Pints With Aquinas - Father Pine Gives Matt Spiritual Direction for 3 Hours" w/ Father Gregory Pine O.P.

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Matt discusses the history of the holy rosary, private devotions, Medugorje, and more with Fr. Gregory Pine O.P. Show Sponsors: https://hallow.com/matt https://stpaulcenter.com/matt Matt's Marian Books: https://tanbooks.com/products/books/marian-consecration-with-aquinas-a-nine-day-path-for-growing-closer-to-the-mother-of-god/ Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage: https://rosarypilgrimage.org Mysterious World Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6HW2dPnO-8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJm8j-ufktE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzFdi4BLwc0  

Hey everybody, before we jump into the podcast, I wanted to let you know that if you become an annual supporter over at matfrad.locals.com support, you will get a free pines with Aquinas beer Stein, you just pay shipping, you'll get access to our free courses, you'll get access to our post show live streams that are exclusive to our local supporters. spiritual direction with Father Gregory Pine, as well as our free quarterly newspaper sent to your door. It's called The Jill, and we even pay the shipping on that one, no matter where in the world you live. If you're interested in getting these perks, please go to locals.com, sorry, matfrad.locals.com, slash support, and sign up as an annual supporter to get those perks, and you'd be tremendously helping us as a ministry. Thank you. Alright gents. So I always forget that I know you're not nervous because we've done this a lot but I forget that when I have a guest in this is like a new for them. Yeah. Because this couldn't be chiller for me you know. Nice. Which is probably what you want. Yeah. I mean there's like a sense in

which being a little bit nervous kind of honones your skills or there's a nice the mind is way more space, but behind them and me I did the table I'll move it. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, but then why is that still the case? Do you like this is how casual the episodes are this is a great way to start the episode because that way you hook people Look at how bold look at how bald that man is Yeah, do you mind do you do you want me to move it? Yeah, just I did it on the plane is as bald as he has ever been Oh, bold. I think you said bold. So we should point this out. Your beard is glorious and there is an episode There's a clip of a previous episode of us where it's called like beard envy Remember when I was rocking the full beard? I do remember a couple years ago

Yeah, and you accused me of beard envy, but dude your beard is way cooler Thanks. Did you know it would look good when you stay out how war was back up? Why did you decide to do it at what point did you commit and did you know it would look this good? Yeah, great questions. So I started growing it on May 28th and the reason is because I took a long hike in Switzerland and I was trying to ultra light, you know, to cut weight insofar as I could. So I was like, like toothbrush.

Mm, seems like I should. Razor, seems like I shouldn't. And then after six days I was like, this doesn't look terrible. I suspected that it might look decent because my dad has grown a beard a couple times in the past, I don't know, 15 years. And it always grows in nicely.

So, thus earning him the nickname Admiral Beardsley, which I think comes from a Dennis Quaid movie, but not important. And then, yeah, after like six days, you know, it's still a little bit patchy and thin, but I was like, let's give it another week because I'm balding. And I think it's important when a man is balding

to replace like the net hair, head quotient thing, because otherwise it's just like, oh, that's a very bald man. So you have to distract people from your right from your uglitude. And yeah, that's the strategy at present. You're balding up there.

I'm just going backwards until this tuft is like here. So as I said earlier, that the beard is only for the bros. So it's a good thing you live with men. Yes, yeah beard for the bro. Although you might have that, I really like it when a man has a kind of archipelago, like he has hair kind of like islands. So sometimes this one just gets cut off from the rest and I like see that guy. It separates. I see that guy. Have you seen William Lankregg over the years? He's kind of got my hairline. I look at him like that's how I'm going to look in 20 years. Like his hair now starts

back here. Okay. And it's full. Yeah. No, it's a mood. I suppose, you know, you can care about it or you can not care about it, but I think everybody cares about it at a certain level. Cause even when you say like, Oh, I don't care. You kind of care. Yeah. So then how do you, how do you go from there? And I think it's keep it short and grow a beard and make the occasional joke, but not too many jokes because when you really just So then how do you go from there? And I think it's keep it short and grow a beard and make the occasional joke, but not too many jokes because when you really just overindulge in self-deprecation, people are like, how insecure is that, bro?

The answer is quite insecure. So there's like a golden mean somewhere of self-deprecation that you want to hit. Yeah, like every so often. Because if it becomes too much, it's like, come on, come on. You're doing all right. OK. Matt Walsh once said that if the internet can choose

between pity and mockery, it will always choose the latter. You've got to keep that in mind, too, if you're online. Unless your target demographic is women between the ages of 65 and 80, because I think the mothering tendency is so distilled at that point. They're like, I just want to feed you. I want to take care of you.

You look so sad, tired, combination factor. So if you're just right there, then you're fine. I see. Well, I was telling you too that the beard is really not for my wife who doesn't enjoy it. But I told you before the show that I'm trying to decide, do I want Thursday to compliment me or my wife to kiss me? And it's troubling that it's about 50-50 I'm not sure how I feel Okay, I love that we're doing this live coming at it coming at it Nice you're further away from the table is what it is. Okay, I can be further away from the table. No, it's good.

Don't move. You make his job harder. I mean, I'll adjust it again, but it's I think it's even now. So before we get into the rosary and all that we're going to talk about there, I want to let people know about St. Paul Center dot com slash Matt. Click the link in the description if you can throw one up there, that would be great. So St. Paul Center is Scott Hans's baby as it were and he's created along with the help of

other people an excellent digital resource called Emmaus Academy. So if you go to stpoolcentre.com slash Matt check it out because you can start a free trial for two weeks and see all that they have to offer. They have short courses, book studies, original content, and all of this stuff is really highly produced. It's not just Scott Hahn in front of his, you know, laptop lid in his basement. These are really well-produced courses.

So if you're like me and you know how easy it is, just to waste time on YouTube, and you'd like to maybe put that time to better use, you could learn to love the Bible. I think that's what Scott Hahn and these other fellows do so well. Joan Watson, Scott Hahn, who do we have on the other day? John Bergsmurr. These are really brilliant folks. They're going to help you love the Bible. I always say that I don't even know if I want to read the Bible, but often I think that I want to want to read the

Bible. That's the kind of person I want to be, but I feel like I'm not there yet. If I was, I'd be reading. I mean, to be fair, I do read the scriptures daily, but not with the kind of love and passion that I wish I had. And I don't know if you can force yourself to want something, but I think what this can do for you is it'll actually help you want to love the Bible really well. And who better to do that than Scott Hahn. So please go over, because they are supporting the show, to stpaulcentre.com.com. Click the link in the description. When you sign up over there, you get free access to the entire course for two weeks. That's why you want to use that URL. And if after two weeks you don't like it, you can quit it or you can binge watch every single course that they have then cancel jokes on them. Am I right? Yeah, I've signed up and what's really cool about this is I signed up to this

big Bible study they had and then I got a question that threatened me. They're like, how many hours a week would you like to dedicate to this? And like, I was hoping to get really passionate about it today and forget about it tomorrow. So they kind of like help you with a schedule. And then when you're doing it, you're actually interacting with people around the world who are going through these Bible studies and courses as well. So also book studies, Ralph Martin has the fulfillment of all desire, an excellent book he wrote where he's actually, there's very well produced videos of him guiding you through this book. There's a ton of stuff, stpaulcenter.com slash matt. Boom.

So do you have a doctorate yet? Not yet. I submitted my dissertation but I still have to defend it in like October and November depending on when they set the date. So do you feel relief having written it and submitted it or do you feel more anxiety because now it's done and maybe you change things and now you've got to defend it? I think I feel relief. Yes, so the editorial process that makes it sound like I published a newspaper regardless. The process for editing was long and exacting and my director is very careful and he's very

you know intelligent and generous with his comments and so like incorporating all his comments and then having outside readers look at it and then the last stage was you can export a written text as a spoken audio track from Microsoft Word or just have Word read it to you. So I had Word read me my whole dissertation. And as a result of which I've heard it read to me in another person's voice.

And because it's strange, you're more likely to pick up orthographic errors, but also you're hearing it as if for the first time. And at the end of it, I was like, that doesn't stink, you know? So I'm kind of happy with it. Luba. Yeah, exactly. That doesn't stink too terribly much, which the main good thing about our dissertation is that it's done. And a lot of people will say, I have no intention to publish this and I want to kind of wash my hands of it. But if it's done, it's done.

So I'm happy that it's done. I'm looking forward to defending it. It's only a two hour thing, kind of harrowing, but it's only two hours of your life. Because if you, if you fail the, um, what do you call it? Examination? Yeah, well, yeah, if you fail that, you just have to go back and rewrite big sections depending on how much you fail. Is that the idea?

I think it depends on the university or the university system. I suspect it's different in the United States or in England or in Germany or in France or wherever else. My impression is that they won't let you get to the defense until you're in a position where you're going to pass. So if there were serious problems with my written text, I'm gonna hear about it in the next month. They're gonna ask me to rewrite, read, submit, so I won't actually be there for a defense for another several months. So yeah, once you get to that point it's like, read, submit, so I won't actually be there for a defense for another several months. So yeah, once you get to that point, it's like, okay, we're for you, but we're for you

in such a way that we're going to make you drill down or we're going to make you clarify. So if you can see it in that way, I think then, yeah. Did you hit a wall during the process? So at the end of each chapter, what I did was a lot of reading and writing, or reading, note-taking, writing, synthesizing, and then I just had these kind of binge writing things for each chapter. I would just set aside three, four, five, six weeks and just write for seven to ten hours a day so that I had everything already, my text document and then my outline documents and everything

such that I could just go, but those were brutal. So I did it to myself. But at the end of each of those, I took a kind of, oh, exhalation of exhaustion. And then I'd either just step away from the work for a few days, read some literature or just tend to other tasks. Or I just go on a 2D hike or something like that. Because after my first chapter, I tried just getting right into my second chapter. And it was like I was dragging my corpse through, you know, a long, dark, terrible alley.

And so, yeah, you kind of have to be a little bit gentle with your humanity, not too gentle because then you can become indulgent, but gentle enough. And is it called your director? Who's the fellow who oversees you and guides you in this process? Yeah, most people say director. In German, they say my doctor father, which is pretty cool.

Yeah, exactly. And why did you choose him or was he assigned to you? I chose him because he's the best at what he does. Which is what? Because presumably he doesn't know nearly as much as you do on this topic. He probably does. Okay. That's helpful.

So he is a Dominican priest and he is a scholar of St. Thomas Aquinas, specifically of St. Thomas' Trinitarian thought, but he also does stuff in St. Thomas' Christological thought, which is what I did. And so for him, Christology is a kind of side hustle. For me, it's the main event, but even still, he knows more about it than I do. And I chose him because he's very patient and careful, especially with texts. He understands St. Thomas, he understands St. Thomas' contemporaries, he understands the tradition of reception of St. Thomas, and specifically things that have been

written in the last hundred years. So he's a master of many languages and he's a master of many different sub-disciplines as well. So you come to him for, one, expertise, to mediate to you, St. Thomas the Master, but also for perspective. He's already done the work, he's hosted the conversations, he's been at the conferences, and he knows if you're going in a direction

which is overwhelming because there's so much written about it and the chances of you contributing are very low, or if you're heading in a direction which is highly contentious, and you're gonna have to substantiate every point with documentation are you willing to undergo that work or you know so he's gonna be able to save you a lot of heartbreak but he's also going to be able to encourage you you're gonna want

to look at this resource and this resource and this resource because he's been writing book reviews for the last 35 years so like everything that's been published in English French German Italian and Spanish on this theme he's read it. And he also has a memory which is somewhere between a billion and 18 billion times better than mine. So I'm like, yeah, I read that. Maybe. Whereas he's like, yeah, on page 73, you're going to want to see that thing about soteriological paradigms. It's like, yes, sir. Yes, I will. Yes. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah

I know when I obviously at a much lesser level than you but when I started writing for books and articles One thing I learned really quickly was not to overstate my case That it's better to be nuanced and make my case seem weaker than otherwise may have been than to be hyperbolic What was something you learned in this process? Yeah, so one thing is I tend to, you know, go for the 30,000 foot view. I like to survey the landscape and tell you how everything is interconnected from like whatever kind of contemporary application to how it's rooted in the Most Blessed Trinity, which is cool. But I was not very careful about particular details. I jokingly say that I'm a horseshoes and hand grenades man. So it's basically like, or it's, I think I heard that.

And yeah, some of that's been ironed out, living with other Dominicans, because Dominicans can be very attentive to details. So, well actually, or you know, you know, Father, it's like, cool, cool, I should probably be better about that, but also I'm just not especially patient with reality, so I'm just kind of hustling onto the next thing. But with this process, I learned that you have to pay attention, because the idea is that St. Thomas is mediating to you a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the hope,

right? So his insights or, you know, his particular approach to sacred theology is wise, so it's orderly, and in, you know, receiving that order, receiving that wisdom, it actually opens you up to a relationship at a deeper level. You know, prayer, study, we're talking about a contemplative life, so both are present in it. But how do you have access to St. Thomas? You know, it's not just like in the ether, it's through what he wrote. So, you have to pay attention to the words like they're a love letter. You know, like they're very precious,

each word was crafted, it was crafted for you because the person who wrote them had a conviction that they mattered, and that the relationship that they mediate matters above everything else. So the idea is, you know, pay attention to the words, their setting, their context, the historical moment, you know, but the words, and the words mediate a reality which puts you in living touch with the Lord. And so I learned to be a lot more careful about the principles, about the arguments, and about, you know, kind of how to chase them down. Was there something prior to writing this dissertation that you were wrong about or that you may have articulated in a way that you certainly wouldn't now after having done a deep dive in this topic? Yeah, I think so. What I wrote about is how

salvation is communicated. And my basic point is salvation is just God. It's just God. And we have different ways to describe it, and it's necessary to describe it in those different ways for precision sake, for distinction sake, because we're creatures, and we don't become God in the strict sense, but we can share in or partake in the divine life by created gifts like grace, virtues, other things besides. But I think I was thinking about salvation like it was some third thing, like God went into, I don't know, the mines of heaven and started finding salvation ore, and then piled it up at a certain point, and then when he was

crucified he's like, send down the ore! And then we could, I don't know, refine that over the course of our lifetime and make precious salvation medals. But it's just not, it's just God wants to give us himself, and in giving us himself he adapts himself, not in a creepy kind of process theology way, but he accommodates himself so that we can recognize him and so that we can receive him. And so you can think God, you know, laid up in his heavens, conceiving of the way, doesn't take him time, he doesn't go through steps, but conceiving of a way whereby best to give himself to mankind.

And, you know, the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ is kind of the summit of that story, but everything that leads up to it, the Lord's incarnate life, everything downstream of it, the life of the church, is all a reflection of how God determines, not necessarily best in a comparative sense, like we've made an Excel spreadsheet of the different ways in which God could have saved us, and we're like, this is definitely the best, but in a sense like it reflects the depth of wisdom, it reflects an intensity of love, and what God is communicating is, I want you to have my life. I want you to partake of my life, not regardless, or not in spite of what's gone before, but specifically in that history.

We're going to re-orchestrate that history so that you can have me whole and entire. And the study of salvation, I think, just makes a lot more sense when you see it in this, it's a relationship rather than pile. So I know we say that God is what he has, as it were. They're the same thing. So he is his omnipotence, etc. Is there a sense in which he is what he does, saves, or is it different? Yeah, so that was another piece of the dissertation too, was you can think about doing in different ways. Our doing is largely an expression of our need. So, you know, you go out to Leonardo's coffee shop

because you need the coffee that they serve, because otherwise your life will be sad and your, I don't know, interior will be just... Blink. Yeah, exactly. So we usually do stuff as an expression of need, but God does stuff as an expression of perfection, as an expression of abundance. So we can make philosophical distinctions, but they're not that important for this present situation. But like, operation is a kind of perfection of perfection. So a perfect being is the source of a perfect operation. So when we talk about heaven, for instance, we'll describe it as not just we're seated on a celestial couch

being served celestial fare. No, it's a kind of entry into, it's a kind of movement, as it were, into the divine life. So like St. John Damascene quotes St. Gregory of Nazianz as saying that God is an infinite ocean of substance, and so you can think of heaven as a kind of like deep dive. But it's to fire on all cylinders, it's to give perfect expression to our human capacities, it's to live fully, not to just repose languidly. And so, yeah, when we're talking about God, we're talking about God who is abundant life, God who is just firing on all cylinders. That's His very nature, is to be, and that His operation is the deliverance of His to-be. And so, when we

talk about God's engagement with us, we're not thinking about God in the sense of, okay, I was going to do this, but that seems like a bad idea, so now I'm going to do this, I'm going to re-orchestrate the plan on account of the fact that... No, God just gives himself. He adapts the giving of himself to the different states of humanity or to our own temporal condition. But effectively, it's God giving expression to his abundance, his unsearchable depths. And I think that, you know, so we say that God is His existence, He is His intellect, He is His active intellection, He is His object of intellection. So God is His knowing capacity, He is His very knowing, He is the object of His knowing, and that's a kind of, yeah, a perfection that

spills out, as it were, I mean, He chooses to engage with creation, so it's not like, oh, wow, look at that, I created a crazy, right? That spills out into the created world, and we're engaging with a God who is simple, but we receive it in a kind of complex way, because we ourselves are complex. And so it registers in us as kind of complex. Like grace is different from virtue, although they're so closely akin, because we need God's divine life to get into all the nooks and crannies of our interior. And so it's like, I want to be, you know, like at the level of being, I want to be good grace.

At the level of operating, I want to be good virtues. At the level of receiving divine inspiration, I want to be good gifts of the Holy Spirit. And you've got to go down the line. But that's all, that's God, God giving Himself to us, and it's articulated in our interior life, I mean, and in our kind of outworking of it, so that we as human beings can be saved from top to bottom, so that we can be equipped in every imaginable way in our kind of outworking of it, so that we as human beings can be saved from top to bottom, so that we can be equipped in every imaginable way in the level of Supernature, just as we are in the level of nature. Is God responsible for the virtue of the pagan?

Is that like, because I've been reading this book by Matthias Schieben right now on grace, and wow, it's pretty powerful. He talks about how the grace of God is infinitely, but maybe not infinitely, you tell me, better than the goods of the world. And we so often trade what is infinite for like a shiny coin given to us by the devil. And he quoted some, I think, Roman philosopher, if memory serves, about, I think he said something to the effect of, if I were in a palace surrounded by golden things, it wouldn't make me any better. And Sheban says, is it Sheban or Shaban? If your people say both.

That it's grace that does that, like grace is what perfects the man. But I guess I don't understand how it works in relation to our virtue, because obviously there are noble pagans who are far more virtuous than us, I think we would both agree. And so God was responsible for their growth in virtue? Is he responsible for our natural growth in virtue? Yeah, I think at the end of the day God's responsible for everything except for sin and falsehood, says the catechism of the Council of Trent, or maybe the decree of the Council of Trent regarding original sin. But the idea is that God gives us our being and our causing at the natural level, and He gives us our being and

our causing at the supernatural level as well. So, like St. Thomas addresses that particular question in the Prima Secundae where he's talking about, so in that treatise on the virtues before he gets into the particular ones, it's like questions 55 through 70 of the Prima Secundae, he'll ask about the virtues of the pagans, and he says it's like a step beyond kind of temperament or natural constitution. Some people might be more inclined to be generous, or some people might be more inclined to be brave, given how they're made up and maybe how they were raised and things like that. And he says, but that's not yet true virtue simply so called is a language that he uses, like very virtute simplicitare. What would you call it then?

So you'd call it like nascent virtue or the beginnings of virtue, the starts of virtue. He calls it imperfect virtue is the language that he uses. So we can just say imperfect virtue for an imperfect, you know, pagan world. But what you really need for true virtue is all of the virtues to be present, to be interconnected. So in the kind of the natural order, Aristotle will talk about this with prudence and the supernatural order. Obviously, we talk about it with charity. And you need charity there to make the whole virtuous life integral and perfect, because charity refers all the virtues to their final end. Because charity is able to say, why are we doing this at the end of the day? We're doing it because

God is who He says He is and because He loves us, right? So, to love God above all things and our neighbor as ourselves gives a kind of transcendent horizon to the whole virtuous life, and it brings the whole virtuous life together. So, we would say, yeah, imperfect virtue, it's present there at some level by temperament, natural constitution, maybe by the customs of the land, the time, the place, but then perfect virtue requires that all of these things come together and that they be united in the way in which they were intended to be united with the love of God. Mason- One thing I love about you is you seem to be very comfortable with your humanity, you know, and I think when people become Christian

or even far along in the Christian walk, there seems like there is this dichotomy between body and spirit, right? And so the spiritual things are those things that really don't involve my body. And whatever does involve my body is somehow subpar or not something I should take, I don't know, too much stocking or delight in or something. Do you think that's

because of how Aquinas speaks of what man is? And do you see that among your other brothers? And do you think that's because they've been influenced by Thomas? Or is it just like a temperament thing? Maybe, maybe yes. I'd have to think about it a little bit longer. I was actually talking to some of the brothers last night. We were hanging out on the porch and just chatting through things, and they were saying, it seems like we're trying to make up our mind whether to become a bit of Dominican, I ought to be more observant,

or I ought to become more human. Better, you said, right? A better Dominican. I think you said better, okay, better. Yes, sorry. There's a place to do that too, much easier, I'm sure, to become a bitter Dominican. Yeah.

Yeah, all you have to, nevermind. So, whether we ought to be more observant or whether we ought to be more human. And so I think that we can have a confidence as Christians that if we pursue the heights of spiritual perfection, that our humanity will be drawn into that. It's not gonna leave our humanity behind for reasons that we've discussed

and a lot of people have said more coherent things about. But the basic idea is that, okay, what's the goal? The goal is God. God has made it known and has made it available that we share a life with Him. And that places a claim on your humanity, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. And that's something that's body and soul. Because you, as a human person, you're one thing. You're an ensouled body, you're an embodied soul, however you want to describe it, you're one thing. You're an ensouled body or an embodied soul, however you want to describe it, but you're one thing. Such that St. Thomas will say that after we die and the soul departs from the body or the soul and body are

separated, in heaven, until the general resurrection, you're not a human person, you're a human soul. Okay? So there's still some connection with your body and then at the general resurrection you will be returned to your body. Your body will be returned to you at some level. How the continuity between what was and what is works, I don't know. So I think that when we have this vision of there being one goal, namely God, and that God wants to wed himself to us, that he wants to give himself to us, without, what would you say, mediation, but I mean, he uses mediation, but without anything else kind of as a substitute for or filling up the lack of,

he's just like, I want to give you my whole self. And you're like, okay, let's go. And then that's gonna draw you into it whole and entire. So like St. Thomas will say, for instance, that we're primarily made to the image and likeness of God by virtue of the fact that we have an intellect and a will, you know, so a mind with which to know and a heart with which to love, because it's immaterial and that references the immaterial life of God, and it also makes us capacious of God. And then when we act out of those powers by knowing and by loving, we're drawn into God because we can know God with his own knowledge of himself, love God with his own love of himself, and be assimilated to the interior life of the

blessed Trinity. But still, he says, there's also a sense in which we're made to the image of God in our bodies. And he recognizes that, because he compares human beings to angels. And he says, you can say, I mean, angels, strictly so-called, are more to the image and likeness of God than men, because their intellectual powers are more acute, they're more keen. But we are more to the image and likeness of God insofar as there's, you know, you can see in our bodies this act of generation, which he says is patterned after or reveals something

of the Father begets the Son. So there's not the same type of relationality among the angels because they're all created at the outset and there's no coming to be or passing away of angels. It's just set like integers. Whereas for us, there's something of the fecundity of the divine life at work. So even though angels are greater in nature than us, we reveal something of God in a way that angels don't, probably in the same way Tyrannosaurus Rex is less than us, but reveals something of God that we don't. Would that be right or no?

Yeah, I think it's more, I think we're more dignified than Tyrannosaurus Rexes, even though you might not be led to that conclusion when watching Jurassic Park, because they seem quite powerful and so we associate power with dignity. But we're more dignified because we have this spiritual capacity. So I'd say there's a bigger gap probably between us and T-Rexes than there is between, ooh, I'd have to think about that. Yeah, that's a good question. But yeah, so I would say that if you're going for God, you know, to return to my original dichotomy between the observant and the human, if you're going to God, then your humanity is going to be drawn into it.

And it might make, it might place claims on your humanity, demand sacrifices of your humanity. You can't be like, I'm going to indulge in whatever because it's so human, you know, I'm going to like, whatever, look out for myself because it's necessary for my humanity. You can't do those things in the same spirit once God begins to lay claim to the whole of your life and says, like, no, I want all of you, like a whole burnt offering. And I think that worship is always going to take on this dimension where it smells like, you know, like have animals been slaughtered in this temple? Are those entrails? Is that? There's like burnt feathers, you know, it's like there's a sense in which that starts to register

in you because you've got the deepened and more keen impression that he wants the whole of me, and he's not going to settle for anything less than the whole of me. Which is a terrible prospect, but ultimately a blessed one. Do you think that people are scrupulous because they don't know what God is? None of us know what God is, but do you think that maybe our image of God is too small and that's maybe part of what results in scrupulosity? Because I'm talking, it's the same theme I'm going to here, right, with like being human and like you began by talking about God and I think most of us just have like such a, I wonder if for many of us God is accidentally just this idol that we ask to make our life

better and our friends lives better, and that's what we mean by God, and that's not at all what God is. Do you find that as you grow in your understanding of God, this scrupulosity begins to lessen as you begin to trust in how great He is? Does that not make sense? No, that makes sense. I have a couple of related thoughts. Just cut me off if I'm speaking too long, because I might. I was talking to Thursday about this actually on the way in. So one way in which God makes known that he wants to save our whole humanity is by assuming our whole humanity. So he takes a human soul and a human body and a human intellect, a human will, human emotions, even the defects associated with human sin without the sin itself, so like hunger, thirst, suffering, death.

So he shows, I want your whole... Is farting a result of original sin, do you think? See, I don't know, because I think... So God made it such that... All right, we're going to have to get rid of gas in some way, shape, or form. But God made it such that that gas comes out from between the two biggest hams on our body, and it's like loud and smelly and kind of funny. You know, so it's like, I don't know. If it is a result of original sin, would Christ have farted? I mean, he

could have assumed the defect but without the sin. Oh, I see. Yeah, like death. I think so. I think we want to say that. Continue. Yeah, okay. So Christ assumed the whole of our humanity, but not only from top to bottom, He assumes the whole of our humanity from start to finish, right? So Christ is conceived, and He merits infinitely at His conception. So in a certain sense, you could say like salvation's done at His conception, because He's merited our salvation in its entirety. And yet, there's a kind of narrative integrity to His life as well, because he wants to live his life towards the cross and the resurrection and the ascension and the seating at the right

of the Father and the sending of the Spirit. So his life is shaped by the divine preordination, by the divine wisdom. God says, wouldn't it be beautiful if he lived a whole life so that you would have the confidence that your whole life is now a privileged place of encounter with his whole life, so that his whole life can map to our whole life. And so, what does that say to me? It says that our humanity, it's not a mistake, it's willed by God, part of our humanity is temporality, discursivity, like progressive unfolding. And I think that there are things that we don't have now, which we will have later. I mean, in many other senses, we're going to waste away and the outer man is just going to take a beating. But I think God means for us to grow

further up and further in into the divine life. So I think that when we look at particular moments with a great anxiety, we often falsify our human experience. Like, what am I doing now? What am I doing now? What am I doing now? I think it's better to say, where is the Lord kind of on the move in the present moment, but taking into account weeks and months and years? And then I think you have a better appreciation for the mercy of God, which is strong and sweet. And so I think, for instance, humility I think is an old man's virtue. And I think that if we at this stage of the game say, like, I'm going to show myself humble, then we often make manifestation of false humility, and we often tie ourselves in knots and get overly anguished about our pride.

It's just easier to say simply like, I'm proud, but I believe that God's healing grace can grow me beyond my present pride. But that means that I show up for prayer, for sacraments, for friendships, for whatever else, you know? But with this understanding that God's given me a whole life and He intends to perfect me over the course of His whole life, not because my whole life is an ongoing self-help project, but because He's given me my whole life to come to a better knowledge and love of Him, and by way of overflow or like outworking of that experience, it seems like He's going to do

something with my humanity, because He has to do something with my humanity if I'm going to enjoy the intimacy and the intensity of the relationship which lies in store. So I can be patient with myself insofar as I've experienced something of the divine patience with me, but still a divine patience which is underwritten by a divine zeal which wants to get rid of every obstacle to that perfect sharing. So I think that that does help with scrupulosity, just to say simply that God is on the move, He's bringing you with Him further up, further in, but it's it's gonna take time and we have to see it in those terms.

I saw a meme the other day that gave me great relief. It said, when God placed a calling on your life, he factored in your stupidity. I think that's fantastic. Another thing that I think about is, you know, we often think about God providing as far as our material needs, you know, that He will give you what you need in order to accomplish what He has called you to do. But I don't think people hear enough about your time span being involved in that. I am sure it's just my immaturity and my need for healing, but I sometimes wake up and hit the ground running, like there's this dread

that I'm not accomplishing what the Lord is calling me to accomplish. Can you speak to that a little bit about how you talked about over the course of your whole life, of course some of us die sooner than later, that whatever the Lord is calling us to do, He's aware of how long we're going to be around to do it, that kind of thing? Yeah. Yeah, yes. So... Does that make sense? You've probably thought about this. Yeah, I have some thoughts. You tell me if they're related or if they're, you know, pertinent. But I think some people have a notion in their mind that God, in His

infinite wisdom, has an idea of how you ought to be. And until such time as you meet the mark, you're basically falling short. So there's like two types of people out there, the Blessed Virgin Mary and failures, which is kind of horrible. Because if we're always playing catch-up or if we're always lamenting the fact that we haven't seized whatever graces were offered at the moment, it's like we just increase the distance between ourselves and the ideal and we never hit the ideal because the ideal will only ever have been hit if we had always received those graces, if we had always profited from them.

But I just don't think that's true. So I think that God has a notion of you, but I think that notion takes into account the whole temporal sequence. God has a notion of you from your conception to your death, judgment, and all that follows in turn. And God's notion of you is a creative notion. So God is giving you to be, He is giving you to act, He's working the life of grace into the whole of that temporal sequence so as to draw you further up and further into the

divine life. So the standard isn't like, all right, I'm going to judge everything based on how holy you will be at the age of 83 when you pass, or whatever it is. That's not a prophecy, that's just a made-up number. The idea is that, what about now? This time and this place, can you respond to the grace which I offer you today, which is the only real grace? Because past graces, God bless them, I hope they've been enshrined in your heart in a

wonderful way. Future graces, who knows? They're downstream of the present, and these are choppy waters, okay? This is a, whatever, grade five cataract. I'm making stuff up. I don't actually know what river rafters say. So in light of that, there's no upper bound to our growth except the divine predestination. God has a notion of how He wants to shape your life for the purpose of your growth and His glory, but God wills different things in our lives. God loves us differently in that sense. So, when we think about ourselves falling short, I think we falsify our understanding

of the divine creative love, the divine creative intention, which, you know, underwrites that creative love. And so, yeah, so I think that it's always possible to partake more richly of the divine life, but not in the sense that it's always contingent upon our efforts. Like, I got to strive so hard because, because what? Because there's always more charity to be had in this world. Because charity is infinite. God is infinitely generous. I'm infinitely capacious. So what are we doing? You know, why are we sitting around talking about it? Why aren't we with the missionaries of charity in downtown Pittsburgh helping out? You know, it's okay. Well, it's because I think that God wills this for our lives here and now. And I think that this is part of His plan for our sanctification, the sanctification of the people who listen in, right? But ultimately for the transformation

of the world, because it's a mystical body, all right? It's not just a mystical heart which beats at the same rate and everyone is of the same tissue with the same cell structure. It's a mystical body. And God wants to show by the ecosystematic harmony of the church, each kind of playing his part, being small, being little, being humble for the glory of God and the salvation of souls, that it's beautiful and that it's just, you know, it's good to enjoy friendships, it's good to smoke a cigar, it's good to do X number of things or Y number of things, because that reflects the subtlety of the divine plan. And so we're trying to figure out before the Lord, who am I, what am I for,

but you're going to reveal that over the course of my life. I'm going to mature into that vision, and I hope that with each day I can do so by small stages, you know, more and more faithfully. But it's not going to be magic. It's not going to be angelic. It's not going to be inorganic. It's going to be in this body, in this time, in this place, in these circumstances. Sorry, I talked too long. No, thank you. You know, prior to my conversion, and then maybe shortly after my conversion, I had an idea of what it would mean to be holy. And if I'm honest, even though I'm sure I knew I fell short during that time, but I didn't realize just how wretched I was. Like I was like, I am getting so much better, and I'm doing these

prayers like I said I would. Now at the age of 40, what 22 years into an intentional Christian life or thereabouts, I am like horrified at how wretched I am. And I don't mean that with false humility. What I mean is I see my incapacity to love my family as well as I want to, to be present to the people I encounter every day. Like I would much rather be told read the Bible in the course of a year and go to Holy Mass every day and pray the rosary and, okay, I can crush that if that's what you're asking of me, Lord, you know? We're a really large scapula that makes others nervous. Like, I could do that, but like, be patient with your children when they like, mess up the kitchen for the 18th time and leave the light on in the bathroom every single time and, and like, love your wife well in her sickness, and don't be moody, and be cheerful. I run smack into

my own impotency, and it's scary. I had a moment the other day where I'm like, I don't know if I... I often say I want to be a saint, but I think to myself, okay, if the Lord came down and said, all right, good, in order to do that, here's what I need of you. I need you to be just cheerful around your wife and your children and serve them. That's it. That's it. I don't know if I could do it. And then I'm like, do I even want to be a saint?

I believe I do. I believe I love Jesus, and I believe that my love for Him now is even greater than a year or 10 years ago, and that He's converting my heart, and I trust in him because he's the one who's going to have to drag me through this, not me. And so my confidence is not in my own ability, it's in him. But if you had a moment like that where you're like, these big things, yeah, I can crush them, but like, how about don't be a jerk? Like, how about like, be kind to the barista and look her in the eye and be attentive and...

Yeah, a couple of things come to mind. I think paying attention is one. I think I'm addicted to efficiency. So even when I'm going from point A to point B, I have earpods in or AirPods, whatever you call them, I have the things in. And I'm working on whatever language I need to get better at to read this article so that I can incorporate it in whatever else. But I often feel the division of my heart and that when I walk past people, even if I make eye contact and smile because I have AirPods in, I'm not present to them. You know, it's just you signal the

fact that I've got something else to do. You know, we have to be 1 billion percent present to all people at all time as if it were a maximal optimal principle. But just to say, I can feel that, that I love efficiency sometimes more than I love the other, whether it be the anonymous other or the non-anonymous other. Another thing is anger. So like sadness and anger both have a kind of hold on my heart at times. And I realize, especially when you're ideating, when I'm ideating, I should just own it, when I'm ideating about getting even or getting back or proving wrong or showing myself right, that it's just poison, it's just death. And that's like, I can feel that there's an opportunity there to convert, and I don't

know that I always want to. It's like somebody didn't treat me right, or somebody was just really rude to me. And then I go to the chapel and I just think about what I ought to have said, or I think about what I'll do the next time, when, you know, there are moments when I have enough in me at the moment to say, all right, Lord, I'm sad and I'm angry, and I'm not going to take it beyond that. So if you want to heal me, if you want to grow me, God be praised. If you want me to sit here for the next 59 minutes just trying to avoid the near occasion of sin, then I suppose we'll do that too. Another thing too is, yeah, like with little things. I was thinking about this recently trying to avoid the near occasion of sin, then I suppose we'll do that too.

Another thing too is, yeah, like with little things. I was thinking about this recently because the house where I'm presently assigned, we have espers at 5.30, but one day a week we have a holy half hour that starts 30 minutes early, and I have a mental block against it because it departs from the ordinary schedule. And also because during exposition, so I've got this thing where I just, when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed, I don't want this thing where I just, when the Blessed Sacrament is exposed, I don't want people to be reading books, I don't want people to be talking, I don't want people to be doing anything else, just being there.

But we say our prayers for our benefactors and we say other prayers in the context of that holy half hour, and I just don't like it. And so I don't want my work to be interrupted from its normal schedule, I don't like the way it's interrupted. And so if I really wanted to be there, which I ought to be there, it's the one prayer on our schedule where I'm not present each week. I could just set myself a calendar reminder every Thursday. It's as simple as that, but I haven't done that. And I think the question is why, and I think the answer is because I don't want to be a saint yet wholly and entirely, because there are parts of

my life that are still unconverted, and that's awful. But I also think that that becomes a privileged place of mendicancy. It's like, all right, Lord, I'm a little snot. And I can see that with a little better clarity at this moment, because I just want myself at the end of the day. Like, I am very selfish.

And it's like, if I'm gonna heal and grow beyond that, I really want your grace to do it. So I think it's a great moment to be cognizant of my own poverty and then ask for the Lord's richness. And I don't always know, it's gonna be a week to week thing, so I have to go next week because I just said this,

but then we'll see about the week after that and the week after that. I was reading in the Magnificat the other day. I don't know if you ever read that. You've got bigger books to read for prayer, I'm sure. But there's these little, not scripture, but these little kind of inspirational things before and after. And one of them talked about how the truly humble person is like this, he radiates peace. He's not astonished at his own faults, nor is he like angered at the success of others. And I know a lot of saints like Therese and a lot of French saints for some reason talk about this,

about our frustration and sadness at our own faults is really just shows our own pride. And I don't mean to speak too highly of my wife, but here we go. She's a very humble person. Like she's stubborn and she's wretched as well. And you know, I'm not canonizing her here, nor would she want me to. But one thing that's different about her and me, and maybe this is just temperament, is if she blows up or says something stupid or does something wrong, it'll affect her immediately and then she'll be over it.

Like she'll say, I'm sorry, please forgive me. And then she's actually over it, you know? Whereas I do something like that and I hate myself for the entire day. Again, that might have to do more with just like a melancholic temperament. I'm, whatever, if these words mean anything to you, like melancholic, choleric, my wife's like textbook choleric, choleric sanguine. So maybe it has to do with more temperament, but I do sense a lot of humility in her, just to use anyone as an example. She's not threatened with the success of others. I see her actually rejoicing in them, and she's not horrified by her own faults. So

to this point of failing as fathers or as priests or what have you, I imagine like as we grow in humility, it's just there's like an ease about our failures that there wasn't before. And whereas before we would have taken that ease of our failures to be neglect, it may not be. It might just be this constant relying on the providence of God and recognizing who I am before Him. It's hard, right? You don't let yourself off the hook. But I'll tell you this, again,

it might be my temperament, when I don't let myself off the hook, I become a worse person. So there's a pragmatic reason for me to think greatly on the greatness of God and my trust in Him. Because when I don't do that, like if I, maybe it works for some people where they're like, I really have to get serious. Like I've got to think about hell a lot more and how sinful I am, and that'll motivate me. If I do that, it cripples me. What I need to do is to, and again, you tell me if I'm wrong in taking this approach if

you think I am, but like for me, I have to be like, oh, I am a dear one. The Father loves me dearly and He really likes me, even when I don't like me. And I rejoice in that and I thank you Lord that you're at work in me even when I'm not aware of it. And I thank you that I love you more today than I did 10 years ago, even when I'm not aware of it, because you're doing this in me. And I know I can't trust in you too much Lord. That's one thing I can never say of you

is that I trusted in you too much. That kind of language and relationship is what I need to be a more patient father and a loving child. Sorry, well, a loving child, but a loving husband. When I'm harsh with myself, I become an awful person. And I'm harsher with others, you know? So a couple of quick thoughts thoughts is first, I mean, if you adopt a kind of screw tape logic,

if you're a devil, you know, or you're the evil one and you're trying to get a very talented person to fall, I mean, it seems like step one would be get him to rely overly much on himself. And then step two would be provide occasions for falls because when he falls, he can only blame himself. And if you get in a pattern of blame, guilt, shame, recrimination, it's just death.

And that's the type of stuff that you can speak to. I mean, with like pornography and stuff like that, guys who like place a lot of pressure on themselves to get over it. It's like, I'm not this guy and I ought to be better than this. And then it just kind of spirals out of control. The other thing is to, I mean, so I was thinking about this recently because we talk a lot about fraternal correction in religious life, and usually when you say fraternal correction you mean you

observe something that a man is doing which is negatively impacting his relationship with the Lord and with the brothers, and then you bring it to his attention, and then you help him to troubleshoot it if he wants any help, and then you kind of step back, but you try to evaluate, one, does this matter or is this just something that bugs me because I'm precious? And two, can it change or should I take a long view? Should I just simply pray and fast about this thing

and not bring it up? And then three, do I care? Do I genuinely care? Do I love this man enough to communicate in a way that he can hear it, that he can receive it? And so, we navigated this in our first few years in the order with some success and some failure. And, you know, sometimes you're too hard and you rely upon

people to be gracious, whatever. But what the appreciation that I kind of gained over the course of months and years was oftentimes it's better to correct by way of affirmation is to, to, they do that with children too. Oh, okay. Cool. Very. If you want your kid to keep doing something Tell him how great it was that he did that thing is all you mean So no, I mean something that sounds a bit manipulative So I mean, okay, so you a person has a certain fault Okay

All right a certain sin or a certain vice which dogs him But you also see the good act the contrary good act the virtue there, even if it's just weak. And when you see him exercise that good act or act out of that virtue undeveloped, then you note that, right? Because like, for instance, one thing you can never tell a man is that he's weak. No man can hear that.

You know, he just can't hear it about himself. But when you see an occasion in which he's strong, note his strength, you know, recall to him his strength. And I think that that has a way of kind of growing it. Because I think that the Lord affirms us into being. I mean, that's true of our creation. Right? That's good. That's true of our creation, because we weren't. And the Lord said, how about you be? And then we were. And it's like, since we aren't at where we should be as beings, we're not the being we should be, since we're deficient by sin, he affirms what is that depression within us, if you want, into...

Exactly. I love it. Yeah. So I think that the Lord calls us forth and... That's beautiful. Yeah, there's some... What an attentiveness, right? To be so attentive to a brother that you know his fault and you see what he struggles with

and to be attentive to him succeeding, even if only mildly, and then to praise him for that. Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, that's good. Yeah. I talk about my wife a lot because I know her better than anybody else. And I also know that she doesn't mind me talking about this because she's extremely open about these things. But like one, one thing I'm noticing in my wife

that I love that she's not great at is vulnerability. She's just a very competent person. I think she grew up very competent and so she was able to cover up a lot of her like sphere insecurities around things And when I see this like vulnerable side, it's the most beautiful thing in the world Fanning it into flame, you know, I like I know you want to make a joke about me I know you want to curse me right now because you feel really like vulnerable, but I just want you know I love this bit. I love it. It's so pretty. I love it. I love little Cameron. I love that. That's really cool. It affirms us into being. That's good. Do you have more in common in your experience with a Dominican from another country, or with say a Franciscan or a Jesuit or a secular priest in America? What I mean is,

how much does St. Thomas's thought and the Dominican way of life form you, and is it such that you do experience more in common with someone over there than someone who grew up in America like you did? Yeah, I would say there are different styles of Dominican life, and I feel the greatest sympathy with or closeness to Dominicans who are formed in a similar style. But yeah, different ways to go about formation, but those who insist very much on certain aspects of the common life of choral office, like the divine

office or Liturgy of the Hours together, study of St. Thomas Aquinas, and the preaching apostolate as we envision in our province, I feel very close to them. But then if they were raised in a kind of different Dominican environment, then sometimes it feels stranger. Because it's like, come on. You look like me. Yeah, because we ought to have a similar vocabulary and a similar grammar, but it ends up that we use somewhat similar vocabulary but with a very different grammar. And so in those instances, yeah, I can feel closer to certain diocesan priests or Jesuits. Yeah, I've met a handful of Jesuits over the course of the last 15 years, and there's a similar spirit, very different emphases when it comes to like

the end, as it were. But yeah, similar spirit. So Jesuits, certain diocesan priests, and then, yeah, some Franciscans. This question, believe it or not, is tied to a question I asked you about 20 minutes ago about how affected are you by Thomas' body and soul, you know what I'm saying about like the scrupulosity and that's what I was trying to get out there. So that's, by the way, you have a new mannerism. Oh, do I?

I think you've had, you picked up this thing. This is new. Oh really? Yeah. I like it. It's like get at the reality. It's like, yeah. I like that.

Yeah. Okay. Speaking of Dominicans, the rosary. Let's do it. Let's do the, let's talk about the Holy Rosary. How do we come at it? How about, how about, how about, go back as far as you can in church history and show me where it began to blossom.

Okay. And how. What if I just said the natural law? That would be so frustrating. No, that's okay. You can do that. Okay, so you have these, what do you call that? Well, this is a chotki, right? A chotki is Russian for knot. And it's a prayer rope that is used in the East,

but it also has five decades, as you can see. So I kind of use it for both. Okay, so it seems like there are quite a few different religious traditions which have something like that. Yeah. That's not to say like, we're all the same and there's different paths to the one God.

So whether it's Jesus or somebody else, you be you, sweets. I'm not saying that. No. What I'm saying though, is that it corresponds to a certain human thing. Mm-hmm. So we're made. I love it.

Okay, we're made. And in being made, we have the impress of our Creator in our interior life. You know, we talk about the natural law in these terms. And so there are certain things we want to know. There are certain things that we want to love, just by virtue of the fact that we're human beings. And we fall into similar patterns. So like C.S. Lewis makes this observation in The Abolition of Man, when at the end he talks about the Tao, and he says, let's survey different religious and philosophical traditions throughout history. You'll notice certain key things come up, and that's significant because they look a lot like the Ten Commandments. So I think that there's something about the rosary,

or there's something about beads, knots, continuous prayers that you want to, you know, keep track of in some way, shape, or form, which corresponds to a desire of the human heart. So I think... Let's stay there for a bit. I don't want to get too much into the keep track of in some way, shape or form, which corresponds to a desire of the human heart. So I think... Let's stay there for a bit. I don't want to get too much into the Christian-y stuff first. I like this. You know, because you've got Buddhist prayer beads and Orthodox prayer beads and I'm sure

Hindus and other people have beads of a sort. That's interesting. It's just like this thing that we like to hold. I was in Istanbul recently and yeah, a lot of Muslim prayer beads were being sold and I actually saw men carrying around holding them. That's just a beautiful thing. We like to fiddle with things. Maybe that's it. It's just we like to touch things that feel good and fiddle with them. Yeah, there's like the fidget spinner kind of vibe. But then there's also, I think that

human beings have a kind of rhythm to their lives and I mean we breathe so there's a rhythm inbuilt to our organic life and regularity of Heartbeats and other things I suppose I don't know enough about the human body to actually say anything further with coherence But that's good. That's perceived as a good thing. So I think that a kind of rhythmic quality to good thing. So I think that a kind of rhythmic quality to human life has a spiritual resonance to it. So people will talk about breathing, you know, moderating your breathing. It's something that happens automatically, but it's also something over which you have conscious control, and in exercising conscious

control over it, you can gain, I don't know, hold on your interior life. People talk about this with mindfulness and stuff like that. So I think that prayer, it's not a surprise to me that prayer would assume a kind of rhythmic quality in different cultures and different religious traditions or philosophical, theological traditions, because I think, again, that it corresponds to a desire of the human heart, which I find to be cool. And then maybe even more superficially than that is we also like nice things. Like we want nice rosary beads

That's true. We want a plethora of them There's the old one doesn't work anymore. So we need a new one from lewards. It was made out of whatever I remember talking to you about You were advertising Rosaries made by gentlemen, maybe three years ago. Okay, calm You're you're repping it because they had like a good heft to them Yeah, you know is like you didn't want just an insubstantial Knights of Columbus Okay, cool. And you're repping it because they had like a good heft to them. Yeah. You know, it's like you didn't want just an insubstantial Knights of Columbus plastic

rosary where you can see the seams. Exactly. I also didn't want one that is so absurdly bulky that I need to be like one of the one of the freshmen at Franciscan and tie it around my loop because it's not fitting in my pocket. Huh? I didn't want that. I wanted it somewhere in the middle. Yeah. That was practicality,

but I think there is something too about niceness. Like if someone gives you a plastic rosary that's like 20 cents to make, and then they give you a wooden rosary, you appreciate the wooden one more. I don't know why we're talking about this. This wouldn't interest anybody. You know Father Augustine Weta?

Have you talked to him before? No. He's a Benedictine. He's one of the most hilarious human beings I've ever met in my entire life. I want to meet him. Yeah, like I ran to the bathroom at one point because I was in just dire straits. I was going to wet myself. But he makes rosaries and he sent me a rosary recently, which I appreciate very much, which it's like my travel rosary. It's like the one

you, never mind, stupid story and it's too long. But it's got like a nice heft to it. I think he made it out of something like hematite, but I think hematite costs money so I don't think that it's hematite, hematite. It's something else. I don't know what that is. It's like a, I don't know what it is either. Is it heavy? Yeah, it's like a heavy thing. It's heavy. He's actually looking it up right now. I respect that. It's amazing. I can just see the motions from the side of my eye. So he sent me that and he sent me a little case for it so that way when I go and I sleep in another rectory or something like that, I can bring it into bed as I go to sleep and then put the case right there on the bedside table so I know when I pick up the case, the rosary's got to be in it when I travel, which is important or else you're losing rosaries

and beds. And people are like, oh my gosh, there's a bed in this, I mean there's a rosary in this bed. So yes, so there's something nice about a nice rosary. My mom made this rosary at first. She bought the beads in Medjugorje and then she strung them together, but she did it with like rosary wire

that you would give to a 76 year old Irish grandmother who praised them in the secrecy of her own home while sipping tea. And I just kept hitting things with it and then it would explode at untimely times. And so I just bought 18 gauge wire from a hardware store and then just restrung it on a car trip to Youngstown, Ohio. Yeah, how many times have you slammed that in a car door?

Many. Yeah, too many to count. That's good. So that's some heft. All right, but okay, so the origins of- Do you wanna know what hematite is? Let's do it. Yes.

Hematite is a heavy and relatively hard oxide mineral, ferric oxide, Fe2O3, and it's the most important iron ore. To a three or to a four, are you sure? I'm just checking. It's iron two, oxygen three, Fe2O3. It constitutes most iron ore in the Earth's core. Cool, sweet. I think that's what this is made of.

Yeah, that's pretty heavy. Oh, that's awesome. I like a heavy rosary. There it is. You like to feel it product placement. Yep. Yeah Okay, so how did the rosary develop my understanding? Yeah, just kind of is that Maybe the monks prayed 150 Psalms. Yeah, and the lay people wanted to imitate that and maybe offered 150 our vase over the course of a day Yeah, if that's right or correct that if it isn't, when did that start? Yeah, so there's a couple other intermediate steps, some of which you will find interesting,

some of which you will not find interesting. So I think that the idea of rhythmic Christian prayer is a monastic thing, and you'll find this in St. John Cashion's conferences, where you have this one conference where he's talking to a monk, and the monk talks about repeating, God come to my assistance, Lord make haste to help me. About when did he live? Late fourth, early fifth century, like in Temporary with St. Augustine. And you'll find this in the East with the Hezekahism movement, so repeating the Jesus prayer. So something like this is common enough, I suppose.

And then you're right about the early kind of medieval movement, is you have monasteries are kind of consolidating in the West in about the sixth century is when the Benedictine movement kind of gets in traction. Mm-hmm. And so the monks would pray the 150 Psalms. I think at some times in the church's life it would be like every day and then it was made every week and then more recently it's been made every four weeks. You make your way through the Salter. But in order to participate fully in the monastery's life, you had to be literate and somewhat refined

in your literate culture because you're just dealing with Latin and it's, yeah, it's tough. And a heavy Gothic script and these big antiphonaries or these big hymnaries or whatever they're called. So, keep going. Books weren't hard to come by back then. Were hard to come by. Exactly. And so, keep going. Yeah, books weren't hard to come by back then.

Were hard to come by, yeah. Exactly. And very expensive. And so, yes, so it'd be like the Lay Brothers in the monastery, because you'd have choir monks and then you'd have non-choir monks. So men who wanted to join at some level, and they wanted to participate in the monastery's life, but they would typically do so by supporting it with work. So they wanted to have some connection with what was being done in

the chapel, what was being chanted or sung in the chapel. And so they started with our fathers. So 150 our fathers, you know, Latin Paternoster. And so you have in the high Middle Ages the development of these Paternosters, which would be like, yeah, basically a cord of beads or a cord of knots. 150, eh? Yeah. So apparently in the ancient church, you know, in the patristic church, you had a practice of counting beads, and I think it's associated with the monks in Egypt. So some of these first monks like Antony of the Desert or Saint Pecomius who founded one of

the first monasteries. But they were free beads that you would just like move from one pocket to another as you made your way through the 150 Psalms. Someone had an idea. Let's put them together. Yeah. So glorious. And I was reading something that was saying that you have guilds of Paternoster makers in the 13th century testified to in public chronicles. So it's like there were people who part of their kind of pious devout acts were to make these things. Interesting.

So then it's really, you know- Do we have any like paintings of them? I think- So that we kind of got a sense of what they look like. Yeah, I don't know about like these kind of rudimentary ones in the 13th century, but by the 15th, 16th century, yes. A famous one, a famous example would be the image of Saint Dominic painted by Caravaggio, who has, it looks like he's handing out rosaries like party favors.

It's not exactly clear what's going on in that image, but it's pretty cool. Yeah. And then, so then the organization of the rosary takes some time and it's largely associated with Carthusians. So I want to say it's in the 14th century that a Carthusian named Henry of someplace, that he started like grouping in ten and then putting in an Our Father in front of these. So at this point they're the Hail Mayors? Ah yeah, so at this point they're the Hail Mayors, and that was like 11th century, I think Peter Damien, St. Peter Damien. Do you know why it switched? I don't. No, I don't know the reason for which it switched, but it moved to...so I

think that like in the monasteries you had a conscious effort to arrange the Psalms in conversation with the gospel, because the idea was that the Psalms speak of Christ. That's something that's solemnly defined in one of the early ecumenical councils. That's why we pray the psalmody, because it's sung prayer which speaks or testifies to Christ, that Christ was to come at the time of the composition. And so you would have, like the monks would interpolate little verses from the Gospels when reading through the Psalms or when singing

through the Psalms as a way to kind of put those texts in conversation. So that's a kind of rudimentary way of meditating on the mysteries as it were. And so I think that, yeah, 11th century, this idea that Mary and Jesus's life are so obviously bound up together that that was a move that you could make. Why you made it, I don't know. But I read, yeah, 11th century,

St. Peter Damon was the first to do so. Another maybe annoying question. When was it called the rosary and what does that mean? Yeah, so I've heard it referred to the rosary in the high middle ages. I want to say as like early as the 11th century. Rosarium just means, you know, like basically a rose garden. But that it's referred to like this string of beads, it's referred to a rosary in the 16th century. I want to say like 1597 is the first publicly testified, you know, use of it in that precise way.

Because up until that it's still been called Paternoster and then maybe there's some intermediate term. I don't know. If you want me to stop interrupting, tell me to. So you say that's the 16th century, Aquinas is in the 13th century. Was he praying the Rosary? So he might have been praying something like the Rosary, but not the Rosary that we pray today. It doesn't seem. So I think it's returning to the Carthusians. You have Henry and then you have Dominic, Dominic of Prussia specifically. The first comes in the 14th century, the second comes in the

15th century, and they're the ones that really divide it into... So 150 becomes 15 sets of 10. They're the ones that, you know, put in, or it seems, testify to the fact that an Our Father has been put in. And they're the ones that also kind of organize the meditations a little more, because it used to be that you had a meditation for each bead. That was kind of hard to keep track of. So then they proposed certain meditations for groups of 10, and that's what kind of consolidated into the mysteries and that's still that's still a very potent

Tradition in Germany wherever you say the the Hail Mary you add at the end of the first half You know the particular mystery on what you're meditating So you insert those words like how Mary full of grace the Lord is with thee blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit Of thy womb Jesus who came in car exactly. Yep. Yeah, Louie de Montfort talks about this We're probably not out there yet, but we're probably not in this history line at, what is he, 17th century? He is, yes, 17th, 18th. I think he's ordained like right around 1700.

Yeah, I keep going. Oh yeah, so that's like, I think that's the basic shape, but then it's after the Council of Trent, Pope St. Pius V, who was a Dominican, publishes a bowl or he publishes a document which kind of states what the Rosary is, and that's what's explained in the Catechism of the Council of Trent. And that's like the Rosary as we have it, or you know, the Rosary in its rough contours, Our Father Hail Mary, Glory Bees, 15, you know, organized into three sets of mysteries. And yeah. So I have a lot of thoughts on the Rosary, and they might be upsetting to some, but I'll just throw them at you and tell them what you think. One thing that really bothers me, and it probably

says more about me than the thing, okay, is what I call piety sprawl. And so you have this very simple prayer where you have one Our Father, Tenet or Mary's, five of them in a day, you know, but sometimes I'll go to places and they add so they wedge so many prayers into the middle that what could take 12 minutes now takes like 30 or 40 minutes. And I don't like that because it seems like it's making it something other than it is. But if you criticize it, it's like someone might say, well, you have a problem with more prayers. I'm like, okay, but if that's your objection, what if at the end of each decade, the prayer we prayed was another rosary? And then you move on to the

next decade and there's like, you know, so I mean, you can always add more prayers. But the point is, I also want to kind of contemplate the mysteries without getting sleepy or something. So what's your thoughts on piety sprawl, as it were? Yeah, so I think you have two poles. Basically, God reveals and man receives. And I think that God reveals typically in a way that man can receive, or he makes him able to receive in the way that he reveals. So God reveals, he communicates to the life of grace, man recognizes the fact he's receiving it, and that's on account of the fact that God's creating in him the capacity for it. But it's still interfacing with our human nature. And for instance, if you were to say, I want you to pray a 19-hour prayer, you would look at me and say, that's just not feasible

because I typically sleep whatever, six and a half, seven hours a night. And I would say, oh, okay, I'm proposing a prayer which is not a human shape. But it's not just what can you endure over the course of the day. It's also like, how does prayer interface with your human life in all of its complexity? Because it's addressed to you here and now in this time and place in these circumstances.

And I think that prayers, they've kind of been refined over the ages to assume certain contours which correspond to, you know, like the commute or which correspond to the, you know, the nap time and things like that. I don't think that's accidental that prayers assume certain times, places, shapes. And I think that we often feel it, we feel a kind of tension when a prayer gets beyond its ordinary shape, or it starts to swell beyond, like like a human set of contours. Give you an example. I was at World Youth Day in Canada and we arrived at this church as teenage pilgrims and we began to pray the rosary and then we finished it and then it was the first sorrowful mystery like, oh we're praying all three of these, which maybe I could have like

psyched myself up for if I knew that was the case, but I am unwilling. Not that I can't, but I don't want to do this anymore. Yeah, yeah. So I think it's good that prayers be what they are, and I think that it's better that they not grow in the way that you described. Like, piety sprawl I think can actually be bad because my suspicion is that, one, the thought world behind it is longer is better, or the thought world behind it is if I don't explicitly mention it, it's not going to happen, or other associated anxieties. But it can be simply an expression of love, an expression of devotion, but I think especially when other people are present, you have to be solicitous for their good.

And I think that part of that is adapting the prayer to their capacity. And so, I don't like that the rosaryary grows and I will sometimes roll my eyes about it. My, you know, we had an adopted Irish grandmother at the parish who would pray the rosary at light speed, but then at the end would add a bunch of prayers. And even at the age of nine, I was like, seems like we could do this differently. You know, it's like, not sure, but yeah.

So I'm generally with you. And so for instance, the Dominican rosary is a little more efficient than the typical kind of essential into efficiency. I am into efficiency. Yeah. I think for me, in terms of liturgical acts, efficiency is a good thing. So if you've been at a mass where you feel like what father is wasting time at the wrong junctures, it's frustrating. Like if he preaches a homily, which is disorganized,

it's clear that he hasn't made adequate preparation and it's long. You're like, I I'm, I'm hurt by that. I'm sad, I'm angry and it's your fault. Or if they've got like a fleet of altar servers who end up making things more complicated and less devout, you're like, why are we doing? Is this just to involve people or is this because, so I think that when liturgy becomes inefficient, it becomes distracting

and it becomes an occasion of sadness and anger. So, the Dominican Rosary, it's you to say, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. And then the rest of the brothers respond, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. And then you say, Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will proclaim your praise. God, come to my assistance, so Lord, make haste to help me. Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. Hallelujah." And then you just go straight into the mysteries. I see. All right, so no Creed, Our Father, Three Hail Marys, Glory Be, which are fine. It's like not a

bad—I'm not saying those are a bad thing, but I'm saying the Dominican Rosary typically takes about 13 minutes. It's chanted in choral office. There are a lot of people there. It's cross-generational. It's a thing that's just been set for a long time. And there's a desire, well, to not tinker with it, a desire just to kind of perpetuate it in fidelity without adding. So we don't even say the Fatima prayers, for instance. So at the end of each Glory Be, you know, people will say, Oh, my Jesus. We don't even say those. And at the end, it's just the Hail Holy Queen, and then the presiding priest says, Let us

pray, and he finishes that prayer. And then it's just, we don't say the St. Michael prayer, it's just, May the souls of the faithful depart through the mercy of God, rest in peace, amen, may Almighty God bless you, and you're done. I like it. And I like it because it's a 13-minute prayer, and we say it in the middle of the day, we follow by midday prayer, and we've been in the chapel for 20-25 minutes, we go to lunch, we're back at the desk at 1, and I'm not saying that you're supposed to rush through your religious life, or you're supposed to rush through your

Christian life, but I also think that you want to punctuate your religious life or your Christian life with ways by which to recollect yourself in the presence of God, to receive the grace which He is so generous to give, but without belaboring it such that your humanity takes such a toll, or it takes such a toll on your humanity, that the chances of you going back to the chapel are less. Because I do think that fidelity is super important, and I think that we need to be gentle with our humanity in light of that. Let me tell you how we pray the rosary and you criticize it if you want. So we say the Holy Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary,

the first mystery. Boom, yeah. And then we do it. And I like that a lot for a number of reasons. One, I have small children, you know? And two, I think if I were to like add all these pious additions like are they are they in between each decade? Nothing wrong with it. If I was to

start layering up these prayers, then now I've got a 30-minute prayer and it's hard enough with a family to be like, come on kids, let's take a seat and we'll pray the rosary. So this is just something that really works for me. I really like it a lot. I will say as somebody who kind of became an Eastern Catholic, who became, I really liked the Jesus prayer, and I sometimes find that I like it a lot more than the rosary. And I think the reason I think that is, one, it's very, you don't have to use your breath when you pray the Jesus prayer. It's a common misconception, but it does sort of, it lends itself to that and it kind of relaxes the body as it were, and it enables me to continually focus on Jesus. But I also don't feel the same pressure to be super duper attentive

to every word that maybe I unnecessarily feel about the Rosary. Oh, you're not thinking about the mystery. You're not thinking about the mystery, you know. So it's something I can just like pick up in my pocket as I walk down to Leo's and pray the Jesus prayer in a way that I don't feel I can do to kind of pray the rosary and to think about the mysteries and things like this. And so the end. Yeah. So when people ask like, how do you do this? Because there's the vocal prayer, you know, there's the text that you're working through. Then there are mysteries upon which you meditate.

You cannot possibly think of both at once. It's not humanly possible. I don't think that we need to be super concerned about that or super anguished about that. So I think it's like, here's my perspective. We are saved by the mysteries of the life of Christ. So God, in saving us, he takes to himself certain instruments because he thinks that those instruments are very good for accommodating salvation to us. Because he's like, I could just snap my fingers and you're saved.

But I wanna do it in a way that you, as a human being, can again, begin to appreciate, that you can recognize that you can receive in a human way such that it takes deeper hold on you. And so that it kind of interfaces organically with your human experience, because I want to save the whole of your human experience. So our Lord Jesus Christ takes to Himself our humanity, the sacred humanity of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Boom. But then that kind of chain of mediation or that chain of instrumentality extends further still, again, as an expression of the divine generosity. So you have the church and the sacraments, you know, but one of these things that we don't often talk about are the mysteries of the life of Christ. So I was saying how our Lord lives a whole human life so that it maps onto our whole human life, but all of the deeds and sufferings of Christ save. It's not just the passion, death, and resurrection. It's everything from the conception until the present moment in a certain sense, the sending of the Spirit. All of those things save. All of those have something to say

about our salvation, and in saying something about our salvation, they give salvation. And the reason that we meditate on the mysteries of the life of Christ isn't because it's like, oh, isn't Jesus, you know, such a swell fella, maybe I should prayerfully consider living like Him in the future. It's like, no, everything that He does saves. So we're kind of positioning ourselves before those saving mysteries alongside the Blessed Virgin Mary or in communion with the Blessed Virgin Mary, ultimately so that they can have their effect on us. Because the goal is through His humanity, His mysteries, His Church, His sacraments,

and other things besides, we're actually conformed to Him. And in being conformed to Him, we're assimilated to God. Like we're drawn into the divine life by interfacing with the means that our Lord appointed to precisely that end. So when we read the sacred scriptures, you know, a good question to ask is, like, what is the Lord teaching here? But I think that if we say that as if the Lord were just a sage philosopher, we're reducing the text, like Thomas Jefferson reduced the text. I think we should ask, how is the Lord saving here? Because the Lord is saving through teaching, through working miracles, through exercising demons, and the Rosary is just meant to focus that.

But I think that you can kind of adopt a posture somewhat passively before the mysteries, recall them to mind, but then just say the prayers without worrying too terribly much, because I think that worry will actually make it harder just to be washed by, bathed in the mysteries themselves. Yes, no, that's really good. If people are doubtful of what we might be saying here, and I would encourage people to pick up a copy of the 1962 Latin Missal, turn to where it talks about the Rosary, and what you'll find is it says exactly what I'm saying, that here's the prayers of the

Rosary. You know, you have the Our Father, Five Hail Mary's, and then I think it may even not include the Hail Holy Queen, I'm not sure. Sorry, 10 Hail Mary's. I'm not even sure if it includes the Hail Holy Queen, but the point is it says any other, something to the effect, I wish I had it with me, any other prayers are optional pious additions, or something like that. And man, that's good for me. One thing I don't think people realize too, is that the Holy Mary Mother of God part of the Hail Mary wasn't added until, was it around the Black Plague or something? When was that? Yeah, yeah, so there were many Black Plagues from 13th to the 16th century. But yes, so obviously the first half is from Sacred Scripture, and it's an

early tradition to append the angelic salutation, as it's called in the medieval tradition, the words of the Archangel Gabriel to Mary, to the latter half, which are the words of St. Elizabeth in their meeting at the Visitation. So that was, to the latter half, which are the words of St. Elizabeth in their meeting at the visitation. So that was an old pious practice, which you see kind of come together in the Middle Ages. But then different people attribute the Holy Mary, Mother of God, to different people. That's a somewhat coherent statement. But first testimony to something like it is at the Council of Ephesus when, third ecumenical council, Mary was kind of

vindicated as the mother of God, because you had an historians out there saying she's the mother of Christ but not the mother of God for reasons of complicated Christological blah, blah, blah. But people kind of acclaimed her Holy Mary, Mother of God, in reception of that teaching, so that's like one ancient source. But then some people attribute to Blessed Alan de La Roche, who was a 15th century Dominican who is a big part of associating Saint Dominic with the reception of the Rosary. Some people attribute it to Saint Peter Canisius. It appears in the Catechism that he wrote, I guess it would be during the Council of Trent, and then it is part of the promulgation of the Rosary after the Council of Trent. It's like definitely there at that stage of the game. So different sources disputed as to which holds pride of place, but yeah.

But even like the word Jesus, for instance, wasn't added to the first half of the prayer until like the 13th century in official fashion. I think it's like Urban the Sixth and the 1260, who, you know, who adds that because, you know, the blessed, I mean, in her conversation with St. Elizabeth, the Blessed Virgin Mary doesn't hear the word Jesus. It's just, yeah. There was a prayer rule in the East, and I forget the name of it now, which is essentially the Rosary.

Okay. And some in the East claim that it was even prior to what was attributed to Dominic. And it involves like 150 avays. That's right. With the kind of Eastern slant on the Hail Mary. Yeah. And even with very, very similar mysteries. I think there might be one or two that are different,

but that's it. Okay, cool. It's quite an interesting thing to look into. If anyone knows what that prayer rule is, let us know. Probably on Wikipedia. Yeah. History of the Rosary, Wikipedia rule is, let us know. Probably on Wikipedia. Yeah. History of the Rosary, Wikipedia. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good. I had someone here recently, Michael Gormley, who's, I don't know if you know him, he was a Franciscan-grey, lovely fella, and he was talking about how they pray that little, they read a verse from scripture between every Hail Mary. Oh yeah. The Bible Rosary or whatever they call it.

And I say I don't like that. But I don't like that not because I don't think it's a beautiful, meritorious thing that could be encouraged in certain circumstances, or you might want to do all the time and that's fine, but because it just felt like it kept interrupting what I believe to be like just this natural flowing prayer. I think that's just a personal preference. But I can also see how that could be beneficial to say, like, if let's say if you were praying the rosary every night with your children or on your own, that could be something you pull out once a week or once a month to kind of like reorient yourself to the mysteries because it is easy to pray the mysteries. And you're really only thinking of like one

image in your mind and you're not kind of taking into consideration the entire mystery. So I can see how that could be beneficial. Yeah I've gone through seasons in my life like my life is long. Prayer or the Theotokos? I'm sorry keep talking. Boom. Yeah so for a while there I was using the scriptural rosary which I liked at the time but kind of fell out of the practice and then for a while there I was using the Magnificat rosary companion just to look at the sacred images because they had it such that there were a lot of frangelico images, kind of high Middle Ages, even late Middle Ages, which I found to be helpful for reflecting upon the mysteries, especially since I was praying it at the time in the chapel.

But then for the past three years, I've basically been praying a rosary while walking, because it wasn't part of the prayer schedule of the house that I was assigned to when I lived in Switzerland. And I like that. It's just a different thing. Because I also have a lot of time in the day dedicated to more contemplative prayer where you're just sitting in silence. And so to have the rosary just be something different, perhaps a bit more embodied than I might otherwise experience prayer to be. That was nice. It's also sometimes easier to concentrate while you're moving.

Yeah. Yeah. So I think it's fine if you try something and then try something else and then try something else. I don't think there has to be like a somebody told me in a conversation or this saint said at whatever point that the best way by which to is dot dot dot. It's like, well, no, the church and the in-caridin of indulgences says if you pray it in a church, like if you pray in the presence of the blessed sacrament, excuse me, if you pray it in common with other people, there's a special, you know, indulgence attached to that. So we can take guidance from that certainly, but I don't think we have to stress about the particular mode and manner except experimentally just kind of suss through. Let me just read this

real quick. So this is called the Rule of the Theotokos. It's a Christian prayer of the Eastern Orthodox that consists of reciting angelical salutations 150 times. This rule is similar to the Rosary of the Western Church. Some believe that the Mother of God showed the rule to people in the 8th century but was later forgotten and was rediscovered for Eastern Christians by Saint Seraphim of Sarov. That's who I was thinking of. The prayer consists of 100 angelical salutations which are divided into 15 decades. Isn't this wild? That is one each decade focuses on some important event the life of Jesus Christ Here are those 15 decades ready? Let's see how many are similar

So number one birth of the theotokos so that's different the presentation of theotokos Okay, but then it's annunciation visitation to Elizabeth birth of Christ. Yep Meeting of the Lord flight into Egypt loss of Jesus in the temple, crazy. Miracle in Cana of Galilee, theotokos standing by the cross, resurrection of Christ, ascension of Christ, ascent of the Holy Spirit, dormition of the theotokos, glory of the theotokos. Oh wow. Yeah. Yeah, that clings pretty close. Interesting stuff, eh? It is. But But one of the reasons that little addition that Louis de Montfort speaks of in, I forget what it's called, something of the Rosary. The Secret of the Rosary?

Yeah. One of the reasons that seemed to make sense is there was not the Holy Mary Mother of God part. So saying, Hail Mary, full of grace, Lord, with thee blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus, who is incarnate. Hail Mary. That seems to make make more sense. Yeah. Yeah. They still do it, I mean, at present in the German-speaking world or in a lot of places in the German-speaking world. It's super charming. Yeah. Charming sounds like I'm patting it on the head, but I like it. Yeah, it's charming. I think what

is probably true of a lot of people who've gotten into the prayer rope, the Jesus Prayer, and then have gone back to the rosary is it it is a difficult prayer to pray with two breaths You know with the Jesus prayer you can you can incorporate that into your breath What would you say to somebody who's like well? I'm just gonna I Got a couple of thoughts here. Yeah, let me sell on this one first. Yep Because I do I agree with you that there's often this if it's longer. It's better. Yeah Because I do, I agree with you that there's often this, if it's longer it's better. But there's also this, if it's original it's better. So like this is how they really prayed it in the beginning.

Preferential option for the ancient? That has a lot, yes, thank you. So if that's the case, I wonder why there hasn't been a move to return to the first, the angelic salutation, just as it was in the beginning. Good, yeah? Good question. I heard, and I don't know if this is well attested to, but Bugnini at the end of the Second Vatican Council made recommendations to Paul VI that the rosary be adapted, and he's like, we're not touching it. He's like, it's just too deeply entrenched in pious practice, because it doesn't really change from the

16th century until 1917 with the apparition in July of 1917 that Our Lady requests that you pray the Fatima prayer at the end of each decade. So I think... So if she's requesting that, why aren't you Dominicans praying it and playing devil's advocate? No, it's great. I think that there is a variety of lowercase T traditions. I think that one thing that I love about the church is there's a kind of let a thousand flowers bloom type disposition when it comes to the devout life and when it comes to pious practices, which I find to be pretty wonderful, because the idea is there isn't just one optimal maximal way to conduct your devout life, your pious practices. There are a variety, and those reflect a variety of temperaments, constitutions, formations, but also the divine

predestination. God wills that you assume a different pious practice than I assume, like the wearing of a habit, for instance. It wouldn't make sense for a lay person to wear a habit. You have lay fraternities, you have third orders, which have certain times and seasons in which they might wear part of a habit or a habit, but it would just be bizarre. It'd be like, Matt, aren't you married? You know, like, don't you have four kids? Yeah, this is at best confusing. Yeah, exactly.

And that's because God wills different things for different people. And I really do like insisting on the lowercase T traditions of the church. So like a lot of people will bristle at the mention of Thomism. They're like, you guys think everyone should be a Thomist. I was like, no, I think it's an excellent way

by which to approach reality. And I don't think that we should relativize it and say it's just one way because I do think it has a kind of pride of place. But I also think it's super important for the health of Thomism, for the health of other intellectual traditions, that people develop those other intellectual traditions vigorously. Because if not, I think that people will eventually reject Thomism because people reject all things that are proposed with authoritarian confidence. You know, so I think that we will eventually reject Thomism because people reject all things that are proposed with authoritarian confidence. You know, so I think that we need to have a vigorous debate in the academy and in the church on

substantive issues, and we need to bring different conceptual resources to the table. Otherwise people are just going to assume that this is the way they're going to find problems with it. They're going to reject it. But it's like we found problems with it, too. That's why we're in conversation with other people from whom we can learn and from whom we can benefit. And so when it comes to the devout life, I think it's, yeah, let a thousand flowers bloom. And this is one way of praying the rosary. This is one way of praying the rosary. This is one way of praying the rosary. The church also doesn't mandate that you pray the rosary. I think it's important to say. I think it's really important that we distinguish between, say, what the church, I mean, there's a spectrum,

hey, what does the church forbid? What does the Church caution against? What does the Church permit? What does the Church encourage? What does the Church mandate? And I think too often, maybe not too often, but you occasionally see people, they take a liking to a particular devotion and they speak about it as if the Church is mandating it when it doesn't, and I think thereby in a sense, heaping up burdens. Mason-I agree wholeheartedly. Mason-Yeah. Because most Western devotions, it seems to me, if you read about them, are attributed to some saint, or some inner locution, or some vision. What I'm saying is, if you want to say, but you should pray the Rosary because it was

revealed to Dominic or something. Okay, but you can say that about many. I wouldn't be surprised if it's hundreds of devotions. So what are you going to do? Are you going to do all of them and drive yourself crazy? No, what you're probably going to do is choose a few and hopefully remain faithful to them, and then not mandate to the rest of the church that they ought to be experiencing prayer and devotional life the way you have found most optimal. Yep, I agree wholeheartedly because, and I'm sensitive to this too, especially in the digital space with podcasting, you have a listenership who trusts you and who looks to you for guidance,

and that's cool, you know, but it also can be abused, right? It's like you should definitely, it's like I recommend very few things. Right? I recommend the Ten Commandments, the Five Precepts of the Church, because they're mandated. You know, but when it comes to like, what's a book that I need to read? My go-to answer is the Gospel of John. Right? Beyond that, you know, there are other things that you can read, but I really like GK Chesterton's orthodoxy, but I never recommend it because it's so peculiar. And I think the chances that the person to whom I recommend it, that they like it, are low. Or at least not so good that I can have any confidence

in making that recommendation. Because I think that when you make a recommendation, you say to somebody, I know you, and I know what's good for you, but I think that's often a presumption to a relationship which isn't really there. I think that those recommendations are best done in the context of a relationship.

Like, I see you, I know you, I love you, and I think this might be for your good. But you're totally free to reject that in the context of a real relationship. Whereas when you really lean on authority or make a recommendation from nowhere to no one or into the void, I think that the chances of misinterpretation and that going off the rails are higher.

So I don't just like, I don't back off moral authority, but I only wanna use moral authority in a way that's responsible, especially, you know, like in the 21st century when moral authority has been so abused by so many communities, like in the church, sure, people will say like, I mean, with scandals, that's, it's tough, you know, we're in a tough spot.

But also like you think about the pandemic for the last three years and the scientific community saying, we know this for sure Yeah, you do. Okay, perfect You know so like we're in a we're in just a weird spot right now because people have been overplaying the authority hand and then you see Their cards and you're like, I'm sorry that you did that for what reason, you know, so yeah

Yeah, that's good the rosary so That's good. The rosary. So, the church assigns plenary indulgences to four pious acts that you can gain any day without special provision. So, read sacred scripture for 30 minutes, pray for 30 minutes in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, make the stations of the cross in a public church or oratory, and pray the rosary in common. The church says if you do those pious acts with the other things, so you have to receive Holy Communion on the day of, you have to have gone to confession either eight days before or eight days after, like within that range. You have to pray for the Pope, usually people say an Our Father and a Hail Mary, and you have to seek to be

detached from sin. If you do those things, you can gain a plenary indulgence for someone who's died or for yourself, not for other living people. And so it seems like the church is saying these are good ways, if you're looking to grow your devout life, these are good ways to explore. But beyond that, I don't know, I don't know what else to say. What are your thoughts on the Luminous Mysteries? Yeah, party on. So they were what, promulgated in 2002 I think? I think it was October something of 2002. But yeah, St. John Paul II, I suppose he was looking at the landscape and said, we go from Jesus' twelve, and he's lost to his parents for three days, thus, you know, kind of foretelling the resurrection, and restore to them, I should say, thus foretelling the resurrection.

And then we go from there to the agony in the garden. So it's like, holy smokes. You get the impression that this man came into the world to die, which is true enough, but he also came into this world to live. And I think that returns us to the point that I was harping on earlier, that all of the deeds and sufferings of Christ save. The baptism is an excellent example of this. Why is the Lord baptized? You ask that question, why are we baptized? Well, it's because we're born in sin, says Psalm 51. So, we need baptism in order to be healed and grown beyond our fallen state. I mean, we remain fallen, but we can heal from some of it, we can grow beyond some of it, so that we can receive this adoption as sons and daughters of God, grace, virtue, gifts of the Holy Spirit,

all kinds of cool things besides. But none of that applies to Christ, because he doesn't need to deal with sin, whether original or personal. He already is the natural Son of God. He has grace, virtue, gifts of the Holy Spirit out the wazoo, if I can speak somewhat casually. So why then is he baptized? St. Ambrose makes this observation, he says, when we, you know, have the waters poured upon us or are immersed in the waters, they cleanse us. Like, that's the trajectory. Waters to us, cleansing goes on. In the case of Christ, when he's immersed in the waters, he cleanses them, which is to say he imparts to them the power to cleanse us. Mason- What does that even mean?

David- So it's like he's instituting the sacrament. Mason- He's not actually cleansing the waters that he's within. So what is he doing? David- Basically, he's instituting the sacrament of baptism. Mason- Okay. David- So by his institution of the sacrament of baptism, now when the minister of the church pours the water over an infant's head and says, you know, child, I baptize you in the institution of the sacrament of baptism, now when the minister of the church pours the water over an infant's head and says, you know, child, I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, that affects what it signifies.

But it would have done that whether or not he was baptized. So it would have done that provided only that he instituted the sacrament of baptism. And so we see him institute the sacrament of baptism in his baptism. But like, with any of the sacraments, the sacraments have a power to communicate a grace, right? So we would say that sacraments are signs of a sacred thing which make men holy. But we also say that each of them were instituted by Christ. So it's a contentious question in the Middle Ages whether that institution is mediated by the early church, but Christ...

I just don't know why we... I don't know why Ambrose's point is so profound we you think of other obviously I'm wrong no no no I'm just trying to wrestle no you got it you got to suss it out yeah so like I mean there are other sacraments that we don't see Christ engaging in specifically like extreme unction yeah like it's not like that had to happen for him to somehow hello all of the oil in the world or a specific type of... So it just sounds cute and poetic, like, we do this, so we are cleansed, he does this, so he can cleanse. Oh, that's nice. Or he absorbs the sin. Like, I can see it in a kind of poetic interpretation, but maybe when you make it kind of literal and specific, maybe that's what I'm trying to do and I shouldn't be doing it.

No, it's good. Let's keep going until you're satisfied or until Jesus comes back. So here's the thing about that gesture. It's a strange gesture. To be baptized. For him to be baptized. Yeah, that is strange. It merits questioning. Yeah, so for one who is less than him, who acknowledges the fact that he is less than him, I'm not worthy to loosen the straps of your sandals. I should be baptized by you, etc, etc. But the Lord says that it's necessary for the fulfillment of all righteousness. The word there being tikaosune, which is like justice in the deepest sense of the term, which is to say to be made right with God. Okay? So he's saying this is for salvation. So that underlines the fact that all of the deeds and sufferings of Christ save, or that this, at the very least, this deed of Christ saves. So then you ask the question, how is the Lord saving? And the paradoxical nature of the gesture, I think,

it makes that question more urgent because we know how baptism ordinarily saves. It makes you an adopted son of God. It gives you grace, virtue, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. It does a lot of cool things, but none of those apply to Christ. So when you recount that, you know,

in your own telling of the story, then you have to drill down, like what's actually happening here. And you can just say, juridically, he's instituting the sacrament. Cool, okay? But what happens in sacraments? Visible signs communicate invisible graces. So the Lord is investing this visible thing with an invisible ability, as it were, or an invisible power, right? So we would say, and we just quote the woman who came up behind him in the crowd who had been hemorrhaging for 12 years. So power goes out from him. Even, you know,

you just grab the hem of his garment, power goes out from him. And so you get a deeper appreciation in, you know, like praying through the baptism, because we're talking about the luminous mysteries. You get a deeper appreciation for the power that goes out from him. And you get that also in the transfiguration. Like the Lord constrains his glory. I was preaching about this maybe yesterday. Yeah, it was yesterday. So, we often think about, he said in the gospel yesterday,

I'm making humble of heart, you know. And we think about that as like Christ is weak and he's initiating us into this slave mentality. I should say our atheistic contemporaries think that. But it's like, no, when we talk about God, you know, he's not a tame God. When we talk about God, we're talking about overabounding life, but we're talking about overabounding power. Slow down, Gregory, you're getting ahead of yourself. Okay, so. And what we see in the incarnation is the Lord actually constrains His glory so that it doesn't destroy us, right? So we talk about the weight of glory, that God is greater than our hearts, that eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor has it so much as dawned on the heart of glory, that God is greater than our hearts, that eye has not seen nor ear

heard nor has it so much as dawned on the heart of man what God has ready for those who love him. So there's something potent here, all right? But God veils his radiance, God constrains his glory, God makes mute the word so that we can actually interact with him, so that we can recognize and receive something which comes to us clothed in human vesture, because otherwise it would tear us apart. Not in the sense that God is creepy, right, but in the sense that we're talking about being itself, He whose very nature is to be. Everything else that we experience in this world is a limited sense of to be. It's a

it's like a kind of narrowed down sense of to be. And so God in the incarnation, He makes the divine causality like more tolerable for us in a certain sense. And we see something of that in the baptism, in the transfiguration, because when the glory breaks through, it's like holy smokes, right? And not just in a poetic sense, but in a real sense. With the transfiguration, it grinds them under in the sense that they can't lift up their heads. It's not like, oh, let's bow, this is a holy thing. It's like they almost go to sleep. You know, it's so thick.

The atmosphere is so thick. And I think you have something of that in the baptism. Like the power goes out from him, that it imparts to the waters the very capacity to cleanse, and that the Lord, in submitting to the baptism of John, showing his humility, it's not just like, oh, look how humble he is. It's like look at the humility of the whole dispensation of salvation history, of God's dealing with men, of the divine condescension, of the abbreviated word, which adopts this posture so that he can speak to us face to face in the context of friendship and in the setting of

friendship to draw us up into the communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, like, I think you can begin to get an intimation of that. Do you have to say all that to yourself while praying the baptism of the Lord? No, but I think you can begin to get an intimation of that. Do you have to say all that to yourself while praying the baptism of the Lord? No, but I think that that's at work in it. Yeah. And I think you have contact with what is at work in it, and I think that changes you. Which is like, even if you don't know what you're saying when you're praying the rosary, I think you have to account for the fact that 40 years later, this dad who led his family in the rosary now has sane kids.

Wow. You know, it's like, how do you? I mean, when 25% of this generation identifies as something other than, you know, heterosexual, you know, it's like, how do you? I mean, when 25% of this generation identifies as something other than, you know, heterosexual, you know, it's like, I mean, like this whole family, you know, they're all, I mean, and not to say like, parents who have seven kids and one of whom might be a little bit off the rails right now, it's not like you failed, but to say like, how do you account for sanity cross generationally, except God's fidelity, which is made manifest in, which is communicated through our sacramental practice, our life of prayer, our friendship, like the realness of our relationships, you know, whatever. So,

yeah, that's really good. Luminous mysteries. Yeah. I'm, I'm forum. Yeah. You know, so I wear 150 on my, on my hip. Yeah. Like the aforementioned freshmen. I wonder how panicked Dominicans were when that came out like, Oh no, am I gonna have to get, this is gonna be even longer? Exactly. Are the beads gonna have to get significantly smaller? Yeah, so I think there are reasons not to do it. You know, when you're thinking about Saint John Paul II, 2001, he's like, should I, should I, should I? There are reasons not to, because of, you know, this connection with the Psalms, there are 150 Psalms, the Psalter of Our Lady. Breaks

the imagery. Yeah, and also people have been doing it this way for a long time, so are we sure we want to? But it sounds like in the church there are already quite a few people who are already adding mysteries. And also, to be clear, is a suggestion. John Paul II said, was a suggestion. That's important too. It's not like he was now mandating something. Yeah, and then he kind of goes through and says, you know, you can pray these mysteries on these days if you're in the habit of praying the rosary every day. And he assigns those mysteries to Thursday because of the connection with the institution of the Eucharist, which is cool.

Yeah, I think let a thousand flowers bloom. I want to point out two books that people might be interested in. One is I wrote a book on the rosary with ascension press. Would you mind putting a link in the description? Thank you very appreciate that You never talked to me like that when I didn't have any hair. I just told me a loser Yeah, so this this is I'm really I like this little rosary. I actually wrote this for a class in theology Dr. Michael Barber was my professor and in this book what I do is I show how every Rosary has a type in the Old Testament. And so it's very biblically based and it's also infused with writings from the Church Fathers. It's in a little leatherette book. You can get that if you

want it. It's also in Spanish, which is cool. And Braille. That's awesome. I just found this out after the fact. Another book I want to tell people about is our book that we wrote together. Here it is. Can I hold it up for people Thursday? That camera. Yep. Marian Consecration with Aquinas, a nine-day path for growing closer to the mother of God that Father Pine and I put together. So, you know, if you like the rosary, sorry, and you're into Marian things, but a 33 day preparation just seems a little too

much for you right now. If you're more of a sprint guy like me, I'm thinking of Gimli from the Lord of the Rings where he says something to the effect of, uh, we're lost in cross country cross country. We dwarves the sprinters, something to that effect. I support you. I never regret saying that anecdote. Yeah. Um,. Yeah. Yeah. I think your pocket guide is out of print. Oh, because it's not on even on Ascension's website. No, unless their only place I can find it on Amazon is in a five book bundle. It's not because they discontinued it father. It's because it was that good. Selling like hotcakes. I'll do your Look into that one. But this is a good book, Mary and Consecration, that we'd recommend that you check out. It's on Audible as well if you want to listen to somebody

do it. But it'll take you nine days of preparation to total consecration with Mary. And we kind of address some of the concerns that people might have about praying to the saints or too much attention to the Blessed Virgin Mary or things like that. But boom. Do people say stuff to you about this book? Yeah, yeah. A couple of people have read it and a couple of people have liked it and a couple is a loose term. When I became Catholic I was immediately confronted by Protestants who were very well-meaning people and loved the Lord and were serious and they had criticisms, you know, of Catholics devotions to the Blessed Virgin Mary. So I feel like the time, as I was becoming a new kind of Catholic, I was

a little defensive and a little kind of gun shy. Now, 22 or whatever years in, like, you can't speak more effusively of the Blessed Virgin Mary. And whenever you do, I'm like, keep going. I just, I can't get enough. I just love her. Yeah. And I think GK Chesterton said that Mariolatry is the badge and boast of every papist or something like that. You know, type of thing he would say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm not concerned about it at all. Like Maximilian Kolbe, he speaks. I'm like, keep going, baby. That's not even close to what I want. I just think she's the bee's knees to put it in theological language.

Exactly, yeah. But yeah, that could be a beautiful way to kind of develop a devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary is the Holy Rosary. Father, can you translate for us real quick? Mary is the bee's knees into Latin. Yeah. Yeah, what about German?

Holy mackerel, there's a lot of people watching right now. We have 715 people watching and the chat is a flutter. It's a dumpster fire is what I call it. A dumpster fire? I have this theory. I don't know if it's real or not, but I feel like here's the theory. Lay people are angry at priests for ruining their liturgy. So they're like, fine, you can't touch this. This is our thing. If

you mess with this, we will excommunicate you as best as we're able as laypeople. Are you talking about the rosary? Are you talking about live streams? Nice. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. No live streams. Beautiful. All right. Now let's see. I have asked my beautiful local supporters if they have questions and I want to let everybody know two things about locals. Immediately after the stream, Father Pine, even though he doesn't know about it yet, is going to lead a quick stream answering your questions directly over on locals, matfrad.locals.com. Also, I want to let people know that we are about to lead a five part micro

course in Flannery O'Connor taught by Father Damien Ference, who has his doctorate in Flannery O'Connor and Thomism. So Ferentz who has his doctorate in Flannery O'Connor and Thomism. So if you're interested in getting access to that, become an annual supporter over at matfrad.locals.com. You get a bunch of free things in return. Our staff is growing here. We have other people, at least two, you don't even know about this,

that I'll be bringing on soon in different capacities. And so our expenses are going up and there are other issues. So mapfrad.locals.com, please become an annual supporter because it actually really is what helps us so much. Did you have something to say before I dived into? Yeah, yeah, yeah. HTTPS colon backslash backslash hello.com slash Matt. Hello.com slash Matt.

Are you looking for the number one Catholic prayer app? Just Catholic app. Hello.com slash Matt. Have you used it? I have not. It's really good. I know I always say this, but anyway, if you go to hello.com slash Matt, it'll help you pray.

Uh, it has sleep stories. It has all this different Catholic music on there, including my Catholic lo-fi that you can listen to. Um, I'm really glad about actually, we just made the transition for one of our children who's now old enough to get a smartphone. So we went from like dumb phone to smartphone, he's 16, locked the phone down entirely. Of course, there's no app store, there's no, you know, things. But Hello is something he can use.

And Hello has a lot of great stuff. It has, yeah, yeah, like book studies and all sorts of things. So if you go to hello.com slash Matt, sign up on that page instead of getting it on iTunes You can get it. You'll get the first 90 days for free. That's three months You'll have access to the entire app. One thing I like to do is in the morning I'll read over the gospel reading and then they have something called gospel reflection Which is actually a podcast run by an Aussie, and you can listen to that daily as well. It's really good. So hello, H-A-L-L-O-W dot com slash Matt. Sign up over

there so they know that I sent you so they like me more and that I can then charge them more to do these ads. Do not sign up through Laura Horn's link. Sign up through my link because I said so. She's coming after you funny in relation to that I'll tell you later I can tell you now if you want. Sure. So we were when I was streaming the other day we were watching Laura's videos and she put up her link at the end yeah and I used my like streaming software to put Matt over her name. It's like nobody's. Appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, uh, use the desktop site. That's the other thing we should say. Don't sign up on iPhone or Android, even in your web browser. Use the desktop website. Yeah.

Because you don't want, if you sign up using their link on a phone, I think so, but at least just to be safe, everybody sign up on the desktop website because you will be taking away 30% of their money if you sign up in the app. Yeah, and you're giving it to Apple. Apple or Google. And we use it for our kids. Like sometimes Peter, my son, beautiful kid, love him to death, can't go to sleep. So we just play these beautiful little sleep stories, but it's the Bible being read to them. So this app was started by a fella who was into Buddhism

and new age. And he had this particular app for mindfulness and stuff, but it was very much infused by Buddhist sentimentality. And when he became a Catholic, he's like, we need something. And this, this app has grown insanely. And it's all because of my advertising. That's not true. Can I interject two things? One, I realized recently there's a hole in my right shoe on the bottom of it and it hadn't rained much in Washington D.C. until this morning. And I was like on the metro thinking like my feet are sweating a lot but I realized that my right shoe, my right sock is just totally wet which is awesome.

It's kind of gross. And then the other thing is, can I plug the Dominican Rosary pilgrimage? What's the website? I want to look it up. I think it's the Dominican Rosary pilgrimage? What's the website? I want to look it up. I think it's just Dominican Rosary pilgrimage. Dominican Rosary Pilgrimagy.com. Boom. So it's uh. We need to know this. We can put it in the link in the description. Blammo. That's not it. So I'm going to Google it. You keep talking. Thanks. Tell me when you find out what it is. I should know that website so that way I can say true things. I got it. Thank you.

You're quicker than me. Yeah, I'm quickest Google in the West. Rosarypilgrimries.org. Oh, Rosarypilgrimries. Oh, so there's no, yeah, that's much better. So it's September 30th in Washington, D.C. at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, and it's basically like a day of recollection. So I'll give a talk at 10, and then we'll have adoration with confessions throughout

like the next three hours, give people the opportunity to bop out for lunch, and then another talk, recitation of the Rosary in a vigil mass, but also a cool opportunity to meet friars from God's Plaining and the Thomistical Institute and other things besides, so it's just gonna be like a day of recollection, jamboree, at a holy place. And you're worth, you know, it'd be worth going just to hear you speak, but also Father James Brent is one of the most brilliant people I've ever encountered, so he'll be speaking there as well. What I love is I'm doing the Hello Ad read and you're probably thinking to yourself,

oh, that reminds me, I've got to plug the pilgrimage thing. But you led with, I have a hole in my shoe and my sock is wet. And I thought that would come full circle, but it didn't. No. Pilgrimage, walking. Those are just things that I was thinking about. Yep. Terrific.

Yeah. All right. We're going to take some questions from our local supporters, and we'll do that, and then super chats as well. So Tim Sweeney says, along the lines of children praying the Holy Rosary, I was brought into the discipline explicitly as a whole family prayer. Was that the way it always was, or when and how did it spread as a kind of family thing, he's asking? Yeah, I don't know. I suspect that it started among those close to monasteries because of the inspiration of the 150 Psalms, the 150 Our Fathers, and then the 150 Hail Marys. But you know how communities grow up

around monasteries like we're seeing this in Clear Creek, Oklahoma. So I suspect that insofar as the family has kind of always been a principal means for the transmission of faith, that yeah, it was a family prayer. Certainly that's how I grew up learning the Rosary is my dad said, we're going to pray the Rosary every night and we did. And some of us protested. I, you know, I certainly protested, but then I was one of the only people who stayed awake throughout the entirety of it because my one sister and my mom always zonked.

But I attribute that or attribute to that practice a good part of my, you know, becoming a Dominican and liking the Rosary in turn. You know, God stoops to conquer, as Peter Crave once said. And so Pascal's Wager, for example, it's like, well, should your faith really be at this level? He's like, yeah, start there if that's where you're at, that's fine. And what I want to say in reference to the Rosary about that is, it's a great way to

calm your kids down at the end of the day. So just, I've said this a thousand times, I want to keep in reference to the rosary about that is, it's a great way to calm your kids down at the end of the day. So just, I've said this a thousand times. I want to keep saying it because I feel like I need to make up for all the ways I was a jerk as a new dad, thinking that my family rosary should look a certain way and it didn't. I found myself getting frustrated. But my rosary, that we do, Father, is the least impressive thing you will ever see, my friend. I mean, I got kids drawing,

I got a kid getting up for their ninth glass of water, I got a kid who's like backwards on the couch with their head on the ground and their feet in the air for some reason, and we no longer care. We used to care. We thought that the Hans, Scott and Kimberly, they had children that may have levitated.

Maybe one was kneeling on broken glass. Is this okay, Dad? Yes, son. And I saw my ragamuffins and attribute it to my incompetency as a father or something. But what I realized was like calm down their children. And now our rosaries are just really beautiful and calming. And so, yes, pray the rosary, sit down, here we go.

And I'm even reluctant to allow them to offer prayer intentions because that goes off the rails quickly. See, my mom did that on purpose, but I think she wanted to know what we were thinking about, what we were worried about, which was great. But my prayer intention for practically every rosary of my childhood was that we would stop prayer intentions. Yeah, it gets too long. And so we just get through it and it's beautiful. And I just want to encourage all the parents out there

You know if you want to pray the rosary don't let the messiness of your family Deter you you know sometimes we'll be praying the rosary and a kids acting up and I'll say hey Do you do you want to go to bed like you're welcome if this is too much? And you just want to go lay down you can go it's totally fun. We'll keep praying that kind of gentleness Actually makes the rosary way more appealing for children anyway believe it or not people don't like being shouted at every three seconds Reminds me my next-door neighbor. We were talking about the craziness of family rosaries And she said this actually happened the other day right all right come on your turn our father idiot It's the Hail Mary already did that one

That was an actual conversation that took place. And that's okay too. Not what you're aiming for, but where you're at and be gentle with yourself. Please be gentle with yourself. All right. Do you want, if this is something of a lightning round, cause I know some of these you've addressed before.

So yeah. Arthur says, hello, father Gregory. What was it about Dominican spirituality that led you to become a Dominican? Same time as Aquinas. Eddie says, father Gregory, do it about Dominican spirituality that led you to become a Dominican? St. Thomas Aquinas. Eddie says father Gregory do you have a favorite chant? The O Lumen which is an antiphon to St. Dominic and you can find versions of it on YouTube. It's beautiful. Am I right in thinking there is a Salve Regina that's specifically a Dominican version? Yeah it's kind of like Cistercian Benedictine but we have our own little adaptations

of it. It's longer, it's beautiful. I love that one. It's kind of like Cistercian Benedictine, but we have our own little adaptations of it. It's longer, it's beautiful. I love that one. It's kind of haunting in a way that the traditional one, or the one I'm familiar with, is and I like it a lot. Yeah. Bit of a longer answer for this one. Kelly says, Matt, as a convert from Protestantism, I find that the scriptural rosary on hallo.com slash mat is a special blessing.

I no longer fall into Bible idolatry as I perhaps once did as a non-catholic, excuse me, yet I do find it helpful to connect the scriptural underpinnings with each mystery. Not sure if that's a helpful perspective or not, it does make Rosary praying almost 40 minutes though. Beautiful. That's what you want to do, go for it. Also you might like the book, Marian Consecration with Aquinas, because it kind of has a Protestant mind in the sense that it's a reasoned argument for the faith and kind of putting the faith, specifically our Marian practice, in conversation with the roots of it. Dschweitz16 says, what other options are there for Marian devotion beside the Rosary? And are prayer beads only for

the Rosary in the Roman Catholic Church? Oh, question. I assume so but maybe I'm wrong. Divine Mercy Chaplet. Yeah. It's like a rosary. Oh right, right, right. Oh sorry. Yeah. Yeah and then there's like the crown of Saint Anthony. Yeah. There's a ton of stuff. And there's the Medjugorje Peace Rosary which is like Our Father Hail Mary Glory Bees seven times. People do that. And The St. Michael chaplet as well. Oh, the St. Michael chaplet. There's all sorts of reasons to pray it. As far as other Marian devotions,

well, I mean, one is to pray the Angelus three times a day. Can you speak to that? Yep. So traditionally, 6 a.m., noon, 6 p.m., you pray the Angelus. It's a way to be recollected in the incarnation as a saving event for you. Another one too would be the Memorare, which is a relatively ancient prayer, just asking the

Blessed Virgin Mary with the kind of dire, exasperated urgency to help you with a particular thing. There's also the practice of the first Saturdays, you know, that you would go to Mass on Saturday, which is usually assigned to the Blessed Virgin Mary unless there's another feast or solemnity, or it's a liturgical season where you don't do it. So to receive Holy Communion to go to confession on first Saturdays, it's like the First Friday devotion in that way. I do like the Angelus. It's sort of the poor man's rosary. You know, when you get to the end of the day and you're exhausted and you're like, I do not have the patience to pray rosary

with these children without hurting one of them physically. Let's do the Angelus and go to bed. But the Angel Angeles is actually a very beautiful thing because it's short. It centers all on the incarnation, which is the main saving event. Right? Yeah. Okay. Good. And then, yeah, yeah. Three times a day. I like that. Yeah. Yeah. We should do it. There are other things besides, but that's a good list. D. Schweitz again says, I am Protestant, strongly considering Catholicism. How essentially is the Rosary slash Maryan devotion being Catholic? Why can't I just pray the Psalms? Beautiful question. That's a great question. If you're watching right now and you're a Protestant and you're attracted to Catholicism, but you're

like, how much of this Mary Rosary stuff do I have to be just like in on? What would you say? So the Rosary is an optional prayer. Belief in the role that the Blessed Virgin Mary exercises in the life of the church, in the history of salvation is not optional. But I think a lot of people, what they do is they think, I have difficulty with this,

so I have to drill down on this. I don't think that's necessarily true. I think that you pay attention to God and God reveals the things which are precious to Him. If you want to read up on Marian devotion, great. Or if you want to read up on, you know, Marian kind of doctrine more broadly, great. But I would say that if you're thinking about becoming Catholic, I wouldn't necessarily focus on all of the points of division. I would focus on the things that you are attracted by and maybe just spend more time with them, whether that be at the level of doctrine or devotion or, you know, arts, literature, culture, whatever it is, and allow the good things to work on you. And then ask God for, you

know, if there are other things that need to fall into place. Cool. But a lot of people are like, all right, there's a conflict. We need to just face this conflict head on. It's like, I don't know. We don't do that with our friends always. Sometimes we just invite them out for coffee and we're like, we're not gonna talk about this. I don't intend to talk about this. I don't wanna spend more time because oftentimes when my temptation is to spend less time,

that's probably a sign that I need to spend more time, just normal time. If we're getting frustrated each other over business, it's like, when's the last time we took a vacation together? Because if I've just changed the nature of this relationship such that it's only the one way, perhaps I've lost sight of the other way, you know, dot dot dot. So I like that. And then somebody says in response to this, Erin, whose comments are always just spot on, this woman's amazing. She says, also the one who tricked you yesterday. I know she says, I'm the Catholic and

I prefer slash find more fruitful liturgy of the hours, divine mercy, chaplet and Jesus prayer. I'll pray the rosary if a friend does it or at a rosary potluck maybe once a week. Beautiful. There is freedom here, people. Daniel Mills says, do you think the addition of the Luminous Mysteries has an overall positive or negative impact on the rosary? I think positive, overall positive. Yep. Kyle Whittington says, how is the rosary not worship of Mary? Most of the prayers are directed at Mary, and the Hail Holy Queen has some pretty strong language. So I'm not uncomfortable with worship of Mary, with the language. Please do not clip that. Or with the concept, because what is worship?

So worship is honor or respect referred to another person. That's just what worship means. There are two principal expressions of worship. In the Latin tradition, we talk about like adoration or sacrifice, and then veneration or intercession. The Greek background to that, you've probably heard the words latreia or latria sometimes pronounced, and then dulia. So there are two modes of worship. But for instance, in Anglican exchange of marriage vows in an older formulation, one says to the other, I thee worship with my body. I thee respect, esteem, honor with my body. So there are two principal expressions of worship.

The higher, which is for God alone, adoration, sacrifice. The lower, veneration, intercession, which is also referable to human beings. So I think that we're asking her intercessioncession and then we're venerating her because God has made glorious in His saints, which is entirely appropriate because we venerate sports icons, you know, and we ask the intercession of our close friends. I think that where Protestants have difficulty with quote-unquote worship of Mary is in part because when the Protestant, you know, most Protestant ecclesial communions kind of get rid of the Mass or they change the theology of the Mass such that the Eucharist is no longer present or is no longer confected, what you're getting rid of is something essential

to the worship of God alone, sacrifice, okay? And then you begin to flatten all of worship into a kind of veneration or intercession, and then you start having problems referring that to both God and to saints, because you've changed the nature of the higher worship and getting rid of the sacrifice of the mass, and so it begins to introduce a tension which I don't think ordinarily would have been there in the same way. But we have this reflected in our language, so in litanies, for instance, we ask God to have mercy on us. We don't ask Him to pray for us. We ask saints to pray for us. That's a different mode of prayer.

It's a different mode of worship. If people don't like the word worship, fine. It's just like, it doesn't bother me if you... I think what's important for maybe our Protestant listeners is to realize that when you're using the word worship in the context of relation to Mary, you don't mean attributing divinity to. No. Yep. Yep. And we should point out that emphasis doesn't mean worship. I mean, of course, the Rosary has more prayers to Mary. It's a Marian prayer. But at no point are we attributing divinity to the Blessed Virgin Mary. But you did point out the Hail Holy Queen. So I thought what we could do is just read through it. It's quite a short prayer when you read it, just to see what's the most problematic verse here. Hail Holy Queen. So she's the queen because she's the mother of the new Davidic King,

the fulfillment of the Davidic monarchy, Jesus Christ. Mother of mercy. What does that mean? Well, I guess that could mean a number of things. It could mean that she's the mother of Jesus Christ who shows us mercy, or it could mean that she is the dispenser of all the graces of God,

which would take a long conversation. Our life. Oh, we're calling Mary our life, our sweetness and our hope. Why would we calling Mary our life, our sweetness and our hope. Why would we call Mary our life, Father, do you think? I think that's like as a model or as an icon, because we see how she participates in the divine life with sweetness and it affords us hope. So I think it's her entry into the divine life, which is a model for us. We have that in Christ, but we have it in the Blessed

Virgin Mary in a different register. And so I think that we make reference to her insofar as she makes reference to God. So yeah. So there's this, you know, in Latin, these, not in Latin, well, it is Latin, but in arguments, a fortiori, like from the higher, from the stronger argument that the less natural follows. So what I like to do with Protestants and Catholics who are squeamish about Marian devotion is to say, the strongest thing I can possibly say about the Blessed Virgin Mary, if I can justify that, then it follows that everything else we say of her is okay. So I will say it, if it were not for Mary, I would be damned. Right? Or I've been saved by Mary. There you go, that's even stronger. I think I can justify that claim. If I can say of the cross, I've been saved by the cross, or if it were

not for the cross I would be damned, and you know what I mean by that, then how much more could I be able to say that to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who is not an inanimate object, who had no say in our salvation, but it is precisely through her yes and bearing and bringing forth the God man that I'm saved. I can say that of her. In doing that, I'm not attributing divinity to her. I'm recognizing, as Louis de Montfort so beautifully says in True Devotion to Mary, that only God is he who is, and Mary is less than an atom, or rather nothing at all in comparison to God. And yet he has chosen to achieve, accomplish his greatest work through her, and that we trust that he who doesn't change will continue to do so.

Maybe I just made people a lot more scared, but it's kind of like when you talk to a Muslim and you're trying to help them understand the Trinity, you begin by saying what you don't mean. If they believe you in what you don't mean, namely, we're not saying there are three gods. Okay. Well, then you can kind of wax eloquent about the Trinity and trust that I've already set up this guard rail. So if it sounds like I'm saying there are three gods, remember, we agreed that I don't mean that and I think something is true The Blessed Virgin Mary she is a creature God had no need of her no absolute need of the Blessed Virgin Mary at all not then not now

Right so now that you've said that then it's like okay now I can become a lot more comfortable with how some of these saints speak about the Blessed Virgin Mary So if you come across our life in the Hail Holy Queen, the one thing you can know it doesn't mean is Mary's God, because we've established that that's not what it means. Now you can say, okay, fine, I agree that theoretically you're making that claim, but don't you think that this sort of language would take your attention off God and onto a creature in an unhealthy way? And okay, sure, maybe that's possible. And if that's happening in your life or those around you, then then maybe you should discourage that. But the

idea that God is this sort of attention hog who is unwilling that others should participate in reflecting his beauty just isn't how we live. It's just like when I see a baby and I talk about how beautiful it is or when I say to my wife like you are all I would need this side of heaven. That's lovely. And I don't actually mean it, you know, but I we speak this way in human language and we shouldn't be afraid to speak that way. I mean, can I? Sure. I think it's also like you could make it really simple the answer to

We call her our life in the same way that like a parent might say that their kids are their life, right? Yeah, or you might say that your wife is your whole life. Yeah, like you come up with a more of a poetic way Yeah, it's not what do you think about that word vomit? I just I think it's great Yeah, and yeah, I love to see you get jazzed about it because it's clearly something you care about Which is beautiful My one like thing to add I suppose would be we often imagine that all Relationships are competitive because we think about all relationships the way that we think about pizzas And if I take one slice that only leaves seven for you

But it's just not the case CS Lewis has a great meditation on this in the four loves Where he says you got three friends? I forget the names that he says, let's say Adam, Benjamin, and Caleb, and let's say that they love each other and they have a wonderful friendship, and let's say that Caleb dies. You might think that Adam would now have more of Benjamin, Benjamin would now have more of Adam, but what they discover is that they've lost not only Caleb, but they've lost the parts of each other that Caleb brought out, that Caleb called forth, and so they lose something of each other as well. And so I think that in God's dealings with men, God uses instruments, He uses mediators,

and it's not competitive. It's not like, oh, if you refer X percentage of devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, that only leaves 100 minus X percentage of devotion to refer to me. It's like God is working in and through His saints, and our veneration of them is ultimately referable to the Lord. What type of conscious event is going on at the moment? I don't think that's too terribly important. I think it looks different in Latin America, in the United States, in Canada, in Europe,

in the, whatever, in different places. And I think that that's, it's interesting to inquire into but I just want to address this competitive nature that I don't think is true and I think we need to move beyond. Yeah, yeah. Kyle says in two minutes or less could you explain the what how and why of the Rosary to someone who's never heard of it before? What is it? How should we write? Why should we write? Yeah, what it's, it's a vocal prayer which gives rise to a contemplative prayer whereby we meditate on the mysteries of the life of Christ so as to be mystically united with him in a disposition of reception. We pray it, you know, according to time and place and circumstance, I would say,

in a human shape. And so, it's an Our Father, ten Hail Marys, and a Glory Bee represents a decade. Typically, you would say five decades. There might be prayers before and after, but whether or not they're essential is, you know, it's kind of on a spectrum. But I tend to think that praying those decades is important, and that you would focus on a particular part of the life of our Lord Jesus Christ. And the why is, the why is union with God

and profiting from the graces which he has in store. So what, when, where, how, how. So that's good. Yeah, I think that was it. Why, how, why. That was great. Thank you. Lise Vellas has a beautiful question here. It's very honest. She says, I'm struck, stuck very much with the idea of how to spend personal prayer time. If the Holy Mass and the Rosary are objectively the best ways to give myself in prayer, and I allot myself thirty minutes for prayer each day, how do I avoid scrupulosity and not spending time with God in silent prayer, aka, I feel bad when I want to spend prayer reading the Bible and being in silence with God, rather than going to Holy Mass when I know I am able to go there every day?

Yeah, so I would say objective goods and subjective appropriation are two things. So there's an objective hierarchy of goods, and I think that we can refer to the Church's scriptures and tradition and the precepts, commandments, like this in Chiridion on indulgences, to which I referred, as a way by which to assemble this objective hierarchy of goods. But that objective hierarchy is always interfacing with your subjective appropriation. So the law gives us indications of where the boundaries are, you know, like, am I outside the bounds of, you know, righteousness? Am I inside the bounds of righteousness? But once you're inside the bounds of righteousness,

I think there's room to explore, still hierarchically, right, but room to explore as it comports with you, right? Who am I in this time and this place in these circumstances in light of these relationships for the ultimate end of embracing my vocation unto the glory of God and the salvation of souls? And so I think that it's not that because the Mass is the highest mode of prayer that one thereby ought to dedicate his 30 minutes

of prayer every day to the Holy Mass. I think that you can do different things. I think you go to, obviously you go to Mass on Sunday, but maybe go to Mass on Tuesday and Thursday, and then work on a habit of mental prayer. Maybe you spend 30 minutes on mental prayer on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and maybe you do a rosary for 50 minutes on Saturday and 50 minutes of mental prayer. Regardless of what you do, there should be some time every day where you have mental prayer. And by mental prayer I mean that you start, recollect yourself in the presence of God, think about Him, ask Him, you know, inquire with Him, work things out with Him as it were,

but afford a great amount of time for silence, the majority of time for silence. And you're going to be frustrated, you're going to be bored, you're going to be tired, but I think it's better to fail at prayer in that way than it is to succeed in an over-planned time of prayer, just because we feel like we have control or we feel like, I don't know, more secure in working through a list of things. Because I think ultimately the Christian life is something that is kind of done unto us by God, and our prayer posture should reflect that. Yeah, that's really good, because, you know, if you were to ask yourself, well, what's objectively the best thing I can do today? You know, you might go nuts and,

you know, mass 18 times. Yeah, like, why not? Like, the mass isn't important enough for you to go 18 times. Like you have something better to do that could be more efficacious. Like, when you start these, these arguments that you start to realize just what you're saying, that it has to interface with our humanity. Yeah. There are days I wake up like I don't want to go to Mass so I'm not going to. I'm gonna just like go and go for a run and then I'm gonna pray in the sauna. And again, whether I should, I don't even know if should is the question because you know I'm not being bound to go every day as a Catholic. So yeah you don't want to get like kind of turned this way and that by whimsy or caprice, you know, or just

like, I feel this way, or I'm going to overindulge in drink the night before because I don't have to go to mass tomorrow, dot, dot, dot. So you don't want to like just give free rein to potential excesses or defects in our character. But also, provided that we are seeking to grow in the life of grace, that means we're going to be healing, and we're going to be able to trust our desires more, such that our desires are a reflection of what God is asking of us or what God is leading us into. And I think that we have to be able to trust ourselves at a certain level, because why else would God have made us in the way that He did? Yeah. Gavin says, can Father Pine explain why he thinks the Blessed Virgin Mary or whether died before being assumed into heaven, body and soul.

Yeah, I think I tend in the direction that she died and I think in union with our Lord Jesus Christ. So there's a lot of things where you can ask interesting questions like was the Blessed Virgin Mary baptized? So no original or personal sin, a kind of similar situation to our Lord Jesus Christ, but then our Lord is baptized. So she might have wanted to be baptized in union with Him. He might have wanted her to be baptized, you know, for the same reason.

So you can ask a similar question about death. So she doesn't, again, no personal or original sin, so no necessary connection to the life of death, but yet our Lord assumed these co-assumed defects. So he assumed the consequences of sin, hunger, thirst, fatigue, suffering and death. So too it might make sense that our mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary, in union with her son, would assume a similar pattern of life, even terminating in death. So I tend to think death, that's a kind of Western tradition versus the eastern tradition of dormition. And yet it should be said that when Pope Pius XII, assumption, ninth, who declared the assumption, left that question open. Exactly.

Yep. Kelly says, Father, is pride the root of scrupulosity? As in, I should have been or done better, but I wasn't. Now I can't let it go. But why? Because I need God's forgiveness and annoys me that I do. Maybe that? Like is it pride is... So I think it's always safe to say that pride is the root, because pride is the root of all sins. We may mention of Saint John Cashin, or John Cashin, depending on which tradition you follow. He has one of those conferences dedicated to the deadly sins or the capital vices, They're called different things in the tradition. And he identifies seven that we would think of,

but instead of pride, he lists vanity or vainglory. And he says pride is an eighth because it's really the mother of all sins. So pride's at the root of everything. We're always relying overly much on ourselves, and we shouldn't be surprised that we do, but to heal from pride takes a whole life. Are you referring to, or have you read,

a vagrius of Pontus? Yeah I believe that one of the sins that they often speak about in the East is sadness. Mm-hmm. Which is so cool because I heard this Buddhist monk once say this since we can learn from all traditions when it coheres with the truth. He said one of the reasons he started to be happy was out of compassion because other people had to live with him. I thought that was good. Yeah, people often talk in the East about sloth or ratchadia, A-C-E-D-I-A, as a kind

of spiritual sadness, because you look at the divine good, you look at what you're made capable of, you think to yourself, I'll never make it there, and then you just kind of give up on it. And that's sinful, because that's not our judgment to make It's it's God's judgment to make he's like I've called you to this life So stop being a baby, you know or stop thinking about yourself so much think about me and then I'll work the out Tim Bryan says Matt your first interview with father pine really changed my life And so I just wanted to give a big thank you to you and father pine since there's a good chance

I won't be able to thank you guys in person. Thank you so much, Tim. Cheers. John the long winded says, what is the solid definition of worship and has our understanding of worship changed before and after Christ? Feel free to just swipe at this one. Cause I know you just spent a good deal of time.

No, that's great. So same time as talks about it in the treatise on justice, he talks about a virtue called religion. And in the context of religion, he refers to like cult or obsequy, but basically, like with respect to God, it's a kind of recognition and then a referring of our lives to Him in recognition that He is the Creator in the end. And the two interior acts of worship or of religion are devotion, which is a prompt offering of one's heart, and then prayer, which is a raising of one's mind. And those are manifested by exterior acts of religion or of worship,

which would be like sacrifice, adoration, sacrifice, oblation, healers, ties, first fruits, vows, adjurations, all kinds of things besides. But basically, it's like you place a claim on your life in referring it to one who is worthy of it. But in the broad definition that I gave of worship, I just said it's a referring of esteem, respect, or honor. And so St. Thomas envisions that as something which can be referable to both God and human beings in that broadly construed sense. C Ramirez, 97, says, interested in learning about the early church? Where can I go to start to read about the early church fathers? I would recommend Jimmy Akin's book, The Fathers Know Best.

It's an excellent little book that's topical. So one chapter might be the Eucharist or prayers to the saints or purgatory. And then he shows chronologically the earliest Christians, the church fathers in this instance, who spoke about those things. That would be, I think, a nice way to kind of, yeah, what do you say? Um, wet your feet. What do you think? I agree. Johnny 67 67 lowercase g says when and how did you realize you wanted to become a priest? Feel free to disregard if you've already answered this a bunch in the past. 19 St Thomas Aquinas. I wanted to love the Lord the way that he loved the Lord. Now you, you, I asked you earlier about what inspired you to become a Dominican. You said Thomas Aquinas. I know there was a specific book that you love. The quiet light by Louis

de Waal, which is a fictitious recounting of Thomas Aquinas. Like historical fiction. Beautiful. Maybe for like a high school audience. Aaron says, what would you say to someone who doesn't like the rosary, who struggles to relate with or appreciate Mary? Yeah, I mean, something similar that you might say to a person who's being nice to you and you resent that. Okay, so what am I trying to say? Let's say you have somebody in your life who's trying to be nice to you, trying to give you

gifts and you don't like them for whatever reason, and you kind of resent them for whatever reason. You have to work through that to find out why, like what kind of baggage am I bringing to the situation. It might just be that it's not a good fit, okay, but in this case with the rosary there's a high likelihood that the fit could be there insofar as it is one of these devotions that's highly esteemed by the church. So be patient with yourself, maybe do a little work to unpack the baggage. Like why is it that maybe there's something there? But if not, just give it time. Okay, let's see. I like this. It has nothing to do with the Rosary or Mary, but it is something. I really like this question. Tips or guiding principles? That one? No. Let me read this one. Which one? The one

right above it. Oh, I'll get to it Yeah, I like this one to tips or guiding principles to determine which civil laws are morally permissible to break and he's like Yeah, I love that my people have all this self-awareness like the last goes like don't answer if it's stupid I'm so sorry. I'll just let myself out Well, this guy also says just realize this has nothing to do with the topic of the day ignore if you want Yeah, it's a good question because I intentionally run red lights in this town. Oh, really? And he's joking for legal reasons.

That is a joke. Yes. I only mean on Minecraft. That's what I mean. I intentionally, as a joke, always blow through red lights because there's way too many in Minecraft because there's way too many lights in this silly town and the population has like been cut in fourths So many of them are ridiculous. Yeah again

I wouldn't just in Minecraft if I come to a stoplight Sometimes the road is closed because of construction and it's a little street where no cars go this side is closed I look left and I go mm-hmm. I'm never gonna stop Unless you tell me to Which so yeah, there you go. What civil laws are morally permissible to break? Yeah, because it's so circumstantial, I would say I'm gonna give some principles.

One is three reasons that I can imagine for quote unquote breaking a law. One is that it's an unjust law, right? So it's not binding because it's morally offensive or repulsive and you can imagine something like this, you don't have to think back too far. So then the next would be, because it's morally offensive or repulsive, and you can imagine something like this, you don't have to think back too far. So then the next would be,

and part of that too is an association, or it's trying to determine whether the, Gregory, slow down and speak clearly. You're trying to determine whether the state is saying, this is a good that I propose to you, or this is something that we're asking you to do, and we're gonna penalize you if you don't do it, but we don't really make a judgment

as to whether or not it pertains to your good as a human being. That's pertinent, okay? And then the next thing is epicaya, which if the lawmaker could have foreseen the circumstances in which this law is presently being applied, he would not ask me to follow it because it's insane, okay?

And then- Can you give an example to that one? Give me a second, I'll come back to it. Yeah. And then the last one is dispensation. When you as a private individual say, given my circumstances, may I be dispensed from this law? Because it's good for other people,

but it's actually bad for me. So it's like the prior of the monastery says, everyone should drink a daily ration of milk because I'm worried about bone density. We've had so many breaks recently. you go up to me to say may I be dispensed from this law because literally the flatulence is off the charts like exactly like my farts smell like a small woodland creature crawled up inside me and died and has been rotting for like the last century like

you can't do this to the community and he might look at you and say you're dispensed okay so the law is still a law but it doesn't apply to you because you've asked that it be accommodated. So in the case of a law that if the lawmaker could have foreseen the circumstances in which it were applied, he would not ask you of it. So like Camden, for instance, is a city across the river from Philadelphia, and it's widely known

that you don't stop at red lights in Camden because in certain neighborhoods, because they're very dangerous. So you treat them like stop signs. And think if the lawmaker had had foreseen the type of violent crime which is perpetrated in Camden you wouldn't be like you need to wait there even if the man is you know currently cutting your window and reaching in the back seat so like circumstances like that. Speaking about breaking the law.

What are you doing? You know where that's from? No. Sounds kind of South Parky. Beaver's and butthead. Oh, okay. Breaking the law, breaking the law. I'm not recommending people watch that.

A friend has suggested that according to the saints, if a soul knows of the rosary and does not choose to incorporate it, it's a sign of some subtle influence by the devil to avoid it. Is that always correct or just sometimes? And would a good spiritual life without the rosary be possible? Well, if it wasn't then Thomas Aquinas is out of luck. No, I would say that's not true. Yeah. Yeah. Good job. Appreciate that. Let's see. I get to that question that you recommended earlier. Yes. Getting to it. Getting to it. Scrolling. Scrolling. I've got it.

Scrawl. Found it. Scrolling. Scrawling. You're look. Did you lose it? It was too up from the question you just asked. Scrawling. Kelly Buzzard asked Brother Pine a dissertation question for you. What kind of organizing system did you use for your quotes, footnotes, outlines, et cetera? Yes.

So whenever I read a book, I took marginal notes, even if the book. So what I typically did was I would take a survey of the book. I would determine how much of the book I was going to use or how much of it was pertinent to my studies. And then I would scan that part. And then I would have the digital copy, and the digital copy was typically OCR-able, so I would just highlight the things that I intended to use and then make marginal notes. And I'd just read widely on whatever topic I was going to treat in the upcoming chapter. At the outset, I just read widely on all kinds of things because I wanted to know where I was going. And then

when I kind of approached the point at which I'm ready to write a chapter because I've read all of the pertinent primary texts, you have to have those, and all of the pertinent secondary texts, at least the most important of them, then I would go through everything that I had read and I would compile documents for each thing that I had read and I'd flesh out all of my highlights, I'd take quotes if they were things that I thought might be incorporated full text in the dissertation, or I would just summarize if it was the type of thing that I just wanted to have on hand, and then organize that for each of those resources, and then kind of name it.

And then I would go through and I would pass through all of these documents and then color code them for the chapter that they were pertinent to. And then when I was going to write the chapter, I would go through all of my documents and get the color-coded things and then make a one big text document and then compare it against my outline and then arrange them according to my outline. I know there are some other systems

that are probably more efficient, like Evernote and stuff like that, but it was a good way for me to pass over the same text about three times so that way I'd interiorize them so that when it came time to write, I kind of knew what I wanted to say. I really knew what I wanted to say, but I'd have all the substantiation close at hand. And then my text documents,

my outline would be about, you know, five pages per chapter. And my text documents would be about between 150 and 200 pages. And then I would write like a hundred page chapter on the basis of it. Very cool. What I have a question. All right. My own question. This, this may not be something you've thought about before, but it occurred to me earlier when you guys were talking about Eastern and Western Marian devotions So I would love if you could riff on this it seems that there are less private

Devotions to Mary in the East but she is much more present in the liturgy. Why do you think that is? Hmm. I don't know a lot about the East But I get the so there's a lot of private devotion in both East and West insofar as I think it corresponds to human desire and the way in which God reveals Himself and bestows Himself, you know, throughout salvation history. It might be that that's a kind of cultural thing, that there are certain cultures which are more private and certain cultures which are more public. And when it comes to privatization of religion, a lot of that has been associated with the

Protestant Reformation, at least in the narrative that we tell in Catholic circles, that when persecution and even just interdenominational tension became a serious concern and when people were burned out from wars of religion, A kind of typical move, which is in step with secularization, was to privatize. And so you have to fill the space that you occupy and maybe it corresponds to that. But at this point, I'm just kind of kind of shooting from the hip, making stuff up. What are you most excited about in regards to being back in America? So you've been in Switzerland on and off for the last three years. Yeah. When you come back here, what are you like? Yeah

Yeah One thing I fit better here. Yeah, that's certainly the case and I think that fit usually means Happiness I had thought the other day for the first time in a while. I was like, oh kind of snuck up on me I was like Gregory. I think you might be happy kind of snuck up on me. I was like, Gregory, I think you might be happy. Now do you think that's because you're back home or because it's far less intense work that you're doing? No, it's not less intense. It's just different. Different deadlines, different projects. They're usually smaller and less unwieldy. But I mean, this is my home. Home is your reset position. The further that you stray from home, I think

the more you feel the tension of it. Different culture, different languages, just different approach to the faith, the Dominican life, the priesthood, etc. All of which I like to struggle and I kind of thrilled at the opportunity to struggle, to learn a new culture, to learn new languages, to try to serve people in a ministerial context, which was very, very different. But also, yeah, there was no point at which people were like, well, when are you going to get your citizenship? It's like a known factor that you're going back. And I think that people treat you like somebody who's going back. So a lot of the stuff that you do there has a kind of expiration date. And it's hard to live life with an expiration date, because you're like,, I wanna build something, you know?

Not like I don't wanna build a building because I don't, but like I wanna build something more steady. And I think I have more of an opportunity to do that here. That's nice. What is a movie that you've seen recently that you thought, that was pretty good? Yeah, what is a movie that I've seen recently that I thought was pretty good?

All right, I'm gonna be a little real with you. So I had a stomach bug, like a 24-hour stomach bug, and every once in a while when I feel just devastated by reality, I'm like, time for a chick flick. And I surprised myself because I thought I was watching a chick flick, but I ended up watching kind of like a musical drama.

Not that there was a musical, but that there was a lot of music in it called A Beautiful Life, and it was a Danish movie where this guy named Christopher sang the soundtrack for it and it was basically like he was a fishmonger or like a fish hand or whatever he worked at the docks and then his musical talent gets discovered and then there's blah blah blah and thus and such that goes on in the process of it but I was I was more moved by it than I expected to be because I was like I feel real bad and I need to be like be close

to a bathroom for the next 24 hours and then I just threw that movie on and I was moved. So I think it's called A Beautiful Life. And I think I have to provide a caveat. I think there was like a scene, you know, where they canoodle, you don't see anything, but there's a canoodling scene. But other than that, it was good. I started watching Terminator 2 again the other day.

Just had this like nostalgic longing for something. And I put it on and I was, I haven't finished it yet because I have ADD I'm sure and get bored very quickly in movies. It's amazing what it takes to keep my attention. You've done well. But yeah, like, yeah, like I watched about 20 minutes like I really liking this movie. It's I wonder how like, like television today with like this long series, you know, that you're supposed to watch back to back. I wonder how that is affecting how we watch movies and why that might be the case. That it's really hard to watch a movie that was considered

great 20 years ago and appreciate it today. Well, I think you've probably, I don't know what the actual statistics are, but I suspect then when Netflix first came out, you had to send away for the disc. So you didn't spend any time scrolling. But then when the digital platform became a thing, I bet you people picked within five seconds. And in part that was because all of these options were new. And so it was like, cornucopia,

let's just pick whatever fruit we find first. But now a lot of people have watched a lot of things on the platform. And they're also having greater and greater difficulty choosing a movie. So people will spend many minutes just scrolling and watching the 30 second blip that they give you. And I think in part it's because it's harder to commit

because you're always looking at how long is this movie. And if it's longer than 90 minutes, you're like, that's gonna cost me. And it's just, you're getting the kind of dopamine serotonin hit that you want by watching these 30 minute clips. So even while you're getting the kind of dopamine serotonin hit that you want by watching these 30 minute clips So even while you're mildly conflicted that you haven't yet selected the thing for which you came yet Your needs are being served

So I think that we're actually perpetuating patterns of indecisiveness and of lack of commitment because we're treating it chemically We're auto treating it chemically, but we're not actually getting at the thing itself. That's like the best take on Netflix I've ever heard. Yeah, that's really interesting. So you're there to pick a movie without realizing that you're not there to pick a movie. You're there to do whatever this thing is that you're doing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, our experience of YouTube would be very different

if you typed in YouTube and had a blank page with a search bar, wouldn't it? It wouldn't do it. Yeah, we have to find ourselves. The algorithm is against you. Just like they must know that. Two minute or two. All right. What's another movie I want to you see any good movies lately? I watched a Citizen Kane.

Wow. And Casablanca for the first time the other day. Classic. Which one did you prefer? I just prefer as far as like, I enjoyed this more. Uh, Citizen Kane. Easily. Yeah. I, I think, chat's gonna get real mad about this.

I think that the male, the male lead in Casablanca was. Humphrey Bogart? Uh, yeah, the guy, Joe, who's played by Humphrey Bogart. I think he is the definition of a simp Oh and Because he like one he's weak enough to to knowingly like continue adultery like consider it And then at the end he like is willing to just sell his life away for a woman That's okay. I probably should have watched it by now a woman that he knows is a woman that he knows is loose. So like

Like the whole thing I thought I did not I thought the the movie and the acting and the plot was enjoyable But his character I found to be just so annoying like I just when when they got to walk off into the sunset together At the end. I just kind of wanted him to be shot honestly Wow you maybe you do He's an attractive man I Think okay, no one's gonna back me up. No worries citizen. Yeah. Yeah real looker. Um, yeah, that's that's kind of brutal though to like judge Humphrey Bogart by 21st century him. I'm talking about Joe. Okay. Yeah to judge the character not Andrew Tate standards I hate Andrew Tate. Okay, how did that come up? Did you bring out Andrew Tate before? He said like sample like alpha male language and stuff like that. That's that's that word

Pre-exists Andrew Tate phenomena about like three to four years. Okay. All right. Yeah, it's just a guy who three to four years Ideal in centuries in canes. It was good. I'm just looking at pictures of it right now I'm recognizing a lot of the imagery, but I'm saying it. Yeah Yeah, Orson Welles is excellent Orson Welles plays the cardinal that dies in a man for all seasons And he also did F is for fake which I won't spoil the ending of F is for fake But if you haven't seen F is for fake no. Oh, that's really good. The ending of that is kind of brain-bending But Citizen Kane is really neat because the whole premise of it is that's this guy who worked for Kane's newspaper who goes around After he dies trying to figure out what his last words were

And nobody knows and so his last words were this is where we get rosebud rosebud Who's who do they call like the the master of suspense? Yeah, yeah, yeah So I I only started watching hitchcock last year never watched hitchcock movie in my life and I turned one on and I was shocked that I was gripped. Yeah and Even with an oldie timey film that may have been the first time that I realized I'm a chronological snob, you know, how could it possibly be good? Sure that kind of thing Have you ever seen North by Northwest? No, I think that is his best or at least North? That's the one where the plane shot is, right? Yeah.

With like the crop duster. Is that right? I think it's widely agreed upon as one of his best. I do think a rear window. I'm gonna check that out. I like rear window. That was great. Rear window is phenomenal.

You see the rope, is it the rope by H-Grope? Just rope, yeah. Wow, that was good. Also, I think that's a single shot film. It is, except there's a couple of breaks. Someone will walk past the camera and it goes black for a millisecond. They must be breaks. But it's yeah, essentially a single shot film. It's incredibly well done.

You see notorious notorious. What's that? Also very good. South American blah, blah, blah. That's inside. Is that him or what? Strangers on a train. I'm just seeing a black rapper. I confess. He didn't want about. Yes, I watched that one. You can only find that online in like a square, really poor black

and white film, but that was really good. Yeah. Nice. Yeah. So would you say Citizen Kane is like that in that it's, it's in your kind of shock? Okay. This is an old movie that I find it as gripping as anything I've watched recently. Oh yeah. I found Citizen Kane to be more engaging than all, but like three modern movies that I've watched in the last two years. Thanks for telling me that. I'll check it out. I think, yeah, it's, it's actually the, I think one of the things that I'm getting bored

of with modern films is like all of the effects and like the actions seem to be doing a lot of the work of holding you. And I'm more interested in character studies. Oh my gosh. Like just like that's like what I relate to in films. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like I want to, I want to like feel like I'm engaging in some

mystery of the character or something like Malik films. Uh, some of them. Yeah. We get a couple of super chats here. If you don't mind, I don't want to, I don't want to miss out on these fellas here. Isaiah bowling says the rosary isn't a requirement, but isn't praying the rosary daily something

we ought to do? The Blessed Virgin Mary asked at Fatima, and it seems wrong not to listen. Yeah, I think the point that you made is clarificatory. So many people have asked us to do many things. And obviously what our Lord asks us is most pertinent and our lady, you know, obviously, you know, like our lady. But that's kind of like judged by the church's tradition, and it's judged in the setting of the church's liturgical life.

And the documents that the church sets forward instructs us, like you said, as to the difference between what is mandated and then what is permitted, or like encouraged, permitted, not permitted, right, strictly forbidden, as it were. And I think the Rosary is something that's encouraged. So it's not, if it were like Sunday Mass or if it were like supporting the temporal needs of the church or if it were like absent, they would have informed you. But you know, the Blessed Mother says things and she repeats things because she's a good mother and

she encourages us. Not that we should ever trivialize her word, but that we should take it in the setting of the church's teaching and like worshiping office. Forrester says, Father Pyne, can you please share your thoughts on But that we should take it in the setting of the church's teaching and like worshipping office Forrester says father pine. Can you please share your thoughts on Medjugorje and the issues some people have with it? Just cards on the table He's something we spoke about recently and that was that our understanding is you got the first bishop the local ordinary condemning it Some have accused him of communist influence The second bishop seems to have not contradicted the position of the first.

The third seems to have reiterated the position. The second reiterated this. The third is not stated. Yeah. Okay. Well, either way, if the local ordinary either condemns or doesn't give license to a particular apparition, our understanding is then it's not, it's not something that should be publicly encouraged, but perhaps maybe privately? What do you, I'm sure you've thought about this because I know it played a significant role in your own. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my, I think general comment is, it's the type of thing that I, it falls basically in between like permitted and encouraged. Well, so it's certainly permitted. So it is permitted, but I would say that it's kind of like in a space between permitted and encouraged. And that's, so it's private revelation.

So we would say, strictly speaking, within the bounds of the Church's clarifications, that we speak of them as alleged apparitions. So that's the technical language. I won't continue to repeat alleged apparitions because it's burdensome, but we speak of them as alleged apparitions. The Church makesome, but we speak of them as alleged apparitions. The Church makes judgments as to the supernatural quality of things. There are three categories. So constat de supernaturalitate, so like we would say that this is supernatural.

Non constat de supernaturalitate, which is we can't say basically that this is supernatural. And then constat de non supernaturalitate, which is, this is not supernatural, is our judgment. So with respect to Medjugorje, the current status is established by the Bishops' Conference of Yugoslavia in 1991 at Zadar, which said, non constat de supernaturalitate. We can't say that this is supernatural, but that leaves the lay faithful free, basically, to make visits to Medjugorje. Because Yugoslavia has been dissolved, the pertinent governing authority to make judgments of this sort is now the bishops' conference of Bosnia and Herzegovina, because the local

ordinary is the bishop of Mostad Rovno, because it's in Bosnia and Herzegovina. So there have been no subsequent clarifications on the part of the governing body since 1991 in whatever 30 plus years that contradict the non constate de supernaturalitate, which is we can't say that it is supernatural. So up until 2019, you know, the lay faithful were permitted to go there basically with the idea that this is a private revelation, it doesn't add anything to public revelation, and that it's basically a message addressed to people in their time to live the faith better, right? And that's it. In 2019, Pope Francis said that you can now make public pilgrimages. Did you know that? Yeah.

So you can make public pilgrimages. I guess I should listen to him more than you. It's like previously you might just have somebody in the parish who organized a pilgrimage, but now a parish or a diocese can organize a pilgrimage. But the church hasn't made a subsequent declaration that we're going to move the needle from non constata supernaturalitate to constata supernaturalitate. I love that you thought alleged was going to be the burdensome word. Yeah, no, exactly.

As he continues to repeat these burdensome words in Latin. So the first bishop is Zanich. It's said to have begun in June of 1981. He preaches a public homily in July of 1981 where he says, you know, the Blessed Virgin Mary is here, the children do not lie. There are things that are kind of like widely attested to. And then his conversations with Father Jozo Zofko are also part of that deposition. Father Jozo Zofko was the one who was imprisoned by the communist regime. Now, what Father Jozo

Zofko says is that the bishop changed his mind because, quote, I can't go to prison over this, or I can't be reduced to an ordinary vicar. There's no other substantiation for those things, so I don't think that our argument should rest on them. But basically, by the time you get to 1987, on the same date, July 25, the Feast of St. James, so the patronal feast of the parish, he preaches against them in the town itself, Zanich does. So Zanich is replaced by Perich. Perich has strong things to say. So he says, not only would I say non constate de supernaturalitate, but I would say constate non supernaturalitate. I would say that these are not supernatural things. But then that was clarified by Bertone that, so that's his private opinion, which he is

free to make as the ordinary of the diocese, but it's not of governing authority because that's reserved to the bishop's conference of, you know, like Yugoslavia at first and now of Bosnia and Herzegovina. So the lay faithful remain free to go, permitted obviously, and you might say kind of tending in the direction of encouraged. Why I would say tending in the direction of encouraged is if a private revelation is for the people of the time, then we are the people of the time. And I would also say that like going before a thing is approved is also part and parcel of these experiences throughout the Church of the Courtses, or of these experiences throughout the Church's history.

So like, Fatima was approved in 1930. The miracle of the sun happened in October of 1917. So if nobody were to have gone until it was approved, 70,000 people who saw the miracle of the sun wouldn't have seen the miracle of the sun. You know, so it's like part of the way by which apparitions, alleged apparitions, are judged in this way is how the lay faithful kind of frequent respond to profit from or not, right? And the church will judge against some and it will judge for others. Sometimes that's pretty close on the heels of the event,

you know, like a few years. Sometimes it's way long after the event. And so I think that this is, it falls within the bounds of the church's experience. And yeah, I think that's probably it. Mason- I've got one more question that I'd love you to, because you seem to have more of a stronger opinion than I did. Isn't there some problematic things that have allegedly been said by the Blessed Virgin Mary? I think one of them, if memory serves, is God doesn't cut the cake where religion is concerned, which made it sound like religious indifference was being taught.

I know other people, I can't think of specific ones, which is unfair, but can you think of kind of problematic things that were allegedly said by the Blessed Virgin Mary to these visionaries, and wouldn't that discount them if they were indeed problematic? Yeah, so it depends on the nature of it. So I don't have things ready at hand. I read some books about the topic at a certain point, like the books of E. So I don't have things ready at hand. I read some, you know, like books about the topic at a certain point, like the books of E. Michael Jones are the best, you know, kind of like arguments against. And I know of two that he wrote, one which is kind of an introductory salvo and the other one's called like the Ghosts of Sirmonti.

And you read them? I did, yeah. But it's been 15 years, so I don't really remember his arguments too closely. But with respect to that, so I think that this functions basically like if we're looking for a known category, a known category might be prophecy, the charismatic gift of prophecy, which you have listed there in 1 Corinthians 12, St. Thomas talks about it in Secunda Secunda, Question 174. But basically it's something that's given to an individual without necessarily sanctifying him, okay? And it's also going to be

recounted by the individual according to his own kind of individual personal culture. So in his own language, but also according to his own mediating concepts. So it's not like trance, one becomes then just... Mason- Yes, the mouthpiece. Scott- Exactly. So it's still going, it's going to take account of and it's going to work through the humanity of the individual. And I think you see that in different apparitions, which is like, I am the Immaculate Conception. Is the Blessed Virgin Mary the Immaculate Conception? Because that refers to an event, specifically her conception. So it's like, it requires of us

some interpretation. So there might be things in the messages of Medjugorje which are weird. They might even be like material heresy, but we commit material heresy all the time. Like St. John Henry Newman says, "'God is three and God is one.'" So God is not three, right? God is one, but we understand what he's saying because he's making reference to the triune God.

But if we were like, we need to drill down on this topic because you, my friend, have straight, it would be like hyper-literalism in our interpretation of a text which is poetic. So I suspect that there's probably material heresy in, you know, the things that have been said by the visionaries at Medjugorje. What we're looking for though when we're talking about heresy is formal heresy, which is obstinate post-baptismal denial of something that's to be held with divine and Catholic faith, which I suspect we probably don't have. I haven't looked at everything, you know, but I don't think that we probably have that. One last question before Thursday

drills down on you mercilessly is, do you believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary is appearing in Medjugorje? I do. Yeah. Thursday. Currently or at the beginning? Yeah, so I've heard people make that distinction and I don't know, like I don't follow it very very closely. I've been, I've only, so I went for the first time in 1991. Okay. So my parents took us family, so like a lot of this is very personalistic, it's very, right, kind of like within the domestic setting of my family's life of faith. And then they took us back as a family in 1996 and at that point my father and mother felt drawn

to make of this an apostolate. So basically from 1996 onwards, they began leading pilgrimages to Medjugorje, where they would invite people from the parish and maybe sometimes further afield, and then they'd go usually for like a week, nine days, something like that. So that was basically up until my mom got sick and died,

and now my dad takes trips himself. So I just went back with him as like the chaplain of a group of maybe 35, 40 people just this past October. And my kind of approach to it is what would you say inductive or empirical? It's kind of like, you know, judged by its fruits. And I've seen the effect that it's had on the life of the individuals who have gone and my my parents perish just in cultivating conversion and then devotion and engagement with the sacramental life the adopting of Pendences and fasting and things like that and so I'm sure there are exceptions because I haven't followed up with everybody to get documentary evidence But it seems like the general tendency is a good one

And I just have difficulty kind of probabilistically envisioning a plan of the evil one which would Produce such fruit because it seems contrary to his purposes. That's kind of like my general thought world So can I ask on the fruits is one of the fruits to be considered not? that for a long time and still in a lot of devotees the ruling of the church on you know It's not approved is ignored in some circles? Is that not a fruit to be considered as obstinate ignorance or ignoring of the church's authority on these matters? Yeah, no, that's a great point. I would say that the church has withheld her judgment about the legitimacy of an apparition for many years in several cases.

Right? So we think first of the ones that came close on the heels, like Lourdes, I think it was like four years after, and Guadalupe was longer, but then you look at other ones, you know, they'd be more minor ones. Okay, so, but like, I think Amsterdam, our lady of all nations, was like 50 something years after the fact. And so I think there are two complicating factors.

One is the initial negative stance of the bishops, and then the other is the fact that they're ongoing. So the ongoing is one to address, and there have been apparitions which have been ongoing for a long time. Usually, I would say the ones that we think of were shorter. So like Lord's was within a year. I mean, Fatim was over the course of maybe six, seven months.

I'd have to do the math, May to October. And, but like Lord, she said, like come back, you know, for 15 days subsequently. And in Fatima, she said, come back every month on the 13th. And even when they were forbidden from going there on August, you know, like in August on the day itself, she came into the fields and, you know, things like that. So I think that you see this in other instances

of an extended process. And even in Fatima, you know, like our lady continued to reveal herself or to be in conversation with Sister Lucia throughout the course of her life, you know, so it's not held up as the main things, but there's something that's still going on there. Right, but the church hasn't ruled on Sister Lucia's later... No, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, I'm not trying to suggest that. And so we, you know, we are, you know, so that, but okay. Do you disagree with anything he said so far? Cause what you just said, it sounded pretty thorough.

So the, the current ruling is that the pilgrimage are allowed so long as the apparitions are not permit perc perceived or forget the exact project. It as definitely authenticated as authenticated or their authenticity is taken for granted. And so my worry is that I think that, you know, when we have these groups going there, or even the seer, Miriam, I can't say the name, yeah, like telling these pilgrims that she is seeing Mary, that we're in violation of that

directive of the Church. Yeah, I think that, so as to what is seen and what is unseen, I think there are different kinds of modes of judgment that we render on that. So she sees if it is true, if the alleged apparitions are true, then she sees the blessed Virgin Mary. So she can say, she can recount her experience and just say, because for her it registers in a different way. Whereas we, you know, the members of the worshiping body have a different, you know, like, epistemic relationship to that, because we don't see it. And so the Church is reserving judgment with that in

mind, communicating to us, the members of the lay faithful. I don't know what specific, you know, like, things have been told to the alleged visionaries themselves as to how they communicate, but it would seem, to me, it would seem disingenuous If every time a visionary spoke in my alleged apparition, right? It sounds like almost cheeky like like she would be making fun of the church almost so I understand that I understand that But I think that there's a different epistemic quality that the judgment that she makes in the way that she recounts it And what about the leaders of the pilgrimages taking those people there and telling them that we're going to see an apparition? Yeah, so so is that whenever I start a conversation about it, I say alleged apparitions. Okay, so yeah But you do but yeah, like really you recognize that that is not even like the vast majority of I would say that some people

But I would also say that like, you know The vast majority of the world in the fourth century within the Christian sphere was Aryan But that doesn't mean that Aryanism was true. Right, I understand. You know, like Psy had grown to discover that she was Aryan. But I think that just because a lot of people get it wrong, it doesn't mean that that's a principled argument against those who get it right or the getting right itself. Well, I'm just saying, I'm just presenting that as a fruit. I hear the fruits argument a lot, and so I'm presenting as a fruit the fact that we seem to just be okay with this. But I think that's a second order fruit. I

think that typically the fruits argument is used about first order fruits. So you engage with a thing, that thing has an effect on your humanity, on your relationships, on your life more broadly. And then there's a kind of meta narrative whereby you describe like kind of what has gone on, you interpret what has gone on. So I think that when we talk about fruits, we're typically talking about conversion. We're talking about the effect that it has in the humanity of those who come and their relationships. And I think that the way that you narrate that

is not nothing, but I think it's kind of second order consideration. So I think in Latin America, do a lot of people get married in devotion excessively? One might even say wrong, potentially, but I think that, you know, it's a risk. I think it's just a risk, and I think that risks can fall on either of two sides. You can be hyper cautious and prevent yourself from ever

being implicated in the thing from which error might arise, right? Or you could, you know, potentially be overly generous, but I think that we're trying to be generous, you know, generous in an appropriate way with the cognizance that, okay, here's a cool thing. I might be deceived. I should, please Lord, spare me that. Please Lord, spare me that. Like to be conscious of that at some level. But also, if you're gonna give yourself to experience, you have to kind of give yourself to an experience. Yeah. Can I ask about the thing with Tomislav Lastic? Are you familiar with that?

I'm not, but... he was the one of these spiritual directors of the of the Seers okay was Excommunicated and defrocked. Okay, we're impregnating a nun. Oh, is that is that a fruit? So yeah, so like I I guess I don't mean to be hardened and calloused but that is a fruit And or that's that's an instance of a man's sinning, right, for which he is responsible. But that's specifically, like those, the spiritual life and virtue of those close to the alleged seers are specifically in the document the church uses for criteria on validating

apparitions. Sure, no, I don't deny that, but I would say like Judas denied our Lord Jesus. You know, like proximity to a holy thing doesn't necessarily transpire in holiness. You know, like there were people who saw the Lord and denied Him. Like that's a terrible, terrible thing. And we should pray, you know, every day that we be spared such a fate. You know, because it's not, it's just not a given. It's just not a given. Proximity doesn't save. It's just not a given. It's just not a given. Proximity doesn't save. Conversion saves. And so the fact that he's sinned is awful.

And the church should speak about it, condemn it, and help the lay faithful to move beyond it. Right? But I don't think that we can discount what's going on, you know, that that is in proximity to. So I think that's a real thing. And I don't want to discount that. Okay. Then if, if the, if the vice in proximity to it cannot be attributed to it, why can the virtue not just be attributed to the fact that there's an abundance of people going to the Eucharist

in a state of grace, confessing and praying? Yeah, so you could make that argument, but it seems like parsimony here is in effect. So why are they going? Because they can receive the Blessed Sacrament anywhere. And truth be told, the Blessed Sacrament is a more wonderful phenomenon than the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but if this point about private revelation holds Namely that private revelation is not an addition to public revelation

But it's addressed to the people in their time as a kind of salutary reminder nothing new but the same thing Adapted to us in the here-and-now then we might profit from it I think that's like basically the stance, which is a pretty modest stance. So we could attribute it to other things. That is certainly the case. We could attribute it to other things, but I think it would require more of us

in the way of mental gymnastics, because they're going for a reason, and it seems like the fruits which eventuate from that have something to do with the reason. So are there other explanations, potentially? Would you not say that if everybody was that pious in their like towns and like normal everyday lives we would see miracles and things like that happening

i think so but okay who will make them such you know the lord jesus how does the lord jesus choose to communicate himself through various mediations his sacred humanity the church the sacraments and this is one of them but it seems like it's a one of them not that it's like better than those that have gone before or never to be surpassed by those that come in turn, but it's here and now. And I think it's part of like the particularistic nature of the faith. It's like you don't have to know everything or do everything,

but we seek to respond to those things that are presented to us here and now within the setting of our concrete life and vocation. So I'm not saying that everyone needs to go there, but I'm saying that at the very least we affirm the church's permission and then I might tend towards encouragement because it is for the here and now and because of the fruits. So I try to make it a kind of modest claim. Okay, my worry is mainly that the most... you're the first devotee I've talked to that is willing to make those like none of the other... like literally I haven't talked to, I've done, I mean, I've been, I got kicked out of my, um, this is the true story.

I haven't told this on, I got kicked out of my campus ministry by the chaplain because he was having, um, a speaker give a speech where he was telling people that it is happening. And I was like, father, this is, you know, we're not allowed to be, you know, if especially as a position, public position, and you have these, these students in your care as the chaplain, like you should be, you know, putting qualifications on this and just taking for granted the, and not only just taking for granted, but telling them that it is, is, you know, not what the church is asking for in this case. And his, his, um, he laughed at me and then his direct response was, if

you don't trust my judgment, you shouldn't be a part of this community. And told me I was not, uh, in so many words told me I wasn't welcome anymore. That's it. So, so I, I, my worry and, and the other devotees at the church that was connected to this campus ministry told when I, you know, when they heard about this, it got back to me that they were all saying good because he, he doesn't believe that he's a harm to be around. So like I have multiple and, and this is, I mean, just to speak candidly on the video that we put up where I talked about this, all of the comments were that none of them addressed the claims. They were all just based on personal feelings. And so my worry is that we are coming to a point where I'm not discounting

people's conversion experiences, but we're talking about subjective things and weighing that a lot of the devotees are talking about their subjective experiences and weighing them equal to the church's documents on the subject, to the point that we are literally and like just discounting anything people have to say or excluding them. And I've heard other stories like this. have to say or excluding them. And I've heard other stories like this. Mason But if the church's documents aren't forbidding that we take pilgrimages there, it would be one thing if the church had forbidden private pilgrimages there, right? But since it hasn't, isn't it in the same vein as, say, Fatima or any other Marian apparition before it's officially been approved? Or is it different? I mean, it might be, but still my worry is that the don't take the authenticity for granted

is almost universally ignored. Yeah. So that's that's something that isn't that something that would have been said before Fatima was approved or no. Yeah. And I would say I would say that Fatima should not have also until the approval should be authentic enough. And I would say that Fatima should not have also, until the approval, should the authenticity... Fair enough, but aren't you asking of human beings to display a level of like, caution and circumspection that humans usually aren't capable of? Like, how many years was it before the apparition and Fatima was approved? 13. 30? 13.

13, all right. So 13 years where people were naturally enthusiastic, they personally believed that the Blessed Virgin Mary had approved. Yes, the Church hadn't stated it, but to expect of human beings to, whenever they spoke of their belief in the Blessed Virgin Mary, that they would have to qualify every statement, just doesn't seem reasonable, I suppose. Maybe there's a specific caution where you're like, well, of course we have to wait for the Church's approval, but it sounds like okay Can I even just say this maybe it's it's unreasonable to expect the laity? To live up to that standard, but shouldn't we at least expect clerics to live up to it as a cleric?

I don't expect much more from clerics than I do from the ladies. So I did it. Yeah, actually no joke, but no fair enough That was actually in leadership. No, no, we should expect it. Yeah, especially when you're like not. It's not like you're just acting right, like right here. We're having an impromptu discussion. Yeah. But like in the example I gave, this is two clerics. Yeah. Who have weighed the weighed and know what the church has said and even had somebody in their community bring this concern to them. Yeah. And and in all of this consideration, we still.

So would you have been like satisfied if the priest had said, I see, fair enough. We'll I'll just make a one minute announcement at the beginning that the church hasn't officially ruled on this. Would that have been enough? Or do you think, no, no, I had to go way further than that. That's not, I don't know. It's it would have depended on the content of the speech given I think because the speech also was rather strong in its claims and of itself. So like you can like I see you can come out and say like the church hasn't approved this and then but then you have 45 minutes of a talk where like very strong claims are

being made. Nobody remembers that one minute thing or they just assume that it's some Formality and that it doesn't really matter. You know what I mean? Yeah Yeah, I know some concerns that people have is you know, if this is not true Then there's going to be and that could be a fruit of the of the demonic You know that there's gonna be tens of thousands of people who might give up faith in Christ if it was revealed that this Was face and fake. Yeah, I guess that might be... I don't know. Yeah, I mean, if I were to hear tomorrow the church judged, you know, constat de non supernaturalitate, I'd be like, oh, bummer. And then it would change nothing about my life. You know, I'd have conversations with people who

were let down, who were sad, who were confused, you know, and I try to make myself available within that pastoral setting. But like, my life doesn't hinge upon any particularities of Medjugorje, except that I've, you know, been there. Adamus This has been great. This has really helped me. I think I have more of a...I'm more open after what you've shared. But I suppose that even though the most fanatical devotee of Medjugorje, unless they were very immature, would grant that there are people who take it too far.

Like is there any devotee of Medjugorje who doesn't think, well, in theory someone could take this too far? Probably somewhere someone isn't making that claim, but I think just humans like novelty too, and that's something else we've got to be on guard about whenever there's a new apparition or a new devotion, people get really jazzed. And maybe they're right to be jazzed. Cause as you say,

this is meant to apply to these people at this time. Anything else you wanted to say or are we? No, I just, it's, I'm chuckling to myself. Cause the chat is further proving nobody who's disagreeing in the chat with either of us is going by Like the actual content. They're just like go there and see it's just still subjective experience. Yeah, which is yeah That's what like the Mormons say like read our book and just read Yeah, the burning of the bosom feels reminiscent of that. Yeah, but he doesn't talk like that. No, I'm not saying father pine does

I'm just saying it's it's like yeah I know I said this to a lot of the comments But if you're gonna people are gonna comment on this who are in the chat saying this like go there and see like even if I'm not saying father pine does I'm just saying it's it's like yeah I know I said this to a lot of the comments But if you're gonna people are gonna comment on this who are in the chat saying this like go there and see like even if I went There and came to the personal conclusion that it might be real or like had a great like yeah Reconversion I would still hold the same positions on whether or not we should be Publicly taking for granted authenticity because it's the documents of the church. I'm not, like, sorry, that's all I'm saying. Like I could go and

have all this experience that everybody thinks I would have. It would not change my position on how we should be addressing this. I mean, it also should be stated. Thank you. That was, that was, that was helpful. It should also be stated that just because a church approves an apparition, it doesn't mean it's right. In what sense? Well, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm,

I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I looked at it. That's not a sentence that makes sense. It just seems likely to be false in my estimation. So here's a, and that's just my estimation. I would encourage people to go check out Jimmy Akin's mysterious world episode on that. It was a deep dive into that topic where he didn't draw that conclusion, but it felt to me very much like he was leaning in that direction. I came away thinking that. So here's a question from Tony RVA. Is there a chance that once an apparition is approved like Louis de Fadima that the church

can later revoke its approval? Yeah, I don't know, because I don't know what further testimony could potentially cause one to render that judgment. So like in the case of La Salette, you have these two seers, Melanie and Maxima, who live tragic lives. Like, she tried religious life, and she failed with, like, four congregations. She lived the end of her life dispensed from her vows and died young. And he tried the seminary, but then, like, the people that were visiting

to talk to him about his experience, he ended up leaving. I think he threw in his lot with some guy selling alcohol on his good name, but they ended up getting totally thrown for a loop, you know, got pulled the wool over his eyes, and then he ended like as an alcoholic. Yeah, and they were also seemed to be invested in some other kind of conspiratorial issues that had not just to do with this.

Yeah, I don't know, obviously, he'll know much more about it, but they both, you know, seem to die in the practice of the Catholic faith. And yeah, I think it's good insofar as the challenges or sensibilities as to what a visionary's life looks like, because I can't remember which apparition. It might have been a La Salette where the local ordinary said, okay, you know, basically the job of the visionaries is done. Now it's the job of the church to convert, right, or to be good custodians, as it were, of the messages which are transmitted here. Because again, proximity doesn't necessarily convert, it requires more of an individual. And

we're all like St. Bernadette. Well, not like the whole die young after tuberculosis thing, but maybe that too. But alas, it's more complicated. So I do like things that complicate the narrative, the kind of pious narrative. Because oftentimes the hyperpious narrative ends up causing us to despair. Because when we compare our lives to it, we know they're not adequate, because we're not X, Y, and Z person. But when we see how God can work even through failures, kind of tragic failures, it's like, okay, well then God can use even my trash heap of a life.

That's good. Yeah, fair enough. There's another question here. It's not a question, but oh yes, it is Tony same fella and he says I recently read a book about ality of cabejo in Rwanda and found it beautiful and compelling What do you think about that apparition? Just quick interjection? I would say that I I love Jimmy Akin and I love his podcast called a mysterious world and I'd really recommend that people check It out. It's it's so well done

I think he writes the entire script and gives his co-host the questions to ask. So it's very tight. It's an excellent podcast. He has an excellent episode on Allied of Cabejo in which he comes down very positive on this from what he does the research on. So for those interested, if you want to hear three great episodes, Rwanda, actually, could I ask you to find the links to those so we have yeah Cabejo, Lewids and Las, not Lewids sorry Cabejo, Fatima and La Salette if you could just find the links to those three so people could check them out they're very well done but Cabejo anything I don't really know much about next question uh Tony says father pine any advice on improving the prayer life of a dad who feels too busy between work and family to have quality

Time and solitude each day longer bowel movements You're the dad of a busy family. What are your thoughts? Yeah, let's see improving prayer life I think you know like if it were me saying this I would want to ask myself All right, what, where can I trim the fat in my day? So obviously there are things that we do for recreation that are important and helpful, but are there ways throughout my day that I'm just kind of wasting time that I could maybe be more strict on and in so doing have more time freed up. Another option would be to wake up just half

hour earlier. Like it's advice I don't want to hear, and it's advice I don't want to hear because I know I could do it but I just don't want to. That may not be your situation, but that could be another thing. What if I just wake up half hour early and just dedicate some time to pray? That would be a couple of ideas. To elaborate on that, I like to do the clip and add. Whenever you add something you have to clip something like you just kind of gestured to. I like that, yeah. something that's been working for me

just in the past however many months is, I have the, basically I have Safari and Gmail blocked on my phone, which has been nice because I usually do those as little, I'm waiting for somebody and I check or I'm at the end of the day and I look. But the reason I think that clip fits is because it also corresponds to the wake up earlier.

So I would say, don't worry about 30 minutes at the outset Maybe just do 10 But if you block those things in your phone You're less likely to be up later than you want to be more likely to be in bed at the time that you want to Be and so fresher when it comes time. Yeah, this is excellent. So we are gonna do a quick Local stream after this so go to Matt Fred locals calm. Thank you so much for being here. Um, anything else you want to say, do, be? Nope. Thanks. Thanks for having me. Thank you very much. Thanks everybody.