach out to you, her husband. I was like, no, I haven't heard from him. And she just gives me the biggest hug. She said, the doctor said that you're either the most lucky young man who has ever lived or you've been blessed by God. You don't need any surgery. You don't need any amputation.

In three to four months, you'll be walking again. And to this day, this happened literally last July, the Feast of Mary Great is July 6th. Literally last year, he's now running cross country without a problem. Wow. Because the saints are alive. That is incredible. Insanity, dude.

Insanity. I just love it. I love that you were like, all right, I'll take this. You're the heart of a lion, seven lions, seven fours. We're stretching it a bit, but that's okay. No, literally I'm a lion. Yeah. And it's funny because there are seven members of their family and their family is so faithful. They truly are. Do you have the heart of a lion when I can't wait to watch this documentary? Ready documentary, 600,000 views. It's really good. So what do you got in the hopper? What's the next thing? A lot. So in prayer, uh, stories are really important. It's coming up to me that stories are really important.

Maximilian Colby knew this. So I personally believe Maximilian Colby, he did, he knew he was going to be a martyr. His theology is revolutionary. John Paul the second called him the prophet of the new millennium. Um, so I personally believe that at Auschwitz, when the guard said, okay, I'm selecting 10, Maximilian Kolbe was looking for the opportunity to give his life for the mother of God because one to fulfill prophecy. But other than that, the Mariology that he's made famous would not exist.

He would just been some kooky old Franciscan who loved the Virgin Mary too much. But because he said yes to the story of his life, Our Lady was able to do beautiful things. So the goal is to continue to make beautiful stories about the lives of the saints, to highlight people's stories who live ordinary lives and some who live heroic lives or famous lives like the Petersons, like some of the testimonials we have, God willing, we discussed, hopefully I can share your life, your conversion, your story, your hopes, your dreams on the podcast, on the YouTube channel as well as your wife. That also sharing parts of my own life because I don't share some of these stories, even

though there's a story for every single video, just because it's spiritually dangerous for me, just because pride, I have literally have the word humility tattooed on my hand because I don't want to go to hell. And I might still go, but at least I'll go begging the mother of God to give me the grace of humility. So sharing that story, but really just sharing, sharing our Lady in the story. I really believe that every Saint who's ever lived, their life is a story and Humans are naturally drawn to stories one of the reasons your podcast is so pop besides the great work you do is that you're sharing the story of God in

Individuals and it resonates with people in different ways No, no matter who the person is on there's always somebody who can say I can relate to that. Yeah Yeah, I really think earlier that guy. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny earlier, you said that you get some of these interviews in so that you can like, yes, you know, yes, tell people to pray the rosary. And it's something, it's something similar with what I do because I like having the bigger names on so that we can have the no name on, whose story is just, if not more powerful than the big name.

And people are blown away because people are so fascinating and the Lord is working in their life just as much as he is in the more popular people. That's what struck me when I told you about that quote from Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs again played an important role in my life because at the same time I was looking at people on EWTN and on Steubenville conference stages and thinking they're special. They're doing what I can't do. And then when Steve Jobs pointed it out, they're not, they just happen to be in the same place. You received the same sacraments at the apostle. Steve Jobs didn't say that, but that's what was going on. That's what the Holy Spirit was saying to me. Like,

just because they're on a stage, just because they have a mic, just because they have a camera, doesn't mean that they're special. Anybody, anybody, everybody's story is powerful. Well, and we have to, I think it's a sign maybe of pride too, to downplay the work that the Lord has for us. And this happened to me recently, I was invited to Sydney to speak. Yes. And what I noticed is the way I was explaining it left a lot to be desired. What are you doing? I'm going to Sydney to give some talks. I'm like, that's not what you're doing. You are going to Sydney to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ for the salvation of souls.

And I thought to myself, well, why would I downplay that? And then there's all this false humility. Well, because look at you. Have you met you? You're pathetic. It's like, yeah, but what does that have to do with me? That's what I love. I'm not proclaiming the gospel.

I am going to proclaim the gospel. Yes. And I think just accepting that, there's no pride in accepting what has been placed within you. And you can glory and say, I am a sinner. So the devil will whisper to us, you're not good enough. And sometimes you're like, you're right, I'm not good enough. So what?

The answer is, you're right, I'm not good enough, but thanks be to God, this is about Jesus and Mary because they are good enough. Anybody can do anything as long as they're cooperating with the grace of God. Yeah, glory to Jesus Christ. This has been a pleasure. You're the best, man. I appreciate you having me on. Thanks for taking a chance.

Oh, I wish we had done it sooner. Thank you for all the work that you're doing. We have links to your YouTube channel, your excellent videos below. Please go subscribe to Gabby. Why Gabby after hours? So my mom, again, remember I mentioned how she's Mexican? So she calls me Gabriel. You mentioned that she might be Mexican I mentioned how she's Mexican? So she calls me Gabriel. You mentioned that she might be Mexican.

She thinks she's Mexican. I'll honor her Mexican heritage. So for short, she will call me Gabby. So the short for Gabriel is Gabby. It doesn't sound too masculine, doesn't sound too strong. So my mom calls me Gabby and people who know me well and intimately will sometimes call me Gobby. When I was making my YouTube channel, I had had, this is a big mistake that I made.

I had three channels. I was, I was building three houses, which was very dumb. I did that early on. I had like a podcast channel. I had this channel. I had talks channel. Very stupid. I wish I could go back in time and say, build one house, have three rooms in your house.

And so I was venturing into videos where I was speaking by saying, okay, after Lent, I'm going to, I mean, during Lent, I'm going to do two hours of adoration. And so it will be like Gabi, his reflections that he got after two hours of adoration. And after I would do those two hours, I would come out and talk about stuff, some of it more relevant than others, but the only ones that did not give me hiccups in editing or in publishing were the ones about Mary. And then so very quickly I was like, I see what you're doing. The people of God don't need me. They need you. Okay. So the name just stuck. God be after hours. Fantastic. Thanks, man. Thank you, brother.