Pints With Aquinas - Matt Fradd Makes Jeff Cavins Feel Uncomfortable

Episode Date: September 16, 2023

Show Sponsors: https://hallow.com/matt https://stpaulenter.com/matt  

All right, we're recording Jeffrey Gavins. Yes. How are you? I'm doing well. Good. How are you doing? I'm really good, I think. It's a bit warm in the studio, but other than that, I'm feeling. Feeling flash. Every once in a while, I think to myself,

what would it be like to come in and interview Matt Fradd? Yeah, it's some day. Well, it's what seats. Yes, I don't know if someone's interviewed me lately. I don't do that a lot. Why not? I don't. Why not, Mr. Fred?

I want people digging. Good question. What don't you want to talk about? Is it something about your relationship with your father that you... Beautiful Bible you got there. Thank you. Yeah, this is actually a, it's an older Catholic Bible that I had, the Ignatius Bible, and it was falling apart pretty bad. So I had a guy out in California rebind it

and then put a new leather cover on it. And now it's a premium Bible. You like the leather? I do. Battle Lassie leather. Let's talk about Bibles. What makes one good, what makes one bad? I mean, not the text, but so I just got an ESV. We'll start with this criticism. I just got an ESV, which I love. And it was, I think, really nice black leather, but it's too floppy. You hold it like this and it kind of bends down. Yeah. I like a bit of some girth there, some girth, some thickness. Well, there's a couple

of things. I know you've given this plenty of thought. There are 10. Yeah. Do you want the short version or the long version? So whatever you want. Well, I think, you know, what makes, the strength of a Bible is in the binding and it's this part right here. Because the block of the Bible, that's the text block, is held to the cover only by that strip right there. Now you can either have just a paper strip here,

glued down, and the whole Bible's as strong as that piece of paper, the hinge, or this can be the hinge holding it together. That's number one. And that's what you want, the second one? Yes. See that right there? Yeah, I've never noticed that in the front of a...

Yeah, the premium Bible has that. Of course, the leather, and it has a stitched block, not a glued block. A premium Bible has that. Of course, the leather. And it has a stitched block, not a glued block. And a lot of times they take the pieces of the block and it's all glued into the side. And so it's as strong as that glue versus taking what are called signatures. Like if you have the Bibles this spread out, bring it together, stitch it together, and they have like 30 signatures.

Each one is like 50 – this is – are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested?

Are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Are you interested? Literally snoring. Yeah, you have these signatures and then all the signatures are sewed together. Yeah. And so it's very, very strong. Very, very strong. Most Bibles are not made to last real long. The good one will last a lifetime.

What else don't I like about a Bible? I really haven't gone past the RSV Ignatius edition. Whenever I think I found a Bible that's like even more beautiful, I find that one to be the most, I don't know, comfortable to live in. Pete Slauson Ignatius? Pete Slauson This one? Pete Slauson Yeah. Pete Slauson Right here? It's a nice…

Pete Slauson It's fine. Pete Slauson It's a nice Bible. Pete Slauson Did you, you got RSV stamped on the outside? Why'd you do that? Presumably that was a choice. Isn't it? Pete Slauson Yeah. Well, the guy that would rebound the Bible, he said, what do you want on the spine? And I said, well, Holy Bible. Why? Well... It's holy and it's the Bible. And then I thought, well, I'll do a Revised Standard Version.

The truth of the matter is I actually said Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition, and he put Revised Standard Version, and then he stuck my name at the bottom. Were you happy with that? Yeah. Good. Yeah, I've never had a Bible with my name on it. You also need the Bible to lay flat on a table. Exactly, yeah.

If it's not laying flat, I can get out of here. Yeah, and that is the sign of it. Actually, I have a good quality Bible is that it lays flat. The binding is flexible inside here. Sorry, could you do that on this side of the microphone for me, please? Why is that? Just so I can see it. See it, oh, I see. Yeah. could you do that on this side of the microphone for me, please? Why is that? Just so I can see it.

See it. Oh, I see. Yeah. If it means that much to you. It really does. It really, really does. Yeah, so a quality Bible, when you open it up, it should lay down.

And then you can read it. If you could choose a Bible that doesn't lay flat or the Quran which does lay flat, which would you choose choose a Bible that doesn't lay flat or the Koran, which does lay flat, which would you choose? The Bible that doesn't lay flat. I know it's nerdy, but I'm, I'm into Bibles. I'm, I'm really into Bibles and I think that a Bible should be clothed in beauty. Yeah.

In beauty. You made a good joke on the Bible timeline course that you did once upon a time That was so good because it you spoke what everybody feels but doesn't want to admit it's like a good comedian You said something about you know, here comes New Year's Eve. You make this New Year's resolution You're gonna read the whole Bible in a year and you go out and get a new Bible because the old one doesn't work anymore That was just such a great line. Yeah, I'm surprised you remember that. That's good. And that's the truth. You know, people are like, I want to consume this thing. I just want to devour the Bible. You know, it's like if you see a baby, what do you say? You look at the baby and you say, oh, you're so

cute, I just want to eat you up. And that's the way you feel about a good Bible. It's the way you feel about the Eucharist too. I just love it. I want to eat you up. And that's the way it is. They want to devour the Bible. But here's the thing about Bible philosophy 101, is that people want a Bible that they can live in, and they want a Bible that will be with them when they're old. They want the Bible to grow old with them, because it is, if you look at the patina of the leather, you look at the pages that they're worn, the messages that they've written it, it is like the lines on your face, it tells a story, it tells a journey that you've been on. But you want to live in it, I agree, but you don't want it to be the margin to be so wide

that it becomes unruly or the text becomes increasingly smaller to allow for the wide margins, yeah? No, you don't. You and I are a lot of, you want enough margin to make some notes, but you don't want enough margin to call it a diary. Yeah. Because you only write in a diary once. That's the point. But that brings me to something that I know I don't normally speak about this and you and I haven't talked about it, but it's patina. What does that word mean? Patina. Patina comes from this idea of if you look at metal and you see the natural aging of metal and the rust and the colors that come onto it over the years or the color of a well-worn

leather purse or a wallet. And after a while you take that wallet out and your grandson says, wow, how old is that? And it's got a beautiful leather patina on it. What is patina, man? I'm not sure. Patina is like the sheen. It's like the ageing. The way something ages, the way leather and metal ages or anything ages ages like me. Do I have a patina? Yes, you do Okay

You do have a patina if I looked if I call that a human patina Like for example, if I'm serious if if I saw pictures of you in high school, yeah, I'd say okay There's a young good-looking kid who doesn't know a lot Uh-huh. Now if I got a picture of you you now I'd say there's a handsome man who has through a few winters yeah he has some gray he has some years behind him the guys gotta have some acquired wisdom. Look at the human patina. I see. Who's the one that wrote that song as she said she said the the wrinkles or the lines in my face tell a story.

Trying to remember who it was, some singer. But it's really true. What do you, you know, if you look into photography, nobody's out there taking pictures of just a regular person standing there. They're looking at taking pictures of an old man with lots of years on his face because they can stare at that for a half an hour.

What's the song? It's called The Story. It's by Brandy Carlisle. That's it. What are the words? All the lines across my face tell you the story of who I am, so many stories of where I've been and how I got where I am. Isn't that beautiful?

But don't we take- We'll just say where has he been? Where's Matt? Somewhere very tiring. Have you ever been to a haunted house? This whole episode is just going to be me asking left field questions. It's going to have no coherence. Have I ever been to a haunted house? I've been to houses, you know, the house of mirrors and that kind of thing at the fair.

I once went to a haunted house as a kid, my son, my son, my brother and I got into one of these little carts and they miss the train. You kind of go through. We were so afraid that we both hid. And then when the train thing came out, my dad thought that we had gotten out and walked through the haunted house. But patinas, you know what I mean? Yeah. Have you ever been to a cricket game? Yeah. But patinas,

have you been to a cricket game? No, I don't have the time. But patina. Hockey. Yes. Now that's a man's sport. Yeah. Yeah. You know, they wear the rainbow flag. Uh, no, but patina is very interesting. Now be honest, look at the pictures of people on the front of National Geographic. Yeah. They're looking for patina. They're looking for the aged in the eyes.

They're looking for the older lady that's been through the war. What's the difference between that and then just photos of really good looking women? That's a good question. Because I was always against having really good looking women on everything, selling it, like this is a bit bloody much. And then I saw that fella from MyPillow, I went, no, I get it now.

He's a Minnesota boy. Yeah, you want to have a woman on that. You don't want to have a dude with a mustache. Do you know that MyPillowPillow guy is from Chaska, Minnesota. Cool. That's where I went to high school. I'm sure he's a good chap. He barely graduated.

You did or he? I did, barely graduated. So what do you think of Patina? You know, I think it's just one of those things. It's a lot like cricket, a lot like haunted houses, women on pillow boxes. Bloody hell, this is. Yeah.

Oh my gosh. Wait till he take. Women on pillow boxes, but he held this is Wait till he take you know what? I mean that don't you like you see that fairly like that's not advertising anything No offense, I mean, I don't know if you what about he's been on while you work this out I'm just gonna read some script I'm just going to read some scripts. It just turns into a solo with Jeff cave in sitting reading scripts. It might be a better idea. Um, you have no idea what I'm about to say. I promise. Um, and I don't even know what I'm about to say.

Cause I forget the name of it. Horie horror, Rocky picture show. Yeah. You have a good story about that. Are you digging up stuff on me? You've got such a memory. I've been doing research all morning. Oh man. No, I haven't.

Okay. But I remember you telling me years ago. Yeah, rocky horror picture show. Okay, setting. My wife and I are in Dallas, Texas. I'm 20 years old. She's 19. And we're married. we're at school, we're in Bible

college, a Bible college that does not allow you to go to movies, does not allow you to be out after 10 o'clock even if you're married because Oak Cliff, where Stevie Ray Vaughan is from, is a dangerous place. It is very dangerous. Oh, it really is. It really is. Oh, Cliff. And it used to be. I don't know what it is now. Well, anyway, I worked at an IHOP restaurant as a cook. My wife was a waitress. We're trying to make our way through Bible College. And one of the other cooks said, hey, we want to take you to a movie. And I've been witnessing to this guy for months, you know?

And he's the assistant manager. He says, we want to take you to a movie. And I said, damn, we're not really supposed to go to movies. We signed that deal, you know? And I said, well, what movie is that? And he said, well, we'll let you know. It's just a lot of fun. So we said, all right, we'll go.

So they picked us up and we're on the way to the movie. And I said, what's the name of the movie? And they said, well, it's called the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Now, just so you know, I know nothing about this. Oh, seriously? I've also never seen Casablanca. And I didn't know what patina meant.

So I don't know a lot. So explain what that show is. It's fellas who are dressed up like women. I know that much. Yes, it's like a gay version of Frankenstein. Wow, I didn't even like the real Frankenstein. It's like a gay version, I guess, of Frankenstein where there's a sort of this ultimate guy, that whatever.

And that's the best. Can we call the episode a gay version of Frankenstein? Absolutely not. Okay. You're really going for the clicks. I rarely veto. So we walked up in the gotten line and I knew something was not right. There was people in fish nets and just all kinds of strange things.

And my Spidey sense before there was Spidey Sense, was up. And I'm like, I looked at Emily and I said, I don't know about this. Because you didn't know anything about the movie before. I knew nothing about it, nothing at all. I hadn't been to a movie for two years by contract. And so we got in and I'm sitting down and I'm looking around at everybody.

And I just know that, okay, I'm trapped. I'm sitting down and I'm looking around at everybody and I just know that okay, I'm trapped. I'm trapped here and he drove us here. And then the movie starts and I'm like, no, no, no. This is a cool story. Thursday. No, it's better. And then, and then the people start chanting the words to the song.

The whole room is chanting and chanting and my friends are looking at us like, isn't that great? Is there something wrong about the song? There's... I don't know again. I don't know. I can't remember what they chanted. I didn't chant it. Because you have to know the movie really well. It's like a cult favorite.

And so that got to the point where it was very getting very graphic. And I said, I can't do this anymore. I can't do it anymore. And something rose up inside of me. I stood up and I yelled at the top of my voice, I curse this film in the name of Jesus. Come on. And all of a sudden the film went,

and it went black. It went black and everyone's standing up. And I looked at Emily and I looked and we ran. We ran up the steps and we started running and these two security guards start chasing us. And they chased us down the hallway around a corridor and finally trapped us. And I'm like, what, what?

And they said, what did you do? What did you do to the film? I cursed it. And they said, you what? I said, I cursed it. That's all I did is I cursed the film. And the film snapped right when I yelled that out. The film snapped.

And they took us not into custody, custody, but they brought us outside for questioning and everything and wouldn't let us go back. And the people that brought us were so embarrassed. And they're like, you ruined the film. I said, I'm sorry, I can't watch it. I cannot watch that. And they brought us back home.

That was our first date to a film. That is amazing. At Bible College. Have you done that again since? No. Did people around you hear you shouting that or was it so loud that they couldn't? Oh, I yelled it so loud, the entire theater heard it.

That's beautiful. Everybody heard it. It was so loud. And then it it. That's beautiful. Everybody heard it It was so loud and then it snapped and everybody looked at me. What are you laughing at? I'm sorry. It's just reminded me of something. I saw the other day. Oh, come on You can't be laughing at things like that. Then yes, you want to my heart. Yeah, this is it's my It's a quick guy some guy In Oppenheimer the whole movie goes silent right before the bomb goes off. Uh-huh and some guy ripped one So I thought you said there was weird sex stuff in that movie, that's why I'm not gonna see it

Yeah, I'm not either but it was the video of a guy. Oh Are you guys taping? Yes. When did you first meet Scott Hahn? Again, this is now my plan for the rest of this interview is just to ask left. You're over all the patina. We'll get back to the patina. But when did you first meet Scott? When did I first meet Scott?

So, yeah, I was, I had picked up a book. I was getting ready to be received into the Anglican Church as a priest. And I was getting ready to be brought in as an Anglican priest. I left Kansas City where they said yes to me, and there was a book table, and I saw a book there called Evangelical is Not Enough by Tom Howard. And I thought, man, it sounds good.

He must be Anglican. So I picked it up, saw the table of contents, loved it, bought it. And then on the way home on the airplane, I read it, and he mentioned that he had become Catholic at the end of the book. And I'm like, what? No. So when I got home, I got his phone number. I dug it up and I called him and told him that I was, I loved his book, except for that last page where he became Catholic. And he said, yeah, and he told me how. I said, I

gotta know how. How did you do that? He told me. And I said, the same thing is happening to me in my life, and I don't know what to do. And I'm in the, I'm merely in a decision point in my life. And he said, well, there's a couple guys I want you to meet that have kind of been down this road recently. One is Marcus Grodi, and the other is a guy called Scott Hahn. What year was this? 94. Cool.

And I never heard of either one of them, obviously. I lived in Dayton, Ohio. Scott was in Steubenville. And I wrote their names down, their numbers, and I put them on a window sill and kind of forgot about it. And then one day I saw those numbers and I thought, I'm going to give them a call. So I called up Scott, and he answers the phone, Scott on! And I said, Scott, Jeff Cavins down in Dayton, listen, I got your number from Tom Howard

and he told me to give you a call. And I saw I started explaining to him what was happening in my life, and I was discerning the Catholic Church, and I was reading the Church Fathers and everything, and I had pretty much come to a conclusion that I thought I was going to become Catholic, but he told me to call you, and I had been sitting on it for quite a while. And then all of a sudden he breaks in, about five minutes into the conversation he says, Jeff, and I said, yeah, I just have a funny feeling that you and I are gonna be best friends for a long time. And I'm like, who is this?

Anyway, can you answer my question? And it turned out we did. And so it was about a month after that I came over to Steubenville to spend a couple days with him here and it was then that I met him at his house and I brought my Bible timeline with me that I had created. What do you think? Well, I said, this is what I've been doing and I laid out this Bible timeline and he

looks at it and he says, oh, this is amazing! So my only regret is that I didn't do it. And that sounds like him, doesn't it? He's cloned with you in that way. But we hit it off from day one and we just became, literally became best friends. And we're only 10 days apart. He's 10 days older than me, so I'm sort of forced to respect him. But we became best friends. He's the godfather of our middle daughter, Jackie. And we've traveled the world together. We've taught, we've done video, television. And I owe a lot to him because he's been such a good brother, big brother, you know? It's interesting to see the different waves of Catholic personalities and presenters and things over the years. Yeah. You know,

like I'm, I'm in the kind of wave of, you know, Trent Horn is a fellow and these fellows, you know, sure it will be a little above my time, probably a little after West. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. Well, you know, in Steubenville at that time, a lot of people don't realize this, but from 1993 to 1997, we'll say, a four to five year period, there was an extraordinary, or as they say in England, extraordinary, extraordinary.

It's much better. How they say it in Australia? Extraordinary. Extraordinary. You know, it's not spelled that way. Extraordinary. Extraordinary. extraordinary extraordinary you know it's not spelled that way extraordinary extraordinary knee the it's an it was an extraordinary time because you had sitting around Steubenville right unemployed you had you had Tim gray right Ted Sri Curtis Martin Marcus Gro, myself, Jason Everett.

Mason Everson Was Christopher here? No, Jason Everett was. He was probably at university at the time. Now go on to say what they then went to found, because people may not know those names. David Hicks Okay, and so we all, I'll do that in a second, we all were friends. No competition, nothing, just friends that love God, were sharing all the best with each other, kind of like modern-day Inklings, you know, with Chesterton and C.S. Lewis and Tolkien, and just really good relationships. Scott was really in a hub there, in a hub role, along with Father Michael Scanlon. And from

that point, it just exploded. It exploded. And you have Curtis Martin goes off and starts Focus. Tim Gray goes off and starts AI. Jason Everett, or yeah, Augustine Institute. Not artificial intelligence. Jason Everett goes off and starts Chastity Project. Sister John Dominic goes and starts the Dominicans in Ann Arbor. She was a part of that. I go to EWTN. Ted goes to Atchison, Kansas. And there's like 10 more names that I apologize for not remembering everybody, but it was like this, it was like this explosion of ministries. And one time I was talking to someone at OSV, or Sunday Visitor, and I said, you know, if you want an interesting article, you ought to go and gather all those fragments that

exploded, bring them back together and ask yourself, what went into that moment? That today, all of that are arguably, these are some of the biggest ministries out there today, you know? And so they started actually on an article and they got together with Scott and myself and we gave them tons of names and I don't know to be honest with you if they ever came out with a really a comprehensive article on that but it could almost write a book on it because that one of the questions was why do you think that happened? What was the common denominator there? And I would say that there were three common denominators that set the atmosphere up

in such a way that I don't know if it can be duplicated. One was John Paul II, who was calling young people to the new evangelization. He was leading us with such dynamism and joy, and he was a leader that was really moving us along and backing us. He had our back. Number two, and the World Youth Day had started up, number two was Father Michael Scanlon, who Father Michael Scanlon had a vision for bringing people together and allowing them to incubate around him. And then they would go out and do these works. The third was Scott.

And Scott lived an incredibly generous life. Kimberly and Scott's home was better known as Grand Central Station. They had students that came and lived with them. Ted lived with him. Michael Barber lived with him. Tim Gray lived with him. Ted Sree lived with him. Ted lived with him. Michael Barber lived with him. Tim Gray lived with him. Ted Sree lived with him. I don't know, there's lots of other ones that have, you know, the scholars around the world, they all did. So when you put that all together,

you had the makings of a fraternity of believers and men and some women that were so excited by each other and so lifted up by each other that we all wanted to go out and do something with our lives. We didn't want to stay here. We wanted to go out and do something with our lives. Yeah. We can't replicate movements of grace, can we? No. Because at the end of the day, this was, I think, a work of God. I think so. And those things maybe formed the kind of soil that was fitting for what grew out

of it. R. Yeah. Yeah. M. It's like saying how can we replicate what St. Francis of Assisi did. It's like, well, you've got the mendicants, you've got the people moving into the cities. Like, there's a lot of other things that happen, but you can't just… R. Yeah. Yeah. I think you can take elements of it and learn from it, you know, like friendship. Uninhibited friendship that's not competing with each other. You know how it is though, and you can grow up and you're in ministries and everyone's doing their own thing. And one of the

unfortunate things, and I hope that I'm not guilty of it and I hope that others are not as well, that I hope I'm not guilty of it, and I hope that others are not as well, is that you can become territorial. You can become tribal. You can begin to protect your areas, and you wanna grow your area. Well, we all wanted to grow, but when it becomes yours, a dynamic changes,

and I think you gotta watch for that. Leaders have to watch for that. You have to be, not be pusillanimous. You have to be magnanimous in your giving to each other to where I can say something to you and say, Matt, here's an insight. And you go, oh, that's amazing. And then you say, Jeff, I'm gonna use that.

I'll give you a credit. And I'll say, no, go with it. Yeah. Run with it. It's yours now. Rather than everybody having to make sure that everybody gets credit and credit's not what it's about. It's the truth, you know. Besides that, I stole it from someone. What's that? Besides that, I stole it from someone. I think it was Patrick Coffin who said the, what do you say, the good, the good borrow the great steal. Yeah. No, that's really good. I think it was Patrick Coffin who said the, I always say the, the good, the good borrow the great steel. Yeah.

No, that's really good. And I think a question that we should ask ourselves isn't, am I the kind of person who would try to guard my territory such that I'm afraid of the question is since you are afraid that others will take a part of your pie and how, how then ought you to act? Cause I think to one degree or another, all of us, of course, are more wretched than we tend to think we are. And so just recognizing that is maybe the first step to dealing with it. Yeah, yeah. Freely you have been given freely, you know, freely, you freely have been given these things, you freely give them out in your life. That's a really good question because you no doubt get young people that are graduating from college and they want to know how to be a Matt Fradd,

which is a complex answer. You know, how you end up becoming someone, and other people want to know how you become a Bible teacher and so forth. And I think the answer to that question is that you have to see everything is coming from the Lord, you know, and that the Lord is the one that is, if you had a good idea, you can't be as arrogant as to think it all came out of a vacuum called you, you received this from the Lord or from giants before you, people that taught you, and you have to be free to release these things and to hold things loosely, and that you are a steward. It's like finances, but it's the same in what you're doing in your ministry, you know, with your show and what Jason Everett's doing and what Christopher West is doing and

what Curtis Martin is doing and so forth, is that I don't own this. I'm a steward. I am a steward, and I am a steward of all that God has given me. And so, as a steward, I have to act responsibly and not take ownership of it myself because if I take ownership out of my Myself then I'm also responsible for protecting this and and being Well stingy we brought this up last time but imagine what would have happened if you had have said to ascension No, I'm sorry father might can't do this. Yeah, I've only you think that's that's my thing and I love him Oh, you know you could have said in a very holy way that would have made you sound very reasonable But instead I worked hard. Yeah.

I worked bloody hard on this. Yeah. No, I thought your question without his jawline. That was the question you asked me last time that more people asked me about. You asked me, you said, are you jealous? Yeah. Well, yeah. Father Mike, are you, are you jealous? Did you ever experience? Yeah. And I imagined the answer. It had to be, I'm not speaking for you, but for me it would have been, of course, you know, cause I'm wretched. You want to talk about really why any cheeses, you know, the interview switches. No, but then but then you got to go.

Well, I'm not saying that's what you thought. I'm just like you use any example. It's again, it's kind of like when you hear people say, I could never imagine why anyone would leave their wife and kids like, what the hell are you crazy? You can never imagine why anyone would leave their wife and kids. Like, what the hell are you crazy? You can never imagine why anyone would do that. It's like, then buddy, you're going to get clocked. I think to recognize, of course, I understand why people leave their wife and kids. Of course I understand why people do meth. You kidding?

Sounds great until it kills you gradually. But like, oh, you know, like, it's like, of course, but here's why I'm choosing not to do those things. Well, I can say with Father Mike, first of all, he's number one, he's not my partner on the Bible in a year. Number one, he's my brother. He's my brother. And I've known him for almost 20 years. And I'm his big brother.

Fellow Minnesotan too. Yes, he's right up the road from me. And he is my, I'm his big brother, he's my big father, but I'm his big brother, and as a big brother, I love him. And anything I can do to help him complete what God has called him to do, I will do it. And if that means that I don't have anything to do with it anymore and he runs with it,

whatever the Lord wants, and I truly mean that, is that the thing that's beautiful about my relationship with Father Mike is because we love each other dearly, is that we're brothers. We have never competed, we have never tried to outshine each other. We have never, ever been bothered by each other. We love each other. And I just delight, I delight in His gifts. And when people say, come up to me and say, oh, tell Father Micah I really like Bible in a year, and I say, I will, I will. And he'll appreciate it, but you could have a selfish attitude of,

you do realize. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have any idea who I am? Yes. Not really. Not really. Dr. Hahn is a dammit. Yeah. Say hi to Kimberly. How do you think that I pass on this show? Like what's the job of somebody who runs a show? Cause you know, pre internet, pre YouTube, people are writing books. They're coming up with courses. They're creating companies that are hiring and sending out, you know, Catholic answers, this sort of thing. What do you think that looks like?

Let's just say for this show. For this, for your show? Yeah. Um, I I'm being serious. It's kind of funny, but no, it is. It's funny though. I mean, you're like, show me exactly what I need to exit. Please God. No, it's a good question. Cause I wonder if a show I'm going to just fill, let me just kind of add some padding to this. Cause I think a show like this, what's different about this show Thursday and you're welcome to put in your two cents compared to say like a solo thing that's a Taylor Marshall or Trent Horn or these other people tend to do is it really

is less about me, you know, partly because I have much less to say than a Trent Horn or something like that. So I think the show could survive. Definite. You don't think so? I think the show could survive without me. Maybe I, and this isn't meant to be. This is meant. Please nobody stop patting me on the back. That is not the intention of definite. You don't think so? I think the show could survive without me. Maybe I and this is a man.

This is a mid. Please nobody stop patting me on the back. That is not the intention of this. I'm just wondering how an apostolate like this passes on like just like you did. You're bringing other people into it. I wonder if YouTube channels even

have that. What do you say? Kind of structure to enable somebody to take over the trend when Calkeating left and Chris Check took over at Catholic Answers, that makes sense. Can you do that with YouTube channels, do you think? No. Why not?

Because as much as you say it's not the case, it very much is the case that people are subscribed for you because you're very much an everyman and so the style of interview you do works because people can put themselves in your place to like you have a conversation with the people you're interviewing. What if I got another everyman expert and none kind of guy? I see your point because if you think of it it would still be different because it wouldn't be you. Yeah, I would agree with Wednesday. He's got a great dry sense of humor.

Okay, I didn't get it. I thought you just got it wrong. I was like, it's fine. It's fine. It's fair enough. It's close enough. Literally one day before. Roger knows what he's talking about. Exactly.

That's nice enough. Literally one day before. Roger knows what he's talking about. Exactly. That's how easy we can be. But, Bettina, I would agree with Thursday in that what makes Pints with Aquinas unique? Let's admit there are hundreds and hundreds of interview shows with the same kind of mics and the same idea of we're going to talk.

I mean, Joe Rogan was kind of a pioneer in that way. If you look on there on the internet now, on YouTube, there's all kinds of people saying, I'm going to be the next Joe Rogan or Ben Shapiro or whatever it might be. And in Catholic circles, people may be saying, I'm going to be the next Matt Fratt. I'm gonna be the next Pints with Aquinas,

but it'll be shots with Francis or something like that. And I think Thursday's right in that what makes the show successful is the combination of you as a personality and the wealth that you have of experience, of knowledge, your interests, that accent, and everything that makes up Matt Fratt. Nobody can duplicate that. Fair enough.

No, but listen, nobody can duplicate it, but also nobody can duplicate how you interact with a person. Yeah, yeah. They can't do it. You're very much a mirror man. They can't do it. And so if you were saying, okay, we're gonna do- Like Andy from the office. We're gonna do Pints with Aquinas without Matt Fradd,

you say, okay, we're gonna either change the name or we're gonna change the expectations on the show with the audience. We don't want them to expect what they had before. Expect this now. Then what do you think someone like me or someone who has a channel that's larger like this, how should they seek to?

To go to the next level? Well, kind of, well, like calc eating, somebody else comes on, the thing keeps running. Maybe it's like, no, this thing's not supposed to keep running. Honestly, one of my joys is having people on that are relatively unknown and people seeing them and beginning to follow them on YouTube, beginning to buy their books. That's a great joy for me. So maybe it's that.

What are you saying about me? It's like yourself, for example. Jeff's Caverns, is it? Yeah. So maybe that's what it is then. Yeah. Well. Because it's weird to grow something and then either to feel Enslaved to the bloody thing. I gotta see this one through my friends like 73 trying to do interviews He knows what his cane over there I'll tell you what I'm doing great adventure I've done two iterations. I've done three iterations of the great adventure The last one was probably ten years ago or something. We may, we may, may not come up with a new one

and come up with something very, very special. If we do, praise God. After that, then what I would say is that I have a responsibility to help this continue. Again, the great adventure is not my property. Legally now it's not my property. Oh, it's not. Even essentially press, but it's not my property. Yeah. It's my baby. Like you had, this is your baby. This is you, you birthed it. You know, you,

you, you, you put blood, sweat and tears into it. You moved across the world to do this. And so for me, I would start to look at who could take this to a new level given that there's a new experience out there in life. It's a new internet. It's a new way of living. There's new ideas. But you just got done saying that can't happen, that this can't switch hands. Didn't you? No, I think it can switch hands. But like I said, that there has to be new expectations of what this looks like and, and what the people are going to get out of it.

The people will never get out of the great adventure, what they get out of it with me because of me, whether good or bad. I'm not saying good or bad, but if somebody else, uh, let's, let's say that somebody graduates from Steubenville and eight years from now, they're really a good Bible teacher and they're expressive, they love to pass on the faith, and Ascension says, that guy's got it, that guy's got something there. Then they begin to watch and say, let's get to know each other with the idea that maybe you'll take this to where Jeff never took it.

And that's success to me. Success is that someday the great adventure will do and go to places and do things that I couldn't have and I never would have thought of. To me that's success. I'm 1.0, there's 2.0, 3.0, because the truth is that in 30 years from now, if the internet is still the internet, somebody will be doing something similar to what you're doing. The question is, is it better? No. Is it different? Yes. It's different. But nobody will ever be able to do what Matt Fratt did. Nobody.

So if somebody comes and listens to a different speaker who's teaching the Bible, they might get more out of it, they might get less out of it, but they won't get the same thing. They won't get the same thing. And if I go to someone hoping to get the way Jeff taught, I'm not going to get it and I might be disappointed. Yeah, my hope is they'll get more. My hope is they'll get more, and my hope will be that they have more fruit, you know, as a result of it. I really do believe that with all my heart, so that I can, when I'm done, I can look back and say, I am so pleased

that this person, this one, or they are doing what they're doing. Do you ever feel locked into this Bible thing? Like you'd rather do other things, but everyone knows you? No, I think there was one time when I started thinking about other things that I wanted to say, and that it was, think about somebody who's on television and they're cast in that role and they can't seem to get out of it. Yeah.

Like who would be one? Well, I- Does anyone know? Not movie, think of rock stars. This is what bothers me a lot. When you watch these folks and they're now 80 years old and they still have the same hairstyle, the same thing like Hulk Hogan wears the bandana and the glasses.

So what's the fella from Guns N' Roses slash the guitarist? I guess he's got to perpetually wear that stupid hat with the hair. Yeah, right. Whatever. What a sentence. Yeah. Or Michael from The Office. Can you see anyone but Michael in a movie?

Well, that's different though. He's not trying to maintain. He was established beforehand. I think the good example is Ron Swanson. Nobody can see Nick Offerman without it being Ron Swanson. Even when he was not established before. Even when he's doing disgusting gay sex on Among Us, Last of Us, I mean. Did you watch that show, Last of Us? What is, what? There was a random gay sex scene that i watched i turned it off

it was gross so gross i'm in shock right now i'll let you guys talk to me just read your bible did you not see last of us no i didn't so here's why it was good they're like it's good but there's this like weird gay thing but after that so i didn't i i heard it was that fella but i want i've wanted to play the game for years and so i wanted to play the game before I watched the show and I still haven't gotten around to it. Okay, but the difference between is it Nick Hoffman? Nick Hoffman. Hoffman? Offerman.

Whatever his name is. Yep. Or who you brought up, Scott, whatever his name is. Steve Carell. The difference between them and The Slash is one of them is trying to maintain a persona. Yeah. The other one, you can't see them anything but because they were so good in that. Yeah, no, I know what you're saying. So for me, they call me, they call me, you're the Bible guy.

You did on the last show. So you're the great adventure guy. You're the Bible guy. You're the great adventure. And that's true. Way better than the porn guy. It's true. Patina. That's true. It's very, very true that, yeah, you're the Bible timeline guy. You're the guy with the great American adventure. I did the American adventure over at our church. I get that a lot. And yeah, I think there was one time where I started feeling like, man, I got so much more to say though. I mean, I've got, I want to talk about evangelization. I want to talk about discipleship. I want to talk about beauty. I want to talk about evangelization. I want to talk about discipleship. I want to talk about beauty. I want to talk about simplicity. And these things really attract me,

but I found that I can talk about these things in the context of salvation history and that, no, I'm not, I don't feel, I don't feel typecast. No, no, I don't. I came up with some good examples of passing stuff on on YouTube. Studio C is I think a great one that you wouldn't understand Matt, because like it's like technically the same thing, but it's not anymore. Is it? It's like, yeah, not at all. It's like an LDS comedy sketchy thing. Who is, who is more successful? Jay Leno or Johnny Carson?

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. Tonight Show. I know what that is. I just don't know who's more successful. Right. I mean, yeah, it depends on how you define success. No, that's one way to do it. They're two different shows. Yeah, they're different things. You can call it the same thing, but it's a different thing.

Yeah, it's a different thing. And like, I, for my part, am not interested in Studio C anymore. No, I don't think the new cast is funny, but the old cast was genius. Oh, so is your point, here's how it doesn't work. Like that's a good example of what it looks like when you pass it on. Like it's a totally different thing. You can call it the same name, but everybody knows. Saturday Night Lights, life is the same thing.

So do you think they should have called it a different thing? I don't know if they should have. We were just talking about like when you pass stuff on, what it looks like, what that looks like and it's Like you can say it's the same thing, but everyone who was a fan of old studio see when you say studio see yeah Immediately goes yeah, but the old guys that's so much better Yeah, like like Scott sterling and the bis guy like those were like genius things And now it's like this up studio see if you're not familiar with them the old ones seasons one through ten

Yeah, very very funny and really kind of family appropriate You've got to look this up, Studio C, if you're not familiar with them. The old ones, seasons 1 through 10, yeah. Very very funny and really kind of family appropriate as the Mormons do so well, you know. I will, I'll look that up. They're not explicitly Mormon, but they come from... I don't think they are at all anymore. Maybe they're not, yeah. The black guy came out as gay.

Oh, good. Well, put yourself in the disciples position 2000 years ago. Jesus said, go into all the world and proclaim the gospel. Peter becomes the first pope. These are the first bishops of the church. They're going to look at each other at the council of the dinner table and say, how in the world are we going to perpetuate this thing? And will it be the same? Will other people experience what we have? And that was their role. And they had to teach and pass on. But what we're experiencing in the Church today, because of the time that has gone by and the personalities among us and so forth, it is the same thing, but it certainly feels different.

R. Do you sometimes feel a disconnect with younger Catholic writers speakers in the way that one might find a disconnect between? Between say whatever our generation isn't generation Z or millennials, you know, there's sometimes this gap You're like, I don't know if we're speaking the same language. We're not looking at the world the same We have totally different histories. Do you feel that sometimes we do? What can you think of any you have to give specific names, but are there any kind of examples where you hear something? Yeah, I mean the fact that you were just talking about a show that I'm not aware of, you know. And if I get around a bunch of young people, I was one of those guys, I was into rock and roll in the 70s. I interviewed these groups, Kiss and Supertramp.

You don't like Supertramp? Yeah, they're okay. Led Zeppelin. I mean, these are my people. Led Zeppelin and supertramp. Maybe I saw that move. Yes. Yes. Final tap. Did you, what did you say? Interview these people. You met them. Yeah. That my job, my job was to interview rock groups in college. I was editor of the paper. So I got backstage past my, I had pictures of,

I had pictures of myself with a kiss and showed my future and mother-in-law. That's when she wasn't going to let me date Emily. I had pictures of me with Gene Simmons with his tongue out and blood and everything. And I thought, man, I've arrived, you know, I, and I party popular group. You've you saw or kiss oh no I was with a lot of different groups did you ever see them I was with that tramp uh-huh super tramp she was a super tramp all right super tramp who else? Led Zeppelin, Kiss, Hart, Emerson Lake and Palmer Elton John you, Elton John.

You met Elton John? I didn't meet him. I was back there, back in, but I did not get to actually go face to face and meet him. Another one was Alice Cooper. Wow. You know, these were the acts back then. And I don't know why we're talking about that though.

My dad was a big Alex Cooper. Alice. Alice, speaking of the disconnect. Yes, Alex Cooper, what a guy. Oh, I know what I was gonna say. So that's my vocabulary. Someone says, you ever heard of a steppin' wolf? Yes, I actually partied with him.

And you know, American woman, da da da da. And I can say that, I can talk to young people today and say what do you think of of Harrison like Harrison who what do you I don't know yeah I don't George or George Harrison yeah you know who did you meet him no I'm just using as an example so I'm you so I'm I can talk about these groups they don't even understand what I'm talking about. And I'm like, you don't understand, they were everything. And so then they'll talk about the groups they're listening to. And I'm like, I have no idea who you're talking

about. Harry Styles? Yeah, you brought up Harry Styles. I just had a discussion with my daughters last week about Harry Styles. And here I am coming across like an idiot. And I said, did you know that he was a part of One Direction? And they're like, dad, just stop. Show yourself out.

Just stop. And I said, have you seen the way he dresses? And they're like, yeah, that's Harry Styles. And I'm like, so now that's a bit different, isn't it girls? Just a little bit weird. Yeah, yeah. Meanwhile, you're with Gene Simmons in makeup. And they're like, yeah, that's so gross. Yeah. So to answer your question in a serious way, I would say yes. I see. I do, I do.

But I wanna know, I wanna understand, but I don't expect them to think that I'm cool. That's very good. You know, that's a bad place to be. It's a very bad place to be. To have a 40 year old man acting, trying to act like someone. to have a 40-year-old man acting, acting, trying to act like someone. You guys wanna go skateboarding?

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impressed with what you're doing. Yes, I do, I do, but I want to know, I want to understand, but I don't expect them to think that I'm cool. That's very good. You know that's a bad place to be. Very bad place to be. To have a 40 year old man acting, acting, trying to act like someone. You guys want to go skateboarding? You know, who is that crazy? That's a great point because there are, it's funny you say that because I'll sometimes watch people speak on YouTube and I think ah I don't think they're being authentic I might be wrong but it to me it doesn't ring true but then I'll see some much older folks just being themselves and they actually resonate with a lot of people I think of Ralph Martin for example yeah you know Christopher West is just

being himself yeah I try to be I try to be myself I speak to youth I speak to be myself. I speak to youth. I speak to young people, but I don't pretend to be cool or to be Hip or to be informed or anything. I just want to talk to them as a as a man would talk to people You know and take them seriously because I think more than anything else there number one They're gonna smell a rat they're gonna smell a fake if number one number two If you love them and you really speak to them as an older brother They sense it. They were they they receive it Do you think a lot of the energy it's it's undoubted at least from my experience that the energy that felt Present in early 2000, you know, Catholicism has gone that hasn't gone.

Maybe that's a bit different, but the energy that was brought about by the new Catholic apologetics movement in the United States with Keating and Madrid and yourself and Han, it just felt like, here we go boys. And then it's like, you go Benedict. Yes. And then Francis. and we tried to pretend we're still going up yes and then it just kept getting very confusing and I'm sure it's a myriad of factors not just Francis and pontificate yeah it's social media it's all of that but it just feels like the wind has been sucked out of our

sails whereas I don't sense a lot of triumphalism or no among Catholics and less a traditional type and I'm not even condemning it but I don't sense a lot of triumphalism. No. Among Catholics, unless they're a traditional type, and I'm not even kind of condemning it, but I don't sense that energy in. Do you or maybe I'm not in the right places. Maybe people do still have that. No, I think things have changed.

I do. I think, I think back in the 80s or in the 90s and the zeros, throughout Pope John Paul II's pontificate going into Benedict's pontificate, I think there was a sense that we were one. I think that there was a unity, more of a unity, and the unity was around the truth. It was around the content. It was around the realization that we are one body. We are the church. We are God's people. I think today that I don't sense that, and I could be wrong, but I don't sense that young people are rallying around truth as much

as they are. There has begun a tribalism, and a tribalism is partly due to the power of the internet and that anybody can lead a tribe if they have a show. And if they have two or three people that are sort of like-minded and they all get together and they interview each other, that creates a tribe. And tribes typically exist by defining their enemy and who they are different from, and then trying to raise

up the number among them and reasons why, and coming up with evidence why. And the unfortunate thing, though, is that in the midst of it, people start looking at the tribes to, we're going to gain more from you and you, which tribe is winning rather than the mission going out. And I think in a way, we're sort of right there. That's why I don't get involved in these arguments, and I don't get involved in these questions about what's happening in the church today, because I know what Jesus told us to go and do and I want to stick with that.

I want to train people how to win souls. I want to train people how to take the kerygma, the proclamation of the Gospel, to their work, to their college, how to communicate the basic Gospel with a very transparent, loving heart, you know, with other people. And I'll say something that I hope people don't take it the wrong way, but if you get bored with the message and you refuse to do the message, then you will be more focused on building your tribe. And I think that that's a truth, that the moment you take your eyes off of Jesus in His mission, you start looking at each other and what

we're saying, and it's more of an in-house, like brothers and sisters fighting type of thing. Mason Hickman I agree with everything you just said, and I think it's admirable to want to stay out of the questions that you don't feel the Lord's called you to address. However, what I find, and one of the reasons I'm comfortable broaching different topics is, I think when people start to be attracted to Catholicism, right away they're having to deal with real things that just happened in the Vatican gardens, or that the Pope just said, or, and it's like, okay, then what are we going to do? Are we just going to not address these things?

Like, I think a lot of these things are hurdles for Catholics, people who want to become Catholic, and someone needs to be addressing them. And I'm not saying that's me, but someone or people need to be addressing this in a nonsensational way, in a way that's... our call to stay focused on Jesus. And so if people want to ask me questions of what's going on in the church today, I can concur and say that, yeah, things seem confusing from time to time with what you're hearing, And I don't know the answer exactly to that, but I do know this, that Jesus is the head of the church, Jesus is the second person of the Trinity. He said, I love you, I want to die for you, I give my blood and my body to you, I'll be with you

always. Let's talk about everything else from that perspective and what is the role of everyone else. And, you know, it's like going through school. I went through school in first through 12th grade and I had a teacher every year, but they were different teachers, but they were the same teacher. And my dad said, you respect your teacher. And I'm like, dad, but Mr. Nutt, you respect your teacher. But he did this and he said that, he's your teacher, Jeff. And so I had to learn to respect my teacher, but I could also share that I wasn't particularly fond of my fourth grade teacher, but my sixth grade teacher, man, my life opened up. He gave me a love for books and so forth. And my seventh grade teacher didn't seem to even know I was there, you

know, but he was my teacher and I had a teacher all the way through. Do you think, um, do you think we've ever been in a worse position in, in Catholic history? I know it's easy to point to the area in heresy and that tends to be the thing people point to, but even that I'm not convinced of. It seems pretty bloody bleak in history. It seems pretty corrupt, this church. I don't know that I could answer that, you know, because of my limited experience. But just from your maybe cursory study of church history that others may not have had access to.

Yeah, I wouldn't say it's the worst in church history. No, I wouldn't say that at all. I'd say we're still at a place where we have a tremendous treasure and tremendous freedom, and a good number of really good leaders among us. I think I can name a bunch of leaders in my own archdiocese who are just gems. They're just gems, you know? And so I'm very proud to be a part of it and I'm very blessed to be a part of it. And I wonder if we just get tired with nuance because we want a solution. And sometimes when people offer nuance or caveats to a certain problem, we think that they are not taking the issue seriously. I'm trying to think how would I forget the church?

Let's take the city of Steubenville, right? There's there might be, let's say, certain corruption in Steubenville government. There might be people who are less than helpful and people get fed up with that. And they express that to you. If you say, well, that's true. And yet we do have it's like, no, no, I'm done. I'm at my breaking point now. I'm not willing to listen to any of that but there's still a few good yeah maybe

that's where a lot of people are right now so when you do talk about no there are good bishops there are of course you know they could be I'll tell you about myself and I hope it doesn't offend people or they don't think that I'm weird because of it I don't spend a lot of time paying attention to the leadership out there. I respect them, I listen to them, I have great respect and honor and obedience. I do. But I've got to tell you, the majority of my week is with Jesus. It really is.

From the moment I get up, first words out of my mouth every day, Jesus, I'm ready to go on this adventure with you today, before my feet hit the floor. That's how my day starts. And then the next hour is my wife and myself, just communing over God's Word and listening to Jesus and what He has to say for us. And so I'm so occupied with the beauty of Jesus and the Gospel and the Blessed Mother and all of the nuances of the faith that is so tremendous. The things that are happening out there are not so big to me. Now some people say, well they should be. Sorry. It's like I stare at my wife so

much and someone says, have you ever noticed how ugly your neighbor is? No. I mean, look at that. Look at my wife, you know? So, well, you ought to spend more time looking at the ugly neighbor. No, I don't think so. I'm going to stare at my wife, you know, and that's what preoccupies me. That's good. I think the reason that's good is when they say, well, you should be concerned. It's like, even if you were,

you have no power over those things. I have no power. Literally none. Yeah. I'm not gonna move the needle and there's no upside. So we waste our emotional energy on things we have no control over. Get on with what Jesus told you to do.

I mean, I can get upset sometimes about it. Get on with what Jesus told you to do. That's, I mean, I can get upset sometimes about it. Get on with it. Stop talking about it. You know, stop studying it and talking about it and gossiping about it. And stop finding out if Tucker Carlson agrees with you. Get on with the mission. Do it. Grow up. Be a man.

Mature. You know? Let me ask you, Thursday, and if you have some thoughts too, Do it. Grow up. Be a man. Mature, you know that. Let me ask you, Thursday. And if you have some thoughts to if you were to name, like, say, the top five or several Catholic podcasts, what would people say? You're doing a Catholic podcast, be those videos or audio that people are kind of listening to. I might be the wrong person to ask this. Whoa. I might be the wrong person to ask this. Well, what about if I didn't ask what people think, but what you think?

What I think is tab, they don't have to be in a lot of like my favorites. No, just well, either. I guess I don't know. Popular, popular. Taylor has this beat and then for sure. And I'm not even talking about numbers necessarily. People can have high numbers and not a, but yeah, Taylor's a very popular, Taylor Marshall,

who else? I mean, Bible in a year, but, and no offense to you, Dr. Kavans, but I don't know if it's, if I would count it as a podcast in the way I would count this or Taylor Marshall. It's not a show. Because yeah, because it's like, or even catechism, like it's popular and it's a good thing. But I'm so glad it exists as an antidote to these shows. Yes, but I don't it's not a show

So I don't know if I call it a podcast show to put in the rankings. I'm with you. So Taylor. So Taylor us Baron has a podcast. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean there's a cool thing I can do on YouTube in the back end where you can go in and you can see what the other channels, the top channels that your audience watches. Why don't I just give you the conclusion? I feel like I'm trying to lead us somewhere. I'll just be open about where I'm leading us. My fear is that a lot of popular Catholic podcasts don't seem to be about evangelizing those outside of the church, but trying to make those within the church traditional.

Or like them. Or what? Or like them. Or like them. Or what? Or like them. Or like them. Trying to get the audience to like me. Oh, okay. But my point is just it seems like there's a lot of podcasts out there, it seems like they are trying to evangelize novice auto-Catholics to make them traditional Catholics.

Is that a stretch? Well, that's the ones you mentioned, maybe. And I'm not saying there's anything, I mean, that's one of the ones you mentioned, maybe. And I'm not saying there's anything, I mean, there's nothing necessarily wrong in sharing that obviously it's a beautiful thing to share the traditions of the church and to invite people into the fullness of what was given us, maybe what was robbed us even. This is really interesting. It's not helpful at all for what you were talking about. Well, one of the things I've noticed is that I spoke at a huge gathering of ministries,

I'll just say, a few years ago, and I think there were like 40 represented there. You know them if I named them all. And before I went to speak to them about evangelization, I went and looked at probably 20 of them to see what their core mission was and what they were doing and so forth. And I didn't, while some of them said our core mission is to evangelize, they didn't do anything about evangelizing. Really? Yeah. I find that hard to believe.

They talk to each other. They talk to each other. They would develop a program to... That feels too simplistic. I don't agree with you. I don't know who these groups are, but I find that hard to believe. If someone exists to evangelize, I'm sure they're evangelizing in some capacity. No, I didn't say they existed to evangelize at all. They didn't exist to evangelize, they existed to reach an entity. It could be men, it could be women, it could be that type of thing. But when you look at what's actually happening,

no one is actually going out to the un-baptized and saying, come in and I wanna sponsor you. I'll be your sponsor, come into the RCIA, OCIA. That's what I'm talking about. Is that something that a corporate group is even meant to be doing? Like individuals within a group are meeting friends and are bringing, hopefully talking to them about the faith. I don't know if that should be the core of what they're doing, but I think that we should equip people. What about St. Paul evangelization? Isn't that what they're called? Yeah, they do a nice job. They go out on the street.

Is that what they're called? St. Paul's street evangelization. From what I see, they're doing terrific work. That's their stated, this is what we do. We go out and we do that. And granted, there are different ways of evangelizing. I know you'd say you disagree with me, but I would disagree in that the numbers just aren't there. They're just not there. Coming into the church. They're not there. You can go to a church of 3,500 families and four people come into the church.

Mm. I see. Two read a Scott Hahn book. Two got married in the church, and we call that success. We call it evangelization. We call that reaching the world. I see what you mean. In the Fortune 500 world, you'd be fired quickly. And so I think that there is a deep need to train people on how to open up simple things like, how do you start a conversation? How do you start and maintain a conversation? How do you listen for the pain in someone else's life? How do you look at their eyes and see the person's been crying?

Do I have any permission at all to say, Matt, buddy, you look like you've been crying. Are you all right? Instead of thinking, well, it's none of my business, you know. That's what I'm passionate about, because I don't see as- No, I do see your point now. Yeah. So you could have a group that exists for the sake of evangelization. They've got a very slick looking website, different programs.

All of them are good in their own right. And you want to know, can one of you raise your hand and tell me who you just brought into the church? And maybe they'd say something, but it doesn't seem. Yeah. I mean, pull your audience. Ask how many people came into the church in your parish. They said, well, nine. How many people are in your parish? 3,800 families. Does that sound like a good thing? I mean, I'm happy for the nine. But does that sound like all of the podcasts,

all of the publishing, all of the plane trips, all of the conferences, all of the hotels, all of the going to Rome, all of the pilgrimages? Yeah. Really? Yeah. Well, if, if I sure hope you feel better, you know, of all this activity and we're not seeing, we should be seeing people piling in to the church. We should, I believe that we should see on the Easter Vigil, not three, not four, but 120, 140 people. I might be wrong here,

but I'd be willing to put money on the fact that more traditional parishes are bringing in and evangelizing more people. I think you're right. I do think you're right. I'm speaking broadly, but certainly there are parishes that are known for being on fire, faithful, and they

do have more. Who's the last person you evangelized? Last person I evangelized is a young lady that I'm bringing into the church in about two months from now. And her name is Sydney, and she is a beautiful young lady who has really been searching her life. I'll just leave it there. She's been really, really searching.

And she is a friend, or she's a daughter of a friend of a friend in our lives. And I met her about three, about four years ago, three years ago. One of her relatives brought her to a talk that I was giving. And after I was done, I went over and I said, I said, hi, how are you doing?

And she said, fine, fine. And I said, I'd like to buy you a cup of coffee sometime, talk to you. And she tells me now, she said, and she said yeah sure and I said okay right see ya and it was about a year and a half after that I was just walking around and I said all of a sudden I thought about her so I'm gonna act on it got on the phone called her up said So I'm gonna act on it. Got on the phone, called her up, said, hey, this is Jeff.

Oh, hi. Oh, good. Tell me why I called you. She said, what? I said, tell me why I'm calling you. She said, oh my gosh, we need to talk. We got together and her whole life changed. Her whole, I don't wanna go into it in detail,

but her whole life changed her whole I don't want to go into it in detail, but her whole life changed radically and And I said to her I will meet with you once a month and I will teach you the faith And I will bring you to a priest in a church that you'll come into and you'll have a family But I will take on the responsibility of teaching you the faith and so I meet with her at a coffee shop and I teach about Mary and about scripture and about the sacraments. And, and, uh, and so in about two months she'll be coming to the church. If that answers your question. And I made a, I made a deal with the Lord.

I'm going to bring someone into the church every year. And by when you say bring someone into the church, do you mean kind of walk with them until they're their sponsor. I will invite them to become Catholic. I'll invite them to give their lives to Jesus and I will tell them, I'll walk with you in it. And is the deal with Jesus that you have to walk with them? It's not enough that they heard a great podcast that you did and then you shoot

them an email. That doesn't count. That doesn't count. No, I want to be a part of it. I want to do what I'm trying to teach. If you go out there, you need to bring people into the church. What are you doing, Jeff? I'm doing podcasts. I'm telling people to do it, you know? And I think that if you're going to do it, if you're going to say to do it, well, you should be doing it, you know? So I want to. I do. I want to, and it's joy. It's what I'm called to do. It's what my life's about is telling people about the most important thing in my life

that I would die for, you know? I would. Ask how many people, how many years will you go without telling people? Say that again? How many years will people go with studying the faith and participating in all kinds of things and never invite someone? I agree with you fully. And what I'm about to say isn't meant to diminish this at all.

But I think it's also the case that the way people evangelize today is very different to the way it was 40 years ago because of how the culture has changed, how Christians are viewed, how Christians evangelized in the past, the sort of stereotypical way. Have you met Jesus? And that would turn a lot of people off today, perhaps. Pure to die, would you go to heaven? Yeah, that kind of stuff. Like Jack Chick track, that sort of thing. Yeah. So there's that. I also think it's, it's difficult to kind of start up a conversation with strangers because no one wants to do that. Cause we're

all bearing our phones, you know, and I'm the same. I get on a plane flight. I'm not terribly excited to get into a conversation with this person. I might be by the end of the trip, if we accidentally get into one, but that doesn't seem to be what people want to do, is it? Yeah I think people find it hard to talk to strangers and I think that when they get on an airplane they like to bury themselves and don't want to be bothered by things. I guess what I... And one way of realizing that that's true is that it's usually at the very end of the

trip that everybody becomes talkative to the people around them. Have you noticed that? Right before they get off there. Right, yeah, because that's when they're not committed anymore. That's when they compliment how beautiful your baby is. But they didn't want to say it at the start because the baby might cry and have got this connection with this person. I think you're right. Yeah, because you start with the baby at the beginning of the trip and say, well, what about the other kids? Even the Mormons, you know, don't't I don't think they knock on doors like they

used to. I think they have different methods. A like to knock on someone's door today seems a lot more intrusive, at least to me, than it may have. Well, let me say what let me tell you what I'm not talking about. And then what I am talking about, what I'm not talking about is acting corny. And just looking over someone saying, you go to church, you know, and trying to be, it's just stiff.

What I am talking about is saying, God, if you want me to share the good news of the gospel, the good news with someone, would you bring them into my life and give me a tip that maybe there's a door open? That's all I ask for. I don't walk around all day long just all talking to people all day. But every week I do talk to people every week and I look for the opening.

Something I overheard someone crying at a Starbucks. I will walk over and say, excuse me. Does this happen frequently in Minnesota in the winter? People crying. Depression. It's winter. My dear, go to Florida. Does it happen often?

So you just go up to random strangers. Yes. They look in distress. Yes, I do. And what do you say? I will say to them, if they're crying at Starbucks, I would lean over and say, excuse me. And then you look up and say, I know you're crying.

Something has happened. Can I be of any help? No, it's just, can I pray for you? Yeah, I appreciate that. That might be the end of it. That's beautiful. But they may say, my husband just left.

I'm so sorry. You'd be shocked at how open people are. Wow. They are so open if somebody will listen and somebody cares, you know, and you don't come across like a weirdo. Yeah. But they they they they.

See, in order to do that, you have to be attentive. Yes. You have to be willing to be interrupted. Yep. And that's what our Lord did. A like he was on his way doing things and people would interrupt him and the apostles. And yeah, the apostles usually got frustrated, but he would stop and be with them. Like the woman who touched the hem of his cloak, for example. Yeah. And I think often we're not willing to be interrupted.

I never told you about the lady on the airplane, Sarah. No. It's a good example. I was on a flight from Indianapolis to Minneapolis, and I was sitting in first class. I got bumped up for points, and I was against the window in the front row. The lady comes on, and there's nobody sitting next to me, So I got bumped up for points and I was against the window in the front row. The lady comes on and there's nobody sitting next to me and the lady comes on and says, the flight attendant,

she said, we're going to be waiting another 20 minutes for one more passenger who is now getting off the airplane, the whole airplane. I got my connections. Everyone's complaining, you know? I would have too. It's very frustrating. So if I've got connections, it's gonna really got my connections. Everyone's complaining, you know? I would have too. It's very frustrating. So if I've got connections,

it's gonna really ruin my day. Okay, this message is for you. So, you know, we're waiting and 20 minutes goes by and in comes this young girl about 18, 19 years old, huffing and puffing and the whole airplane starts clapping. They start clapping like kids in kindergarten, someone spilled their lunch, everyone, you know? And so she comes in and guess where she sits?

Next to you. She sits next to the disciple. You hear the difference in that? She sits next to the disciple of Jesus. To be clear, that's you. To be very clear, that's me. The story would be weird if it was, no, no, it was Sharon. Yeah.

And that's it. I make that clarification. She didn't just sit next to another guy. She sat next to a disciple of Jesus. That's what we have to start seeing ourselves. Right. I'm not just a Catholic who reads and goes to conferences and things. I am a disciple on an airplane.

So she sits down and I'm looking over at her, you know, kind of like, I'm reading a Macintosh magazine for computers. And I'm reading about it. And I kind of looked over like... This sounds like a long time ago. Huh? Is this a long time ago? I don't think they call them Macintosh magazine for computers. And I'm reading about it and I kind of looked over. It sounds like a long time ago. Huh? Is this a long time ago? I don't think they call them Macintosh anymore.

No, it's a Mac magazine. Okay. Mac, no, it was still. No. When was this? 12 years ago, something like that. 1232. Really?

Mac magazine? Mac magazine. We're gonna catch you. You go to the airport, they got them there now. They still have them there. Okay. Yeah. All right, so you're reading a magazine.

And I looked over at her kind of like and- Anyway, patina. Patina. I noticed she had patina. And then I, all of a sudden I hear this. I hear this. Yeah. And I looked over and she's sniffling.

She's starting to cry. Can you keep it down? Yeah, you're embarrassing me. And I looked over there, and then all of a sudden she starts sobbing. Aww. She starts sobbing, and I'm like, oh my gosh. And I put the magazine down, and here's the disciple of Jesus, who's been following him for 40 years.

Mmm. 35 years at that point. And I'm looking over there thinking, what do I do? What do I do? I mean, I had a television show, I've written books, I got a podcast. Maybe I'll give her one of those books. What do I do?

What do I do? And she's just crying and the guy across the aisle is looking at me like, did you, and I didn't do anything. I don't even- I swear. I don't even know her, you know? And I literally was at an impasse. What do I do? So my first thought was to do what we were all

think we should do and that is, I'll just sort of silently make a little prayer for her. You know? That's not what she needed. So then I thought, here it goes. And I said, excuse me, excuse me. And she wouldn't look over. I said, excuse me, can I help you? Can I help you? And she just, she had buries her hand, her head in her hand says, no, no. And I said, okay, I did my part. Back with my magazine, you know.

There's my one evangelization. So I went back and read and then she's just sobbing more, and I thought, okay, I can't just sit here. Jesus is inside of me. I'm the body of Christ. Jesus would not just offer up a quick one prayer by road. So I said, excuse me, excuse me, look, excuse me. And she kind of looked over a little bit and I said,

I said, what's your name? And she said, Sarah. I said, Sarah, what's going on? I said, my name is Jeff. I really care. What is happening? I want to help you. And she said, my brother, she said, my parents, she's crying. She said, my parents were on a cruise in Alaska, and I only have one brother, and he's in Seattle, and I just got a call. And she starts crying, he's dead, he's dead.

In a car crash. And I'm like, this is what they applauded about. Oh my gosh. And I said, Sarah, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And then I thought, what do I do? You know, you know, like men, we want to fix it. Yeah. You know, I'm going to fix this thing. And I got a book on suffering. Here's a podcast I advise you to listen to. I'll give you my book for 50% off.

I'll even sign it for you. And then they're like, what do I do? What do I say? And so something rose up inside of me, Matt, something rose up inside of me. And it was like Jesus was saying, let me love her. Let me love her. But on an airplane? Let me love her. So I said, okay, I'm going gonna act like Jesus. Here goes. I reached over and I grabbed her by the wrist and I shook her wrist. I said, Sarah, look at me. And she didn't look. I said, look at me. She had her face covered in her right hand. I said, look at me. And finally she looked over at me. Her hands came down and she was a mess. And she was looking at me in suffering and pain.

And I looked at her and I said, Sarah, I said, are you a Christian? And she said, yes, I'm Catholic. And I said, so am I. I said, look at me. I said, I am your brother in Christ. And I want you to know on this flight, listen, you are not alone. You are not alone. I'm here with you. Jesus is here with you. And I took her hand and I held it and she squeezed my hand really tight. And then I looked forward and I closed my eyes to pray for her. And Matt, within about two minutes, I was sobbing. I was crying. I was

just tears coming out of my face as I was praying for her, and I realized I was picking up someone's cross. I was bearing her cross with her, my sister, who I'd never met before, but here we are on an airplane, and held her hand and after about a half an hour I took my hand away and I started to talk to her a little bit more. We ended up landing. When we landed she flew out of the airplane and then I flew out and I'm standing there and I'm thinking, wow! Wow! There's something about Jesus moving through me on that airplane was so other, holy, whatever

you want to call it. And I was just like, and then all of a sudden a guy taps me on the shoulder and I said, I looked over and it's, you know the guy, he's from California, ex cop, he's a karate guy, Jesse Romero. Jesse Romero? He was on the plane? He was on the airplane. He was on the back.

He comes up and says, bro. And I'm like, yeah. He said, bro. He said, hey man. I said, hey, Jesse, listen, listen. And I told him about Sarah. And all of a sudden Sarah runs back and she looks at me and she wraps her arms around

me and she says, thank you brother. And she takes off and Jesse's like, what's that about? And I told him the story of what had happened. And I'll tell you what, Matt, that day I was changed. I did something I never did before. I took a chance and I took a chance on being a real idiot. Have you evangelized? Tell me a time that you evangelized and it went really bad for you. It looked awkward.

It was very awkward. Very awkward? Because there's got to be a time like that when you touch someone's hand and they're like, please don't touch me. I got one for you. I got to get his name back in my head though. You might wanna look it up. You might wanna look it up Thursday.

The manager of the New York Yankees. You tried to evangelize the manager of the New York Yankees? The manager of the New York Yankees, former player. Oh. Back in the, back in 2000. He'll come up with a name here who who no Aaron Boone that's the current manager back in the 2000s what I go through the history he is big name your audience will know I want okay't. Okay, you won't. He was a cricket manager. But Tina. Anyway.

So okay, so. Shout out names. So here I am, I'm with Relevant Radio on my morning show. I can get anywhere, I can get passes. So I got passes to go into the twins, Minnesota twins. And so having a press pass means in the playoffs, I can go right behind home play for batting practice. Joe Torre. Joe Girardi.

Torre. What? Joe Torre. Oh yeah, 96, 2007. Yeah. Cool. All right. So I got my badge and everything, you know, and Bow Louie Bowie Kuhn, the former former Commissioner of Baseball, is a Catholic. Real strong Catholic, and he and I were friends from Life on the Rock. And he said, you know, Joe Torre has really had a powerful conversion experience in his life, manager of the Yankees.

If you ever get a chance, just tell him I said hi, and you know, you might want to talk to him. So I'm thinking this is gonna be phenomenal so I go back on the playoffs with the twins and the Yankees and I'm standing behind home plate and I'm In Joe Torre standing back there with his arms up on the on the pipes watching the team take batting practice And so I stand up there with my hands like that. Yeah, and then I looked over and I said, hey Joe up there with my hands like that. And then I looked over and I said, hey, Joe. And he looks over at me like, yeah. And I said, friend of Bowie Kuhn's. And he goes, huh.

And I said, I understand you've had quite a conversion to the Lord, I'd love to talk to you about that sometime. He said, would you please leave here and get out? I have a game to coach right now. Do you mind? He looked at someone else like, get this guy out of here. And I'm like, no, but really, I have a radio show. Yo! You know, they're taking me away. That didn't work. That I was… And you were actually removed. Yeah, I was humiliated. Yeah. Right heart, wrong time.

It's like the Bible says, "'As apples of gold and a setting of silver, "'so are the right words in the right circumstances.' Those were the right words in the wrong circumstance. The wrong circumstance is trying to interview the coach of a playoff team right before the game at batting practice. Yes. Wrong time.

I'm sure I have a number of battings, you know, evangelization attempts gone poorly, but one of them was, it's not funny actually, but a friend of mine, yeah. I felt like I had to somehow change the mood and I could have done it slower than that maybe, but. So anyway, Patina. So my, yeah, so my friends, okay, here we go. My friend's grandfather's wife just died and we were going to her funeral.

And I had just come back to the Lord or to the Lord for the first time. So I'm like 17 and I'm full of joy. And we were sitting in the living room and he's quite sad, understandably, and his daughter went up to get a cup of tea and I'm left alone here with this man. I think, I think it was my pride that just thought how beautiful if I could evangelize him. I don't think it came from a, well I think it came from a place of love, but I think it was an immature love.

Sure. And so I kind of, I kind of went up to him while he was crying. I think I put my hand on his knee, just like, are you okay? Like can we pray? That kind of went up to him while he was crying. I think I put my hand on his knee, just like, are you okay? Like, can we pray that kind of thing? And wasn't a big fan of the 17 year old boy putting his hand on his knee. No, cause it was weird, but just cause it's like, who the hell are you? You're 17 years old. You know, nothing. The grandpa that does it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I'm feeling really embarrassed by that. Like I tried and that was stupid. And I shouldn't do that. You ever see him again? Uh, I don't, I may have, but in passing. And the Lord, I guess what I learned from that lesson is if you try and doesn't work, give up and never do it again. You know? Yeah.

If he's watching the show, what would you say to him? He's definitely dead by now. Oh, there's a long time ago. It's not that funny really, is it guys? No, but you know what? Kudos to you for trying, you know? But I do think though, if you are going to think of yourself as an evangelist, then you've

got to have stories of when you screwed up. I do. Yeah, that was, that was humiliating. That was really humiliating for me. And I knew right when the security escorted me off the field. I'm a normal person. I'm a normal person. The Bible timeline.

I worked with Mother Angelica. I knew that my head was over my skis. I was, it was stupid. It was dumb. Tell us a story about Mother Angelica. Yeah. That's what I was about to ask. We all love mother angelica. Mother angelica was a Gen Z before. She saw was the like the time she interrupted the Denver,

oh, youth day with the station to the cross. I loved it. I've seen it probably 20 times. I cry every time. I love her so much. I do too. Tell me about it. Well, kind of frame the stories a little bit. I was invited, I was teaching at Franciscan University. I was teaching scripture and then mother heard my story and wanted me to come on her show where she interview us. She has two shows a week. One is just talking. The other one's interviewing. So I got the call that she wants me to come on the show.

So I came on the show and halfway through the show, she says, she says, honey, she said, we need a show from you. You know, the people need to hear this. And would you, would you pray about doing a show for us, you know, 12 weeks or so?" And I said, sure. Yes. She goes, ah! And then when the show was over, we hit it off so well on the show.

It was like a comedy hour, you know. And we got off, we were walking off the set. She grabs me by the arm and she said, honey, she said, would you pray about moving here and starting your own show? She said, I've had a desire to reach the young adults. How old were you at the time? Roughly? 35. Okay. A lot younger than you at that time, I think.

Significantly. Significantly. Patina. So she said, would you pray about that? And I said, yeah, I would. And so I prayed with Bishop Paul Dudley for a while about it and Father Michael Scanlon. Okay. And- Were you living in, you were living here?

I was living here. Yeah. Steubenville. Yeah. And I decided, yeah, this is what I'm gonna do. And so I gave up my positioning position here. I went down to Alabama and started Life on the Rock. And then about six months after I was there,

I get a call from her. Well, I'll tell you a couple of funny stories, but I get a call from her and she says, I want you to meet me in my office. And I said, OK. So I went down there, and I thought I was in trouble. The mother doesn't just call you down there and say, hey, you having a good day?

And I thought I was in trouble, in trouble. And I said, so she comes in the office, clang, clang, clang, and with all of her braces. And I said, so what are we talking about here today? And she said, well well I'll tell you and then she said you know sometimes I'm not feeling well and sometimes I'm sick and well I just wanted to know if you would you would substitute for me on my show and do the show when I can't make her if I'm not feeling well we'll do it together and you can lead it and I said yeah I'm not feeling well, we'll do it together and you can lead it." And I said, yeah, I'm honored. I mean, yeah, thank you.

That's better than being fired. And I said, I'm curious, why me? I mean, you could ask anybody to do this, but why me? And she said, well, I'll tell you. She said, I know you're thoroughly Catholic, but you sound like a Protestant. And she said, I like that. And that was it, that was the reason. And I like, all right, I'm in.

So for six years, I subbed for her and we did shows together. She didn't feel really good at times. But there was one funny... I gotta look this up. I gotta see what you look like next to her. Yeah, you get the show where she was healed. And then she was healed on her Wednesday night show. A lady from Italy came over and said that the Lord told her to come and pray for Mother. Now, for those that don't know Mother Angelica, she was always walking around in braces, a back brace, leg, arm, everything. And that Wednesday night, this lady wanted to pray with Mother, and Mother said, I'll come into my office. And a lot of people, you know, when you're a host of a show, a lot of people come in, the Lord tells them to

come in and do things, you know. And so they went into the office, the same office that she would talk to me in, and a miracle took place. You've gotten better looking with age. Isn't that something? That's when I did her show. They say that, well, Laura Horne says that. She says, look, it's unfair.

Men as they age, they get better looking. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said. You'd gotten better looking. Thursday, did you hear that? All right, I'm sorry. Okay, so so She was this lady was healing or was praying for and suddenly this light flashed in the office

What and she was healed instantly there? No, I was you know where I was in the bathroom Father no father karate missed the father crappy and I were supposed to get together for dinner that night You know where I was? In the bathroom. Father, no, Father Karapi. Missed the whole thing. Father Karapi and I were supposed to get together for dinner that night. He was down there, he was gonna be on a show. Yeah. And he didn't show up for dinner.

I didn't know where he was. Later that night at nine o'clock, he calls me and says, "'Did you hear?' And I said, "'Hear what?' "'Mother's healed.' I said, "'What do you mean mother's healed?' "'She was healed. "'She got healed.' I said, "'Like spiritually or something?' "'No, physically.' I said, what do you mean Mother's healed? She was healed. She got healed.

I said, like spiritually or something? No, physically. I said, you gotta be kidding. She's not wearing the brace anymore. So the next morning I get a call from Mother and she says, honey, can you come on down and see me? And now this was behind the bars. Normally she wasn't behind the bars,

but she wanted me to come down there with all the sisters there. So I thought, okay, it's really early behind the bars. Normally she wasn't behind the bars, but she wanted me to come down there with all the sisters there. So I thought, okay, it's really early in the morning. So I drive over there, I go down, there I go, she comes into this room and she's standing there with no braces and she twirls. Wow. And I'm like, she goes, what do you think?

And I said, wow. And all the sisters are so happy, you know, she's totally healed. And then she says, she said, wow. And all the sisters are so happy, you know, she's totally healed. And then she says, she said, honey, do you think I could come on your show tonight and tell the world? And I said, mother, you own the place. You can do anything you want.

Of course, I would love to have you. And so that night I opened the show. You always open a show with a tease. That is a little bit of what we're gonna talk about, we'll be back in a moment. And I held up her braces and I said, one of the nuns has been wearing these braces for X amount of years, not any longer.

We'll talk about that next on Life on the Rock. And then lights lit up all over the world, people calling in, calling in, everyone was all excited. And then she shows up on the show and she tells the story of what happened. You're gonna find this video. I'd love to watch it. Yeah, it's on there.

And then in the middle of the show, she says, honey, let's dance. And I'm like, I don't dance. Not on purpose. When I dance, people try to rescue me. I'm not a purpose. I'm not, I'm, when I dance, people try to rescue me. You know, I'm not a dancer. Give him his meds. And she says, let's dance. I'm like, sure.

Okay. And so I'm dancing with mother Angelica. And I don't even know what dance it would be called, but a mess. And we danced and, and that day will, will, will go down in history. as the day that she told the world that she was healed. Did the healing remain? Yes, it remained and we stayed close, you know, and she eventually had a pretty very

serious stroke which turned everything around and I was with her in intensive care on that and I would talk to her and then she'd blink her eyes for like yes and no. And I owe her a lot to be honest with you. You know, I did a podcast. You might've done something like this. In fact- I found the video.

Nice. Did you find the video? We'll have to, yeah. When this goes live, we'll have to insert that in there. Somebody was wearing these bracelets. That's awesome. But you might've done this and it would be an interesting show. If you have me back, let me interview you.

Sure. Because I would ask you, who were the five people that had the biggest influence on your spiritual growth? Beautiful question. Who were they? And how did it change after you met them? What direction did your life take after that? And if they hadn't been in your life,

what would have happened to you? Ah, what a wonderful question. And I had to answer that question on a podcast I did on the Jeff Cavin Show on all podcast networks near you. But I had to ask myself that question. And Mother Angelica, my mother-in-law, Emily, my mother-in-law, the Bishop Dudley, and Mother Angelica had the biggest.

Say the biggest, Mother Angelica, Bishop Dudley. Well, it was my mother-in-law, or Emily first. Then her mother, my mother-in-law, Bishop Dud first, then her mother, my mother-in-law, Bishop Dudley, Mother Angelica, Scott Hahn. Those were the first five that had the biggest impact on my life to where if any one of them had been taken out of that equation, completely different story.

Completely different story. And I owe EWTN, I owe Scott and Kimberly and Father Scanlon, if you ever want to talk about it, the scholarship he gave me here was a pure miracle. But Mother Angelica gave me an opportunity to tell the story of salvation history. And remember, I said during the show, she said, would you do a show for us? That wasn't life on the rock. She wanted me to do a 12, 13 week show. And I, nobody knew me. And so I called Scott and I said, you want to do it with me? Let's do it. Let's go through the Bible together. That's our father's plan. That's the longest running show on the WTN. And so he and I did 13 one hour shows in two and a half days.

And we were completely exhausted. Totally. There's another man who's gotten better looking as he aged. He also looks more Asian than he used to, which is weird. He's tan now. Who? Scott Hahn. Oh yeah.

Isn't that funny? But who are a couple in your life? Well, I'd say my grandma. Cause she was like the first witness of somebody who loved Jesus Christ. The rosary beads and the tattered prayer books next to the murder mystery novels. And she would pick her up, go to Mass.

I knew she was a woman who took her faith seriously, even if I didn't know anything else. So her. My bishop, Eugene Hurley, I was the bishop in the diocese of Port Piri. He went with me to World Youth Day in Rome and I loved him. I found him very inspirational and just masculine and normal. And he was a big influence in my life. Say Jason Everett has been one of the biggest.

Yeah, it's beautiful. It's what's really beautiful is when you meet someone that you've admired and they're even better So he's like that. Yeah, I might put Scott in the top five Yeah I'd have to give it more thought. I mean, there's been so many people Sister Miriam James Of late, you know Yeah, it's an exercise for that that everybody everybody would stand to benefit from. It is.

You know, the Catechism says, one way to praise the Lord is to give thanks to those who have been helpful on your catechetical journey. You know, to look back and to say, thank you. Thank you. That's really good. You know? This is from the Catechism?

Yeah, it talks about ways of praising God. And one way is to thank those who have been a part of your formation. Just to look them up and say, I'm just calling you to tell you thank you. You made a difference in my life. I don't know what you're going through or what you feel like your life has been,

but I can tell you this, there's part of your fingerprint is on everything I'm doing in my life. And in fact, it was just last night, Scott and I were talking. He had dropped me off at the hotel, you know, where I'm staying in town. We're doing some work here at a conference and we were sitting in the car. And I said, you know, I said, I just want to thank you. It's my brother. You know, you made a big difference in my life.

And without you, none of this would have been possible. The great adventure would not be what it is. Bible in a year would not be what it is. And I just want you to know I love you, and I really appreciate you. And sometimes, you know, for men to say that to men, sometimes that's a little uncomfortable, you know? And so I asked him to look the other way.

But, but, but I think that that type of transparency of saying you're a big brother to me and I appreciate, I appreciate you. I really do. And I hope I can be that to somebody else. That's beautiful. Well, maybe that's a nice place to end. This is lovely. Patina. It's been really great having you on the show.

It's always good to be with you. It's nice to get to know people a little better, too. You know, like another example, Craif would be one Peter Craif. I was about to mention him. So I had Peter Craif. What is that you do? Is that like a vape? Oh, it's a mouse. I'm like, you know, vape. Come on. When I had Peter Craif on the show for the first time, I was just like. Intimidated. Just I didn't understand his sense of humor. I didn't want to seem like an idiot, but by the third time I'm like,

okay, I feel comfortable. Yeah. And I feel like that way with you. Yeah. It's been an honor. It's always fun to talk to you. You're a good brother and you're doing good work. And you have, uh, with you, with your dual ministry of pints with Aquinas and then working with people who deal with pornography, you have saved many men's lives and women's lives, and you've saved many marriages. And that's... The Lord uses it. That's...

There's your footprint, your handprint is on a lot of lives and grandchildren. And that's a beautiful thing. Two funny statements that are very insightful about the Lord and his calling on our lives. The first is, I read this on a meme recently, I'm gonna keep repeating it. When the Lord put a calling on your life, he factored in your stupidity.

That's so comforting. The second one is a prayer that I heard a priest say, Lord, use even my bull crap as manure for their growth. Use it all. Well, that's the thing that stumped C.S. Lewis. C.S. Lewis said, God, why are you asking me to do what you could do so perfectly? And it was that I love you,

and I want you to be a part of my work. Yeah. What an honor. Um, we'll put links to your stuff below. Do you have one podcast? I know you're involved in a lot of podcasts, but is there kind of one that you're like, I'm proud of this one. I'm really, yeah, the one that I'm most proud of right now is I'm doing on a hello. Yeah, I'm doing, um, I'm doing a daily reflection. I'll let you mention Hello. We'll do the ads after. Yeah, we'll do the ads after.

Hello, what is that and where could they find a three month subscription? I'm gonna say thank you to Hello, which is the best, not just the best Catholic app on the app store, any app store, it's the best app out of any app that's ever existed, Catholic or otherwise, I think it's finally time to say that. If you want to grow in your prayer life, please check out hello.com slash Matt. If you sign up on their website at hello.com

slash Matt, you can get the entire app for free for 90 days. That's ridiculous. After those 90 days, if you don't agree with me that it's worth the money that you're going to get charged after that monthly, which is a relatively small amount, you can just cancel. You won't be charged a cent. They have sleep stories. They have my Catholic lo-fi on there. They've just added the gospels, a dramatized version of the gospels.

They have daily exegesis on mass readings, which you can listen to. It is fantastic. So if you haven't done it already, hello.com slash Matt, sign up over there. Try it for free for three months. Yeah. I think I really enjoy Hallow and the reflection. I'm doing a daily with Jonathan Rooney and he reads the gospel and I do a reflection.

I know you're on there too in some way, aren't you? I think, yeah, I think, yeah. I read a sleep story once upon a time. I wouldn't recommend listening to it. It'll keep you up at night, it's terrifying. I had night dreams. Hello, welcome to Hollow. Good night guys.

I'm Mark Friar. No, I'm proud of the daily reflection I'm doing and then I have a weekly podcast, Ascension Presents, and I'm happy with that. What's that called? Jeff Cavins Show. Original. Yeah.

I figured that if that was probably the easiest title. Have you listened to Hello? Have you listened to the Daily Reflection? No, I haven't yet. I would invite you to do that. With tremendous gusto. One thing that I have been listening to is they do a, there's this Australian fella who does a daily exegesis on the scripture

pattern. I'm sure it's crap compared to yours. Well, what in the world does, can any good come out of Australia? No, but something can and it is not nothing. So let's see. Does he do the accent thing and everything? Yeah, it's a bit different to mine. Yeah. Yeah, that's true, isn't it? Yeah, it's a bit different to mine. Yeah. Yeah, no, that's true, isn't it? Yeah, nah.

Seriously, I wanna interview you on your own show and I will do it with an Australian accent and you do it with an American accent. Hey there, guys. Hot dog, ketchup. Gah-heim. Oh, that's bad. That was good, you just did.

Why can't I find it? You do it again. Gah-heim, ha-heim. They bite their words. How do you say no?? You do it again. Haim. Haim. They both say no. No. No. No. That's terrible. No. No.

No. Say it. No. No. I won't. All right. Listen to this fellow. So this is your Daily Exegesis. Listen to his accent. Hey everyone. Welcome back to the Daily Gospel Exegesis podcast.

I don't like how he goes up at the end. The Daily Exegesis podcast. Welcome to the Daily Exegesis podcast. I don't like how, I don't like how he goes up at the end. That must be the Exegesis podcast. Welcome to the daily Exegesis podcast. Thank you so much for being here. It's, I don't know if that's a Sydney thing or what, but let's see if he keeps doing it. All day to better understand the gospel reading from today's mess. Okay, down.

So as always, we're going to do a dive into today's text, which is Matthew chapter 13, verses 44 to 52. He goes down. So you're going to hear three parables here, three short… He's really good. I really enjoy it. I don't mean to crap on the guys. I found this one the other day. This one is phenomenal. All right, let's do it.

This one is really good. Listen to this one. Hello and welcome. I'm Jeff Cavavans with today's daily reflection. Today's reading is from the Gospel of John. Green TV Avenue. God wants to be known. Why do you sound like a newscaster? Yeah, it's the generational thing. I'm telling you.

Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. His voice is offensively soothing. The Holy Gospel. Why do I sound like an announcer? You sound like a newscaster. Just the beginning part of it. Then I become soft like a puppy. Welcome to the Gospel of Mary.

I think it's a generational thing. So, stop it now. I'm talking. It's bad enough to have offended someone that you know, but to offend someone or a God and you don't know which one. All right. So it's a generational thing. Hear me out.

Please pause it. And here's how I know. Hey Matt, what's Patina? I was at a Catholic Answers Conference and Trent Horn and I were standing up the back and Tim Staples, who's an excellent presenter, wonderful apologist, was giving a talk. And he was, you know, I'm telling you, that is very different, I think, to how people talk today. Like Trent and I were aware when we get up there and talk, it's more like we're just

talking in a podcast. I think it's a generational thing. I think it's the difference between, you know, how people receive media back in the whenever 80s, 90s, 2000s, and then like just podcast, just chatting. So for me, when I hear people speaking in a theatrical way, I take it as insincerity. Well, I'm not speaking in a theatrical way. Okay. That's beginning. Little bit.

No, listen, listen. The beginning again and tell me it doesn't sound like a newscast. No, no, the beginning. There were around 30,000 shrines and altars to many. I don't want to be getting to get it. Tell me it doesn't sound like a newscast. No, no, the beginning. The game. There were around 30,000 shrines and altars to many. It's very theatrical. Yeah. Yeah, you don't talk like that. I'm not saying you're insincere, but you don't talk like that in this podcast. Keep playing it.

This is my point. My voice was sore that day. Hello.com. So I'm not a philosopher from. Hello.com slash Matt. Epimenides? You say epimenides. The Bible? Yeah, it's very theatrical. That's not a good example. Now he's going to do his advertisement.

Do you write these out and read them? Now he's going to do his advertisement. Dullo.com. Do you write these out and read them? This is different than a podcast. This is a reflection, a biblical reflection that is meant to bring out the meaning and then challenge you to do something. It's different than a podcast. A podcast is much more conversational, but this is a reflection.

And it's I mean, you don't sound the same way on yours. Well, it's a sleep story. What do you mean? Yeah. Hey, we'll play it. You know, what's terrifying is listening to listening, listening to Scott Hahn to a sleep story and then seeing him the next day and blushing because he was laying reading to me. I'll stop saying that. I know. Let's play mine. I'll stop saying that I know I'm not you're not gonna like this It's I hate it so much But I was flattered that my wife sometimes will listen to this if I'm away. I'm terrified

That's not about Scott Hahn though, that's about that was directly. That is not you. Play it again. Okay. Is it really that bad? Yeah, it's really. Hello.com slash Matt. Three month trial. It's great. It's great. Your name is a flowing perfume. Okay. Hold on.

This is about me right now. Time out. Can you point that picture, your hollow avatar at the camera? I don't have an avatar. It looks nothing like you. Hey, I had hair back then. They don't do avatars, they don't do them anymore. You had eyeballs back then. That's how I sound, if I'm reading?

No. If you're reading. But young people today don't listen to me. Maybe it's the way the microphones are picking it up, but it sounds like very stunted. Okay, listen, here we go. We are fearful due to what we must engage in. young people today don't need to be. Maybe it's the way the microphones are picking it up, but it sounds like very stunted. Okay, listen, here we go. We are fearful due to what we must engage in,

this side of heaven. I know that you want your relatives to join you in heaven and I do as well. And I do as well. There are parents in your town and in your state that want their children to be with them in heaven. You're right. It's a different thing. It's like when someone gets up and preaches, they're not getting up to have a conversation. They're getting up to proclaim. You're proclaiming.

Yeah. And you don't talk to your wife the way you talk to me. Uh, that's true. Scott Hahn doesn't get up there in a conference and go on it. about Honda and get out there in a conference and go on it. What did I hesitate? I made a big mistake. I made a big mistake last night in my talk. I said, when Emily and I were dating, we were with each other 24 seven.

And I thought, wait a minute, wait, no, we were not. We were together 18 seven. Cause it came across wrong. Did it? I didn't get it. 24 seven. If they were dating and they were together 24. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm sure yeah Quite innocent you get the Oppenhower moment. What's it called the movie the open church? I'll open hybrid came out months ago now. Yeah All right. Good. Are you what are you doing going home? You do another talk? No. No, I'm done

I'm gonna go home tomorrow and I got a couple of weeks of work. And I go to Philadelphia for some filming and then all of October I will be in Israel in Egypt. All of October. You're kidding. No, Emily's coming with me. How beautiful. Yeah. What's something that you do for relaxation that's unimpressive like don't say something like read the Bible in our. No, well, I do like to walk and I know that's an impressive, but I do like,

I do like to walk. What I like to do. And I don't do this because I'm a big advocate of, of guns or anything. I guess I didn't sound good, but thanks guys. Be sure to subscribe. No, what I do to relax is I like to do target shooting. Just relax. I just like to enjoy it. That's awesome. Yeah, that's why I like to do that and like to walk. And I really like to be with my wife.

I really liked, I like walking with her. She's a good woman. She is. She is. We've been just celebrate her 45th anniversary. Oh, ours will be coming up. I was 17 next month. What's the date?

The 12th of August. The 12th of August. That's my parents. Is it? Yeah. I think. I'm not sure. It might be September. Does anybody know their parents anniversary? I know about when it is, but I couldn't tell you the date. I don't know mine. Do you know your parents phone number? Yeah. Yeah. I don't. I'm not going to say it, but I do know.

I know. I know my parents. Everything's in here now. So I don't. But see my parents have had the same number ever since I was three. Yeah, that's the thing. They've been the same number. I know that. My dad recently had to switch. I don't know his new number. Yeah, I know his old phone number. I know my mom's still.

My mom used to work at a shoe store and she'd head off to work and she'd tell us, if you need me, call me. What's the phone number? You know? And so the way my brother Tom and I remember the number was to come up with an infuriatingly annoying song. And it went, 3-3-12-72. Wait, hold on. 3-3-12-72.

And that was the number. And I remember that. I was like eight. Was that still her number? No, that was a shoe place. So I mean, you can call it if you want, but. Do you know, I think I mentioned to you, you and I are almost you want, but. Do you know, I think I mentioned to you, you and I are,

are almost related in some way. Um, I did my genealogy. I did my genealogy and Nigeria. Where are you from? My genealogy. I didn't say Nigeria. Yeah. But where did he, where does it go back? I go back to Adam. I go back to Adam. Okay. I go all the way back to Adam. Okay.

And that's what you've found out. And that's how we're related. We are related in that way. But we're also related in that I worked with a guy called David Cruz. What a last name. Yes. And he started a company called Oremus, which is a real... I'm into clothing the Word of God with beauty.

And I met him and we really hit it off. It's a really a neat encounter. And I said, I want to do anything I can to help you. I think you've got a great thing going here. And he mentioned that he was married to your sister. And my goddaughter, in a way, is marrying David's brother, Joe. She's Catherine, she's Miss Minnesota. She's been Miss Minnesota twice. She's the only one in the history of the Miss Minnesota pageant to be twice because of COVID.

They asked her to do it again. So I am almost your brother. Almost. Not enough to get into the will, but I am almost. David Cruz, Aramus, if you don't mind, if you remember, put a link to that. It's incredibly good. The Bible browser.

Yeah. Bible. What? O R E M O S E. Or are all, all, all, all, all our cost of fee. Moose is a array Moose. He's going to come up with a maybe a more easy way to, cause when you say or a moose, I spell it like.

Or a moose. Exactly. No, it's not. It's all Ramos. It's all, it's all. Did you tell him maybe come up with a simpler name? I did. Like Catholic Bible covers. It's does that exist.com or moose David Cruz. It's spelled like or moose or moose or news. Anyway,

he's a moose. One word or moose. They're excellent Bible. Hey, look, you're on the website. Who? Me? Yeah. Yeah, I did videos for him. I did videos to help your family. You bastard.

Yeah. Brother. Yeah, yeah. Hey, it's very good. I like, you know, I think that we're probably not on the air anymore, but, um, yeah, I could cut this whenever that's, that's a great, no, no, no. What I was, what it's going to say is that the older you get in ministry and doing things, the more responsibility you have to help guys coming up to give and to help them

because when you were that age, you prayed for a break. You prayed that somebody would help you and notice why not be that person now, you know? Well, if I do that, they'll take a part of the pie. Yeah. And you've got, there's a truth there. And that is that if I give you something, I'll have less. I'm so afraid people aren't going to get our sense of humor. I'm going to say stuff like that dead pan. Why admit it?

Yeah, you and I have kind of the same humor. Kind of. What is the maternity? Oh, okay. Sorry. Maternity of Mary Rosary. I just read maternity Rosary pouch and I was like, what about Rosary pouches? Doesn't work for pregnant women. That's a nice, he's very good. They're all very good. Do you read the Bible every day? I read the Bible readings. You do?

Yeah. So I'll do like the Magnificat with my bride. We'll read the morning. You do have time with her every day? Praying or reading? We pray every day. It's nothing impressive. So you do have, you'd get together.

We'll do like a, sometimes like a five minute thing where we just bless each other. Do you think it's, you think that it's difficult for married couples to get together? I think it's more important and you correct me if you disagree, that the man and the wife have strong prayer lives than that they come together daily and pray with each other. But, um, Bob Schuetz suggested a way that husbands and wives can pray for each other.

It's as simple as thanking the Lord for this person, blessing them, thanking them, and then praying for them some intention. And they do this, the woman does the same for the man, and then finishing with our father. Yeah. I think that's good. Yeah. I think as soon as you try to, I think a big obstacle to prayer is our preconceived idea of how prayer should be.

Exactly. And when it comes to marriage, it's even more like, I should feel like emotional maybe, or this should feel really sincere. Sometimes it doesn't. It's like, thank you for my wife, this beautiful woman. There is pressure and it's pressure to perform. Yeah. It's pressure to perform in that I have to sound serious, but you're doing it to the one person that knows your weaknesses

so bad and you feel like a fake. You feel like, and you almost have to come to that intimacy of, honey, I know that I failed. I know that I'm an idiot at times. My heart really wants to pray. I want to pray with you. Please do that with me. You know, and most women that when I was a pastor before, we asked women the question, what do you want most out of men, your husbands?

And the number one thing every year, the number one thing is I want them to pray with me. Number two, I want them to raise their children in the faith. Those were the two. And so the women are begging their husband to pray with them. And the husband is thinking, maybe I'll be judged or I'm not good enough. I don't know enough.

And so that type of thing you're mentioning is kind of nice, you know, that there's a set, there's some set prayer and blessing. And I'll have to sit sit here with my hands up and wait for you to get done, and then I come up with this 10-minute thing. That's tough. How do you read the Bible every day? I presume you do, so I'm just going to ask how you do it. Every single morning, every morning, like clockwork, I go downstairs and I make tea for my bride, dried, a green tea, and Japanese, and Kyokuro.

Tina sent me some. Yes, did I say, I said I would. I made a note of it. I will. So I make tea for my wife and about five minutes after I make the tea, she comes down like clockwork. She sits down, there's the tea. We take some sips, we don't even talk. We just look out the tea. We take some sips. We don't even talk. We just look out the window.

And then it starts off with small talk of, how you doing? Did you sleep good? Yeah. What you got going today? Well, I got to do this and this and that. And then I get up, I get the Bibles, I bring them over. We look up the Gospel reading, the read two readings of the day. She reads the Old Testament and I read the gospel and we do a little like kind of a small lexio divina on to think about it and share with each other. What do you play the Hello podcast for her? Just hold it up. Let's listen to it. Let us swoon. Yes. Yes. Well, I know that the objection is going to be that sounds great, Jeff, but we have five kids and we're constantly exhausted and the house is a mess. What do we do? Get up earlier. Get up 10 minutes earlier. Yeah. If Jesus asked you to meet with him in the morning,

would you tell him you're not a morning person? You know what's so funny is I am a morning person. My wife isn't. So I'm going to say that to shame her tonight. I'm going to say Jeff told me to shame you in this way. Yeah. If Jesus said, Hey, I want to meet with you at six in the morning and said, I'd like to, but I'm not a morning person. And then he'd say, you are now. Okay. Six such watch. I think, amen. All right. Nobody would tell the Lord I'm a not a morning person.

Would you tell him that to his face? Well, I'll be fair. My wife's also like really sick. Yeah. That's, uh, I guess I gotta be careful with my shame meter. I don't want to bring it all the way up to 11 or just incrementally. Is say the Lord, I'm really not feeling well. You're sick and you think that's a good enough reason. Yeah, I'm not feeling well, Lord, liar. Oh, that's right. You read souls.

But that's good. yeah, get up a little. Here's what I would say to, here's my recommendation to men who want to pray and feel embarrassed. One of the hardest things to do in life, and I know this from being a pastor, and when I take pilgrimages over to the Holy Land, we go to Cana, and I ask the husbands and wives to face each other, and they're gonna renew their vows. And here's these people that have been married five years, 10, 30, 50 years, they turn, they look at each other, and it's so intimate that they can't handle it.

And they look away and they giggle. For sure. And it's like, I'll look at you a little bit, but I can't stay here with you. I cannot stay here. And then they, they say those vows again and to look into each other's eyes and to stay there is one of the most difficult things for a couple, because I'm staring at you with all of my, all my shame of all of my shame to you. I said to you, All the things I said and yelled. Yeah. Yeah, all the immaturity.

I'm so sorry. Yeah, you saw all of it. Yeah. Yeah. That was one of my fears in getting married. When we were dating, she didn't see me all the time, so I could kind of keep it together. But you get married, you start seeing all of it, you know.

You do. And then if she still loves you, that's beautiful. She does, it's terrifying. I don't know why she does, but she does, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So in the morning, we try to keep it real and we don't do our morning devotions like we think people would think we do.

I like that. We just are real. And there are some days it's quite boring and not a lot is said. And then there are some days where we didn't quite end the disagreement the night before, you know? I'm just kidding. I just want people to feel at home.

Yeah, but you never fight with your wife. No, but I, you know, it's a riff raff who are watching probably. Yeah, I need to build examples to enter into. What do ordinary folks struggle with? Yes, we're mortals. So when I get into an argument with her on Thursday night, we're gonna get together on Friday morning, it is different. You come downstairs and

there's a longer period. You make sure her tea is cold? Yeah. I put some ground up hamburger in it. Just down the bottom. Yeah. Oh really? I didn't notice. But we have to come together for prayer because that's the only place God can straighten her out. Drink your beef tea. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, we've been doing it quite a long time now. That's great. And I can't imagine a way of starting the day any different. I really can't.

And, you know, I was thinking about this the other day, Matt, and I got choked up when I started thinking about what if something happened to her? And I woke up and I walked down the stairs. It would crush me. I just, I know I'd live on. I'd become a raging alcoholic. I just retreat into my home and never come out. Never come out. Treat myself to death.

Whatever happened to Mr. Fradd? Oh, he's very fat and very drunk. He used to be in good shape. What happened? He used to be in good shape. What happened? What happened to what he changed his name to gallons with? Yeah, I know it'd be brutal. Bob Schuetz tells a story about when his wife died, he had this habit whenever he would fly to a new city. He'd pull out his phone and call her just a quick five minute chat to say he arrived safely. But this one day he put out his phone to call her and a quick five minute chat to say he arrived safely but this one day he yeah put out his phone to call her and realized oh wow it was

just habit he realized there's no one there anywhere i can't speak to her and you give him and then he said i love what he said he's his wife used to like watching those fixer-upper shows you know it sounds whatever that sounds like you know but he said he forgot he realized how much he missed that like he'd sit down With her and just sort of hold her hand. Just those very simple things that no one's bragging about watching those shows But just those simple things. That's a good thing to think about. Yeah the simple Stuff that you don't even know you what life is made of that's what really life is made of you know your life gets so busy and you know or you're traveling or doing whatever you're doing, and you think

I would rather be at home to do what? It's those little things, you know? It's those little things with my wife. But I don't like to think about that, about not having my routine with her. And she says the same thing. She said, I don't know what I would do if I couldn't meet with you and talk about the Lord and our kids and our grandkids. And it's the anchor of my life. And I'll let you in on one thing. I'm a big believer and you shouldn't tell everybody everything about your marriage or your

life. There's some things that are sacred and there's just you. Nobody deserves to know anything about some things. But I remember one night during COVID, we were meeting up to two hours a morning, two hours a morning of just talking and reading and enjoying each other's company and then getting on with the day. And one night she said to me, she said, before we went to sleep, she said,

"'Honey,' and I said, "'Yeah, I can't wait till morning.'" And I thought, I said, "'I can't wait till morning. And I thought, I said, I can't either. Do you sometimes, I don't know you that well, and so I'm not making an accusation here, but do you have a cringe at how you could have destroyed all of it through you a man, you travel on the road, you're encountering other women, it's so easy to fall into these things that the world champions and celebrates. And if you would have set everything on fire like that, you wouldn't have this beautiful thing right now.

And I think everybody does to some extent that everybody wonders if they can ruin their life. And I think everybody can. And the minute you say that you can't, I think you're in trouble and that you have to, you have to watch yourself. You know, we're only, we're human, we're men. And I think that constantly guarding your life is important. And there was a pastor that once said,

he said, who you are when you're alone is who you are. Who you are when you're alone is who you are. Who you are when you're alone is who you are. Who you are is not when you're in front of a crowd. Sometimes in my mind I really like me, sometimes I'm gross, says both. Yeah. But I get it. But I've never had, I've never had like a problem with on the road, you know, pornography or that type of thing. And I was, I remember talking to Father Groshelle one time and we were doing a conference together, and we checked in, and the next day we were talking, and he checked in, we checked in

separately. And the next day I was talking to him, and I said, Father, I said, you travel a lot. What do you do about the pornography that's on these TVs in the hotel rooms? You're a man on the road. He says, I'll tell you what I do. He said, I go up to the front counter and I'm dressed a little different, you know? And he said, I, I say to them, excuse me, do you have pornography in your rooms? And the lady says, um,

and he says, I work for EWTN. I'm a, I'm a friar. Did you have pornography in your rooms? And she says, I work for EWTN. I'm a friar. Did you have pornography in your rooms? And she says, well, there is pay per view. Yeah. Do me a favor, can you turn it off down here? And she says, yes. Why don't you do that? Turn it off.

And then he looked at me and he said, it's a hell of a lot harder to say, turn it back on. To go back downstairs and turn it back on. Yeah. And I thought, what a great bit of advice for young men. Well, there's a man who knows his weakness and acts accordingly as opposed to I could never. Yeah. Shut up.

Yeah. He just says, if it's in the room, turn it off. Well, yeah. Yeah. Because he's. And even if they couldn't turn it off from down there, you've now made a statement that you're a Catholic priest and someone will have to see what you watched or something. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, we can all destroy our lives.

I remember having an argument with my wife once and I said this the other day over coffee. I said it occurred to me that this isn't unbreakable. That was a terrifying moment in my life. Yeah, it is. To take each other for granted is so important. And one thing I'm learning too now is it's very, your habits are very powerful. Like you've developed a beautiful habit of waking up, making tea, reading your Bible

with your wife. Yeah. And the reason you do that every single morning and it's like clockwork is precisely because you've done it for so long. Um, and we all have things like that, brushing our teeth, going to the same coffee shop or something like that. But we can also fall into negative habits of speech or assuming the worst of our spouse. It just becomes like, this is just what we do. We just, this is now,

how do you, you have to both kind of realize it and repent of it. Yeah. And men get into the habit of attacking their wife or criticizing their wife in sideways ways. Like, you're like your mother. Well, that wasn't a nice comment. I'm certainly sure you're not talking about her virtues. You're just like your father. You know, the older you get, the, you know,

it's that type of thing where, um, it's not fair. That's not fair to say that, you know, uh, to, to each other. And the older I get with my wife, the more I regret some things if I say that I make, no, come on, Jeff, you're, you're more mature than that. And sometimes you say things that are mean spirited or cynical, but they're not object. They can't be pointed at objectively, but she knows what your intention was. And you certainly bloody well knew what your intention was. Yeah.

And so I think when you catch that, apologize for that. It's humble. That's hard to do. Yeah. It's hard to say sorry. You and I were talking one time. I remember sharing with you that there was one time, it was over 20 years ago, the longer the better. I'm a much better man now.

Just a kid. But it really was, about 20 years ago. I don't even remember what it was, I don't know what it was. I wanted to do something, I wanted to buy something or whatever it was, and she was like, no, I don't want that in the house. I don't want that to be a part of our lives. And I'm like, honey, come on, I'm Catholic, you know, or whatever. And she just held her ground.

And I held my ground. I honestly can't remember what it was over. But finally, I broke her. I broke her. And she said, okay, all right. When you say you broke her, you don't just mean changed her mind? I broke her spirit. Okay. I forced her to not be her for my own, you know, whatever it was, I wanted to either buy her experience or whatever it was. And when she said that, something broke in me. And I immediately, I saw her and I said, no, no, no, the pain of her, me changing her was greater than me not getting what I wanted. That was greater. And I said, forget it.

No, this is not worth it. I you stay you. I love you. I am not changing you for my own desires. And that was a breakthrough. You know, like I said, 40 years ago. You heard that song by Nick Cave. You know, Nick Cave is Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

Alright, he's an Aussie. Wait a minute, I want to be relevant and cool. No, he's old. I don't believe in an interventionist God. But I know darling that you do. But if I did, I would kneel down and ask him not to change anything when it came to you, something like that. Yeah, that's beautiful. And if he felt the need to direct you, I would ask that he would direct you into my arms.

It's a glorious song. Well, one counselor once said that there's something like 75% of who your wife is, is who your wife is. And you're not going to change a certain percentage of who she is. It's genes, it's DNA. And that the question is, can you change together the other percent and can you live with what doesn't change? Yeah, it is funny.

Like, did you get to an age where you realized that you're just gonna have to work with what you got? Not to make your wife for now, but I mean like your personality, the things that annoy you about you. Yes. There are certain things that maybe you try hard enough, you start to get better, but there are other things it's like, no, this is just the hardware apparently. Yeah. It's my attitude. It's my response to things that bug me that she doesn't even know. Might say that again? The things that bug me that she's not even aware of. She's not aware of she's bugging me, you know?

And it's bugging me. And I'm better off just saying, I need to take that to the Lord, you know? Instead of having one more thing on the list where she has to conform to my liking. But I'm talking about you specifically, like just like your wife has traits that are unchangeable. You and I have traits. I do too.

Like I am impulsive. I have a lot of ideas and then I don't follow through on most of them and I get bored of them really quickly. And this has been constant. And I think in the beginning, I didn't even see it. Other people saw it. You get really excited about something and then you're over it. Just when you got everybody else excited and they're still excited and you're done.

Even little things like I'd get everybody, let's go watch a movie, come on, yeah. And we do it in 20 minutes and I'm like, I'm going to bed. They're like, what the hell? That's me, you know? Yeah, I do. And one of them is Emily's calls it that look in my eye and that is that when I look to study something or I get into something I am into it. Michael Gormley. I own it. I will be able to lecture you in five days.

And I will. And I will. And you will like it. Tina. But I'm so... I'm laser focused. I developed the entire Bible timeline chart in 48 hours. Yeah. At 25. You told us about that. I remember you telling us about that. And I'm so focused. And she she will say when she sees the look

She'd get out of the way And I and and while it's me, I don't know about you how you feel about yourself But when that's me, I don't particularly like it I wish I could just float from one thing to the next in talk, but I'm out of the discussions I'm in the other room. I am so laser focused. See, I think I think I do think that sometimes our, I don't know, we don't we want to sometimes our desire to change things about ourselves is just a sign of self hatred. Sometimes there are things that ought to be changed. But then there are things that why do you hate? Why are you so embarrassed about that? Let's say, you know, like at the other like hearing your voice in a recording

Well, here's an example the other day my 40th birthday party. We had a bunch of people over There's like seven kegs of beer. There's a ten-piece band people are having a great time But I didn't even know to do the bed the end of the night I was sitting in my chair like reading a book that Scott Hahn gave me on grace. And the band's still playing, but I was, like I had my extroverted time and I'm done now. Like I want to be here. You and I are so much alike.

People can come in, that's fine. I'll chat with them and good night, thank you for coming. And I'm just, you know, but I think 10 years ago, I would have been embarrassed about that part of me that wants to retreat, but now I'm like, it's just, everyone's gonna have to, this is gonna be the quirk that you can talk about. Yeah. I think I was afraid to have quirks. I want them to be just kind of bland. I know me too. I'm quirky.

And my dad told me one time he's my sisters were making fun of me all the time. They're like, what are you into now? What are you studying now? You know, because when I'd study something, I just I became it. You know, because when I'd study something, I just, I became it, you know, that is studying studying the Beatles and looking into the life of the Beatles and, and I, and I I'm fascinated with it and it's Ringo and George and so forth, Paul and John. And I'm like, I got to go to Liverpool. I got to go to Liverpool. I gotta go to Liverpool, I gotta take a tour. I gotta see Strawberry Fields.

And then Emily's, we'll just go there someday. No, I gotta go there. I need to look at this. I need to experience it. I wanna walk down Penny Lane. You know? Penny Lane. I need to listen to the song standing in the middle,

looking at the fire station. And I didn't fly over to do that. I waited sure three days but but I but that's the way it is is I need to immerse myself and she is so unlike that. Yeah. She is so steady so okay with every moment but she probably in a way loves that about you even when you don't love that about you. I hope so. I see that in my kids right like anyone who's had children realizes they are all completely different. There might be some similarities, but the more it's almost like the more you know someone, the more you know two people, the more you know how different they are.

If you know them at a distance, maybe they seem similar, but people are a whole world, you know? And I got kids and I'm like, why don't they seem to do this? Why can't they get, okay, this is is just this is okay. This is their thing I guess and I'm gonna have to work around they weren't they weren't born with like Blank hard drive and for you to write all that code in yeah, there was a lot of code there. Yes I yeah, I think that's most of it. Yeah, and you're discovering it as you get. Yeah as they get older Here's something my son Peter did the other day. It just made me realize how much I love him so much. So I just got mulch put down on the two front sides of my house by the front stoop and I don't,

Peter would jump off the front stoop and land in the dirt. I'm like, I don't do that anymore because this is all nice and neat and clean and just don't jump off of this. Look at me. Don't, I have to say that because he doesn't listen. So then one day I'm looking out of my top window and he's jumping off the bloody thing into the mulch. And I'm so glad I didn't lose my temper. I just, this is what I said, Peter, what are you doing? He was teaching a wounded bird to fly. So he had a bird on the front soup and he was flapping his wings jumping off. I nearly wept. It was so beautiful. But I think sometimes my kids are trying to remind me how to be a human. And I'm just telling them to get the shoes on, hurry up and get in the bloody car. And they're not. And I need to, I'll forget this advice

I'm giving to myself in about 20 minutes, but right now I mean it. You really think I sounded like a newscaster? You do, yeah. Yeah, no, 100%. If it's less offensive, it's more like a Protestant pastor. Like you're preaching. You're not reading to someone. You're... It was definitely a presentation voice. It was not a conversational.

It's not something to be ashamed of. It's just a different way of presenting. It was not a conversational voice. Right. The point, yeah. You've been thinking about that we were talking about quirky okay back to I have quirks Thursday we were talking about quirky that was it that was the boys oh here you go well that's a good I don't know if you have court I

'm sure you do I don't does he have quirks I'm sure he does I just don't think of any well you don't go by your name quirk. I'm sure you do. I don't. Does he have quirks? I'm sure he does. I just don't know. You can't think of any? Well, you don't go by your name. Yeah, that's one. That's a weird quirk. Does anyone know your real name? Yeah. Yeah. Your parents?

It's Wednesday. Wednesday. We don't say it on the show because it makes people upset that they don't know it. He's got a mystery about you. Yes. Do they know what you look like? Yep. Are you like a sub star or are you a co-star? No, I'm just the producer. You have a beautiful, uh,

joyful radiant optimism about you that I pray life doesn't beat out of you. Oh, thanks. Yeah. It's really encouraging. How did you find them? Under a bridge. I was under the Market Street Bridge out here, swimming in the water, playful, joyful optimism. And that was like, you want to you want to learn to work with computers, buddy? Throw away that beach balloon. Come with me. I was the bridge troll for the Market Street Bridge. We had he was working for friends of mine and I was looking for someone.

I knew he did some work with them editing and things like that. And and so, yeah, Dave Matthews, he's way that's his name and he's way cooler than the musician. He lives here. He lives where? Here. My Dave Matthews in town. He's opening up a brewery across the street. Like singer? No. Oh, yeah. That's what I said. This day, Matthews in town. He's opening up a brewery across the street. The singer? No.

Oh. Yeah. That's what I said. This Dave Matthews way cooler than that one. It's like Michael Bolton. Gee, you must love his music. Remember that? Why don't you change your name?

Why should I change my name? He's the one who sucks. Do you remember that movie, Office Space? Oh my gosh, it's funny. Anyway, he said, he's like, I promise if you're not a hundred percent satisfied, I'll give you free beer for life. You'll, yeah, so that's how I found it.

Quirks, I know I have quirks, go on, what's one? You? Yeah. You refuse to type when texting, even when you're not driving or typing would be easier. And you almost never proofread. And so a lot of times I get texts that seem like they don't make sense. But then I immediately just read them out loud

phonetically to figure out what they mean. Do you do that? Do you do voice to text? So it's easier. Oh, I do it all the time. And then when the words get, they mess up, I just think, well, it's their fault. They'll fail after figuring it out.

They'll figure it out. They'll figure it out. They'll know I was doing that, you know? There you go. Yeah, it's their fault. They'll fail after figuring it out. They'll figure it out. They'll know I was doing that, you know. Yeah. It's only words. I hate typing off. My wife. And does your wife do you do you try texting when you drive?

I sometimes try like if I'm at a stop sign, does your stop sign or something? Oh, don't give me the stop sign stuff. I mean, when you're driving. I will sometimes do that, but most usually I'll. Does your wife correct you? Does she not like it? Does she say, stop doing that Uh, she does but she's not as anal as I am by the way Why do we say anal when we just made out because I'm uncomfortable. Yeah comes from the Miss it's it comes so the the stations of light the like love already in stations of life were based on like different things

There's oral anal phallic there's some other ones then there's like asking and literally just a fixation that is such a good edit right there so they're all stations of life freud thought existed and he also thought they um denoted certain aspects of a person's personality that would come out during the anal retentive fixation, somebody becomes very, what we would call anal today. You don't keep that kind of stuff in the show, do you? Yeah, it's all gonna be in there. It's way easier than editing it.

All right, so anal, people say you're so anal. Does anyone say, dude, you are so phallic? Let me say that, do they? I apologize for ruining that. Be careful. Careful. I apologize. He's reading the Bible. I apologize for dragging your reputation through the mud. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not find. He makes me lie down in green.

It's a weird word. Anal retentive. My wife's far less nitpicky than I am. About that type of thing? Oh, I just realized as soon as you said it, I just realized what it... Yeah, okay. My wife is It was right. She just realized why we say anal retentive and I will tell you later because it has to do with the actual physiology My wife does not and she gets on me about that kind of stuff every time my wife is she doesn't she doesn't appreciate me Attempting to answer something on the phone while I'm driving That's fair enough. She cares about you. Yeah. Yeah

Yeah, but for me like if my wife and I sit down to a movie and she has chips or plantains like she knows Our chips fries to you. I cannot handle hearing her crunching on those chips She's the most unattractive human in the world to me at that moment. Yes. People bite chips. There is a disease. There's a disease, a disease about that is actually a disease. I wonder if I had it. What do you mean? Look it up. There's a, there's a disease. It's a psychological disease type of thing. What do you want me to type into Google? No noises of the mouth bother you. Just put that in there.

Everybody. No, no, this is this is ice in front of me. I want to stab them. What do you want me to type into Google? No noises of the mouth bother you just put that in there everybody No, no, this is the shoe ice in front of me. I want to have them I want you to do a chew ice when I was growing up and I would leave the room. It's so rude There's a look it up. There's missifonia Sensitivity syndrome individuals with missifonia often report that they are triggered by oral sounds the noise someone makes when they eat breathe or even chew others adverse other adverse sounds include triggered by oral sounds, the noise someone makes when they eat, breathe or even chew others. Adverse. Other adverse sounds include keyboard or finger tapping or the sound of windshield wipers.

Yeah. Or you get them taking a, you get them like this and like, uh, and you get you about five minutes later, you're going to kill me. Yeah. You know, like, like for example, does this bother you? Yes, of course. it doesn't bother my wife but it bothers you because you might have that normal she's the weird one with a disease i think have you ever you know what asmr is miss yeah have you heard asmr no wait there we're all going to show you what asmr is but i'll be very careful. All right, listen. Do not go on Twitch to find out what you're supposed to think of images you look at. No, no.

No, PSA, nobody go on Twitch looking for ASMR. Okay, buckle up, buckle up, buckle up. All right, so this is a real thing. My assumption is the last 45 minutes is edited. I'm about to play something. Can you tell him what ASMR stands for? ASMR. Well, maybe just give him a quick thing. ASMR is a genre of content on the internet where people make noises to autonomus sensory

meridian response. So the idea is to use sounds to respond certain nervous... It's actually like a science or something. Are you ready? Here we go. Put the camera on him. And you have your headphones on, don't you? Yeah.

No, I don't like that. I hate this person. I hate him. He is an enemy of the church. It's like you think you're alone or. That's the point, dude. That's why people do it. Who is it?

Some weird Asian dude. Oh, stop it, you feral. No, that's like and that this has seven point eight million views, Jeff. We're in the wrong. We're in the wrong kind of social media. I feel absolute revulsion, like I want to physically harm him. Well, it used to be before this, it was things like. Sorry. Oh, that's you dancing.

Let's see. We're going to play this in a clip later. Here it is. Is this worse than the chicken? Dance with the nun. Making jokes because you can't handle the intimacy Anyway ASMR don't look it up. No, I don't I wouldn't want to do that kind of a thing. Oh You know, their life is so strange and so different for every people everyone to think that somebody goes every night and listens to

That kind of stuff is a little bit different but You know people also watch pimple popping videos. I'm going to type that in. Pimple popping video. This is not part of your show. We're just leaving it all in. It'll be fine. Oh my God. I missed it. I figured you were to play it for Jeff. Oh, I want you to watch this with me, Jeff.

I want you to put this on him and we're gonna show him what this looks like Why am I showing him this I shouldn't Scott harm wouldn't do this Which one was that what do do you mean? Which one? We had more than three. We had such a good show. I actually felt like I might vomit when I saw that. I'm sorry that I showed that to you. See, this is why, you know, they always talk about like there should be, there shouldn't

be gatekeepers when it comes to entertainment. Here's an example of why they should be. Because EWTN mother angelic would have never went. This fella is going to show you how to pop a pimple. No, no. And she was right. And that stuff does not interest me. Still feel sick. Like I actually feel like I might vomit. Is it like a set? What is it? Why do people like it? Yeah. Uh, cause it's kind of satisfying.

Same reason like you, I was looking in the mirror if I'm going to pop a pimple. Like if I'm going to pop the pimple I want to see the stuff come out. Yeah. It's just that. It's like you have a good nose blow. If you have a good nose blow you want to see the efforts that go. Oh you open the tissue. Yeah for sure you do.

The fruit of your labor as it were. I'm sorry what? Alright Jeff I want to apologize for the last 20 minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,