Pints With Aquinas - Experiencing the Beautiful Love of God (Mother Natalia) | Ep. 582

Episode Date: June 8, 2026

Mother Natalia is back and it’s her first visit to the new set. She shares her vocation story as well as insights into Byzantine spirituality, sin, suffering, and intimacy with God. Ep. 582 - - - 📚 Resources Mentioned: Christ The Bridegroom Monastery: https://www.christthebridegroom.org What God Is Not Podcast: https://whatgodisnot.com - - - Today’s Sponsors: Hallow: Deepen your personal relationship with God today. Visit https://hallow.com/MattFradd to get 3 months free. St. Paul Center: Start your 30-day free trial today at https://StPaulCenter.com/pints Catholic Match: Download the app or head to https://CatholicMatch.com and find your forever.  Charity Mobile: Visit https://charitymobile.com/MATTFRADD to get started. Free Phone offer with code MATTFRADD PreBorn: Make a difference for generations to come. Donate securely online at https://preborn.com/PINTS or dial #250 keyword 'BABY'  Shopify: Sign up for your $1-per-month trial and start selling today at https://Shopify.com/pints - - - Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: ⁠⁠https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe⁠⁠ 📲 Download the free Daily Wire app today on iPhone, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, and more. - - - 📕 Get my newest book, Jesus Our Refuge, here: https://a.co/d/bDU0xLb 🍺 Want to Support Pints With Aquinas? 🍺 Get episodes a week early and join exclusive live streams with me! Become an annual supporter at 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://mattfradd.locals.com/support⁠⁠⁠⁠ - - - 💻 Follow Me on Social Media: 📌 Facebook: https://facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/mattfradd 𝕏 Twitter/X: ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/Pints_W_Aquinas⁠⁠⁠ 🎵 TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠https://tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas⁠⁠⁠ 📚 PWA Merch – ⁠⁠⁠https://dwplus.shop/MattFraddMerch⁠⁠ 👕 Grab your favorite PWA gear here: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com - - - Privacy Policy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.dailywire.com/privacy⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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I was like, okay, Lord, I'll be a nun if you want me to be, but I'll be miserable and I'll be a bad nun for all of these reasons. And I'm just going to spend my whole life wishing that I were married. What do you mean by addiction to dating? I think I'm only realizing this, as I say, I've never shared this before. What I often hear, right, is this distinction between guilt and shame, so like guilt is feeling bad for what I've done and shame is feeling bad for who I am. And the way most people speak of shame, it's only a bad thing.

If it's toxic, we want to hide from God. If it's healthy, we want God. Isn't that it? Isolation? Yes. Isolation versus communion. We can have this illusion that as we advance in the Christian life, there's less suffering. There's less self-inflicted suffering as we advance in the Christian life. What does that mean?

So all the old OG Pines with Aquinas followers are pumped that you're here. Because everyone's been asking, when is you back on? Which is nice. And then there's a lot of new people who are watching as well. So I'm really excited to be able to introduce you to them because I love talking to you. That's great. I'm happy to be here. So you're a nun.

That's accurate, yes. Yeah. What else? Why do you look like that, though? That's a different kind of nun outfit. Okay. Softball. Introduce yourself.

Nice leading question, Matt. Yeah, so I'm part of a Byzantine Catholic monastery. So we are Eastern Catholic. And I think a lot of people, well, more and more people these days are becoming familiar with Eastern Catholic. But we have similar traditions, mostly the same traditions as Eastern Orthodox, but we're in communion with Rome, we're under the Pope, we're Catholic, a Roman Catholic can go to a Byzantine Catholic liturgy, and it would fulfill their Sunday obligation and vice versa and so on and so forth. Beautiful.

So this is the traditional habit that you would see an Eastern Christian nun wearing. So in the West, there's all sorts of different religious orders that are designated by their different types of habits. Right. But in Eastern Orthodoxy and Eastern Catholicism, this is it. Is that correct? Correct. Yes. We don't have orders traditionally. So we're not, we don't have initials after our name in our community. We're not, we're not Franciscan, we're not Dominican, we're not Benedictine, we're just monastics.

Yeah. And how many people know that you're a Catholic nun? Well, that's a difficult question because I can't read their minds. Right. And so I don't know how many people are thinking certain things, but don't say them out loud. it's interesting how many people I would say you would think that people

would often mistake us for Muslim which happens but I think probably just as frequently people ask us if we're Amish and I don't know if that's just because we're near the Amish where our monastery is like our monastery actually is in the middle of Amish country as you know you've been there

but yeah and then do you have Orthodox come up to you and sometimes sometimes I mean Orthodox recognize us That's right. For sure. Yeah. Beautiful. Good.

And then you became an Eastern Catholic, like myself, abandoned your tradition, as I did. Just joking. I don't think I would say that. No. How old were you? How old was I? College? Oh, 20.

Yes. I don't remember how old I was, but I remember what year it was. So I just did some math. What did you miss? Is it things and devotions that you... Like, what did I miss about the West? Yeah, because I understand that in the East you can still pray the beautiful, obviously, but there's something to be said about going all in, right?

And so you might put aside Western traditions and adopt Eastern ones. Were there traditions or prayers from the West that... Well, there is something I thought of. My first response was going to be I didn't miss anything. But to be honest, that's not because I think there's nothing to miss in the West. It's because I was so poorly catechized that I, I wasn't really immersed in the richness of the West when I became Eastern. So if I had been, like I know one of the nuns in our community,

she deeply missed a lot of the, a lot of, she missed the Western Office of Hours. And I don't actually know if that's what it's called. I think I just conflated words. Anyways, it's fine. But, Liturgy of the hours. Yeah. Yeah, the office. Yeah, the office.

Liturgy of the hours. Anyways. So you converted to Christianity, as it were, or revert or whatever, and then quite soon after. Yes. So I was raised Roman Catholic. My whole family left the Catholic Church when I was in high school, raised but very poorly catechized.

And then I came back to the church in college and within a year discovered the Byzantine right and just absolutely fell in love with it. So that's what it was for me. So that was my answer at first was that there's nothing that I missed. But actually, and this is rather ironic, and I can explain why, but actually I did greatly miss adoration at first as I was immersing myself in Eastern spirituality. But I don't think, I don't think that was a healthy missing.

There was something very, there was something very scrupulous and very unhealthy, I think, about my view of adoration. So it was like I had experiences of prayer in adoration before becoming Byzantine. And because of that, I think I had kind of gotten into this mindset of like, that's where I pray. That's where Jesus is.

And which is true and beautiful. But I wasn't able to like pray without adoration. And I wasn't able to encounter him outside of adoration. And I think that's very unhealthy. And yeah. The reason I say it's ironic is because I, um, I just, I don't, I don't miss adoration at this point, which is probably going to ruffle a lot of feathers. Um, and in five minutes in.

Yeah, that's great. A lot of feathers to ruffle. Yeah. Start there. That's right. So I am really excited to tell you that I have partnered with Theotokos Rosaries. These are, without a doubt, the most beautiful rosaries I have ever seen in my life. Theotocos rosary sent me one.

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This one is inspired by Notre Dame in Lyon, France. Go to dailywire.com slash shop to pick one up today. And thank you to Theotokos Rosaries for partnering with us. Now, I was in Ukraine and also other Eastern European countries over the last few years. And what's interesting is when you go to these Eastern Catholic Church, be they Croatian Catholic or Romanian Catholic, there has been like a real melding or of the two traditions in that they'll have the stations of the cross in an Eastern church or they'll have a painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus or they'll pray the Holy Rosary. And I just thought then, is it a sort of artificial separation that we're trying to maintain now that the East and West are blended? Like, in other words, it made sense that the East isn't praying the Rosary and the way the Westmeyer or vice, something like that. And so fair enough, like that explains why the traditions are different.

But now that we're living amongst each other and have for so long, is it artificial and maybe in a way unhealthy to try to keep that separation or not? I don't think it is. My reference point for that would be St. John Paul II's Orients, Hali Lumen, his apostolic letter, Light of the East, because he really calls for a revitalization of, like, authentic Eastern monasticism. That's why our monastery started actually was in response to his letter, Orientale Lumen.

But he really encouraged the Eastern churches to fully embrace their traditions. and I think that there's something of when we have that split of different devotions, and I don't mean individually, I think people can maybe, you know, someone might find that praying the rosary is very helpful for their spirituality, even if they're Eastern Catholic, and I think there's nothing wrong with that. But I think in general, we are, like if we're looking elsewhere for the richness of tradition, then we might be missing the richness of tradition within our church. Like, okay, you're praying the rosary as a Byzantine,

but have you yet prayed or embraced the Ocathus to the mother of God? Because that's incredibly beautiful and so rich and so within our tradition. And there is, I think, something of a split that happens. I also, I would wonder, and I want to be very clear that I'm genuinely wondering this. I don't know this to be fact, and so I'm not saying it as historical fact, but I would wonder if a lot of that melding in Europe came from a need to distinguish that we are not Orthodox.

Oh, I think that's definitely true. Yeah. So I mean, that happened here. That's what I was about to say, because that happened in America, you know, because we had these Byzantine priests come over. We can have married priests in the Byzantine tradition, in the Eastern tradition.

They have to be married before they're ordained a deacon. so you can't be ordained a deacon and then a priest and then get married. But we had our Byzantine priests immigrated, and in America, you know, they weren't accepted as being Catholic. You know, it was you are, you're a married priest. We're Catholic. We don't have married priests, and so you're not Catholic. And this is where a huge breakoff happened in America.

and we had, yeah, lost a lot of our... A break-off in the sense that... Like, became Orthodox. Right, yeah. Yes, because they weren't accepted within... Because what were all these married priests supposed to do? Like, you know, just... Yeah.

And they weren't accepted as... And for a long time, the response to that, for a long time, our priests weren't allowed to be... We weren't allowed to have Byzantine Catholic priests in America being... married, and which, yeah, I think was a sad suppression of our tradition in the East. So it's now allowed again. But, yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. In a way, I liken it to Quebec within Canada. So I get why Quebec has to be really on guard against English, because English is predominant

in Canada, and it will overwhelm Quebec if they're not sort of defensive in some sense. And I think there's like a similar argument that can be made that I wonder if John Paul II's concern was like don't lose your identity in the way he didn't have to say that to the West because the East is quite small right in the Catholic Church yeah I think that makes a lot of sense and and yeah I guess to just reiterate it's not even only St. John Paul the 2nd but there's been there's been a lot from Rome specifically that has encouraged Byzantines live your tradition pray your creed at the liturgy, so on and so forth. And yeah, we believe in all the dogma of the Catholic Church and all of that. Yeah, that must be fun to have to keep reiterating, but fair enough.

Yeah. I spoke to one Eastern Catholic monk, and he says that we Byzantines are like a scab on the body of Christ, a sign of healing, something to that effect, you know. I think it was Jose Maria Escrova, I'm not sure, who said there are many devotions with the body of Christ, than the church's treasury, choose only a few and be faithful to them. I really like that. Yeah. And it is interesting in the West. The devotions look kind of different, do they?

Do you think? Oh, yes. And what is that? Is there more of them? More devotions? Yeah. There's a lot of, there's chaplets and there's like scapulas of different colors and all of which are good.

I'm not criticizing. I'm just saying that looks different to me than the devotion. That might be true. I mean, but you could even say, you know, within... We have the ocathist to the mother of God, but we also have the acathist to the passion of Christ, and we also have the ocathist of, so we have lots of different devotions within devotions, I guess.

So, but that, yeah, I don't know, that might be true. I think part of that might just be because the West is so much more, the Western churches are just so much more abundant and so much more populated that there's just a lot more people to put that out, you know. Okay, yeah, maybe. Why do you think there's been a resurgence, I have my ideas, of interest in the East? In the East, among Catholic specifically. I think that from a critical eye, I would say that part of it is people being displeased by a watering down of tradition in the West.

And so they're interested in rich traditions in the East as well. we Eastern Catholics are reclaiming those traditions because, again, we didn't have them for many years in America. We had lost a lot of those as well. The reason I say that's from a critical perspective is because I don't think that's the healthiest of reasons to be entering into Eastern spirituality. I think there's also just a greater awareness now. And so a lot of people weren't interested in it before because they simply didn't know that it existed. and I think St. John Paul II did a lot to bring an awareness, you know, in his talking about breathing with both lungs and such. I think that's part of it. There's a deep reverence. There can be a deep reverence in how our liturgy is celebrated, and that's very attractive to people.

I think there's also an attraction about consistency of liturgy. I mean, things vary from parish to perish in the East as well, but I think there is a greater consistency of just like, you know you're going to get the same liturgy, you know you're going to get the same melodies, you know you're going to get pretty much the same music, things like that.

And I think people are attracted to... The stability. The stability. To mold, yeah. Yes. So I think that's part of it as well. Yeah, I think that's right. I think I'm hopefully rightly critical of the extremes on both sides.

And so I'm all for criticizing ultra-trads that kind of look down their nose at certain Novosota type things. But for now, I'll take the other position. And I'd like to try to help people who don't understand the traditionalists in the West. By, you know, it's like, could you imagine if there was a change

in the divine liturgy of St. John Chrysostom to the degree that there was a change from the Tridentine master the Novice Order? Right. It would be absolutely why. And you'd be right to be angry. And it's like, what does that do to a faith community when their central act has been so altered? And often, I guess, due to a lack of oversight, has had so many shenanigans, you know, within it.

And so it's like, you've got that on one side. And then I think a lot of Catholics, therefore, want to find tradition. And so they'll go somewhere else in the West. But then sometimes what they find is not the sort of joy and peace that they would like to find because people are quite angry about what happened. And again, fair enough, though it shouldn't steal our peace. So I think for many people that Isis has kind of become a refuge, like, could I have my tradition but not have to be angry? Yeah. And also, I honestly, I think part of it is I just, I'd like to not think about the Pope, like in a healthy way.

You know, like I can be in union with him and love him and pray for him. But there's this sense, I think I felt it that if I just go to the Byzantine liturgy, even though the Pope is mentioned more in the liturgy than Holy Mass. Yeah, it just felt like something of a safe haven for people. Yeah, I think, yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. And I'm, I'm more and more in my life, I think, able to see, part of this probably just comes through having more experience of seeing into people's hearts. But I can really see and understand where people in every of those demographics that you just described where they're coming from and like what their heart is actually aching for as they've contained themselves within this particular demographic. if that's the right word. And so, yeah, and I think I know, and I know plenty, you know, I said that I didn't think it was the healthiest to come to the Byzantine tradition because of problems that you've found in the West, but I also know plenty of people who came for that reason, but then came to really love the East

and had their hearts and their motivations, I think, purified in the midst of that. And so I'm also not trying to shame anyone who, you know, there might be a lot. be people who are listening who are Byzantine and they're like, well, that's absolutely why I did this. And I'm not trying to shame that. Like, I understand. That might be the impetus, but not the reason. They're not remaining in the Byzantine churches because they're angry. Yeah, because, yeah.

Something they love. Yeah, exactly. And that ache, like, it's a good ache to want a deeper reverence and to want, you know. And I think that we can use that ache to foster a greater reverence within the tradition that we are. instead of seeking that elsewhere. But yeah. Forgive me if we've talked about this before and you're bored of the topic

and if you are, we can change it. But at what point we're like, okay, I'm open to being a nun and not having a boyfriend, not getting married. Yeah. I almost said when I made my life profession. But that's not too far off.

Yeah, my whole vocation story, which I'm sure, yeah, if people want to listen to the whole story, I think we've done it before. It's on other podcasts as well, I'm sure. But basically it was a whole journey of wanting with, I thought, every fiber of my being to be married and have lots of children and having no interest whatsoever in being a nun. And then finding some little crack in my heart open to monastic life and just kind of a waffling between those two things. And it was a really this is kind of jumping ahead, but I do think it is something I want to mention.

It was a really important moment in my discernment when I came to trust, or at least like, choose to want to trust, that the Lord knows what will make me happy and what will fulfill me better than I do. Because there was this, this like disintegration that was happening in my heart throughout my discernment of, I was like, okay, Lord, I'll be a nun if you want me to be, but I'll be miserable and I'll be a bad nun for all of these reasons and this, that, and the other. And I'm just going to spend my whole life wishing that I were married. But if this is your will, then I don't have a choice and so I'll do it. But like, that's not how God's will works. And that was something I had

to come to realize is either, if those things are true, he's not calling me to, to be a nun. Or if he is calling me to be a nun, it means those things aren't true. It means he knows this life will fulfill me. It means he knows, you know, even if I couldn't see that yet. And that's definitely how it played out. But the first time I, the first time I pretended to be open to it was when I had just come back to the church after college, like I, or in college, like I described that I had come back to the church. And I was like, well, now I'm a good Catholic. And so I'm supposed to discern whatever that means. And so I went on a three-month dating fast, which sounds like not a long time, but that was a very long time for me. And yeah, I was like, I wasn't replacing that,

not dating with something else, which by the way doesn't work. If you're just like, I'm going to give up this thing that I really like and that's really fun and not replace it with. any sort of like prayer or talking to communities or something like that. Like that just doesn't work. Um, so a month into that three months, I met a guy and I was like, I'm attracted to men. Clearly I'm not supposed to be a nun. So I stopped my dating fast two months early and dated this guy. Um, so that was the first time I kind of pretended to be open. Um, and maybe some part of me was. Uh, but then after graduating college, I was a missionary for a year and a half in Kansas City, Missouri and I decided to take the first like six months of that and not date and just be intentional

about my ministry and being in a new place and things like that. And then I had at that point at least broken the addiction to dating for long enough that I was like, okay, I could continue this a little longer and knowing my heart and how distracted I can become. I was like this time I'm not ending the dating fast until I actually visit a community. And so I visited Christ the Bridegger Monastery, which is where I'm now a nun. And you would think that's where it ended, but then there was still a lot of back and forth. I want to get into that. But what do you mean by addiction to dating? Just like the good feelings and the dopamine hits of, like, this is a fun thing and someone's giving me attention and just finding so much of my identity in that. And so like if I'm not dating

someone not really knowing who I was and not really knowing what things I like to do if I'm not doing them with someone else and so on and so forth. And so once I had gone a long enough time without being in a relationship, I think I'm only realizing this, as I say, I've never shared this before. So that's fun. I like when that happens in an interview. Once I had gone long enough without those things, I realized like, okay, I can do this. I can, I can be single and I can still be happy and I can still have interests and I can, you know, all of that. That's good. And then I know that if I was to say to you before entering the monastery, something like,

you know, the monastery is not perfect and people have an idealized view of it, you would have said to me, of course I know that. And just like I would have said the same thing about marriage. Oh, no, I understand. It's not like that. But you cannot not have an idealized view of something you want but don't yet have. Yeah. So what did you think the monastery life would be like?

And then did a rude awakening come at some point about what it's actually like? No, because it turns out you would have been wrong to say that. Like our life is perfect and we never fight and we never. No, we are broken, fallen, sinful human beings. And we get annoyed with each other. And we like all of that is very real. there is I'll get to answering your actual question

but I would highly recommend there's a book by Mother Mary Francis Have you heard of her? I don't know She's a I think I think poor Claire is what they are But there's a she

There's a book called Right to be Mary M-E-R-R-Y Right to be Mary And there's I don't even remember what chapter it is One of my sisters recently loaned this book to me

to read this particular chapter, but there's this chapter in which she describes what it's like to live in a cloistered community and the kinds of things that irritate you with your sisters. Let's make a list. And it is like spot on. And it sounds ridiculous when you're reading it. It's just, it's the way that someone's chewing next to you. It's the way that, like, it's just the littlest things that you would never think of.

I need more. But. I need it. actual list. This is so excellent. I know that you and Terrez have had a strained relationship, but I know that you also know that she talks about this. I do. The clacking of the rosary beads, which you don't have to deal with because of the soft rope, but that's awesome. No, it's those things. I don't know. And you're right to be annoyed by people who chew. They should be excommunicated. It's not your fault. It is theirs. If you can hear another person chew, they should be banished.

But there are like, it's interesting because in a monastery, and in the married life, like really just any, like, intentional and extreme communal living as Christians. I'm not talking, like, you live with your Christian brothers or sisters in college, but then you're out at class all day and then you're, like, doing your own thing or whatever.

Like, that can be intentional, but that's not what I'm talking about. I mean, like, in a monastery in particular or in a family, but, like, in a monastery, we work with the same people that we pray with, with the same people that we live with, and there is almost no break, right? Like we don't leave the monastery often.

This kind of thing is an exception in our community. And so you, very quickly, you get to like 300-level spirituality of like the kinds of interior work that you're doing. And I don't mean 300-level in the sense of we're very holy. I mean the depth of purification that happens through the person chewing right next to you is you would think would come from having to process this really intense argument that you'd had with someone or something. But it's happening from the person chewing next to you. Like it's just things get so, you know, it's the Archbishop Fulton Sheen quote that I actually very much dislike.

I know what you're going to say. Uh-huh. I know you know. That hearing a nun's confession is like being stoned to death with popcorn or something. along those lines. And I really dislike it because I do think that with all, I love,

I love Archbishop Bolton Sheen. I'm not trying to disband. And, the Rosary's beautiful. The Rosary's beautiful. But, so with all the respect to him, the reason I don't,

the reason I don't like the quote is I think it really does give a misconception of the kind of of things that we try to share as nuns of the struggles that we have of it's just like oh that's cute that's like she did this one thing that um she thinks is a big sin but like that's so little compared to what we're doing in the world but i would argue actually those little pieces of popcorn are often much more serious than these like big sins that are happening in the world i had a eastern catholic monk say to me i know this monk and i know what you're about to say

We know each other too well to have an interview. How about I'll just tell you what you're going to say. Yeah, but for those at home, he said, if you want to see how boys sin go to Vegas, and if you want to see how men's sin come to the monastery. Because we really do, don't we, downplay the seriousness of vanity and backbiting and so on. I have an excellent example of this from my own life, my own sin. So here we go. You're not a priest, but I'm letting you hear my confession.

You can hear it. You just can't do anything about it. So, I, I, one time, just last year, I was talking with a friend, and I wanted to ask him a question. And as I was about to ask the question, I felt very clearly a hesitance, is hesitance a word? Hesitation. Hesitation. I felt a hesitation that I knew was the Holy Spirit. And it was like, do not ask this question.

But I thought there's no reason to not ask this question. Like, I can think through the possible answers and everything's fine. And there's no reason to not ask this question. So I ignored that. And I asked the question. And I won't give all the details, but it was a very bad idea for me to ask the question. And in hindsight, I could see why it was such a bad idea. And it led to, um, it led to like other interior sins on my part, um, that were just a really intense

struggle. And, and I was very, very deeply convicted that, um, that this was like one of the greatest sins I had committed in a long time. And it wasn't, when I went to confession, the sins that occurred as a result of asking the question, I confessed those. But what was very serious and what I was very convicted by was ignoring that prompting from the spirit.

Disobedience. Yeah, disobedience to God. And when I share that, I know that so many people listening, so many people in the world are going to think, like, well, that's so silly, that's so little. like, okay, so you ignored this prompting or whatever, but like, I had an affair on my husband. And it's just like, but I think...

Tell people what you mean by that in case they misinterpret what that means. You cheat at chess. Okay. That's another analogy that's not going to help. You were disobedient to God who you view as your spouse. That's what you mean. Oh, that's actually not what I meant, but that's a great analogy. Oh. I just meant like someone's thinking of some much bigger sin. And they're like, but that's actually a great point. I didn't even intentionally do that.

No, I was just thinking like someone in the world listening to this might be like, okay, so you didn't listen to this little thing and then you asked a question you shouldn't have asked. That's not a big deal. And the question itself wasn't objectively wrong. Right, exactly. Yeah. And so it seems like not a big deal. But the more sensitized we become to the Holy Spirit. the greater responsibility we have to responding to that, you know?

And I really think that like for me to, um, an affair actually wasn't even a great example. Um, maybe a better example would be like, I lied or something like that. That might seem like a bigger thing than me asking a question that doesn't seem objectively wrong.

But like when we're lying, there's often a mixed motivation and we're coming from a place of fear and insecurity and all of these things and there's just complicated factors. that and it's sometimes is just like instinctive and it's habitual and it's whatever but like this was a deliberate I could hear the Lord

and I chose to not listen and that's very serious it is I mean to use an analogy and I wonder if this is good or not it'd be like I know my wife much better than I know every other woman right and so I might say something to her if she were in the room

that is objectively fine because I know her so well I know that I'm hurting her or I know that this will upset her and I'm kind of intending it. And so if I would say all I said was this and she just freaked out. Yeah. Yeah, but like when you're intimate with another person and you know each other, then those small things aren't small.

Yeah, and that actually reminds me of my wife. One thing she realized recently is that to some extent she believes she's made an idol out of health. She has a lot of health issues, you know. Naturally, you want to find a solution to these things. and there's a gazillion rabbit holes you can go down on YouTube to find out what indeed, and I know you might have some autoimmune stuff too, don't you? So you're probably sympathetic to that, right?

And so she realized that she'd kind of made an idol out of health. And she went to confession and just felt like the priest didn't understand this gravity of what she was dealing with. Yeah, that's difficult. One of the more difficult things I've encountered in confession is when the priest, particularly if it's a priest who doesn't know my heart and doesn't know my, when his response is that's not a sin. And I'm like, well, the Lord and I have talked about it and I know I wronged him and I know that this was a sin. So I understand that there's a lot of scrupulacity out there and priests are trying to curb that. And I get that.

It's always good have a good spiritual father who knows you, right? Absolutely. So one of the things I've been thinking a lot about lately is this, all right? We all want peace, but we don't. don't always want surrender. And the truth is, you don't get one without the other. That's why I'm really excited about what our sponsor, Hello, is doing this June. They're launching a challenge based on my book, Jesus Our Refuge. And it's all about going deeper, learning what it actually means to draw close to the heart of Christ, not just in a sentimental way, but in a real transformative way, because his heart loves us unconditionally. But it also calls us,

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recommend because I know you're going to love it. Go ahead and become an annual member. And when you do, they'll send you a free copy of the complete Ignatius Catholic Study Bible, which is just incredible. Do you ever wish, I know the answer probably no, but I just want to explore this for a moment, do you ever wish you could confess to a woman? What's that like? I mean, it's... Absolutely not. Yeah, like, no, I don't wish that at all. Yeah. Because I don't know, I'm just, obviously, I don't think women should be priest, clearly.

But I just thought to myself, it would be weird if I could only confess to women. Like, if I belong to a religion and I could only tell all the bad stuff I've done to random women. No, I've never wished that. I have nothing more than thing? Do you think any, have you ever met a woman who's thought, gosh, it was so much easier to confess some of these things to a woman? You're like, you could see the argument, right? like she might be more maternal, more understanding. She experiences what I've experienced.

This middle-aged celibate fellow's got no idea what I'm dealing with, nothing like that. You know, I could understand someone else, especially depending upon their understanding of confession, wanting that. I would never desire it because I don't even, I also don't want to be confessing my sins to, man. Like, it's not that I don't want to confess my sins to a woman. I don't want to confess my sins to a man either. I want to confess my sins to the Lord. And I think it's more accessible for me to do that if there is a man standing in place of Jesus than a woman. So I think that's definitely a part of it. I can understand, I think particularly if a woman has experienced deep trauma from men, I could understand the difficulty of opening up that kind of vulnerable

space to a man standing in the place of Christ even. I could understand that. I could also see that being an incredible opportunity for healing as the man gently receives her heart. Which I think would mean that a woman who has experienced deep trauma from men would need to be selective and careful in who she goes to for confession in order for that to be a place of healing and not to further traumatize. Beautiful. I want to get back to the question of when were you scandalized by the monastery? And I'll share mine with you, not the monastery, but it's a trivial example.

The time that you were scandalized by my monastery. Yeah, from the get-go. As soon as I walked in. No, I mean, this is a trivial kind of funny example. But, you know, I got married and we went off on our honeymoon. and one of our groomsmen stayed in the house while we were gone, and he left out plates with food on it because he was a disgusting single man, and so there was mold.

And, you know, we come back from this fantastic honeymoon, everything's fantastic, and I just, I'm going to go have a lay down. And I guess my wife was upset that this, like, knucklehead, God bless him, had left all this stuff around. And so I woke up to the vacuum cleaner being, like, banged into the bed on which I was napping. So that is not a series. I love cameras.

I love her too. And that's not a serious answer, but that's an example. All right, this is what it is. You know, so I guess when did the wheels fall off for you? You know, I wish that I could think of an actual moment, but I can't. But I can share the interior shift that happened. That was very, very good. That came along with realizing this is for a long time. And I see this in most of our discerners and women who come for long stays or who, who, even enter is when I entered the monastery my greatest or one of my greatest struggles was the self-hatred and the comparison with all of the other nuns of basically like I'm the weak link here I'm the one here who's not holy I'm the one who's messed up I'm the one who has issues I'm this I'm that and and I remember

doing you a favor by letting you be among them. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm always, like, worried that I'm going to make the misstep that's going to just bring down the whole monastery and whatever. And I do remember a shift happening at some point, but I can't, I have a terrible memory, so I just can't pinpoint, like, how this happened. But a shift happening where I realized they are also sinful and broken. But that didn't shatter this facade that I had or like disillusioned me or something.

On the contrary, it was actually very consoling for me. Because now all of a sudden, we are sinners struggling together for this higher aim, as opposed to they're all great and I'm just messed up and woe is me, you know, and I'll never be at their level. And so it actually was a really consoling thing to me when I realized, oh, that nun gets snippy or, oh, that nun, if she doesn't have enough food or, you know, whatever.

I'm trying to think of vague examples because I'm worried I'm going to accidentally think of real specifics of my sisters. Yeah, it's almost like a comforting thing to realize that you weren't special in your dysfunction and brokenness. Yeah, there's this great, I'm going to, it's funny, we were talking about this,

one of my sisters and I were talking about this before this interview and she was like, don't tell that story on Pines. And I was like, great, so here it is. But she used to listen to the podcast that I have with my spiritual father and she hadn't considered

that she could ever be a nun. And so she just, she shared with me at some point that she was, she reached, she had this moment listening to the podcast where she was like, wow, if Mother Natalia could be a nun. And it was this realization for her that maybe she could do it. But she didn't mean it as an insult, I don't think.

It was more just like realizing that we're normal people, I think, is big for people. It is beautiful. I remember confessing to a spiritual father once upon a time about kind of scrupulosity and all these sorts of things and other sins. and I think he said to me, you know, like, you're not special here, right? And he wasn't being mean, and I took it the way he intended it. And he's like, we're all dealing with this. And that was comforting.

Yeah. Yeah. Was there a point that you realized I'm no longer tempted to leave the monastery? Like, I'm in, or was that your life profession? That was actually my life profession. And that's not a joke. I had a... And how long, for those at home, does it take from entering to life profession?

Mm-hmm. At this point in our process, it takes about four and a half, four and a half to six years, something like that. Yeah, four and a half to six years. Mm-hmm. And genuinely, that whole time was a discernment for me. Like, I know a lot of people talk about discernment and they say it's a discernment up until you take your vows or up until your, but six months before my life profession. I had an emergency retreat with my spiritual father. And I knew by this point that he was pretty committed to my vocation. And so I called him beforehand and I said, I need a retreat. I think I'm leaving the monastery. And if you can't take me seriously with that, then I need you to be honest because I need to take the retreat with someone else. What do you mean by take me seriously? Because up to that point, anytime I have.

had had a vocation crisis, I'd be like, I'm having a vocation crisis. And he's like, yeah, yeah. And he just kind of brushes it off. But it's because, like, he knew my heart and he knew that like, this was a passing thing and this was whatever. But I was saying, like, this time it's real and you can't brush it off. That's good. I'm sure he received that well. He did. He received it very well. And he said, I'll take it seriously. And he did. And so I went on this retreat. Yeah, six months before my life profession. And I was pretty sure going into the retreat that I was going to leave. And I think that was a really important time for me because I had to ask a lot of questions about my vocation that needed to be answered in order for me to give a free yes.

And I needed to know what I was actually saying yes to. And all of that happened on that retreat. And since making my life profession, which was now five years ago I was there yeah yeah you were there that's right yeah your whole family well not your whole family

yeah you're all there yeah even Liam yeah believe so okay yeah um and yeah five years that's wild anyways five years ago

um not a single time have I have I doubted and and I don't say that to right I don't think that's typical is what I'm saying like

nor would it be a sign that's something wrong with you right And I'm not, I'm genuinely not afraid for the day that I do wonder if I should have done something different. But so far, yeah, by the grace of God, I've just not even, not even once have I doubted. I hope it's not too annoying that I keep trying to understand what you went through by comparing it to what I went through in marriage. That's the only way I know how to. No, I think that's perfect.

I was telling someone recently that there is, you would think that as celibates, we would have a lot in common with our single friends. but I find that I have way more in common interiorly with my married friends than my single friends because the married life is very, very similar. We're both trapped. As my dad used to say, he'd be like, I've been married to your mother for 20 years. This is his Australian accent.

You don't get that for manslaughter. And I remember being scandalized by that. Now I've been married 20 years, now I see why it's funny. We went to, as a community, we went to see someone gifted our community tickets to see a musical. And they gave us one extra ticket. So we went with our bishop who loves musicals.

And so we went to see the sound of music. Only on the way there. I knew this was happening for like a few months. Only on the way there as I'm driving. I was like, guys, this is going to be really funny. We're nuns at the sound of music. And they're all like, yeah, this has been funny the whole time. And I'm like, oh, right.

I'm wondering why you're laughing. But anyways, at the sound of music, the person next to Maddie, one of our docomoy, like a postulant, love her. Said, she's amazing. She's the one who was like, if Mother Natalia could be a nun. Ouch. But she, the person next to her asked how long she'd been at the monastery and she said, well, I've been in for a year and a half. And I was like, you make it sound like prison.

I've been in for a year and a half now. Yeah. But I remember, like, I had quit my job in Australia, sold my car, shipped over a few boxes of my favorite books, you know, pretty committed, got a job in Texas, had an engagement ring with me and called my friend. I'm like, I don't think I should do this, you know. But like you, once I proposed, I actually, I don't know what it is. I don't know if it's like a psychological, okay, you've chosen it now. And so there was none, there was no going back and forth. There were later times in my marriage where I struggled with parents.

And I was like, I don't think it's supposed to be this hard. Everyone else is telling me how great it is and I don't like it. Yeah. And I feel bad that I don't like it. And then I started going like, did I just rush into marriage? Maybe I should have. So that's a fun. Those are fun places to learn more about yourself.

Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So was your final profession? Was that a graced, beautiful day for you? It was, yeah. And the whole week following. So we have a time of honeymoon at our monastery.

So we spend five days in the chapel. So we sleep, eat everything in the chapel. How beautiful. For the time afterwards. Like the other nuns bring us our dinner and things like that. And it was really, it was really graced. And yeah, I often go back to that time in my mind to, yeah. That's lovely.

Tell me about the importance of the habit. Like why can't just several Sheila, like yourselves get together, make your profession and wear sneakers and jeans. Why do you have to dress like that? I think you can. I think it would not be good for me personally. So in our service at our tonsure when we receive the habit, when we receive it, the bishop or the priest monk says, what is it,

that the habit is meant to be a sermon to the people. that I think life is short, death is certain, and judgment forthcoming. I think that's what it is. And it's something like that. Yeah. But I'm more of a like paraphrase kind of gal. And the, so that's, so part of it is that it's a sign for others. Yeah.

Which I think is very important. You know, when I'm, when I'm out at the grocery store, store, I will have someone come up to me and say, you know, first, it's usually like, are you a nun or what are you or whatever? When I say, what are you? I kind of want to be like a human being. What are you? But I know what they're asking and I'm typically kind to people. So I say I'm a nun. Or sometimes they just say, are you? And I just say yes. So anyways, when that happens, then sometimes people will just pour out the depths of their heart and ask for prayers or ask for spiritual counsel or whatever.

And those are just very, very treasured moments for me. And that wouldn't happen if I wasn't wearing a habit simply because they wouldn't recognize me as a nun. And so I think that's part of it as well. but another big part of it is it's helpful for me because it holds me accountable. Like I know that when I'm in public, I know that when I'm wearing this, that people will and should see my actions as representing the church, see my words as representing the church. And that's just really helpful for me to follow the scriptural mandates. to have a guard over my mouth and I don't live that well.

It's often something I confess, you know, is the times that I've spoken loosely or that I've scandalized or whatever it may be. But that's another help as well. Does this thing ever get annoying? Does it cut that? When you're eating salad, it doesn't cut in. It's actually, it's actually quite loose and comfortable. But sometimes, like, the longer you wear one, the looser it gets, like you have to wash

it every, yeah, I have to wash a veil every few days so that I can dry it so it tightens up. because the looser it gets on day three, if you're eating a salad, it just kind of starts to like slip off as you're eating, and it's very annoying. Salad, why salad? I think just there's a lot more chewing. You never thought we'd have this discussion. Yeah. No, you're right.

This is the part of the conversation no one needs to hear, but we're going to do it. That's right. That's cool. I also think, like as a layman, when I see a priest in his casick or a nun in her habit, and I agree, you know, like I'm not saying if you're not wearing these things, like the priest on his day off or whatever, I get it. But there's something about seeing someone take their vocation seriously. Like, maybe I'm wrong to think this, but I think it's a common experience.

You see a priest in a cassock on an airplane. Like, okay, this man knows who he is. And I can trust my heart to him because he takes himself seriously. Yeah. You know what I mean by that? Like, not that he doesn't take himself with levity, that he's littleness, but just that I know what I am. And I can entrust my heart to someone who takes. their vocation seriously.

Well, and I do, would you like a couple of hot takes? Yeah. Because we haven't ruffled feathers, I feel like, since five minutes in. So it's time to ruffle some more feathers. That's right. So this actually, and I really mean this without shaming or without judgment, but it is a reason that I highly encourage my priest friends to wear their clerics even on their day off. or to call one another father.

Because I do think that when priests, you know, I've seen it happen that like when priests are together and they're not calling each other father or they're not in their clerics, I think they can forget a little bit of their identity at times. You know, it can slip into like we're just bros hanging out and there does need to be a certain relaxation and a letting the guard down in a,

but like that can slip into that can slip into idle chatter, that can slip into, you know, and I understand, I genuinely do understand when priests are having their day off that they might want to break from those conversations, from the person coming up to them

on the airplane or something like that. And if you genuinely need that break, then I think that's something that you should discern and be open to doing if that's what you and your spiritual father discern or whatever. But if it's simply because you don't want to be stretched or then I would just encourage you to remember that like you don't have a day off from being a priest, right? Like you don't have, I love that we wear our habits all the time, even at the doctors, even on my home visit, I wear my habit, you know, because I'm having time away from our regular schedule at the monastery, but I'm not taking time away from being a nun. And this reminds people

of that. And that's difficult sometimes on home visit when it's like I'm out doing something with my parents and suddenly someone wants to take my time. But it's like, I guess this is easy for me to say because my parents are just so beautifully supportive of that. And they're so proud to have a daughter who's a nun and all of that. So they're very excited when I'm able to, like, give someone time when I'm with them or something. And I'm sure that's harder for others. Yeah.

Does that, do your parents attend a Byzantine liturgy? They do. Okay. Yeah, they've been Byzantine for, oh gosh, I don't know. They've probably been going to a Byzantine parish for, like, 13 or 14 years. Yeah. That's beautiful. And you've also been involved in spiritual, how do you call it, direction?

Mm-hmm. Yes. Like I give spiritual direction. Is that what you mean? Yeah. Was that hard? What I mean is, I think, I guess if I was in your shoes, I might think, who the heck am I to be speaking into this person's life? But of course, that's the job of a spiritual mother. I need you to mother me, right?

So you kind of don't want to shirk your responsibility either. Well, yeah, and I think not every nun is called, I think, to give spiritual direction. and probably not every priest is called to give spiritual direction. I, it's, it's the aspect of being life professed that I think I was the most scared of. And the most I felt ill-equipped for. And, but it's also become the aspect that I think is the most tangibly life-giving for me. So I don't want to say it's the most life-giving. like my spousal union with the Lord is the most lifegiving,

but it's the most, the one that feels the most lifegiving, I guess I could say. And I think part of that is because I am so ill-equipped to be a spiritual mother, and I don't know the right things to say, and I'm not studied, I'm not a theologian. I'm trying to be a theologian in the sense of what Avagrius says, which is one who prays is a theologian. And I don't know that I really know how to pray yet,

but I'm working on it. So I'm like a theologian in training as I'm learning to pray. But because of that, I think the fact that I feel so ill-equipped, when I'm in direction with someone and I do have the right words or the right response, it is just so clear to me that it's not me. And so I'm able to hold that with open hands and to just really I hope I never, like, I hope I never lose that, you know. I've only been giving spiritual direction for five years at this point.

And so I hope I never lose that all in that reverence and that fear, which I think is a good fear to have. And a, like, Lord, I need you because I don't know how to walk with this person through this. And, but I think that's what makes it so lifegiving is that I know it's something that the Lord is doing through me. other than the parts that are mistakes and then that one's me. You know, if you are a practicing Catholic, dating can feel kind of like wandering in the desert a bit. You meet someone, things seem promising, and then you find out you're not actually on the same page when it comes to the faith, and that obviously matters. That's why I want to tell you about Catholic Match.

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you believe in? Check out CharityMobile and see for yourself. To get started, visit Charitymobile.com slash Matt Frad. That's charitymobile.com slash Matt Frad and use promo code Matt Frad at checkout. To make another analogy to marriage and consecrated life, you know, like my marriage won't survive without continual ongoing dynamic intimacy with Cameron. getting to know her, sharing my heart with her, you know, pursuing her, right? What does intimacy with Jesus look like, not just for a nun, but for all of us who call ourselves Christians? And why is that come on essential, like what we were made for? Like, I know I'm like letting the other foot drop here.

Like, you have to talk about this because it's like, the way I think about it is if you were to ask Padre Pio, like, am I called to receive the stigmata like you? He might be like, I mean, probably not. Or think of all these other supernatural things, like levitations or inalocutions. But if you ask any saint, am I called to an ongoing dynamic, ever-increasing intensity of intimacy with the Holy Trinity? The answer is absolutely yes, right?

And how sad it is when we sort of forsake that growing intimacy with the good Jesus, because we've got everything set up just so and we've curved some of our behaviors. And then evangelism is less about calling people into intimacy with the good God who knows them and more about look at this syllogism that leads to the conclusion that you should intellectually accept.

And here is why the Catholic moral system is the most beautiful, which you should also adopt, and your life will flourish. Yeah, like those are both true things. But intimacy is clearly the key point of the Christian life with God. Yeah. Yeah. And I think why it's,

it's essential. The first thing that came to mind as you asked that is John 15. I am the vine and you are the branches and abide in me. Like the Lord tells us this is essential, so we trust that it's essential. And apart from him, we can do nothing. You know, like we have, we need to abide in him. And that happens through that happens through time spent together, that happens through intimacy, that happens through shared experience and through shared memories and things like this. And so I think it's essential because if we're not abiding in the vine, we lose life. But even though, I agree with you, but even those things can be like formulaized, that's not a word, is it? Formula made for, like, into formulas. Like, because, again,

use the analogy, it's like, I need to abide with my wife. It's like, I could think that means just not leave her or like time spent together. Well, I can spend time with her and not be interested in her. And likewise, in the Christian life, I might think that abiding in Christ means remaining in the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, which it does, or I might think that spending time together is to say prayers, which I'm not terribly attentive to. Do you know what I mean? I do. I think that... I think we're often safer. We're often find it safer to make a sort of formula of the Christian life because it doesn't involve me. Yeah. It's very messy and well I think yeah it doesn't involve you. I think that's the key. That's what I was thinking as you were describing like especially

the the example of you could be spending time with Cameron but not like wholly invested not totally you know like your mind is elsewhere. Well then I would argue that you're not really with her part of you is with her. You as a whole are not with her and you are actually in that sense, like in that moment, failing as spouse to give yourself as gift to her because you're only giving her part of you. There's a, can I actually share a quote? This is an incredible book. Have you read this or seen this even face to face knowing God beyond our shame? I say it's incredible, but I'm only about halfway through it a little more than halfway. So hopefully the second half isn't terrible. Father Stephen Freeman, who's an Orthodox priest. You're familiar with him.

him. I know he has a popular book. Everywhere present, oh, it's right here. Everywhere present, Christianity in a one-story universe. And so that one, I haven't read it, but my spiritual father loves that book. And he's described it as talking about how in the Western, not like Western church, but Western world, especially through influence of Protestantism and things, there's kind of become this separation of, we think of ourselves here, and God is like on the second story, and we have to kind of look outside of ourselves

and look up to find him, whereas actually he is everywhere present, and this is a one-story universe, and we're all, like, God is here with us. Very good. But this book, Face to Face, Knowing God, beyond our shame is about shame, like a good and healthy shame, which a lot of the fathers talk about. I think in current connotation and the way most people speak of shame, it's only a bad thing.

So I actually think this book is really helpful because it gives context for when the fathers speak of shame and the good shame. I think it describes what that is because it's not what we usually think it is. So it's about kind of what the fathers talk about as a good shame and also about toxic shame, which is toxic shame is how we, like, that's the kind of current. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, thank you. That's what I mean. But here's, I think this gets to your question of the abiding and so on and so forth. So he's referencing at the beginning of this Hans Orr's von Baltazar, which is good.

as a, yeah, Orthodox priest. But Hans Orsvon Baltazar is writing about something that St. Gregory of Nissa said, and he's describing Gregory's understanding of the soul. And so anyways, he says, so this is Hans Ors von Baltazar talking about St. Gregory of Nissa, and we need this context for the quote that I'm actually going to give. We should not believe that we are seeing ourselves when we are only seeing something that surrounds us. our body, our senses, the idea that others have of us. For anything unstable is not us.

Who said that? This is the author? Hans Orr's Von Baltazar talking about St. Gregory of Nissa's. So I think that for anything unstable is not us is something from Gregory of Nissa. So that's the part you need for this longer excerpt. This is the author. Anything unstable is not us. St. Gregory's intuition is vital in the process of our healing. There is a me beneath the

encrusted and obscured versions of the self that are generated by the dynamic of shame in our lives, as well as by other factors. It tells us that as we do the difficult work of healing, unlearning, discovery, and such, the content of repentance in the spiritual life, there is a goal that awaits us. We journey toward the true self, the image of God, the place of his true reflection, and in that place we discover that who we are stands before him without shame or fear. This is the place of our salvation. Tell me what that means to you. So to me, this is the description of what theosis is. So theosis or deification is the process of,

to say it kind of scandalously, becoming God, you know. Sometimes we kind of soften that language and say it's becoming like God because that sounds less intense. But it's this process of becoming one with him, becoming so in union with him that we are him, you know. The log in the fire. Yeah, exactly. And so to me, this is the process of theosis. This is what it is to become more and more in union with God,

which is the goal. This is salvation. And it's healing, it's unlearning, it's discovery. In other words, it's repeat. It's finding the me that is beneath the encrusted and obscured versions of the self. Okay, what does that line mean? The me beneath the encrusted and obscured versions of the self. This is the me beneath all of the masks that we put on.

And oftentimes, I think, hopefully Father Stephen Freeman agrees with me. But, um, mm-hmm. Want to see what he looks like. I want to see him face to face. He's got such a sweet face. So I think the thing about these masks that we wear is that oftentimes we wear masks for so long that we don't even know that they're masks. And that's why it's difficult to remove them. We don't recognize that this is a mask that needs to be removed. Like, I've lived this way my whole life.

And so I think this is me. So anyways, I think that the more integrated we become, the more we get to that deeper level of me, which comes through prayer and union with him in discovering who we are reflected in his eyes because we're made in his image. And so the more we become him, the more we become in union with him,

the more we become who we truly are. Like it's not about becoming someone else. It's about becoming more who we truly are. I have a great quote about that. But this is why you being with Cameron and spending time with her and maybe even seemingly listening to her, taking in what she's saying, but your mind being elsewhere, like you are not present. Part of you is present. And the goal is for this healing to happen that we can become more and more us so that we are. are more and more present, and I think that happens through union with him. But there is

this quote that I want to share. It's a Hasidic saying of Rabbi Zusia. He says, in the coming age, they will not ask me, why were you not Moses? They will ask me, why were you not Zusia? And I just, I love that because I think this, our concept of holiness, this is the problem I had when I entered the monastery and I thought I was the messed up one and I'm comparing myself to the other nuns. We have this concept of holiness, that holiness means becoming someone else. else. It means turning into someone else. But actually, as we grow in virtue, as we shed the

masks, we're only becoming more and more who we really are. It's like every, every sin is a breaking away from who we are. It's becoming less us. It's, um, someone said, I don't remember, I don't remember if it was Peter Craft, Kreeft, Krift. Kraft. Kraft. Craved, thank you. I don't remember if it was him or someone else, but they said, when we sin, we unself ourselves. And I really, really like that. It's my, it's my, I have this whole rant that I go on

about when someone sins and says, like, you know, I was, I was just being, like, we're all human, you know, or when someone, like, remarks on someone else's sin, like, hey, you know, like, go to confession, but we're all human, like it happens. And the reason I don't like that is because Jesus Christ was fully man. Yeah, and sin is a non-human act.

Yes. And so it's subhuman. Yeah. It's not even just non-human. It's subhuman. Like, to be fully human is to live like Christ. And when we sin, we're acting as less than that. We're settling for less than that.

We're actually acting animalistic, right? We're just acting out of like, yeah, it's subhuman and so I just don't like when we say that I'm I'm all for yeah you mean you mean like yeah we're all part of fallen humanity it's sort of broken humanity but Christopher west says he doesn't like when people come into the room and say are you decent and he wants to say you're always decent what they should ask is are you naked or not yeah but yeah how we speak kind of affects us so it's good that we use the right words that's beautiful yeah I had an experience recently of spending time with some very dear friends who I've known longer than Cameron.

And this is recently, we had this big trip together, and we all got together. And, yeah, I think I found parts of me just sort of like coming forth that haven't come forth in a while in the most beautiful way. And I think it's probably because I trust them. And so I felt safe to be awkward or dorky or too eccentric or too loud. I don't know, like all of those things. And I'm not saying that was the full expression of my personality or anything, but I think it's a good analogy.

Like when you're around people, you trust and you trust their love. You're more fully yourself. Isn't that obviously true? Like the people who you look up to and love, whether it be your spiritual father, Father Michael or someone else who you just feel safe in their presence, you can just be yourself. And that's kind of what we're saying, aren't we, about there's nowhere you can feel more at ease than before the gaze of the good God who loves you, actually. So if you think you feel that way about this person or this group of friends,

oh my yeah but then if you don't feel safe around someone then you're curbing your words and how your actions and am i coming off too much like this or too much like that and i think there has to be also an interior awareness because i think what you're describing this situation with your friends is a good and holy like you were more you but i think we can also sometimes be like well these are the friends that i can be crass around and they don't judge me for it and so i'm safe with them and It's like, it needs to be the people who not just like are excusing bad behavior, but are affirming the goodness and the uniqueness. And I have a really good example of this for my own life, I think.

And it's what I'm talking about with the masks too, because I would have, you and I had a conversation about this, like a personal conversation a few years ago. But I've always considered myself always. always until recently a very sarcastic person and like I tease a lot

and and I think this is just what I grew up with like I grew up with brothers and you know whatever who tease me all the time and that's how I knew I was loved

and so on and so forth but I recently like several years ago started to have a desire for gentleness. And as I began practicing this more and more,

I've just realized that like, I think I am actually a gentle person and I desire to be gentle with people. But because I was sarcastic for most of my life, I didn't know that was a mask. Like, I've been sarcastic for as long as I knew. I've been, I've teased for as long as I knew. And so, like, that's who I was.

I thought. And it can also be a way to survive other soccer. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And I think probably that's how it started, you know, is like, this is how I have tough skin and this is how I like. And this makes people laugh and whatever. And I want to be liked.

I want people to laugh at my, whatever, you know. And I was like so desperate to be liked because I've always felt so unlikable that it's, well, this makes people laugh. And so I'm liked and, you know, so on and so forth. It's like the story of every one of us. But then, as I realized... That's a good name for your upcoming book, which you haven't told me you want to write. The story of every one of us.

So that goes back to what we said earlier about. I'm not special. Yeah. Everyone goes, this is the story. That's beautiful. I've had multiple publishers reach out and ask me to write a book. And I'm like, hard pass. Anyways, but I had an experience at some point.

in the past couple of years where I met someone, and it was a first encounter, and, like, immediately, he was, like, sarcastic and witty. Yeah. And I jumped right in. And I, and, you know, we spent the next hour of just, like, back and forth, back and forth, just, like, so much wit and sarcasm. Yeah. And, like, I hadn't lost it.

I was on my game. I was right there with him matching him the whole time. And there wasn't even anything like, I don't know that there was sin in it. I don't know that it was like, it wasn't, none of it was vulgar or anything like that. But I just, at the end of the encounter, I was like, I just feel kind of icky.

Like, I don't feel like me. And so I think it's just, but again, I would have thought that was me several years prior. And so I think that, that's, that's what I mean by like, as we become more and more who we are, we start to feel that more deeply who we are, you know? And, um, and like once you find those places in you, then when you're not living in that way, it just like feels icky. You're like, I don't want to go back to that.

I don't, again, even if it's not sinful, if it's just like, that's not who I am and I don't like how I feel when I'm not who I am. No, that's an excellent supplement to what I said earlier. Because you're saying, yes, we can be more ourselves around people we're comfortable with, but that is different to letting ourselves go, as it were, to no longer guarding the heart. My prayer I love to snare from the Syrian, what does he say, things like, if I have laughed frivolously. Like, we don't ever think about laughing frivolously, you know, or, yeah, if I'm I've overeaten if I've, you know, gossiped or slanded or made fun of my brother's sin when my own

faults are countless. Like, it's sort of like, it's like a dissipation, like a letting go. And that's another way of not being yourself, right? Not being on guard in the heart. Yeah. Maybe. Absolutely. I think this is a really important point in, I was talking with someone about this who, someone a friend who had struggled with like a habitual sin

that what the sin is isn't even relevant but like but it was habitual and um and I just knew that like whenever this sin happened there was just so much self-hatred and so much um

but it was like I hate who I am when I sin um and And there came this moment of transition when, like, after a long break from this sin, when they fell into that same sin, all of a sudden, like, I could just tell that his response to his own sin was different. And there was still, like, the remorse, the conviction, the desire for confession.

but it was more he didn't say this but when I asked if this is what it was because this is what I saw he was like yes that's it it had gone from I hate who I am when I sin to I hate when my sin makes me not who I am and I could see that very distinctly of it was clear that like he wasn't identifying with the sin it was I was not I was not being who I am when I was clear that he wasn't identifying who I am when I did this. And that's what I'm describing. Is like once we come to learn who we are, we realize

that it's not that we don't like who we are when we sin. It's that when we sin we're not who we are. That's good. The voices of our culture are loud, but the truth is often silent and that silence has a cost. Right now,

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to getting your name out there, Shopify's got built in tools for email and social campaigns that make it feel like you've suddenly hired a marketing team. Plus that little purple shop pay button, it's not just pretty, it's actually the highest converting checkout on the planet. Fewer abandoned carts means more happy customers. It's time to turn. those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash pints. Go to Shopify.com slash pints. That's Shopify.com slash pints. You talked about how the fathers use the term shame and how we use the term shame. What is the proper way to use shame in this sense of the patristic? Oh, I don't think I can go into it.

I don't think I'll say it eloquently enough. Fair enough. What I often hear, right, is this distinction between guilt and shame, so like guilt is feeling bad for what I've done and shame is feeling bad for who I am. Is there any way you would, even if you're not quoting the fathers, is it a way you would, is that kind of how you understand it? That's how I understand like in the connotation, the current connotation of the word shame. It's always good for like modern thought to hit up against the cliffs of the fathers, it? Like sometimes the world gets on some kick because they heard it on a TED talk or something. Yeah.

And you're like, okay, there might be something here, but like I need it to hit up against the wisdom of the church to see what's left. Yeah. I think my intuition would be that when the fathers use shame, it's more in line with how you're describing guilt right now of when the fathers speak of a good shame, it's the shame that makes us. realize we need to change something, we need to turn back, we need metanoia, you know, this turning back. It's not ever supposed to be a toxic self-hatred, yes. It's supposed to, like, the way the fathers talk about shame is, this is always something that leads you to the mercy of God. That would be the distinction that I would make. If it's toxic, we want to hide from God. If it's healthy, we want God. God.

Isn't that it? Isolation versus communion? My goodness. I'm glad we externally process this. Yeah, no, that's it though, isn't it? Like sin isolates. Grace unites holy communion, the communion of the saints. Satan has desired to sift us like wheat.

Yeah, alone. Yeah. All right, well, you've got one, two, three books there. So I feel like you've had, you have more things you want to say from those books. I don't know. What books do you have there? Well, this. Boys in the boat.

What's that? Boys in the boat. Is that fiction? No, it's nonfiction. That's what I meant to say. Oh, no, I meant to say fiction. It's true. Okay, that is non-fiction.

Good, okay. Nine Americans and their epic quest for gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. All right. Yeah. Cool. Do you have bad eyesight? I just big text.

I wondered if you were going to mention that. So I checked this out from the library, and the only version they had was the large print. And so, actually this is really funny this is a great act of humility that I'm saying this out loud

except maybe that was all robbed by the fact that I named that it was humility but I checked out from the library I really loved Magic Treehouse when I was a kid

did you ever read Magic Treehouse? No but my kids have okay and I was like I want to read those again I want to see what that's like I want to relive that I want to and they are just as delightful now as when I was a kid

So anyways, I went to the library and I bought, not bought, borrowed, rented, borrowed, magic tree house books and a large print boys in the boat book. So I'm either a grandma or a child. If I were you and I got that large print book, I think this is what would have went through my head. I would have went, oh, gosh, look at that. That is kind of helpful. You know what? As I've been reading it, I'm like, this is nice.

I think what's the nicest thing about it is that I feel like I'm making a lot of progress Because I like very quickly. Speed reading. Yeah, exactly. People on the plane, this woman's brilliant. There is, I use, when I have pictures of people or ordination cards or something, like we get so many ordination cards or pictures and I'm like, what am I, I can't, there's too much stuff. So I just keep a stack of them and I cycle through them as bookmarks.

And then. Of course, there's an image of our law. You're like, well, now I can't throw it out with that feeling guilty. Thanks a lot, Deacon Jeff. I hope you actually know a Deacon Jeff. I know. But the, anyways, I cycle through them as bookmarks, and then while I'm reading the book, I just pray for whoever that person is. So that seems, so I don't know that they would want the picture shown because their child is in it.

But shout out to Emma and Dustin and Molina. Okay. That's my current bookmark as a picture of their beautiful family. Well, first of all, I imagine you were about to read something terribly profound and insightful, or at least gleam from it that. Why are you even interested in this book? A friend of mine, it was one of their favorite books. And so that's why. It's a movie.

I've seen the movie, Boys in the Boat, and it's very well done and we'll make you weep. And yeah, it's a good movie. But one of the quotes I wanted to share from this, I'm going to save for if and when we talk about the Jesus prayer. But this part I also thought is really interesting. Are you familiar at all with the sport of rowing? I mean, no. Okay, well, I was not either, but it's apparently extremely physically intense. They said it's somewhere in this book, it says, it says physiologists have calculated that rowing a 2,000 meter race, the Olympic standard, takes the same physiological toll as playing two basketball games back to back, and it exacts that toll in about six minutes.

Wow. That's wild. That is crazy. So, anyways, which is related to this quote that I. when I read this the other day, I was just like, I thought that it was a beautiful spiritual lesson as well. So the common denominator in all these conditions, whether in the lungs, the muscles or the bones, is overwhelming pain. And that is perhaps the first and most fundamental thing that all novice oarsmen must learn about competitive rowing in the upper echelons of the sport. That pain is part and parcel of the deal.

it's not a question of whether you will hurt or of how much you will hurt. It's a question of what you will do and how well you will do it while pain has her wanton way with you. That's a great quote. I like that pain's feminine. That struck me. I'm sure I did. I'm funny. But I like it because we have, and I've talked about this before, we've even, I think, talked about it before, but we have this misconception of the goal in the Christian life. I don't think we have this misconception intellectually, because intellectually we have all the right answers to this, but we act as though the goal of the Christian life is to not suffer or to not sin. We've talked about this before, for sure, of I think we get this backwards sometimes of like, we don't like how we feel when we sin,

and I don't mean the guilt. I mean, that's part of it. But like, we want to be better than we are. So our pride kicks in and things like that. We don't like having to apologize. We don't like having to correct wrongs. We don't like having to change. So we don't like those effects of sin.

And I think that's often more in our view than the effect on the relationship. Right, exactly. And so I think sometimes we want to be holy so that we, don't sin versus we want to not sin so that we can become holy, you know? And I think that's just like a twisted kind of view that we at least act like, even if we don't intellectually believe it. And similarly, we believe, to some degree, we act at least as though the goal is to not suffer. We forget that like the goal in all of these things is union with God. And we can find union with God even through our sin. Through the repentance, through the humbling that happens from our sin,

through all of these things. We can encounter God in response to our sin. And we can encounter him in suffering. But we act as though that's not the goal. Like I want to do all of these things. so that I don't sin or so that I don't suffer. And just his ways are not our ways is what I've been reflecting on a lot the last couple of years, as events have turned out in ways that I would have never expected them to, and that I would have never planned if I were God. And then just being so grateful that they have turned out how they have. So anyways, I like this because we are going to suffer in the,

the Christian life on this earth, in this life. Because Christ suffered, so why wouldn't we? And because through our suffering, we encounter the Lord. You know, St. James in his epistle says, again, paraphrase kind of gal, in the first chapter, I don't know scripture very well. We just had this reading the other night is the only reason I remember this. count it all as joy when you encounter various trials.

And that really convicted me when we heard it the other night because I've been having a rough week and I'm like, I am not being very joyful in this. I am not counting this as joy. That's right. And it's like I was having a rough week and then I got a strep throat. And like, not joy, not joy in my mind. Because we forget the point of life, right?

we forget the point of this life we forget to to turn to god in these things and to use these as opportunities for union with him so i like this because you know he's saying like pain is part and parcel of the deal it's not a question of whether you will hurt you will suffer in the in the in the christian life it's not a question of how much you will hurt because we also shouldn't be trying to measure up our suffering. It's a question of what you will do and how well you will do it while pain has her wanton way with you. When we're in the midst of our suffering, are we seeking encounter with him? Are we practicing encounter with him outside of suffering so that it's easier when we are suffering and things like that? Because it's not, to be very clear, God does not want

us to suffer. That's not what I'm saying. Suffering is not good in and of its own. existence or whatever. You know, like, the goal of the Christian life is not to not suffer. But the goal of the Christian life is also not to suffer. The goal of the Christian life is to encounter him and to experience union with him, whether or not we're suffering. And I think that we can have this illusion that as we advance in the Christian life, there's less suffering.

There's less self-inflicted suffering. as we advance in the Christian life. What does that mean? Like, as we shed the masks, you know, there's less of the suffering that comes from living out of not who I am. So there's less of the suffering, like, we just heap crosses upon ourselves that were not made for us. So there's less of that.

But there's still suffering. You know, I'm really, I really love the story of the, the, the, how. houses that are built, one on sand and one on stone, because I realized several years ago, as I was reading that passage, you know, the wind and the storms come, and the house on sand crumbles and the house on stone stay strong. But what I love about that passage and what I, what I realized several years ago is, but the house built on stone, the wind and the storms still come. It's not like you don't have to endure those things if you're living a solid Christian life. It's simply that you can stand through them because Christ is holding you up. You're built on a

good foundation. It's not that we don't experience the storms. It's that the storms don't knock us down. So that was going to be my question. How do you know when you're when you're suffering well? You and I have spoken off air. You've sounds like you've gone through something. I've gone through a lot of real suffering recently. And in a way, I think, well, so like, what does it mean to suffer well? Like, surely it doesn't mean to not have it affect me. Because if it didn't affect me, I wouldn't call it suffering. Right.

The only reason I can call suffering great is if it felt like it was just pushing me into a corner and kicking me in the face. And so, like, if it doesn't feel like that, then I don't know how I'd call it suffering. So then how do I know I'm suffering well if that's my experience of the suffering? Are you turning inwards or are you turning to him? Yeah. Yeah. It's a bit of both. Yeah. And I think that that's, I also, I think we should be constantly striving to suffer well, to encounter him in our suffering. But I don't think it's healthy for us to be constantly assessing whether or not we're suffering well. You know, like, and so, yeah, I just don't know how helpful that is because then it's like, well, on the one hand, right, exactly. Then we're still not looking at him. We're just. just looking at us. And, yeah.

Like, here's, you know, I like, so the story of Peter walking on water, I was talking with a friend about this recently. When he walks to Jesus, the reason Peter starts drowning, well, he takes his eyes off the Lord, right? And because he's looking at the waves. and the waves are caused by the storm, right? So Peter's sinking and he cries out, Lord help me, Lord save me. And what I was reflecting on with this friend recently is that, so like what was causing Peter to actually drown?

Like he's a fisherman, he surely knows how to swim. What was causing him to drown? Are you asking me? Yes. Well, I presume there were waves, so it was rough. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So like the storm.

Right. Jesus doesn't calm the storm. That's not how he saves him. Right. Jesus reaches out and touches Peter. He saves him by his touch, by his encounter. And then he and Peter are in the boat, and then he calms the storm. Mm-hmm.

Like, it's not like in our suffering. Yeah, I hadn't. This year is the first time this has ever crossed my mind because a friend brought it to my attention. But I really love that because, again, it's like in the Christian life, our suffering is not, it's not about God relieving our suffering. It's about God encountering us in our suffering or us letting him encounter us in our suffering. I think of the hemorrhaging woman encountering Christ through touching his garment. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

I was reading Genesis yesterday about Hagar. I love Hagar. Do you love Hagar? Yeah, sure. I want to call a daughter, not that I can have anymore, but if I could, I'd think about naming her Hagar. Just how abused she was, eh? So she's kind of given to Abraham. Seems like it's not necessarily something she wanted.

Has this child despised by Sarah sent out. Seemingly punished for it. Yeah. She's wandering through the desert. She's just being obedient. And then the angel says, where have you come from and where are you going? What a lovely question.

And then again, later on, she's with Ishmael and she's put him under a bush. She's about to die. Angel shows up again. Yeah. So she endured a lot of abuse, but what did she call that place with the well, the one who sees,

or just this recognition that she was seen by God in that? Yeah. I like that. I was thinking, I was reflecting yesterday on the story of Jesus raising the paralytic

and healing the paralytic and saying, rise, take up your bed, take up your mat. And what something stood out to me this year that never has before which is God doesn't force grace upon us, right? Like we have to be open. We have to be open.

we have to be receptive to his grace. Would you agree with that? I think what do we mean by grace? I guess we could mean in different senses. Do we mean help? Sure, help. Yeah. Yeah, would you agree with that?

He doesn't force help on us? Yeah, I suppose, yeah. So that's what I think. And I really believe that. Like, if we are going to persist in something, then that's free will. I mean, even the grace given it baptism, right? The church church teaches, is that baptism can't be administered to someone who doesn't want it.

And obviously a child has no choice, so receives the grace. Sure. Someone who's resistant. You can't forcibly baptize a Jew. I tried doing that to Ben Shapiro. He got really upset. That's a joke. Yeah, like you can't actually forcibly baptize a Muslim or a Jew if they don't wish to be.

So yeah, sure. Yeah. So when Jesus asks the paralytic, do you want to be healed? Do you remember what his response is? I'm putting you on the spot here. Yes, no, of course I remember. Do you want to be healed? Doesn't he say, how can I be healed? And he gives excuses as to why every time he tries to get up. Yeah, I don't think he even says, how can I? But yeah, he just gives a bunch of excuses. Like, Jesus says, do you want to be healed? And he says, I have no one to bring me to the waters.

Which, so I had two reflections on this. One is, and we were talking about this as a community, our hegemona, Mother Cecilia, was actually sharing her reflection about this. and then I was praying with it, but which is that we, and I think this is really a practical piece of maybe advice of growth that I think I could offer to people who are listening that I need reminded of constantly, and I think of this every year when this gospel comes up, but we often answer questions that people, don't ask. You know, one of my sisters might, I'm in charge of creating the menu at the monastery. One of my sisters might say, hey, have you made the menu for this week yet? And I might say,

well, I had all of these things come up yesterday. And so I just haven't gotten around to it, but it's going to be, I'm working on it tonight, which I just answered a whole bunch of things that she didn't ask. Maybe she was asking because she was just going to say, oh, I was going to ask, if you haven't made it yet, can you include this on it? Right, but it's, I immediately assume what she's asking and answer that. I do that with camera. Instead of answering what she's actually asking. Yeah.

Right. And it drives me crazy when people do that to me. You don't trust that people mean what they say. Right. Yes. And so I, often they don't. Right. And so I've, um, I was convicted by that as I am every year of actually answering the question

that people ask me. Because either they actually meant it and then fine and we move on with our lives, or they were intending something else. And I don't want to encourage that kind of passive aggression or codependency. And so I think either way, it's helpful to just answer the question. Very good. Yeah. So that's one kind of just practical thing. But the other, that's maybe more intangible or something, but I think is a good reflection on this, is Jesus asks him, do you want to be healed. He gives all the reasons he can't be healed. And then do you know what happens next? Remind me. There's no follow-up conversation. Jesus just heals him. Oh, okay. And I was like,

but wait, God doesn't force healing upon us. We have to be receptive. How is that, like, how does that jive with this passage? And then as I sat with it, this is my own interpretation, this is my own reflection upon scripture. I'm not, you know, whatever, but I think it has to do with Jesus sees our hearts. Like, he hears the cry of our heart. And for all we know, that man in his heart was crying out for healing. So whereas you can't read your sister's mind if she says something she doesn't mean. Yeah. Christ can know what we mean even when we say something other than we. Yeah. And I think, I think that there's a beautiful, like, Jesus meeting this man where he's at. of he doesn't just like Jesus doesn't scold him and say like

well fine if you're going to come up with excuses then I'm not going to heal you like Jesus knows that maybe these excuses are simply coming from a place of deep pain maybe this man doesn't have the courage to say yes I want to be healed because he's been disappointed so many times maybe he you know it could be coming from just fears and insecurities and wounds and all of these things and the Lord sees and knows all of that and he hears the cry of the heart even when we don't have the courage or maybe even the self-awareness to speak it so anyways i just was reflecting on that that's really beautiful thank you

you know just this last 15 minutes of talking about the scriptures has just reminded me to kind of encourage those who are watching like it's not difficult spiritual life's not difficult just you know pick up the gospels and just read them you know yeah like there's a sorts of saints and fathers that neither you nor I are ready to receive, but you don't have to be. Just pick up the Gospels and read them. And even more than that, like, even more simply than that, I guess I would say, if you attend Mass, listen to the readings. Like, it is, or the divine liturgy, you know, listen to the readings. If you attend a Protestant church where they proclaim scripture, like listen to the scripture. Even if you're not doing this at home yet, receive what

being given to you because I think we just we get bored at Mass we get bored at divine liturgy but I think more often than not when we are bored it's because we're not actually listening and taking in what's happening around us it's the thing where we're sitting with our wife and our mind is elsewhere like that's when things become boring you know is when it's like your mind is elsewhere so you want to be wherever your mind is whereas if you can bring your mind here which we'll talk about when we talk about the Jesus prayer, I think it is easier to not become bored. Yeah.

I think it was Scott Hahn who said something like, boredom with the scriptures isn't the result of familiarity with them. It's like no, I forget how we put it, more of a paraphrase guy, but something to the effect of, we need to be more familiar in order to be more moved by them. Yeah, because when we're very familiar, that's when we start to notice

when the Holy Spirit is throwing something else at us. Like, how many times have you heard or read the story of Peter walking on water? You're very familiar with it. Too familiar with it. Which prevents me sometimes from seeing it. Right, and I'm very familiar with it. And yet this is the first year that I've ever noticed that Jesus could have just calmed the storm. Like, I was reflecting Father Michael and I, on our podcast recently were talking.

Which is what, and I want people to check it out because you and Father Michael are terrific. What God is not. What God is not? Is it on YouTube or everywhere? Yes, it's everywhere. But we were talking recently about the passage of St. Peter raising Tabitha, aka Dorkas, which is just fun. But we were talking about the parallels between that and Jesus raising Gyrus's daughter. because there are a lot of parallels.

But it was only the familiarity with those stories that helped us to be able to see the parallels, which also then helped me to see a difference in how the stories end. I think I'll leave that hanging so that people can do their research and maybe you can find the difference. It's like those spot the difference in the pictures,

you know, from the magazines when we were little. Anyways, I used to love those at the doctor's office with the... And, but yeah, it's like, I was familiar with both of those stories that didn't make them boring. That made it more capable, like made me more capable of entering into them, which I'm not, I'm not, genuinely, I'm not very familiar with scripture. I always, like, when I hear, I don't know if you've ever heard Bishop Kurt Burnett preach. He's an incredible homilist. And when he preaches, or are my friend Father Nathaniel, a Benedictine from La Trobe, he's, he's,

good friends with Father Bonifist. When they, when they talk about scripture, it like sets my heart on fire and I'm like, I want to love scripture the way that these men love scripture. So I'm not claiming to be any of those. But yeah. All right. Speaking of familiarity, by the way, I remember she, I was maybe 17 years married and I remember just looking at my wife and kind of seeing her anew. And I was like, who are you? Like, who have I had coffee? with for the last 17 years and not seen. And it occurred to me recently having an experience with Cammy, just like we're all, every person is an ocean and we treat each other like where kitty pulls. Like, oh no, I got you. And you know, it's often for the most superficial of reasons.

Like you might know someone who looks like someone else or has similar mannerisms. Go, oh yeah, I get them. I got them. You're like, dude, there's an ocean. People are so deep. We just spend most of the time up the top. Anyway, what's something you thought you knew before you entered the convent that you have subsequently at least learned more about, if not known, come to know?

Monastery, not convent. Sorry, yeah, now tell me why is that. What's funny is the Dominican fellas call their place a convent. So we're all very confused. Oh, Dominican women. No, the Dominican men. They call it a convent?

Yeah. I didn't even know that's a thing. Yeah, so Father Pine and those fellas, I don't know if there's a, I don't know. Fascinating. Yeah, they don't call it a frighten. From what I can tell, correct me in the comments. Priory. Wouldn't it be a priory? No.

I don't know. I mean, a friary comes from the word frata brothers, so the Franciscans have friaries. But I know. I like that we're both showing our vast ignorance here. No, I don't think I've said anything wrong yet. So I think this is just my brilliance, actually, that it is called a convent. So it's wild that Father Pine lives in a convent. Mother Natalia lives in a monastery.

Well, it's monastery, monosyn. Okay, all right. Yeah, because we're monastic, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What does a convent mean? Con is with? I don't know. I don't know. Cool. Yeah. I think I'm going to say things that I don't know are true. I should stop. Yeah. I don't know. What's something you thought you knew before you joined the monastery and maybe having to do with religious life or living with other people or prayers or something simple that you're like, oh, wow, I've really, I didn't know that at all. Oh, that's a very good question.

It's very specific. I feel like there's lots of things. Give me a second. Yeah, well, let me answer that while you're thinking. For me, it was, I just thought I'd be a really, I thought I would have taken to fatherhood really easily. Because I kind of, you know, I was into the theology of the body and I wasn't like cheating on my wife. And I wasn't, you know, I was like, I got this. I get it.

And I could have explained to you probably quite eloquent. like the importance of children and then I had children. I was like, I'm really bad at this and I don't like it. I don't mean to stress that. I love my kids. They're the best. There was a period of my life that I found really difficult and then felt really alone in. I don't know. Maybe that's not a good answer, but that is a answer. I think one of the things is I thought that I was an extremely generous person. And I do think actually that's true. I think generosity is one of my gifts, but I didn't know how much it needed to be purified.

So I realized that a lot of my generosity was coming actually from a self-love. So for instance, I would, if one of my sisters is in a really terrible mood, I might, I might make her an Americano or I might like offer to take something off of her plate for her or something like that. And I used to think that was because I love people and want them to not suffer. And that is true to a degree. But oftentimes when I do that, it's not coming from that place. It's coming from a place of this person is difficult to live with when they're in a bad mood. so I want to ease their load so that they're not in a bad mood so that it's more pleasant for me to live with them.

And so, yeah, I think most of my answers to questions like that would have to do with just greater self-awareness. And not even a lot of those places, it's not even that I've grown and become purified in, but it's like I at least, recognize the places that need purified. That's good. Yeah, I think that's, yeah, that's the first thing that comes to mind. I also would have, I don't know, I probably would have thought that at some point prayer becomes easy when you're a nun and that like once you get used to it, then it becomes easy and that like you just want to pray all the time.

And I don't want to pray all the time. I don't want to always sit in silence. Sometimes that's actually really difficult to do. And I kind of thought that it's just like, well, that's just you get over that. And then once you're past that point, then it becomes easy once it's habitual. Not just the silence, but how do you feel about all the Psalms that you're chanting, the different hours of the day and vespers? Is that any easier?

Because one thing I've learned about Byzantines is when they say, let us conclude our evening prayer. They are lying to you. That means that you've about reached the staple in the booklet. Yes, exactly. Good. Yes. Yeah.

The length of the prayers, the liturgical prayers, is still not really difficult for me. Like I, but that's always been a big attraction to me about the liturgy. Yeah, the liturgical prayers is actually like, was one of the greatest draws for me to the monastic. life because I really love our liturgy. And that's a place that I often find comfort and solace and rest. But yeah, I think especially my time of personal prayer, it's like I would have expected, I think that at some point that just becomes very easy of just this is what you do every morning. And there are plenty of mornings that it's a choice and that I sit there for an hour and am awake for 10 minutes of it and just feel like nothing happened and it's just dry and it's, I have nothing to show for it,

but I spent the time and that happens far more frequently than I was praying with the passage of St. Peter walking on water and had this like great revelation, you know, like all of the things I shared from my own prayer in this particular podcast episode. Is this called a podcast? I think so. I think so. Okay. You know, are reflections that I've had like over the past few years. It's not like this is what's happening every day. Yeah, yeah, that's good. All right, we are going to do a separate episode for those at home where we talk about the Jesus prayer because everyone's like hanging on waiting. I cannot wait to do that. But my final question is what would you like, you like, young women who might be open to discerning a vocation with your monastery to know about themselves

and the vocation process, but also about the monastery and what they should expect it to be like. I think what I would like young women to know about themselves, first and foremost, like, you need to have a relationship with the Lord. you need to be praying consistently every day to really seriously start discerning with any community. If when a woman reaches out to me, I'm actually the vocation director for our community. So when a woman reaches out to me, one of the first things we talk about, you know, is like, are you praying every day? And if not, like, that's where you need to start. Because ultimately what we and you are discerning is the will of God.

And so if you're not building a relationship with him and you're not learning to listen to him, then you're not going to hear that. And I don't just mean praying about your vocation. I just mean being with him because we shouldn't only go to God when we want answers to something. And I think the other thing that I would want women to know, I know you only ask for one, but I'm giving two because that's what I do, is that we, genuinely, and this is true of any healthy community, we genuinely want God's will. So this isn't about discerning with a community. I've just seen this many times. Discerning with a community is not about like tricking them into seeing a vocation in you. It's not about, it needs to be a genuine seeking of God's will, which means being honest about yourself and about your struggles

and about the things not trying to put on a mask or a facade of someone who you think fits the life. I was at a Formators workshop recently, and I was talking with some other vocation directors, and one of them was describing how as vocation directors were kind of having to hold in tandem. As we're talking with women, we're looking for what is going to be good for the woman. but then also what's going to be good for the community. And what I added to that and what I kind of, and I think this is probably what she meant. And when I said it, she was like, oh, yes, that makes sense.

Those things aren't held in tandem. They're one and the same. Because it's not like God's will is split, and God's will for this woman is different than God's will for this community. Either God is calling. this woman to this community, in which case it is what will be good for both, or he's not calling her, in which case it would be bad for both. You know, it's not like God's calling you to this community,

but it's not good for us, nor is it the other way around. So, yeah, I think just knowing that, like, this isn't about discernment is not about convincing a community. It's not about trying to fit into the life. It's a joint discernment. both the woman and the community and the spiritual director, trying to hear what God wants and respond to that. What I would want her to know about our community, or really discerning with any religious community, any monastic community, is that, I mean, we already touched on this a lot,

but just we are broken human beings. And so you're not entering into perfection. With a bunch of angels. Yeah, absolutely not. Like, I am very crabby pretty often. And my community has to deal with that. And if you enter with us, you have to deal with that. You know, there's a lot of...

I think that's what should be on the vocations fly. Just you being like, I'm very crappy. And if you join us, you're going to have to deal with it. Yeah. But sometimes I'm crabby with us. smile. There's that. But yeah, it's, you know, you're, you're discerning with a community of different struggles

and different living, living in a monastic community is like being in a rock tumbler is the analogy that's often used. And we are really just, we are being smoothed out. The sharp edges are being worn off, but only by bumping into one another and our sharp edges hitting each other. And that really is very, very true. Like there are, um,

there are ways that I see my sisters suffer, um, because of my, um, either because of my sin or even just because of, um, my wounds. Um,

and, and I have to trust that there's, suffering for my sake and they're holding me up is for their sanctification as well. So, yeah. What's the first step a young woman could take if they want to look into your monastery? You could go to our website, Christ thebriedgroom.org. And if you're praying every day, and ideally if you have a spiritual director, and if you feel like you might have a spiritual director, and if you feel like you might have the heart of, like, if you have a love for Eastern spirituality, and you want to discern monastic life, then you can reach out.

That's right. Follow these emails. Then respond again. Good. Thanks for being on the show, and your podcast is what God is not. Correct. People can check that out. Thank you.

Absolutely. It's good to be with you. You too.