Pints With Aquinas - How To Build A Daily Prayer Life From Scratch | Fr. Simon Esshaki | Last Call Ep. 13

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

It’s Last Call! Fr. Simon Esshaki is back to share simple ways to uncomplicate your prayer life. Pints: Last Call Ep. 13 - - - 📚Resources Mentioned: Instagram: @father_simon, @qurbanamedia TikTok: @father.simon - - - Today's Sponsors: Seven Weeks Coffee: Save up to 25% with promo code 'PINTS' at https://sevenweekscoffee.com/PINTS Catholic Match: Download the app or head to https://CatholicMatch.com and find your forever. Juvenon: For 30% off your order, head to https://BloodFlow7.com/PINTS and use code PINTS - - - Become a Daily Wire Member and watch all of our content ad-free: ⁠⁠https://www.dailywire.com/subscribe⁠⁠ 📲 Download the free Daily Wire app today on iPhone, Android, Roku, Apple TV, Samsung, and more. - - - 📕 Get my newest book, Jesus Our Refuge, here: https://a.co/d/bDU0xLb 🍺 Want to Support Pints With Aquinas? 🍺 Get episodes a week early and join exclusive live streams with me! Become an annual supporter at 👉 ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://mattfradd.locals.com/support⁠⁠⁠⁠ - - - 💻 Follow Me on Social Media: 📌 Facebook: https://facebook.com/mattfradd 📸 Instagram: https://instagram.com/mattfradd 𝕏 Twitter/X: ⁠⁠⁠https://twitter.com/Pints_W_Aquinas⁠⁠⁠ 🎵 TikTok: ⁠⁠⁠https://tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas⁠⁠⁠ 📚 PWA Merch – ⁠⁠⁠https://dwplus.shop/MattFraddMerch⁠⁠ 👕 Grab your favorite PWA gear here: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com - - - Privacy Policy: ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.dailywire.com/privacy⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One day, you're negotiating with suppliers. The next, you're installing a shelf in the back room. Running a business means moving in many directions all the time. TD's new small business banking accounts are built for how your business moves. It's how we're making banking more human. I think one of the reasons we don't like prayer is that we feel like we're failing at it. Sometimes, honestly, I will go through the whole rosary and I'll be on the fifth decade and I'll be like, oh, I'm praying the rosary right now. I will try in those moments to at least order those last three Hail Marys.

You know? Now when I pray the rosary with the kids, I don't expect them to pray like saints. And there's something about removing the pressure. I think that enables you to start to love the prayer. Father Simon Asaki, let's talk about prayer. Okay. What is it? How's that for a question?

Yeah, that's a great question. Let me try to. I mean, we're going to talk about it for a little while, right? Yeah, take you time. I will start by saying that prayer is one of the essential aspects of our relationship with God, and it is ordered toward that ultimately. So it's not simply talking to God because a part of prayer is also having a relationship, so it's receiving from him as well.

And so prayer is the opportunity to enter into that union with God. and there's a lot of different ways to do it. What common obstacles do people experience in prayer? I'm sure it's across the board, but as you minister with young people who want to grow in their relationship with God, maybe they've just become a Christian. I know there's a lot of people who watch this channel.

They've just become a Christian. They've just become Catholic. What are common obstacles that you find that people are experiencing as they start to pray? There's a couple. So first we can start by something that I remember experiencing as a challenge in my own spiritual life and people do experience it because I think it's a very human thing to experience. But it's the desire of wanting to feel good while you pray.

And that being a big part of it, I remember when the good feeling stopped and I was kind of worried that my spirituality was weakening or that it wasn't real or that it didn't really exist. But then through some guidance, I realized that it doesn't always have to feel good when you pray, or it doesn't always have to be very deep. But prayer is about your, like I said, your relationship with Jesus. And if you have a relationship with a person, you're not going to have deep, crazy moments all the time. It's, you know, a lot of the time it's just going to be daily encounters. And I think if people understood that, like, yes, your feelings are real and they matter to Jesus, but they're not the most important thing. What matters is what you do and you being there

with him who is there for you always. I was thinking lately in prayer and we'll see if this makes sense that I am meant to reside in the heart before the good God who is in some mysterious but no less real way ever present to me. And this is the Christian life. The epicenter of human existence is intimacy with the good God who has not taken his eyes off us to use that anthropomorphic language since the moment of our conception. It's we're meant to live in relationship with him at all times. And so I like to think of prayer, especially continual prayer, prayer throughout the day, as a sort of calling my heart back to be in communion with the good God. I liken it to, I had a big black Russian terrier dog.

You hear terrier, you think small, but this is, he's a massive. They were bred in Siberia as work dogs. I loved him. His name was Pushkin. And, you know, Pushkin and I would sit out on the front porch and I'd have a pipe or something and, you know, he'd sniff around the place. But sometimes he'd go out of my eyesight and I go, hey, Pushkin. and he'd like come back.

And for me, this is what this ongoing prayer was like as my heart begins to wander, right, away from the presence of our Lord, and it seeks refuge in things that won't benefit it. And so for me, that ongoing like, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner. That was like the pushkin. And it would like bring my heart back. So anyway, I suppose we could talk about prayer as St. Paul does, like pray at all times. then there are specific times of prayer. What do we begin with specific times of prayer?

What sort of advice do you give to spiritual directees as to how they could start to pray if they've never prayed before? What do I do here? Yeah, I don't like to give other advice other than what our Lord said, right? So I would start what he said, which is start with the Lord's prayer, start with our father.

The disciples asked him to teach them how to pray, and he said, this is how you are to pray. And so this is the foundation of all prayer because it's not just the words that we say and it's not only those specific words in our Father, but that teaches us about who God is and who we are to Him.

And that's the foundation of our prayer life is knowing that, knowing that I'm speaking to my father. And unfortunately, all of our fathers in this world are imperfect people and they have not presented us with the perfect image of fatherhood. Some have done a much better job than others, obviously, but they've all been lacking. And so God is the perfect father,

and he wants to be that for us. He wants to be that source of life for us, and he wants us to know that. He wants us to know that he loves us. So I would say to start there, whether or not you're actually saying to our father, I would advise somebody to say the Our Father every day. We do say it in Mass.

And sometimes to just reflect on those words. And to reflect on the verbal prayers that you say, you know, there's verbal prayers. There's the prayers that we recite. There's Our Father. There's the Hail Mary, other devotional prayers. I would say it's a good idea to say those prayers every day, but also sometimes to just say them very slowly

and just meditate on the words and think about what it is that you're saying now. You don't have to say it like that always, but that's going to help you when you say it to understand. Like you mentioned the Jesus prayer and you're holding it there. You tell me, what is the Jesus prayer? So the Jesus prayer, it's a Byzantine tradition. And that's called the Chotky. In Russian, Chotky. In Russian, right?

It means not, yeah. Not, okay. And it's a beautiful. prayer that's based on the scriptures, which is the line, Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. So we're acknowledging who Jesus is, right, the son of God and the Messiah, the Christ. And we're also acknowledging our own sinfulness and our own need for his mercy. And so when we repeat that, that can have a very beautiful effect on our souls because you're constantly reminding yourself about who Jesus is and about who you are and the fact that you need his grace.

What has your experience been with the Jesus' prayer? Honestly, it's not part of my liturgical tradition, but I don't only pray things according to my liturgical tradition if there are other beautiful prayers from other traditions, like the rosary, for example, which I love to pray the rosary. And like the Jesus prayer also, I love to pray the Jesus prayer. and actually I told you that I've been listening to the show for a while and I actually started praying it much more when I heard Mother Natalia speaking about it. Lovely.

Yeah. So what was your experience in beginning it? Did you practice it long enough to have any experience of it? I loved what she said about how she does it with the breath. With the breath. So I used to try to incorporate the breath. was never taught about how to breathe properly. And she did mention to, you know, do it within the call,

like ask a spiritual director about it and stuff. So I used to do, I used to say the whole first part in one breath and then the whole second part, like Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and then have mercy on me a sinner. But she does four breaths or in and out, in and out. Yeah, yeah. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. And I loved what she said.

She said, in the second part, you breathe in. the mercy part of Jesus and you let out your sinfulness, right? And so just to think about it like that, really had a great effect on me. I first heard about the Jesus prayer. I was up in, where was I, by Notre Dame. I was giving a talk up there and I was with a friend and we already used bookstore. And as we were pottering about the place, he threw a book at me and I caught it and he said, I'm going to buy you that. And it was way of a pilgrim, which is, as you know, kind of reflections from an anonymous Russian pilgrim who learn how to pray the Jesus prayer. So, okay, sure.

Started reading it, absolutely loved it, everybody who's read it loves it, and started praying the Jesus prayer. And my wife and I started attending a Byzantine Catholic church. And the two of us started praying the Jesus pray together. And just again, like what was so lovely about it is, you know, there are set times for pray. Like if you need to decide when am I going to pray and how am I going to pray. But then throughout the day, just to continually call upon the Lord is constantly present to us, almost like to remind ourselves that he has remembered us at all times.

Two beautiful experiences happen. One, I remember once I was going to make the bed. And I, you know, so I threw the pillows off. And I noticed we had a Chotky under my pillow, but my wife had one under hers. Oh, wow. And I thought, how beautiful that the two of us, unbeknownst to me, were calling on the name of Jesus Christ as we were falling asleep. I didn't know. She didn't say, let's do this together.

She didn't say, I'm doing this. I didn't know. So I thought that was beautiful. That's amazing. And it became part of our personal, spiritual life. And she had to undergo serious surgery. And when she came out of it, she didn't know she had done this. The doctor told her.

She was praying, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner. So that's one of the beautiful things of the Jesus prayer, is if you can get into this habit of Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, that you start, it's like psychosomatic, and you find yourself praying it unintentionally. Just like you breathe. Exactly. Like I would wake up in the morning and I would find myself calling upon the name of the Lord

before I had even fully intended to. And so my wife coming out of anesthesia was pretty, That's amazing. Isn't that beautiful? So do you do it at night usually when you're trying to fall asleep? I do. Yeah. I, uh, yep. Yeah, I do that. I'm going to start doing that. Yeah, I do it throughout the day. I do it in the airport. I've gotten over realizing that I look weird. You know, I walk around all the time praying this, all the time. And at first, I feel that this is a bit awkward. And, you know, you can tell when you're doing your good works before men so that they admire you. I know that I've done that. That's not what this is. It's just really awkward. to keep it in my pocket. Right.

So I'll walk to the airport and I'll just call on the Lord. Yeah. There's something beautiful about it. Praying unceasingly doesn't literally mean that at every moment of the day you're saying a vocal verbal prayer, but you have that mentality and that understanding

that God is with me and he's gazing at me and he loves me and I need to be aware of that. And that's what it means to pray unceasingly. And so you do have those particular times in the day that you actually pray. And that's very important. Like praying the hour father, praying the liturgy of the hours, I think is a very beautiful thing. I mean, we clergy are required to do that. And I think it's for good reason because we pray with the whole church.

The faithful are only required to go to Sunday Mass and to have a daily prayer life. but you can pick how you pray. I mean, it's good to take the recommendations of the church. The church is our mother, but you can shape your prayer life based on how it works well for you, but I would also encourage people to always be in a state of growth when it comes to that. So sometimes we will struggle. People do, they say, oh, I used to do all.

of this and now I'm not really doing this anymore so I feel very far from God and so therefore they just kind of stop praying or their prayer life becomes very weak and so I would encourage those people to take the next step from where you are currently don't think about where you were like you're a different person now you've gone through different experiences you have different things going on in your life right now and so just take the next step try at least to do something daily. Have a daily prayer life, try to do multiple times a day, and try to grow from there. It's not necessarily about the quantity of time, but try to have some good quality time with the Lord who's always looking at us and has his full attention turned toward us at every moment. And so prayer is us

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holy family might look like. Catholic Match puts you in a place where people are on the same page about Christ and his church so you can find your forever. So if you're serious about finding a spouse who loves Jesus and his church, stop wasting your time scrolling past people who don't. Download the Catholic Match app on the Apple App Store or Google Play. It's free to sign up and only takes five minutes. Or go to Catholicmatch.com to get started. Again, visit Catholicmatch.com and sign up today. Can you talk about the importance of a prayer rule? of some kind. Prayer rule. In other words,

in other words, if I only pray whenever I want to. It kind of gets back to what you said earlier. If I'm only praying when I want to, that's it might very well be the case that I'm only praying when it feels good. Yeah, yeah. But I don't want to do that. It's like

with my wife, I don't want to just be nice to her on our date night. I want to be nice to her at all times. And so yeah, I mean, I think I think it's important that, like for me, myself, I have certain prayers I've imposed upon myself through the help of my spiritual father in the morning and an evening and throughout the day. And it's the bare minimum, but it's something I try to stay consistent with.

Yeah. I think there's a very helpful acronym that I'm going to say that is based on the catechism of the Catholic Church's teaching on prayer, which, by the way, is a beautiful section of the catechism. It's so deep about what it means to pray ultimately. And the acronym is Acts, A-C-T-S. You should incorporate these four words, which I'm going to say now, into your daily prayer life.

The first one is adoration, A. You should be adoring God. And I think it's good to start from that place, glorifying him. And this is just about knowing and realizing, who he is to you, that he is God, he's worthy of our worship, and we should offer that to him.

So adoration. C is for contrition. So we realize who God is, and then we realize our own sinfulness and our own need for his mercy. And that should be a part of our daily life as well. It's good to do an examination of conscience, even if it's just you having some silent time

and just thinking about some moments in the day that you've fallen, and asking Jesus for his mercy. T is for Thanksgiving, so it's good to remember to thank God, not only for the good things or the things that it's easy to thank him for, but also for the challenging moments

and you are realizing that he has your best interest in mind and that he will sometimes allow you to go through things that will challenge you, but that will make you stronger in faith. And so you should thank him for everything that he allows in your life. And then S is supplication. So you plead and you ask him for things.

And the cool thing about this order is that if you, you know, you don't necessarily have to do it in that particular order, but if you incorporate adoration, contrition, and Thanksgiving, then the supplication is not just going to be you

asking him for things that are not good for you or things that you just want, but it's going to be you asking him in a much more, much more serious and deep and real way, you will be much more disposed to, much better disposed to ask him for things when you do it in that spirit. I love that so much, beginning by telling him who he is and then telling yourself who you are. And I love that you only, I think you only, like we talked about in our recent interview, that you only have the courage to tell yourself who you are or to look at who you really are in light of who he is

because he loves you. Yeah. Yeah. You talked to me recently about adoration and that was something you tried to practice or whatever, go to. Tell us about that. Yeah. So, Eucharistic adoration, thank God that my parish has a Eucharistic Adoration chapel. And, you know, we can, you know, give people the opportunity to come there and to sit in silent prayer. So in the church, we have our liturgical prayers, which is the prayer of the community. But there's also the aspect of that personal encounter with the Lord who is there for us. And so I think that Eucharistic adoration is one of the best things that somebody could do for their spiritual life. Because it's you, just being in the presence of Jesus. I love.

I love this line in the catechism, which is about prayer. And it's one of the first things that's mentioned about prayer. It's the story of St. John Viani, when he saw this man who was praying in the church, and he just was sitting or kneeling there in front of the Eucharist for a very long time. And St. John Vianney went up to him and said,

like, may I ask you, what are you praying about? How do you pray? And he just said, I look at him and he looks at me. And that's it. And so sometimes myself, when I'm in adoration, I'm thinking about so many things. And I remember in the beginning when I would go, I would kind of feel bad.

I'd feel like it's like inappropriate for me to be thinking about certain things. Not bad things necessarily, but just things that I have to do or things that are on my mind like sports. or news. And then I realized that, wait, I'm here in the presence of Jesus. And so I'm just going to order my thoughts to him. And that could mean me sitting there for half an hour and just thinking about a bunch of random things

and just the last minute being like, Jesus, I love you. And Jesus, I need you. That's beautiful. Yeah, I recently went to adoration. I decided I needed to start going. Just for the week, I decided, because I hadn't done it in a while, and I decided, I'm going to go every day this week. And I'm not no longer doing that right now. Maybe I'll do it soon. So I'm not trying to give people the wrong impression that I'm going every day. But I just sense that I needed to do it. And the Lord was calling me to do it. And so this might sound rather dramatic. But I sat down there for my hour and I said to myself, all right, brain, you're allowed to freak out. You're allowed to think about whatever you want to think about. but you're not allowed to leave.

And that was just sort of like, because it can be quite frightening when you live in a world of distractions and intentional distractions at that to suddenly sit still and have to face yourself and your swirling thoughts. And I was shocked at how much I loved it. My wife and I love to do sauna cold plunges.

Oh, nice. It's the greatest. Oh, nice. Sona for like 15 minutes as hot as you can get it, cold plunge, and then we lay out. just, it's fantastic. I mean, I just love it. But this really felt like that for my heart and my mind. So just like, I don't really want to jump in that freezing cold water, but then once I'm done, I'm like, oh, I feel great. Yeah, yeah. It was like that, going to adoration, having to deal with the thoughts and surrendering him to the Lord. And that was just a stillness that came, comes upon

you, doesn't it? As I walked out, I thought, oh. So what advice would you have for those watching who, how you want to start going to adoration. Yeah, I would say go and have that mentality and don't be reciting something the whole time. I would say it's okay and it's good to do that. I mean, if you pray the rosary in the presence of Jesus and the Eucharist, that's an amazing thing to do.

Reading the Bible also is a very beautiful thing to do, especially the Gospels, reading the Bible every day, but especially during adoration. And you read it in a way where you are listening to the voice of the Lord, speaking to your heart. And so it's not just that you're reading it as a book

or a historical story, but you're reading it as, this is God speaking to me. And so you can, you know, like Lexio Divina, you can incorporate yourself into the story. So you can do many things during adoration, but I would strongly recommend that you take some time to just sit there.

and to just look at Jesus and to think about whatever comes to your mind and to try to, even if it's once at the end, to just remember his presence there and turn your thoughts, your attention to him. And not only will you, and should you feel relief,

but you will grow spiritually from that. And you will really have a stronger faith and a deeper relationship with Jesus. I know the Holy Rosary is very important to your spiritual life. Why should people consider praying that with regularity? Yeah. Yeah, like you said, it's very important to my own spiritual life because the rosary incorporates different aspects of prayer all in one.

I mentioned verbal or vocal prayer. There's also a prayer of meditation, and there's also a prayer of contemplation. So the rosary actually incorporates all of these prayers because you're saying verbal prayers. The Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Creed. And so you're saying those recited prayers, repeating them. But you're also meditating on the mysteries of the life of Jesus. And so it's very biblical and you are meditating on these stories.

And so you're not only using your voice or your words, but you're using your mind as well. and you're also using your soul too because you are incorporating the perspective of Mother Mary here and in a sense you're kind of living that family life that we're all called to the life of the Trinity, the holy family and you're being incorporated into the person of Jesus, into the life of Mother Mary,

into the life of St. Joseph, into the apostles and how they experienced him. And so that's what the rosary is. And I would just encourage people that they don't have to do it perfectly every time. That's helpful. Yeah, they don't have to do it perfectly. You can pray the rosary like me. I'm a priest and I pray the rosary every day.

And I'm like, I can't remember the last time I've set up for rosary without any distractions. I mean, it's just a part of life. But sometimes, honestly, I will go through the whole rosary and I'll be on the first. fifth decade in like the last three Hail Marys and I'll be like, oh, I'm, I'm praying the rosary right now, you know? And then I will, I will try in those moments to at least order those last three Hail Mary's, you know? That's, and that's worth it. That's so helpful. I mean, this goes back again to what you said in the beginning, right, where the temptation is to only pray when we feel like it. I think one of the reasons we don't like prayer is that we feel like we're

failing at it. And I don't know if this is just a man thing. Maybe women deal with this. better, I don't know, but I do not like being exposed. I don't like doing things I'm not good at, you know? Like if I was with you and another couple of fellas and we were like looking under the hood of a car, I got no idea, I wish I did, I got no idea about that car. So if you told me to change the oil or something, I know that my poverty will be exposed and I don't like it. And I think, again, I can only speak as a man, we gravitate to those things that we know that we can do well, that we're comfortable with, that we can look good while we're doing them, and we move away, we react to things that we think we're failing at. And I think part of the temptation

is if you feel like you're failing at prayer, you know, because maybe you thought you were supposed to feel a certain way. Yeah. Or maybe you thought you had to be 100% devoted to exactly the rosary as you thought you ought to be, then you're likely to kind of give it up. But how about you can just do it imperfectly. You know, and that's all right. And I don't mean by that, choose to be distracted. That's clearly inappropriate. But to acknowledge that you will be and that's okay.

And I want to say something about the family rosary. You've probably heard me say this at infinitum now. But I think one of the things the Lord has taught me over the years is that the family rosary, and Jose Marie Escrova says this and was really a guide here, he says something like, let it be like the family hearth, like where the fireplace is, that draws the family in. So don't be, you know, don't be forcing people to do it so much. It's just, hey, this quiet rhythm at the end of the night, it's totally changed my perspective.

Now, when I pray the rosary with the kids, now, to be fair, my kids are getting a little older, my youngest is 11, but I don't expect them to pray like saints. I don't even expect me to pray like a saint. Yeah, you might be falling asleep sometimes. Yeah, or even my son, he's coloring in or playing with Lego or he's like building a fort under a blanket. good do it. There's, when I just chilled out. Yeah. And we're just going to pray the rosary.

And my lovely wife will light some candles and we'll just pray it as best we can. And that's all right. And there's something about removing the pressure. I think that enables you to start to love the prayer. Because if I had the pressure, I think I did set this upon myself at the beginning. Like, it's got to be a good, everyone's going to know what we're thinking about. You're meditating? Are you saying it?

Say it. Holy Mary. I never yelled that way. I don't think, but close, you know. It's like, who wants to pray with dad? Dad's just in a bad mood. Anyway, so when I kind of chilled out, the rotary just became sustainable.

It became something that we just do every night. Occasionally, we'll miss it, but it's, you know. So advice maybe from that point of view, and then also the families who wish to pray. I love that. You mentioned that, honestly, because I used to kind of be like that too, you know, because my father, I mentioned

on our previous episode about how much of influence he had on my spiritual life because we used to pray together as a family. And so in the beginning, like when I got nieces and nephews, and we used to sometimes sit together and pray the rosary, I used to get kind of annoyed when they wouldn't sit still. But then I realized, like, this kid is going to grow up knowing about the fact that Jesus loves him and that this is a part of his life.

And he's going to do it better eventually, but he's going to be doing it now. And he's going to love to do it, hopefully, and he's not going to feel forced to do it, you know. And I had this experience, actually. I thought about this when you were talking about the family rosary. We used to do a rosary every day, right? And my dad would always, he wouldn't be very, you know,

forceful with it, but he would tell me about the seriousness of it. And so I remember that I used to watch baseball all the time. Do you watch baseball? No, okay. I'd like to be initiated into baseball? It's American, okay. Cricket. Cricket all day long.

Yeah, so I remember this time I was watching the Padres game, San Diego Padres. I think of a game before. Oh, really? Okay, nice. Back in my day, there was, the games had the potential to go really long because of extra innings and the rules and stuff. And so that's how it was back in the day.

I'm not going to explain all that now. But there was a game that was going on for very long. And my dad kept on calling me over to come and pray the rosary. And I kept on saying one more inning, one more inning, you know. And it just kept on going. And then at some point he just came and said, like, look, we got to go pray the rosary now. Now it's the time. I don't care what's happening with the Padres.

We have to go pray. To the Padre. Yeah, right, right. Exactly. And so I remember being kind of annoyed at that time. time, but I also remember looking back on it, I realized the importance of prayer that this is something that's more important. And like I eat every day, I don't let a day go by without eating. Or brushing your teeth. Or brushing my teeth, you know, like you have these important

routines, these vital routines that you need, prayer should be like that as well. And so I would strongly encourage parents to incorporate these things that we're talking about and to take the pressure off of themselves. But at the same time, make it a part of your daily life. Just like you have dinner, you should have dinner together. There should be time for prayer. Maybe some days you won't be able to pray the whole rosary. And that's okay. Yeah. Pray a decade. Yeah. Do something. Pray a chaplet of divine mercy, which is shorter. Yeah. Getting older can be kind of hilarious. One year, you're taking the stairs two at a time. The next, you're halfway up thinking, all right, whose idea was this anyway? You probably don't feel quite as spry as your 25-year-old self.

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thing for children to see their dad kneeling in prayer. Right, right. I don't always do this, but I think it is good for dads to, when you pray the rosary, Almost like just be all you need to worry about dad is that you are reverent and gentle with your children. Right. So gentle. But don't be gentle on yourself.

Get off your couch. Yeah. Neil. Let them say, don't make them kneel if they don't want to. They can do whatever they want. Yes, exactly. But you need.

Now, I'm not, again, I probably do this 20% of the time. So I don't take my own advice, but sometimes I'm just like tired. I'm all right. Come on. Let's just get this done. But I think to myself, come on. Like, we go to the gym. We know what it means to like put in a good effort.

it, well, we're praying the rosary. So just a word of advice to dads. And again, it's advice I don't always take. But there's something powerful about when the dad is reverend, he sets it. He sets the stage. He shows you how to do it. But he's gentle with everyone else. Yeah.

That's nice. And I would also encourage moms if their dads don't pray. Yeah. Because that happens a lot, unfortunately. I mean, it's ideal and it's beautiful to have the whole family praying. But sometimes the dads just don't pray. pray. And so I would encourage the moms to do it and to pray for the dad at that moment and to just be that constant source of God's grace in the home, even if not everybody's going to be there.

This is like the theme of much of what we're talking about today is this don't let the great be the enemy of the good. Right. Yes. Yes. It's like, but it's not great. Yeah, all right. In other words, but my husband is away from the faith. So therefore, I'm not going to do it. When you do it, Don't be let the, yeah, you're right, it would be better if he were leading. Yeah. But he's not. So don't just do it the way you can do it. Right.

It would be better if I had no distractions. Of course, but you will, so just do it anyway. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Father Simon, thank you very much. Where can people find, we just, I know you've got a couple of podcasts, but what's the Yeah, so. Yeah, so.

Yeah, so. Yeah, so. Yeah, so. You can find me on my personal, um, Instagram or TikTok page. Well, you pray the rosary. Well, I do the rosary. Come on. Yeah.

And I do one. I do one decade in Aramaic, actually. Beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful. So I incorporate that. And I'm on a couple podcasts on Corbana media. I mentioned on our last episode that Korbana is the Aramaic word for Eucharist.

And so it's a media company that my priest friends and I started. And so we do a couple weekly podcasts about the faith and different topics. Would you, since you speak Aramaic, as did our blessed Lord and blessed mother, would you mind closing us in a Hail Mary? Yes, okay. I would love to. Okay. And I'll say the sign of the cross as well.

Okay. So I'll say, Bhramid Baba, Brona, and Ruhat Qudsha, Al-Alechah, Amen. Amen. Ammaa'amha, burrach to be Inchea,

Burrhele, Paird, Kassach, Eishua. Mott, Mariam, Yimida, Mataa, Mataa, Amen. Amen. So you noticed,

Shalma? Miriam. Yeah. Also, I'd need to say, I think that's the most beautiful language in the world. Wow. Nice. That's absolutely beautiful, isn't it? Yeah.

I mean, the French is fine. It is very beautiful. Gorgeous. So shlama is from the, it's like the Hebrew word shalom. Okay, yeah. So it means peace. So this is, this is how we greet people. Shlama.

Shlamma. We say peace. And so, like when you walk into a room and you see people, you know, like the, you know, like the, the word for high, basically islama. Peace be with you, Shalam alohu. So it does make sense as to why Jesus, yes, as to why Jesus said that after he rose from the dead. Right?

So it's a beautiful meaning about the peace of God being with us through the resurrected Lord, but it's also just the way that they would greet people, which is cool. Beautiful. Father Simon, thanks so much. Thank you so much, Matt. Thank you very much for joining us at last call. Leave a comment below.

Tell us the best piece of advice anyone has ever given you on prayer. And if you haven't yet, be sure to like and subscribe to the channel. See you next time.