Pints With Aquinas - The Catholic Church Today, The 7 Deadly Sins, and Healing Spiritual Wounds (Fr Boniface Hicks)

Episode Date: November 29, 2024

Fr. Boniface Hicks, OSB, is a Benedictine monk and priest known for his spiritual direction, authorship, and media contributions. Serving as the Director of Spiritual Formation at Saint Vincent Seminary and Program Director for WAOB Catholic Radio, his books like "Through the Heart of St. Joseph" and "Spiritual Direction: A Guide for Sharing the Father’s Love" reflect his deep commitment to fostering spiritual growth through teaching and writing. 🍺 Get episodes a week early, 🍺 score a free PWA beer stein, and 🍺 enjoy exclusive streams with me! Become an annual supporter at https://mattfradd.locals.com/support 💵 Show Sponsors: Exodus 90: https://exodus90.com/matt Hallow: https://hallow.com/mattfradd Strive21: https://strive21.com/matt 💻 Social Media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattfradd Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattfradd X: https://www.x.com/@Pints_W_Aquinas TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pintswithaquinas 👕 Store: https://shop.pintswithaquinas.com/  

Bishop Cousins processed the Eucharist up and elevated him on this massive World War I monument. And everybody filled in the park and the whole center of Indianapolis was worshipping Jesus. I was really like, what is happening? I can't believe that this is going on right now. I just blew my mind. right now. I just blew my mind. In the name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit, glory to you, Jesus. We praise you and thank you.

Thank you for this time together. Thank you for all those that you wish to reach through this recording. Help us to have open hearts hearts to be connected with you. Give Matt deep and abiding peace that he can enjoy, that we can enjoy all that you're doing in us, in our friendship, in our time together, and help even Josiah to experience your love and your closeness. And we ask all this through the intercession of our lady. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women

and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Saint Joseph. Pray for us. Name of the Father and of our death. Amen. Saint Joseph. Pray for us. Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Saint John the 23rd.

Pray for us. Pray for us. He said he's never been roasted in a prayer before. Do you want me to retake that? Because that's it now? That's all right. That's good. Thank you so much for coming out.

Great to be with you. Yeah, it's good to be with you too. Cheers. Your little cups to make us feel very big. What's going on? Are you well? I am well. Yeah. Thank God. It's a fruitful time.

It's a fun time. A lot of people don't feel that way. Well, I could give you a different answer if you want. No, I only want bad news. No, I love good news. Let's try that. Can we try for 20 minutes? No more. Just to talk about the great hope we see in the church today. Yeah, I could do that. Go on. Yeah. I, uh, I'm the director of an institute, the Institute for Ministry Formation, and, uh, kind of our, our central theme is accompaniment

and forming, building a culture of accompaniment. And I and a couple of my colleagues went to a parish in the Diocese of Cleveland over the weekend and had a chance to spend a couple of days with over 300 people and teaching them some of the dynamics of interiority, a way of understanding the heart, ways of listening and connecting

and fostering a culture of accompaniment. A lot of people even said at age 60, 70, I wish I had known this 40, 50 years ago and so helpful to understand what's happening in me, what's happening in other people. And all of this sets the stage then for the real encounters with Christ and the gospel. And under the direction of a really wonderful pastor, who you know very well actually, Father Ryan Mann. Love that man. Yeah. So it's great to spend time with him. Great to see what he's doing

with that parish. It's a big parish, a lot of successful people. So just a little taste of good things that are happening. I also work in the seminary and I have a class with deacons, and then I also do spiritual direction and form the spiritual life of seminarians. And I find that the men that God is calling are really good men. I think there's a lot of promise there. There's a lot of zeal, energy. There's a lot of diversity. Just, I think about the deacon class, we have nine guys, diocesan and Benedictine from a

variety of dioceses and a whole range of personalities. And so I just see the Lord calling and a range of men responding to that call in a way I think is really hopeful. So I enjoy the work with them. It's nice, especially over several years, to see these guys kind of come alive and come into their own more and really take on an ecclesial character and think about them representing Christ to people. And the course that I'm teaching them now is looking at various pastoral scenarios

and the kinds of real challenges that come up with either things like in vitro fertilization, with contraception, the questions that people ask, transgender questions and around sacraments and how to handle some of those things pastorally, how to minister to the person, while also certainly upholding the teaching of the Church, looking at different selections of sacred scripture and hard biblical passages that can come up,

and just really helping to form them in ministry. So that's exciting, I think, to think of those men who will, I'm sure, make lots of mistakes, as we all do, but really have good hearts and a dedication to the Lord and I think will be a good leaven in a world that really needs it. You know, add to that, I've been thinking about this lately about how Catholics are crushing it in different spheres of the evangelical world, to use that term loosely, not to apply it merely to Protestants. But we have the number one Bible study app.

I mean, you know, podcast in the world, thanks to Father Mike Schmitz and Ascension Presents. Yeah. What? Yeah. 20 years ago, we're like, I'm Catholic. I don't know the Bible. I'm so sorry. Now people are following the Catholics. Yeah. How about that? We have the number one Christian prayer app in the world that for a time was the number one

App in the world beating tik-tok and YouTube etc. Hello. What? Yeah We have the number one religious network in the world EWTN we have what else do we have? I mean we got a lot a lot of good is happening now It's not a competition. I'm not trying to say like we're beating them The point is it can be very easy to get discouraged because of the scandals and the confusion and whatever else we see in the church. Fine. But could we just take one step back and acknowledge the good work that the Lord is doing through his bride? Well, and I had the privilege of participating in the National Eucharistic Congress. Yeah, please talk about that. Can I be honest? I didn't think it would be good.

Well... And not just because they didn't invite me. I also just thought, okay, this is going to be one of these things. It's going to have a committee of a thousand people and it's going to be committed to death. But everyone I have spoken to said I was dead wrong. You know, I had... I didn't have high expectations. I thought it would be fine. I was grateful to be invited to just, I didn't even know exactly what they were asking me to do. I didn't have a sense of the full context of it.

It turned out to be sort of higher profile than I even realized it was going to be, but I just was happy to participate, happy to be there. But we honestly, our Institute for Ministry Formation had talked about it a year before, is this something that we want to participate in? And we sort of waffled a little bit and then a couple of the staff members like,

no, I think we should be there. I think it's where the church is, what the church is doing. So we had made the decision to go and then they asked me if I would lead the Eucharistic Adoration time one of the nights. But it- Tell us about it. Like how many, for those who have no idea,

how many people were there? Where was it? What was it like? So I think there were, there were over 50,000 registered. And then I think Saturday night was the, was the high point in terms of, I think there were actually 60,000 people in the stadium Saturday night.

That's crazy. Worshipping Christ in the Eucharist. Bregman- Well, yeah, I mean, so many things like that. I mean, 60,000 people, and it was the, I think, you know, a wide range in the church in terms of the kind of typical traditional, liberal, conservative, however you want to spin these categories, you really had a sense of the sort of full-on daily mass pious crowd, the full-on daily mass evangelical crowd, the full-on the Exodus 90 or you know, hallow crowd, Franciscan University and then also other Catholic universities that are not as high profile, people who are clearly like Sunday Catholics, some people that are not as high profile, people who are clearly like Sunday

Catholics, some people who are not yet Catholic, seeing what was happening. You had a full kind of charismatic element and then you had a full sort of traditional element. Anyway, I keep spreading the diversity. But there was such a sense of unity. And it struck me, it ought to be obvious, but the sacrament of unity was actually unifying. In spite of all of the other differences,

we all love Jesus in the Eucharist. And he really was the center of the Eucharistic Congress. To keep it positive, because we could say negative things about, you know, well, like you said, sort of committed to death or people that, you know, spin off. But the center of the National Eucharistic Congress was really the Eucharist. And that came through in a couple of ways. The very opening, it opened Wednesday evening. Bishop Cousins, who was the sort of Episcopal organizer of all of it,

literally started out in Lucas Oil Stadium with the Eucharist. And the very first thing was not MCs, talks, entertainment. The very first thing was Jesus processing in, Bishop Cousins bringing him exposed on the altar. We adore him. And then Bishop Cousins began to speak and said something like, Jesus, we are here for you, and we want to give you the first word. And he who is the organizer, I mean, he had two moments, that moment,

and then also the outdoor procession. He didn't put himself forward, he wasn't the celebrant, homilist, all of these things. Very humble man, and just to put Jesus up front. And then the center, the gathering of the entire Congress was each evening. So Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday were everybody. That's the only event. Throughout the day, there were even several different masses. There was a traditional Latin mass on the schedule every day, as well as a youth mass, a Spanish mass, a Vietnamese mass.

And then they had sort of a Maine-ish mass, and that was even a Syro-Melibar Rite liturgy one of the days. But a little diversity around the mass, the liturgy and then different breakout talks in the afternoon, different tracks, youth, Spanish, church ministry, clergy, those kinds of tracks in the morning. So everybody was spread out across the day, but everybody came together in the evening day, but everybody came together in the evening and the evening was three hours, seven to ten roughly. And there were talks, they had different themes, theme of healing, of evangelization. I remember all the topics.

But an hour of every evening was adoring the Eucharist. And so, and that was a little bit more praise and worship music the first night. It was chant and silence, beautiful chant, male, a small school of male voices leading chant as the as the Eucharist was exposed. The the sight and sound guys, I ended up spending a little time with the guy who is in charge of that production. And he they kind of pulled him out of mothballs. I ended up spending a little time with the guy who was in charge of that production, and they kind of pulled him out of mothballs. He had worked in the church decades ago and had met some resistance around really doing things that could capture people's imagination.

He got disillusioned, went to the evangelicals, worked for them for a while, but really missed his Catholic faith and invested himself there, and then just worked another job. They pulled him out and then he did things like... the Eucharist had its own stage and altar separate from the main stage. So people actually turned their backs to the main stage to focus on the stage and the altar that was reserved for the Eucharist. And was the musicians on the main stage? The musicians were... well during when the Eucharist. And was the musicians on the main stage? The musicians were, well, during, when the Eucharist was exposed, yeah, there was a,

the musicians were next to the main stage, that's right. That's nice. Yeah, so all of the lights went off the main stage and they had like a thousand spotlights focused in on the Eucharist, on that central stage, which was in the midst of people. It was really beautiful. So everything went dark and silent.

I'm sure there was more silence in Lucas Oil Stadium than has ever been there when it was actually filled as much as it was. The focus on the Eucharist. He also turned the screens off. So there were some glimpses because he wanted everybody's attention to be on the actual Eucharist, not on the picture of the Eucharist. Who wanted that? So this is the guy who was the head of production. I shouldn't remember what his name was.

What a beautiful thing to want. Yeah. And it really had the impact. I was up in the stadium the first night, and I was thinking that the screens were actually not working at first. And then I thought, oh, they actually want us to look at the Eucharist himself and not at the picture of him. So the screens were, of course, working in the sense that it was being broadcast on EWTN,

and the cameras were on and everything else. But they didn't want the people in the stadium to look at the screens, but to look at the Eucharist. So little details like that really focused on him. And then the Thursday or Friday, I guess, of the Congress, they had an outdoor procession, which was beautiful. So they shut down all the main streets in Indianapolis, and I imagine it was a parade route or something like that,

but fully shut down. So businesses closed basically for hours in the afternoon so that Jesus could process through the streets. They had a wave of seminarians, a wave of religious orders all in habits, so different sort of colors of religious orders lined up, and then also the vested lay faithful, Knights of Columbus, Knights of Malta,

Knights of the Holy Sepulcher, this kind of thing. And then the bishops in magenta, and then finally a kind of platform with two bishops kneeling, adoring the Eucharist. I had friends who helped to decorate the platform. They actually had candelabras hanging in the platform and everything beautiful, and he was processing down the streets of Indianapolis. That was already beautiful. People were lining the streets and then they fell in behind the procession so that everybody followed

along. And then it ended at this park and this massive World War I monument. And I was so struck, I just hadn't looked forward to anything and so I didn't know what I was to expect. And we came around the corner and then I saw that elevated two stories high was this altar with six candles. And that's where Bishop Cousins processed the Eucharist up and elevated him on this massive World War I monument.

And everybody filled in the park. And the whole center of Indianapolis was worshiping Jesus. I was really like, what is happening? I can't believe that this is going on right now. I just blew my mind. I have a directee actually who works in Indianapolis in a secular company, and he said he had colleagues say, what in the world's going on? What are those people looking at?

What's going on down there downtown? And he says, well, that's Jesus Christ. They're worshiping God in the center of Indianapolis. So the effect that it had on the city was profound, but just beautifully done. And then the evening that I was able to be the Eucharistic part of, they asked me to compose a litany of healing and repentance and just a way of encountering

him and my thought process was, well, the Eucharist is exposed, but that can make Christ feel very far away. If you're in the fourth tier of a stadium, you know, is there a way that I can just help people to encounter him more personally? So I tried to find ways of touching the heart, places that are wounded, places that feel lonely, places that are neglected, places that feel abandoned in us. And just to invite Jesus, come close to me, Jesus, heal my heart with your love. But they wanted it also to be a litany of repentance.

And so I wanted to name some ways that we can fall short in terms of not standing up for those who are being abused, not standing up for those who are weaker, but also ways that we invalidate our own hearts, that we silence the cry of our hearts, that we silence the righteous anger within us in the face of evil. So just named a lot of those things as well.

And I honestly thought, who in the world in a stadium full of 50,000 people has enough felt safety to be vulnerable enough to allow those things to touch the heart. I mean, I knew that I was opening up vulnerable places and I kind of thought, well, I don't know if this is going to be helpful for anyone. But again, the atmosphere there was so powerful. All the lights went off, all the lights on the Eucharist.

And so even though you might be surrounded by people, people told me later that there was a real sense of security in the darkness and the quiet. And then just my voice leading people in prayer, someone emailed us that he was healed from years of depression in the context of that prayer. A number of other people had a real turning point. People told me it was the most powerful encounter they've ever had with the Lord as they were

praying through the litany. It's just amazing to hear what God did through that. And then I had the privilege of processing around the stadium, the floor of the stadium with the Eucharist, which was huge. Literally the host was larger than my head and this monstrance was about 20 pounds. And so I was able to sort of wedge myself in, but carrying it a half an hour around the floor

of the stadium was really a powerful experience. And again, even though I wasn't sort of going up and down the stands or something like that, so many people said, I could really feel Jesus moving towards me. There was something so powerful in that procession. So all of that to say, it was an amazing grace for the church, I think. I think there was a real experience of unity. Everybody I've talked to has said the same thing from a variety of participants. I ended up walking back with a number of bishops each evening because there was a tunnel for the speakers and the bishops

to get back to the hotel. And so I had a chance to talk with a few of them who were really deeply moved and who really participated, even though they were, you know, in some sense the organizers and they could have been more center stage. Really the bishops weren't, they were humble participators guiding their flocks, being with their own people and then just themselves adoring him. And so anyway, yeah, yeah, really beautiful. A big thanks if anyone's watching who participated in organizing this event in any way

Thank you. Thank you for all the effort you put into it. Glory to Jesus Christ, and we're not done yet I mean look Bishop Barron. Look at what word on fire is doing. Look at how they are Cultivating a desire for maybe intellectual Catholicism or cultural Catholicism. I don't mean that in the sense of you're not committed. I mean the culture of Catholicism that we've lost. I was in Australia and a dear woman who I have much history with was dying and I was sitting by her bed and she'd left the church about 10 years ago. And I had no idea that she knew who Bishop Barron was, but she said she listens to his sermons. And at that moment, I wanted to find Bishop Barron and hug him. He would have felt very uncomfortable, but I wouldn't have cared. And then also another reason for hope that I keep talking about is this. I think if you ask most

conservative Catholics, like, what are you worried about? And I'm not saying there's nothing to be worried about, but like, what are the things that you're worried about i think they might say things like i don't know like uh female deacons or liturgical dance or like just crazy masses or i don't know what else would they say disrespect of the holy eucharist or you know not being faithful to what the church teaches on marriage and gender. All right, hold all that for a second. Now consider this. Can you name one successful YouTube channel that promotes any of that stuff? Wow, that's a great point. And by successful, let's like glow with a bath. 50,000 subscribers, that sounds like a successful YouTube channel. I can't think of one. Now I might think of a couple of them like,

oh, I'm not comfortable with some of the things they're saying, but they're not pushing any of that stuff. Even things like alter girls or things like that, if that bothers you, like, I don't know. And then you might say, well, yeah, but that's the demographic is, you know, who's watching YouTube. It's like young men. And if you wanted anyone on your side, wouldn't it be young men? Kind of like when you were talking about this Eucharistic Congress. There's going to be a lot of people who watch this and they're not from America and they might be like, well, that's great for you. Cause I remember growing up in Australia and seeing how Catholics in America were so devoted and they had all these beautiful opportunities.

But it's the same argument. It's like, okay, but if you could have one country crushing it right now, it would be the States because you know, they say when America sneezes, the world gets a cold. Well, if America starts to praise Jesus Christ, the rest of the world will be blessed as well. So there's a lot of reasons for hope. There were Australian clergy who were there preparing for the International Eucharistic Congress, which will be taking place in Australia. And they wanted to learn from this experience. So praise God. Yeah, there's a direct connection American magazine I take it back. Well, but are they promoting anything American magazine? Are they promoting anything explicitly? He's giving me are you stupid look and I don't know how to take that

I'm not gonna speak for America magazine. I don't watch them. I think they're the Jesuit group aren't they they're probably like All right, so there's one I don't know I haven't watched this stuff so I'm not I'm not condemning him but but I think they're the Jesuit group, aren't they? They're probably like, all right. So there's one. I don't know. I haven't watched this stuff, so I'm not I'm not condemning them. But but there's a lot of reasons for hope. And so how is it that we're so despondent? Because I don't think our reasons for being so we've done 20 minutes. So we're done with this.

I think that was 20 minutes. So I don't think we're silly or wrong to be afraid and despondent and anxious. Or maybe we're wrong in the sense of Christ is so much bigger. So in that sense, there's no good reason to ever be these things. But what I mean is that it's not like there aren't legitimate reasons that could cause us to feel this way. Right, right. Well, yeah, I think, you know, our feelings respond to real things that are present. You're right that the bigger picture is that Christ is in control and he is victorious.

But in an immediate way, you know, our immediate reality can be very troubling. And there are plenty of bad things to point out. As sex abuse things still come to the surface, as you said, I mean, some bishops and cardinals promoting some of these whatever. Anyway, I trust that the headline's less and less, too. I think it's a big part of the problem is we get such a small sliver of what's happening very unnuanced a lot of times Anyway, yeah, it's more your world than my world. No, that's okay And I don't want to necessarily stick our head in that toilet bowl. Yeah, but okay. Well, what about this?

I Was talking to mother Natalia the other day and I was saying that often I think we Christians today Downplay the anxieties and stresses of Modern life by saying things like well, you know, it's not like we're being martyred for our faith We've got a really cushy this and that this and that and obviously there's a sense in which that's true But I would like to kind of press back against that and say that you and I, and those who are watching us,

live in a time where the spiritual warfare is horrifically intense. And it's an intensity that even saints a thousand years ago didn't experience. Now they experienced, you correct me me if I'm wrong because I know that that sounds like a bold thing To say right, but I mean they're experiencing their own warfare and what was taking place But my goodness we live in a time without culture. We live in a time without families Satan has sifted us like wheat. We have no roots Satan has sifted us like wheat. We have no roots. We have the stresses of a screen in our pockets 24-7. Like we are undergoing a great deal of stress and warfare and I don't, I think we have to acknowledge

that so that we can then do what we need to do, rebuke, invoke. And then also the next question for you would be, if that's true, how is God providing for his people now? What are some of those provisions that he's providing now that maybe he didn't provide a thousand years ago? Or how is the grace and the gifting different today than maybe it was fifty, hundred years ago? I keep grace and the gifting different today than maybe it was 50, 100 years ago. I keep framing things in this way and I love your thoughts about it too. This is sort of

some of my working theory, but heaven is communion. That's a fact. That's not a proposal. Heaven is God. God is a communion of persons, he is drawing us into a perfect communion of love. So in contradiction to Jean Paul Sartre who said, hell is other people, God actually says heaven is other people, but other people totally purified in love, able to enter into this communion of love. And that's where we really thrive on this earth when we can be in those kinds of communions of persons. So John Paul II said, of course, every individual is made in the image and likeness of God, but we are that even more so when we are in a communion of persons, we are in his image.

So my proposal is that all of these kind of symptoms that we fight about, that are a lot of the political debates, I suppose, and things that we really have to deal with, there's no question about it, but I would see them all as symptoms of this breakdown in communion, in relationships, loving relationships that are like communion in God, Christ-like relationships, which start with the family, of course, and then outward into society, into parishes. All of these places are supposed to be somewhat heaven-like. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. And that will is a communion of love,

a communion of persons. And so the more that there has been rupture and division in friendships, relationships, communion, families, the more that that's pulled apart, then the more crazy the symptoms of that get to be, as we're really experiencing more hell on earth and then we don't thrive, we fall apart, a lot of weird things come out of us and there are all of those struggles. So that's also the way I would set up the whole framework of spiritual warfare. What's dividing? Well, the devil is dividing. Everywhere there's division, there are demons, we could say.

So how do we combat that? We combat that with love, with reconciliation, with repair, with understanding, with accompaniment, of course. Again, that's my theme, I know, but real relationships, relationships that look more like heaven than like hell. And we battle, and so that spiritual warfare is overcoming division, building real communions of love. And so, then, what has God given us to do that?

Some of the things I see in the last, you know, 60 years, one of them is Eucharistic adoration. I think the National Eucharistic Congress, well, it's interesting. I think there was an initial kind of plummet in adoration after the Second Vatican Council that was sort of treated as a devotion, the centrality of the mass kind of pushed that out. And that was more of the sort of pious practices

around the Eucharist got suppressed a bit, but then Eucharistic Adoration chapels began to emerge. And I think we have more Eucharistic Adoration chapels, 24-hour Adoration and parishes, things like that. I think then we've had in the history of the world, I would say there are more hours of Adoration in the last 50 years than maybe in the 2000 years before that. I really think that the massive increase of that, which became a sort of personalized

expression. So, more so going to an adoration chapel, having personal prayer time, making holy hours became a thing. And that emergence has been beautiful and has been marked by vocations. I'm told that when John Paul II went to the Philippines, in Manila, every parish had perpetual adoration. And then even after World Youth Day in 1995, which was the largest gathering in the history of the world,

over five million people came out to see John Paul II, that some of the parishes continued adoration and you could draw the crime map around the parish boundaries. So adoration in those parishes drove crime out. I haven't validated all of those statistics, but anyway, I'm sure there's a lot of truth in that if it's not precisely true.

But this emergence of Eucharistic adoration, I think has been a tremendous blessing. In this country, I think one of the things that happen with the Eucharistic Congress is some of the traditional pious practices of processions, even having a Congress itself. And some of that Eucharistic piety, 40 hours devotion, has started to re-emerge, sort of fanned the flames of that. And some of thatistic piety, 40 hours devotion, has started to reemerge, sort of fanned the flames of that. And some of those, that old piety had a chance to breathe again. But I think that's been an incredible gift for us.

And the Eucharist has drawn people together. There's a way that it forms communities and forms relationships. When you have to arrange enough people to have, what is it, 172 hours in a week, you know, that you have enough people to staff a perpetual adoration chapel, you form a whole community around that. People substitute for each other, they know who's away, they get to know the person before and after them, they find out the people who are in the middle of the night,

there's this sort of natural community building. It overcomes the darkness, it forms a communion of persons. I think spiritual direction has been another response of the Holy Spirit to this need. Spiritual direction as one ecclesial expression of communions of persons. And then I think more broadly, ironically, we've lost sort of basic relationships. So many families broken up, neighborhoods separated, work being much more transient.

We've lost a lot of those basic relationships, but we seem to have gained a lot of relational specialists. Everybody has a therapist, everybody has a coach, everybody has a spiritual director. This sort of thing has emerged out of that vacuum. And I think the specialists, that knowledge is then pouring out into a lot of everyday spaces through... Because when you say that I felt sad, but what you're saying is, but that's the state of things. And so this is some of the ways in which God might be providing for his people, coaches, therapists, etc. I know a lot of amazing Catholic therapists who would helping people a great deal. Yeah, I suppose if every Catholic family was intact and received each other and poured into each other.

Therapy may not be necessary in most cases. However, then it's not that way. And so we need them. And as I say, I think that that therapeutic wisdom has a way of flowing back into families. So people who had the chance to experience what it's really like to be received and loved unconditionally, understood and listened to, then take that into their marriages and parenthood and that starts to build up a generation that's had a little greater sensitivity to the heart of others. Yeah that's beautiful. Yeah I think of the work of Father Bob Schuett, not father, Bob Schuett and that inner work kind of journey that he is spearheading. He's not alone in it, but that would be another thing. The JP2 Healing Center, Jerry Crete, another common friend of ours, and his colleague Peter Malinowski with Souls and Hearts or Transfiguration Counseling.

I think there's a lot of movements in psychology. I have a number of Catholic psychologists, directees who are doing beautiful, beautiful integrations of spirituality and psychology. I think that's another fruit of our time. It's really coming together in some beautiful ways. I want to tell you about Hello, which is the number one downloaded prayer app in the world. It's outstanding. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. some beautiful ways. it. Hello.com slash Matt Fradd. I use it, my family uses it. It's fantastic. There are over 10,000 audio guided prayers, meditations and music, including my lo-fi. Hello has been downloaded over 15 million times in 150 different countries. It helps you pray, helps you meditate,

helps you sleep better. It helps you build a daily routine and a habit of prayer. There's honestly so much excellent stuff on this app that it's difficult to get through it all. I love what you said in the beginning that a lot of these things that maybe we point to and say these things are breaking down our culture, you're saying that these are symptoms that result from an already fragmented society. Because I mean, I remember my my dad used to be in the Navy, and there was one copy of the Lord of the Rings. And he had it at my house when I grew up. And there was a long list of men who were waiting to read it Oh, and I just think and and then he would also talk about the camaraderie on the ship and the kind of being together and and Then you hear similar stories now about once the works over the men are

sifted like What is it grain wheat wheat yeah, and then they are just in their own room watching Netflix. So there's this isolation again. Yeah. And, um, I mean, how I know it's cliche. And so because it's been said a thousand times, it may not hit as hard, but I mean, you know, the, the, you know, a thousand lifetimes of degeneracy, you could plunge yourself into with a few taps. So like the Christian people are under assault and it's an assault that's because of the breakdown of the family, not knowing who we are. I think you even see a desire in this sort of 23 and me

thing, when people try to find about their ancestry, like where did I come from? Like we're just so desperate for tradition and culture, because we feel like we're just floating upon the seas of time, and there's nothing to ground us. And it's very lonely, you know? Yeah. Yeah, very much. And the kinds of things you point to on the cell phone,

the bad aspects of the cell phone that then drive greater isolation. In some sense, you can look at all of the seven deadly sins or the eight capital vices, whatever a list you want to draw from. drive greater isolation. In some sense, you can look at all of the seven deadly sins or the eight capital vices, whatever list you want to draw from. It's really all drawing isolation. Talk about that.

Pride, vanity. Can we go through them? Because you said this to me once and immediately I'm like, ah, you're probably just like trying to shoehorn your idea into this. And then I thought through them and I went, wow, that's exactly right. All right, so.

Yeah, pride is a superiority that distances me from other people. Vanity is really trying to exploit other people to build up myself and become self-referential. Lust. Lust certainly is using others and then ultimately isolating myself. Yeah, anger. Gluttony, wrath, again, dividing using others and then ultimately isolating myself.

Gluttony, wrath, again, dividing and self-absorbed, sloth, so not engaging with others. It's one of the most rewarding and one of the most taxing things we do, right? Engaging with others, but that assidia, I think is, I like that Greek original. Yeah, and certainly envy is trying to destroy others or to take from others in order to have things for myself. Avarice, the same thing, trying to build up my own kingdom,

my own power, having to hoard things for myself. All of these things are self referential and isolating. So this is, you know, in the monastic tradition, St. John Cashin drawing from a vagreous and passing things down ultimately to St. Benedict and into the Benedictine tradition, explaining those eight capital vices, describes them all as demons. And again, I think that that vision of demons, diabolos in Greek, is to divide, to separate, to isolate. And those are our images of hell too, right, is total isolation, such that at the depths

of it, it's frozen in Dante's Inferno, right? And everybody separated from each other. And that's what the demons, the spirits behind these eight capital vices, are always trying to drive that isolation. So I love that in that understanding in the sense that then the remedy is always love. All the things that we do to overcome the division, all of the things that we do to reach out, to connect, to form communion, the things that we do to repair, the things that we do to understand. And I wonder if it's even, you know, I think one of your great qualities is you reach out to such a variety of people,

and then you connect with people. You make a space in which people can be understood and express what's happening, and you take the time to get to know them. And so you bring, why do people watch conversation, hours of conversation, right? There's something happening here that's a kind of connection that people want to be a part of. So all of these things are bringing light into the darkness, are driving out demons by love. I've never heard anyone put it as succinctly as you have. It's really convincing to me. If we begin with that line, like Satan has desired to sift you as wheat. Everybody knew what that meant, you know, to sift as wheat, but to separate. And this idea that the the eight or seven sins lead to separation,

me from the from others. And then God is communion and love is so talk about humility, maybe. Where does humility fit in trying to overcome these things that divide? Where does humility fit in trying to overcome these things that divide? Well, I always start with, first of all, humility being truth. And so it building on the truth of who I am and who you are. And that has a way of removing some of the divisions, especially as I see the fuller truth of who you are in God's image and I as well. And we intended to be a communion of persons. But I also think in terms of the

opposite of pride, the things that would create division, which is the need to push my hold myself over you, my opinions over you, distance you or reduce you in some ways. Humility has a way of opening and welcoming. It creates a space where the person can emerge and we can really see the person as a threat. You're no longer a threat. Your gifts are no longer a threat. I just looked up the seven deadly sins

and if it's okay with you, I think we should go through them because we've got pride and we've already talked about like the counter virtue to that is probably humility and that's so true like I can tell how well I'm doing when I gauge how well I receive like criticism or I see someone doing way better at me at the thing I'm trying to be good at you know if I take it really personally if I just find that I'm taking things personally, that can be anything. Someone cutting me off in traffic or something like that. Oh, that's a, that's a good litmus test that I'm not doing well.

Humility. And I'd love to keep adding in just that, that dimension of love through everything. And I like to think of love as a gift exchange, so a willingness to receive the gift of the other and the willingness to offer the gift of myself. And humility is willing to receive the gift. I don't have everything.

And so I always have something to receive from you. And then to humbly offer what I have something, I always have something to receive from you. And, and then, uh, to humbly offer what I have to you. I think that that communion of love and mutual self-gift comes through humility, overcomes pride, forms communion. Teresa of Avila is so clear about this in her interior castle. I remember reading this on an eight day retreat and I can't remember any of the quotes verbatim, but it was a very, I got, this is the point I got from the book. If you're humble, you'll be saved. If

you're not, you won't be. That really, everything kind of boiled down to humility. It's really the two great Christian virtues, humility and charity. So how does someone tell, because a lot of people experience self-hatred, how do they not fall into the trap of accidentally baptizing that as it were and calling it humility? How do we know if we're doing that? Well, that's why I always like to frame humility as truth.

A lot of times self-hatred is, I think, I guess always self-hatred is an exaggeration, is focusing on, it's reducing myself maybe to some quality that is limited, that's weak, that's broken in some way, as if that defines me. So that never defines me. So humility is a fuller vision of who I am. That's good. Who I am in the eyes of God, that I am,

and nothing more and nothing less. Yeah. And so to really allow ourselves to be seen, I suppose, as we are. All right. Envy is another sin. Resentment towards another person's whatever. Traits, status, abilities. What's the opposite of envy?

Well, I don't say love in a letter say love As I said you can you can really frame all these things in terms of of humility and charity. Yeah, that's okay I think I think the creative I think it's the simplest way It's kind of like pride. We're going to it's dark. I guess there's a thread through all these sins, just like there's a thread of love through all the virtues, isn't there? Yeah, that's right. I hate you.

I can resent you because of what you have. It's like gratitude to others. Yeah, gratitude, gratitude and yeah, reverence, respect. Now wrath is interesting because I'm seeing a lot of people trying to justify anger today. I'm one of those. Yeah, there is a place for anger indeed, but then there's an excess of anger. Yeah. What is anger in a proper sense? It's the energy that God has given us to overcome evil. the energy that God has given us to overcome evil. But the problem is a limited version of reality.

So our emotions always respond to our perceptions. So I perceive you as a threat in a way that maybe you aren't or that's a reduction of who you are. And I get angry and then that anger has a way of reinforcing itself and you become simply a threat. You are simply this one thing you said, you are simply this one way you hurt me. Or you may even trigger something in my own past because you're whatever, a man, or because I'm a priest or something and so that hits something in me that triggers something in the past that is then not seeing you. I'm not actually receiving you in your wholeness as a person. So anger has a way of getting out of control. And then if I double down on it and add to it and then it becomes

vicious. Yeah, I think what I was referring to is online. You'll see people Referencing those more prickly saints like st. Jerome. I see you would call his adversary a dog, you know What did he say a better a dead lion than a living dog like you? Arguing against the ability to pray to the saints or the that possibility But I do see that like, you know, if you want to see just angry snark, there's a lot of snark today. What's snark? There's a lot of snark. Yeah. Go into comment sections. Cynical, sarcastic. It is just rife with it. And I just think I don't think this is how we Christians should be speaking. What's funny too is, I mean, you get an over-representation of snark in comment sections

because the people who are probably serious about their desire to go to holiness just resist and you never know that they resisted or you never know that they didn't comment. They didn't have to put in their two cents. Snark, lot of snark. I had heard, you would know better obviously that introducing the smallest kind of paywall reduces the vast majority of that.

MatFrad.locals.com. MatFrad.locals.com. Yeah, on Locals you have to pay me 10 bucks a month to comment so you can look at a lot of the things that I do in post but if you want to be engaged in the community, you have to pay. And it's wonderful because people don't pay to be jerks. And what I found is that even when people disagree with something I say on locals or somebody else posts they're rarely like rude. They really try to understand and that's something it's almost like social media was intended to create

wrath and snark. It's like a snark generator, like it's meant to generate anger and cynicism because we all know wrath and outrage sells. Get people in conflict, that'll sell. I don't know what it does to our brains that it makes us feel more alive or alert and so we're all just like broken down by the culture. And so if we get angry, it feels like we're a little bit alive or something. But yeah, that's what I'm seeing though. And then what I see is people justifying it.

And me too, Mea culpa, you know, like, yeah, you got to say that, you know, I'm going to say the truth. You know what I mean? Look, people say this like it's a new idea. Love doesn't mean just being like, you know to say that you I'm gonna say the truth, you know, I mean, but people say this like it's a new idea Love doesn't mean just being like, you know, I say nice things like we know that but listen the way you're doing it is wrong Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well Jesus turn a cord into whips. Yeah, and Maybe you're able to do that. But also he was God and You're not yeah

So I think we're gonna be really careful when we start getting angry, really careful. Yeah, the, every passion, the virtue is a perfection of a passion, right? It's the middle between two extremes. And the passion of anger also has a perfection in virtue, which has the, I think, unfortunate translation of meekness, usually. Gentleness with others.

Yeah. And I like meekness and gentleness, but where is the anger in that? I've been thinking, this is a half-baked thought, so if you'll provide me the opportunity, that some of the modern language around boundaries, I think being able to hold our boundaries. When somebody crosses a healthy boundary, then we spontaneously feel that frustration, irritation, anger, and that's a good thing because our anger is the energy that we should have

to hold proper boundaries. So when somebody is- Give us some examples. Well, attacking your show or attacking your family or something like that, we want to hold up proper boundaries. And I guess what I wanna say is that a virtuous way of doing that

is sort of holding healthy boundaries, not getting vengeance. So that would be sort of the over on the one hand or giving up and giving way. That would be the under, but the middle ground, the virtue would be sort of holding a proper standing in myself. And this is the expression of Jesus to turn. If someone strikes your left cheek, that means I'm slapping you. Or is it the other way around?

So sorry, your right cheek. So I'm slapping you at the backhand, that's demeaning you. And so Jesus says, no, then stand your ground. You can hit me like a man. So I'll hold my boundary. You're not going to take away my dignity. You're going to hit me as I deserve to be hit with an open hand or whatever it is. And likewise, being able to enlist someone to carry something for one mile was part of Roman law,

but then to say, now I'm going to carry it of my own free will. So you're not gonna take away my dignity. You're not gonna make me your slave to simply do your bidding. I'm going to freely choose to do this and show you that by exceeding what is necessary. And so this way of holding ground and that's a healthy expression of anger takes energy

to do that. It takes energy to resist the second hit. It takes energy to carry the burden, the second mile. And so anyway, I'd like to hear a little bit more about boundaries only because I've seen that book. I have that book in my mind with the lead pencil, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And I haven't read it, but a lot of people spoke highly of it. Yeah. I mean, you're a spiritual father to many people.

So, I mean, is there a way you could kind of give us another example of how maybe you've experienced people crossing boundaries and why they had to assert themselves? Obviously, without giving anything away. There was that time, Matt, you told me. Yeah I could think, let's see, I should have some ready examples and I don't, but we'll come up with something. I've thought, yeah, more universally. Well, let me start here and that'll be sufficiently distant.

In terms of religious life, we talk about the vow of obedience and what is proper there. And that vow is not a matter of the submission of intellect. So if my, I have to watch myself. If a person's bishop. If a person, thank you. If a person's bishop or religious superior were to tell him, you know, I'm going to whatever, close this parish or I'm going to change this program and you know, that's God's will and you need to like it.

Like, well, no, I don't need to like it. I can respect your authority to take that action, but I don't need to imagine even that it's God's will necessarily. It's God's will to obey the bishop. It's not God's will necessarily what the bishop plans out to close the parish or to open the parish or to tear the building down or build a new building or something like that. And so being able to hold the boundary of, well, no, I'm going to have my own thoughts about this and that's appropriate.

I don't have to think it's a good idea, but I can still do it. It doesn't give me permission to bash the bishop either, but I can have my own mind about this instead of saying, Oh, everything you do is the best thing. Everything you do is right. Well, no, that's, that's not the, so the boundary is being able to stand in the integrity of, of myself in that situation. If I can give an example from my own life, when we started homeschooling our children, um, my parents who are very good people, but had no experience of homeschooling and just thought it was crazy, maybe abusive. Why would you ever do that to your children? They'll end up stupid.

They won't be able to read. They won't be socialized. All right. So all of those things are, okay, fair enough, like understandable concerns given how you think of it. But I, this went on and on and on and on and I got to the point where I said I love you, but you need to stop bringing this up or we're not going to be able to continue to talk about, or to talk. I love you, I appreciate where you come from. I hope I did it well, I may not have, but if I had have done it well, then that would be a good example, right?

About like, you're my parents, I love you, and I respect you, but this is gonna stop right now. That's right. The overreach into the realm of your family, your raising of your children, they can have their opinion, but trying to reach in and micromanage your parenting is crossing a boundary. And in order to make that resistance, as I think you did very well,

we need some energy to hold that. Yeah, it causes anxiety. There's a tendency, you can see the both ends of that. It would be easy to overreact and say, let me tell you about what you know about. How you raised me and I went to school and you did this to me. Right, that can turn into vengeance, which would be an excess of anger. But then just sort of giving in and, oh, you're right. And I just have to do everything you say.

That would be a lack. Yeah, right. Because I know for taking myself out of the picture, for people to do things like that, you're causing anxiety for yourself. Like it's an anxious, it causes anxiety to like write to someone you love and say, you will not do this, I will not stand for this

or over the phone and then having to like wait for their phone call or wait for the, you know, that cause. So it takes courage and momentum. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. All right. That's good. I just, I guess maybe sometime, I mean, this is not, we've, this is obvious, but boundaries can be wrongly used as well. You know, like my mom wants to talk to me on the phone and I said, I don't have time. I have to have boundaries. You can see how someone could use boundaries to justify selfishness, but that's true of every good thing. And just because something can be abused, it doesn't mean there can't be a proper use of it. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Being able to see clearly to establish the right lines around things. I want to tell you about a course that I have created for men to overcome pornography.

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Yeah. So also it would relate to boredom. And that's. And then let me quote Peter Crave. Not boredom in any one activity like chopping wood for 10 hours a day, but boredom like the sky spread out over everything. Nice. Yeah. And particularly, I think Aquinas talks about a sort of unwillingness to engage in spiritual

activities or to advance spiritually. It has something to do with the spiritual life in certain circumstances, perhaps. Yeah, I always think of the description that Cashing gives of the monk who is in his cell, and it's the Noonday Devil because it seems like the sun is hanging in the sky. Every minute seems an hour long. It seems like I've been at this forever, and the only thing I want to do is escape from my cell. I mean, I feel that so much because you said escape from my cell and I thought you were going to say self and I'm like, that's me. This reminds me of Larry, but I'm not in a good place. It drew me. It reminds you of Larry David. He had this joke. He's like, basically wherever I am,

I want to get the hell out of there. Which is funny, but desperately sad. Like no way, I don't wanna be where I am. I don't know exist. Something like that or no? Yeah, yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, an inability to find God in this place. I remember Richard Rohr. I love him. He's a remember Richard raw. I love him.

He's a heretic, but I love him. I remember he had this great line. He said, I was sitting in a traffic light because the light just went red and I was really just frustrated. I want to get through that traffic light. And I said to myself, Richard, if once you're on that other side of the road, you'll be no happier there than you are here. That's great. And that's excellent.

Yeah, that's excellent. Yeah, it's the contrary to the sacrament of the present moment. Thinking that communion lies over there rather than already being present here. Yeah. Yeah, that God is somewhere else. But the reality is that God is in this moment. Yeah. How do you come to see that? How do you come to experience God in this moment? Yeah. Well, there's a grace there, but yeah,

I think, I think practice calling on him. It's a, in some sense it could be the, the whole theme of the monastic life of the rule of Benedict is he sketches out after making that declaration, God is everywhere. He then speaks about that in different elements of the rule. God is there in the guest. God is in the abbot. God is in the youngest. God is in the brother monk. He's in the youngest, God is in the brother monk, he's in the sick,

he's in the work, he's in the podcast host, he's in the dining room, he's in, and coming into contact with him, discovering him really, being aware, growing an awareness of his presence at every moment. And things like the Jesus prayer, being able to have the prayer ongoing, just making little

acts of recollection, developing that habit of God's presence is a beautiful way to discover that. And then those moments, the temptations around Asidya become moments where we're invited to go deeper. I don't know how to find God in this moment is another way that we could say that. And so even instead of trying to beat up that vice of a CDO, if we could just say, well, this is a, something is opening up here for me and I don't know how to find God in this moment. And then if that can turn outward, God, please help me to find you in this moment. I don't know where you are.

The way that I'm used to looking for you, I can't find you right now. And that's the kind of transition that we find in the nights of John of the Cross, that I run into my own limits of what I know how to do well, ways I know how to love God, serve him well, pray well, meditate well, and running into my limits, I can either run for the hills or I can stay in it and allow something new to open up. So the imagery around night is that my primary sense organ isn't working now because it's dark out and I need to learn to navigate by a different sense organ isn't working now because it's dark out. And I need to learn to navigate by a different sense organ.

So no longer by sight, but by faith, no longer by meditation, but contemplation, no longer by my own strengths, but learning to trust and reach out in my weakness, whatever that might be that is the place of growth for me. It reminds me of my bishop growing up, very holy man, Bishop Eugene Hurley. He was addressing the priests

shortly after the sex abuse scandal blew up. And he said, we can be tempted to think that all of this stuff is like an obstacle to the ministry we want to do as priests. But this is the ministry. Like this reconciliation of healing to the ministry we want to do as priests. But this is the ministry. Like this reconciliation, this healing is the ministry. That kind of thing. I don't want that ministry.

I want the other one that I'm good at. That feels good. You marry someone, they get sick, and it's not going to change. I wish I could just get rid of this thing so I could get to the marriage that I want to have. But no, we just, we discover something beautiful. Or your child becomes addicted to drugs or is involved in something evil. Yeah.

I don't want that. So once I need this to get out of the way so that I can then, oh, it's brutal. So brutal. Stand there and not run away. And, and that, you know, coming back to that relational theme, the cancel culture compared to the commitment culture. And just having that commitment to stay in it with someone,

to stay in the ring, and it, you said it, it's brutal. And when we really stay with people, when we suffer their depression with them, when we suffer their addiction with them, when we keep having hopes that get dashed with them, when we suffer the job loss or the rejection or the breakup, when we suffer that with people, it's so hard, but so beautiful. And the communion that forms there, and I would say it's one way to summarize the redemption. I mean, what did Christ do?

He turned suffering into communion. He made it possible for all of our suffering to become communion. He entered into all suffering. What does that mean? All suffering to become like an opportunity for communion. But what does that mean? Well, he does it, whatever the right term is metaphysically existentially by himself entering into all of it.

So the cross is all human suffering. And so it's no longer isolated. He is now in it. Ontological. And so that's a reality. But then he creates a path by which that can become also the case for us. What's the path?

So, well, in him, why do I suffer with people? I suffer with people because Christ has opened this for me. He's made this a meeting place. I'm afraid of agreeing with you too quickly. Sometimes Christians say things and I know they're right. I just don't understand it. So he's made a way, but it wasn't as if people prior to the time of Christ couldn't

suffer with people they loved. Well, the the ultimate transition point is in death. So he is there in the place of death, which yeah, that's a that's a sort of edge case you could say. But, but having brought love into all of these places. Well, I guess I would say there's, there would be a temptation on the other hand to say, well, it's all reducible

to human experiences. Well, it's not just reducible to human experiences either. It's not like now he taught us, so now we're supposed to do it. And if people had known that before, they would have done that before. But now he has done it and we can do it in him. We can also meet him in it. And I think, yeah, well, I guess I would say in some mystical ways too, I think of

Teresa Benedicta of the cross, so Ides Stein going to the Holocaust, going to Auschwitz, and she had a sense of being able to do that with her people. She said, they don't know, her Jewish brothers and sisters, don't know how to offer this. They don't know that Christ is in this. But I can take them in my heart. I'm one with them. And I can unite them with him.

And we can make this offering together, because I'm making it. So I think that's certainly a difference. But because that kind of thing is happening, I think that also empowers us and the Lord as much as possible wants us to participate in that, that redemptive suffering. So being able to enter into the suffering of others, in ways we were just describing, staying close to those who are going through that isolation,

rejection, depression, despair. I have a friend who died recently. And I love him. And he's from Australia. Let's see if I can find it here. He's from Australia. He was my age. He served in the ministries.

He's gone to the seat conferences that you and I have been at. You may have even met him with me and he got cancer and, um, I see him and find it. How do you spell? Oh, yeah. Oh, I don't know if I can find it, but, um, yeah. You know, he had cancer and then they said, I was cancer free. And that always terrifies me now because I've heard of too many people who've been told they're cancer free

only for it to return with a vengeance. And then I just heard while I was living in Austria, he's on hospice, like he's gonna die any day. And I just text, I sent him a video telling him how sorry I am am how much I love him. Things like that. And, uh, he was so beautiful. Like he wrote back and like one of his texts while on hospice was, dude, Jordan Peterson,

I'm so proud of you and all the good you're doing for the kingdom. You know, I said, David, are you scared? You scared to die? He says, honestly, not, no, I'm not. It's like, I was at one point but I'm ready whatever the Lord wants and this sort of this sort of language you know and it's really beautiful I love you I'm praying for you and you know it's hardest seeing my kids try to process it but it all will be well like

this peace in his text and then a few maybe a few days later a week later I text us I love you and how you doing? And his wife texted back, David's past. And I take encouragement in that for this reason. I think we're both way worse and way better than we think we are. And I think that the Lord will give us the grace to suffer like David did. You know, because if I'm sure if you asked David on a good day, when he was feeling healthy, he'd be like, Oh, gosh, I don't know if I could suffer that well.

And here he is doing it. I was in the Middle East several years ago preaching and I met some fellas and ladies from Saudi Arabia. And what struck me was how similar they are to me in their sense of humor in the you know The the books they read and the movies they watch like they were the same Hmm, but they you know, they get bored in adoration like I do and they also try to love Christ better than they're currently doing And they're just like us. It's just they're put in an extraordinary situation And so you get to see more beautiful things happen or something. And I just thought like the Lord is so good.

And right now, if you told me you're going to die of cancer like next week, and I would be so afraid of terrified, I'd be so scared. But I think that if I actually was dying of cancer, that the Lord would provide and I wouldn't be afraid. I, you can decide. Yeah. I want to push on that a little bit. You't be afraid. You can disagree. Yeah, I want to push on that a little bit. You're like, you would be afraid, man. Well, no, not for you.

I know you. You would be. Well, but I think I would like to say a little bit more broadly that the Lord would make it beautiful in the way that we need. And so did Therese suffer that well? At times she did and at times she didn't. I mean, on her deathbed, she spoke with great confidence in the Lord. And also had the experience that there was.

The deepest, darkest plagues of atheism. Yeah. And so that there's meaning, that he brings meaning into every circumstance. And for some, and I guess I say that in part because if somebody is not suffering well, is that a sign that they're doing something wrong? Or is that a sign that there's something wrong with them? Is there sin involved in that? Not necessarily, but it still can be a path to communion. And I think that we can be drawn into someone like David is easy to be with. Somebody else who is really in a dark place. That may be an occasion of communion for someone else to really enter into that dark place and to have the support of someone else who is there and can help them to endure that. And it's, it's worth it because every person is worth it.

And so we can make the sacrifice. We can enter into a place like that with them, discover what it's like to be inside of that. Yeah. Be befriending and continuing to visit someone who's depressed is a very difficult thing and it's a very beautiful thing. Both. Yeah.

Yeah. If you keep showing up when someone is the opposite of enjoyable to be around and you don't need to be with them, that's love, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. And I think we have, as you said, there are noble pagans who have done some of these things, but Christians who care for the sick, who provide for the elderly, who... Well, look, there's no atheist lepacolumnes. That old saying.

Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Which isn't to say that atheists can't have natural kindness towards others or anything like that, but it is interesting that you have people like Mother Teresa yeah what are you doing you're picking up these people off the pavement they're about to die and all you're doing is helping them die with dignity why would you do that you think you could use all that money and all that time and all that energy to building people up who aren't about to die yeah that make any sense? Except it does. Yeah. Yeah, that's right.

And people tried to co-opt her for all of those things. Yeah. But she was focused. The poorest of the poor. Jesus said the poorest of the poor. But I say that too, you know, about having the grace to endure something difficult. So on the one hand, I would also want to affirm what you said. Sometimes we can say, well, I must not have faith because I couldn't suffer as well as David.

Well, you don't know what grace you would have if you were in his circumstance. And I think that's kind of the point that you're making. God can give you that grace and he can make it possible. But again, his goal is always, I think I keep trying to move this towards the dimension of communion and relationships. There's always a tendency to, how can I do things the best for me?

And I'd rather be David than somebody else. I'd rather have this grace to do things well, but God is always forming us into relationships. So it may be better relationally for me to have more or less of that. And how beautiful, you know, it's just a perfect example. David had that grace and what did he, he blessed you with that. I got to find his text. And it felt that much more moving to you,

affirming to you that from hospice, he's watching you and telling you what a great job you're doing. And that's amazing. But for somebody else, some people would like to be able to suffer well so that they're not a burden for other people when in fact they're not a burden for other people. It can be a real blessing to be with somebody.

Or sometimes it's hard, but it's actually the best thing for me, even though it's hard that I keep showing up for somebody, that I keep extending myself. That may be an expansion, a purification of my own heart that I need. And so somebody who feels like, well, I'm just a burden for you.

Well, no, you're actually giving me a chance to love in ways that I want to love, but I can't really learn it unless I have a way to express that. I don't want to say his last name out of respect for his wife, but, but if she's watching or anyone who knows him, can I just read a couple of these texts? Yeah. I wouldn't do it unless they were beautiful. Yeah. I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't do it unless they were beautiful. Yeah, I wouldn't you know,

I wouldn't do it if I didn't think that his wife would be fine with me reading beautiful things But I mean these are just from different dates throughout the years. Hey Matt I saw the oncologist yesterday and to the best of their ability they tell me I'm cancer-free God is so good. Just thought I'd share the good news with you And then here is, yeah. How beautiful that he can celebrate that. And there's a sort of cynical approach that would say, well, you know, he should have known, he should have said, oh, well, you know, the worst is yet to come or something like that. How beautiful that he could just

enter into that moment when he was cancer free. Yeah. Let's see here. And then I sent him a video. It's about a year and a half later, just because I heard about it. He said, thanks, Matt. I appreciate our friendship and the fun times that our paths crossed. I continue to lift up you, Cameron, the kids and your apostolate. Thank you for being a courageous witness, inviting everyone to renewed openness,

to encounter Christ and his church. May God bless you and sustain you. But he's just he's also just texting me normal things like I pray all as well with you and the family. How's the European vacation going? Like, why are you doing this? I said, how long have you got? You know, that kind of stuff. Thank you. He says, honestly, I think I have shocked

my nursing staff with how I'm still even able to get up and do all that I've been doing It's not really something they can't definitive measure. However, their initial thought where I'd have a week top So to be three weeks in Showing only exterior physical signs. I'm really happy because I feel good and don't think I'm gonna go soon I'm sticking around as long as he wants me to I think I'm going to go soon. I'm sticking around as long as he wants me to. Permit me to read a couple more.

Yeah, beautiful. I just woke up, so I'm good to respond. The kids are doing OK. My eldest two are still masking how they feel a bit, but we've each been having some intentional and individual special time together each day. So I've been able to share with each of them at their level. Updates, but also just expressing how much I love them and will always be there for them beautiful

His wife is an absolute trooper and has been a great wife and nurse. We've probably She's probably had it the hardest or we've probably had it the hardest Well, we're leaning on the Lord and each other. It's been beautiful. And I said, are you afraid of death, David? Surprisingly, no, but in reality, I've had four years to discern this. I told him I love him. He says, love you too. Thanks for your prayer. And it's true. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me your servant And they're just a random one. Jordan Peterson Congrats on snagging that chat. You're brilliant work brother praise God from whom all blessings flow

And I write how are you brother and then this is the last text hey Matt. This is his wife I saw your text on Dave's phone and want to let you know that he passed away on May such-and-such yeah Yeah, come on. That's as real as it gets. There's nothing real. What do you want? What do you want? That's it. That's it. That's it. That Jordan Peterson text was just before. Yeah, you were here. Yeah. Just before he died. Yeah. Just before. So you must have seen it. And then that was enough. Such a bad interview.

That was enough. Such a bad interview. Yeah, but that's it. That's everything. Everything. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was a beautiful interview

with Jordan Peterson. Yeah, it was fun. Thanks. And I love the way that he shared that shared the journey. Listen to John Eldridge recently and he said something he's coming on soon. You're gonna have to come back for that you love John Eldridge right i do yeah i love John Eldridge i think men in their late teens and early 20s loved John Eldridge and then again in their late 30s and early 40s and on he's just the best um so not Josiah is that what that. I just jumped over. The one thing he's he's said and you know, like everything, I'm sure you can give pushback,

but try to draw some truth out of this that healing is not the same thing as holiness. Say that and I hear all the Eastern objections coming my way about God's healing our nature but you know like we all have idiosyncrasies and poor ways we respond and temptations that we've had since we were nine and yeah realizing maybe that evil including our own evil and temptation to evil is a mystery that we cannot fathom that may be there for our good and that What do you think that basic idea that that healing is not the same thing as growth and sanctity?

Because I guess what I'm saying is I think there's a lot of people who are getting a lot out of therapy today another thing he says is understanding and explaining something is not the same thing as being healed of it. Like we're going to have spiritual direction after this. I'm really good, I think at telling you like what I'm experiencing. And I think I could articulate it better than a lot of people could. But I got no idea. I'm not healed of it. I don't know what to do now. I thought if I understood it and its roots, I'd be great, but I'm not. So like I still am desperately in need of healing.

So make something out of that. Here's some recipes. Do something. Here's some ingredients. I mean, make something. I'm just going to do the same judo move I've been doing the whole time. Well holiness in Christianity Christianity we understand is the perfection of love and our limitations and brokenness don't need to become a barrier to love

so they can be brought into communion and we can experience already and even love as fully as possible. So within the context of our own limitations. And so I think holiness, one can be holy and also limited. You know, the extreme examples are the opium addict, St. Mark Tianxiang. Tell us about him if you can. I've had Jason Everett, I mean, talk about him. Oh, is that right? It's incredibly helpful for people. Yeah, right. He's a, he's one of the,

canonizes one of the Chinese martyrs, but he was a medical doctor who got hooked on opium as a painkiller after surgery and couldn't break the addiction. And this is around 1900 in China and his parish priest said, I won't keep absolving you until you stop using opium It's a sign of your lack of repentance that you keep falling into this addiction And so he got cut off from the sacraments But but he grew in holiness

He loved the Lord and it wasn't apparently a matter of his will it really was Whatever physical and so he had a limited culpability He loved the Lord and it wasn't apparently a matter of his will. It really was whatever physical. And so he had a limited culpability in any event when he was arrested. He had the grace of martyrdom and not only that still in charity, he actually longed for martyrdom because he loved the Lord genuinely so much. And he had continued going to mass. He never cut himself off, but he was essentially Excommunicated by his his inability to overcome the the opium addiction And the behavior of that parish priest in the face of that

So he was arrested and and they even had the grace He didn't want any of his relatives to die alone So he allowed them each one and he was sort of accompanying them. And then he was the final one to be put to death and the churches canonized him. So he never got over the opium addiction. That's the point that I want to make, but clearly was holy enough to be martyred. And so, so healing will be in some way perfected in eternity. We won't be addicted to things in eternity,

but we never become self-sufficient. Just as the father never becomes the son and the son never becomes the father and neither of them become the Holy Spirit, there's always an openness to communion. We don't become sort of self-enclosed monads or something like that. And so if we can look at sometimes the deficiencies that

are caused by woundedness, brokenness, become part of that opening to communion with another, that I need help with something because I'm hurt, broken, wounded, because my nervous system is conditioned to respond in ways that are not helpful in certain situations. And so I really need the support of another to co-regulate my emotions, my nervous system, to support me in some activity. But anyway, that limitation, we never sort of get over limitation because it always becomes

the opening to communion, even that sort of basic limitation for all eternity, you and I will not be women. And that's a kind of limitation. There's a way of living humanity that is not accessible to us unless women would share that with us. And that becomes an opening to communion, a mutual self gift. I will always have something to offer the male experience. A woman will always have something to offer me in her feminine experience. So that beautiful communion of difference that continues to be part of the perfection of love

continues. I'm pretty sure I brought this up last time you were on. I'm going to do it again. Father Mark Foley's idea that sometimes working on ourself can be an insidious form of self-hatred Because we think we have to kind of perfect ourselves before we're acceptable to God And he says one thing I tell my spiritual directees never to do is to try to sort of fix Everything about their life, but rather to pray for the grace, to choose God each moment. Yeah. That is great advice. Bring it all into communion. Yeah. Into communion with God in prayer, not just even sort of praying it away, but extending it to Him. You know, praying like a pirate, we talk about this. I don't even know, I tried to track down

who made up this acronym. Maybe they'll write in, it wasn't me, but the acronym is A-R-R-R. So R being the prayer. But the first part is to acknowledge what am I experiencing? What's going on in me? That's the A and then the first R is to relate whatever it is related to God.

And we make so much. What does that mean? I mean, I think I'd know, but could you give us an example? Like if I'm feeling anxious, how do I relate that to God? Tell him. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Open it up to him. Lord, I'm really anxious. I need help. Can you hold me? Can you provide for me? What am I anxious about? Can you give to me? Can you walk with me? I'm angry and can you help me to see what am I missing? How am I being hurt? Can you help me to overcome this problem and opening that to him or simply showing him,

inviting him into it, sometimes seeing his anger in the midst of it or maybe just the thoughts that I'm having. Maybe my mind is racing. Maybe I'm trying to solve a problem, maybe I'm... Whatever's happening in me right now, relate it to Him. Share it with Him, show it to Him, invite Him into it. And then the second R is to receive.

What does He give me? So actually give Him enough space. This is a whole other conversation, speaking of Jordan Peterson and some of the comments or interactions about prayer there. But it is amazing. We just give space and a thought comes. Where did that thought come from? And as I'm relating this to God, and that's

where I would nuance my understanding of what Jordan Peterson talks about in terms of thought being secularized prayer. Prayer has a person. It's a relationship. And the fact that I'm envisioning a father, a son, that I'm envisioning the God who has revealed himself to me in Jesus Christ, that I'm envisioning

the eternal love of the Holy Spirit moving in me and through me, makes a difference in what kinds of thoughts can come and how I relate these things and what I receive. So acknowledge, relate, and then be open to what God wants to provide. Maybe it's a peace. Maybe it's some felt consolation. Maybe it's a thought. So it's some felt consolation, maybe it's a thought, um, you know, so to give some space for

that. And then the final is to respond to that. Okay. Whatever God provided. And I received, relate, receive, respond and respond maybe with Thanksgiving or with a decision to act in a certain way or not, or it could continue in interaction. Maybe the Lord gives me a light and I say, well, how can I do that? I need help with that. Or yes, I will do that.

Or yeah. So any of those sorts of movements. That's right. Men, do you feel stuck in old idols or burdened by the pharaohs of our time? Do you know that you're capable of so much more than you're giving today? Exodus 90 is the number one freedom app to help you become the man you were created to be. Exodus 90 is a powerful 90-day journey to freedom in Jesus Christ and it starts on January

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to learn more about Exodus 90. That's exodus90.com slash Matt to join tens of thousands of men from all around the world for Exodus 90, starting Monday, January 20th, and leading up to Easter Sunday. What else you been thinking about lately? Maybe stuff that doesn't have anything to do with the spiritual life.

Everything has everything to do with the spiritual life. What are some things that aren't maybe explicitly through the spiritual life? I know you like to read up on all sorts of issues. What are you passionate about right now? I've been I've been I've been working a bit through this book called The Heart of Trauma. And one of the takeaways is this same takeaway, the importance of relationships and that understanding of trauma as not so much about the intensity or the significance of the pain as it is about being alone in the pain.

That when we are able to share that and what neuroscience has shown is that there's a sort of measurable reality to this that when we are with someone in it, the effects that it has on our emotional co-regulation, on our nervous system, on mirror neurons, and a lot of interesting scientifically validated realities. Just how we are really made for each other. We're made for relationships. Well, isn't one of the worst forms of punishment in a prison maybe solitary confinement?

Well, that's right. Yeah. That's a good example. So, so actually what you said about, you know, you're good at understanding your own experience and expressing it. And that actually does a lot to be able to share it with someone who can receive it when we can be in it together. This is Aquinas's like third or fourth remedy for sorrow the sympathy of friends and the example he says is a burden is easy to carry when shared he also has this beautiful line i'm not sure if you've read it recently but he says um when i see the concern for someone of someone for me i feel loved loved by them. It's so beautiful.

I just love him so much. The straight talk, it's like what your grandma would say or your mother, you know, share your burden with somebody, you know? Yeah, that's exactly right. Yeah. My novice master, Father Sebastian was marvelous. It was a great, he's a philosophy professor.

He's a great philosopher, but he said he didn't make this up, but I remember hearing it first from him, you know, a sorrow shared is half the sorrow, a joy shared is twice the joy. So true. How many times have you like had to share something with someone because it pleased you, because it made you laugh, because you found it beautiful.

Like, oh, I need to show such and such that. Why? Yeah. You're not just doing it for their benefit. Like you may even be doing it primarily for yours. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah.

I also have been reading a book about the founder of my monastery, Boniface Wimmer, who- Is this the guy with the killer beard? You have a killer beard, but this guy had particular, right or not? He did, you have a good memory, yeah. What did it look like again? Was it like,

Yeah, she was German. Yeah, it was not totally unlike mine, although a little bit more on the sides here and a little bit more girth, you might say, and he was certainly a larger character than I am, but you're right. When he was blessed as Abbot by Pius IX, Pius IX hailed him for his magnificent beard. He said, long live Boniface Wimmer

and his magnificent beard. That's great. Yeah, but I really have been getting in touch with his courage and vision. John Tracy Ellis, who's a great American church historian, said he is the most significant figure in American church history in the 19th century. Wow. Yeah. It's a pretty strong superlative.

But his vision was to form priests for America. And he was especially attentive to German-speaking Catholics in America when he sort of felt the burden of establishing this mission. He had been ordained a diocesan priest in Germany in the 1820s when there was no religious life. That's its own fascinating chapter in history. From 1800 to 1830, in many of the countries in Europe, the vast majority of religious life was shut down.

If you want to destroy a culture, eliminate religious life. The number of religious houses was reduced from 10,000 to 300 in the course of several years, sort of an overflow of the Napoleonic revolution and then trailed through different countries in Europe. And buying into this enlightenment mentality, even when religious life was opened, all of the strictly contemplative orders. So like the Carthusian monastery you stayed in in Gaming, that was a victim of this suppression of religious life because Carthusians don't do anything useful. So even when things were reopened, only on the condition they would

do something useful, like have a school or works of mercy. But strictly contemplative orders were really practically wiped out. In any event, he was ordained a diocesan priest in the 1820s, close to the birthplace of Pope Benedict several decades later, and near the shrine of Alt-Öting, which is a shrine of Marian apparition in Germany in Bavaria. There have been lots of miracles over the centuries. And again, Pope Benedict speaks about that from his memories of his childhood. But Boniface Wimmer then entered the monastery. There were Benedictine monasteries reopened in 1830, 1832. And he spent some time in formation as a Benedictine and lived our Benedictine life but always had this heart for the missions, for apostolic work, and then came to America

in 1846 with a vision to form a place that would form priests for the German-speaking Catholics. And then the story brought 18 young men over, four of whom wanted to study to be priests, the other 14 as lay brothers with trades who would be able to run the farm and build the houses and care for the animals and all of the various trades work that's necessary when you have to sustain a community. But the four men who wanted to be clerics were getting cold feet, getting ready to come over and they said, well, maybe we could get our formation here and then we could join

you. We could be formed as monks here. And Boniface Wimmer wrote this bold letter saying, I can't promise you success. I certainly won't promise you riches. I won't promise you fame or honors. I only show you the cross. If you want to take up this mission, this is a way that you can give your life for Christ and may he use it for his good purposes. But if that's not your purpose, it would be better if you stayed behind.

Wow. Bold. Yeah. And for his good purposes. But if that's not your purpose, it would be better if you stayed behind. Wow. Bold. Yeah. And they came. Yeah, that's what men want. Yeah. And established this mission. He started with 18, and then within six years,

he had 77 brothers and 16 clerics, seminarians, and 16 priests. And as men continued to come over from Germany and then were being formed in America and immediately started pushing out, made his first foundation in Minnesota. And within his 40 years as abbot, made 10 monastic foundations, founded 130 parishes across the country. Just a tremendous vision. Hundreds of monks that were formed at St. Vincent and also in the various daughter or granddaughter houses. Just a remarkable person. Now it's the largest Benedictine monastery in the world, right? We are at St. Vincent. Yeah, that's right.

Not that anyone's counting. Would you mind if I took some questions from our local supporters? We got a bunch. Some of these you may have spoken about, but think of this as the lightning round. You don't have to give thorough answers if you don't wish to. Hey, everyone watching, thank you so much. If you want to become an annual supporter over at matfrad.locals.com you get to ask my guests questions, you'll get these episodes one week

before they air on YouTube. We'll give you a free pints with Aquinas Bierstein, you just have to pay for shipping, exclusive streams from myself, spiritual direction videos from Father Pine, we have a lot there. We really try to make it worth your money and it supports all the work that we do. So please consider matfrad.locals.com. All right, let's see here. Oh, wow. Here we go. N.M. says, any thoughts on false motives while discerning religious life, such as avoidance of challenges of marriage and fatherhood due to fear of incompetence. How do we purify our motives? Beautiful question, huh? Yeah, I got it. Just let me say something here. I really was so afraid of Marriage I really thought in every aspect. I would fail. I'd be a Terrible provider. I'd never been to university

Apparently that was the thing you had to do. I'd be a bad lover. I'd never been to university. And apparently that was a thing you had to do. I'd be a bad lover. I wouldn't be a good father. I'd yell at the kid. I just, I would fail at everything I had. I was so afraid of that stuff. And I think for a while that really did make priesthood look a little bit more attractive, but anyway, that's it.

But you're glad that. Wrap it up. I am very glad that I'm married. But that's okay too. I also want to quickly say that just because you might be afraid of all those things doesn't mean you're not being called to be a priest. That's right. And I think it's actually a beautiful question in that level of self-awareness. And yeah, I'd want to remove any of the shame from that.

I mean, you just normalize that and saying that's your experience and I can certainly appreciate those things. I dated a couple of people and one for several years and certainly grew into those relationships. That was hard and formative and getting in touch with my own heart and those are important points of development. So yeah, I would certainly remove any shame from that. But and I think it's really good just to be honest about it. It's another one

of those things, you know, talking to a spiritual director about it. Anything we do that already has some shame only magnifies with silence, secrecy and judgment. And so the more important it is to get out into the open and then talk through. And then that has a way of emerging. I mean, there are plenty of people who start religious life. I started with a class of six and four of my classmates discerned out from nine months in to three years in. And three of them have beautiful marriages and really said they learned to

love in the monastery, really learned to accept themselves and receive that unconditional love from brothers and fathers in the monastery. And that really made it possible for them then to go out and have beautiful marriages. Roy, I won't say his last name because this sounds like a very personal question. If your wife reveals to you that she bewitched your relationship, cursed you, maintained her beliefs in witchcraft and read your fortune with tarot cards both before she joined the church and after, are you obliged to at least pursue an annulment? Is it okay for your soul if for some reason the church doesn't acknowledge the obvious nullity? Also a quick checklist of what the faithful servant

should confess after the annulment. So do with that what you will. So it sounds like that all happened even before the marriage. Before and after. Before and after. It sounds like after, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, I would certainly say separation seems like a pretty good approach and yeah, and an annulment. I mean, how obliged is maybe a little bit strong, but I think it's certainly advisable. Yeah. So it sounds like she's revealing this to him recently. She reveals to you that she bewitched your relationship, cursed you, maintained her beliefs in witchcraft and read your fortune with herecards, but before she joined, so she joined the church at some point, but she's still continuing these practices. It sounds like these things have been revealed to him after the fact. Now, we're not in a place to make any kind of judgment and the church presumes all marriage

is valid until proven otherwise. That's right. What about as far as fear is concerned? Like should a Christian be afraid of curses? One thing I noticed while reading the scriptures is the scriptures don't treat curses lightly, even though we might in our modern sophistication. The Bible doesn't treat these things lightly. How do you mean that? Well, I mean, it's a real thing that happens.

Witchcraft exists. Curses apparently exist. But I just think in our modern scientific age, we tend to dismiss witches or curses as just sort of silly things or pretend things. Yeah, certainly not pretend. I like to make the analogy, you know, a curse is a malediction, which would be the opposite of a benediction. So the opposite of a blessing.

And just as we know very well, just because you bless somebody, they don't suddenly become Catholic. When you curse somebody, they don't suddenly, their life doesn't fall apart. So what is that? And it's a place that I appreciate. Neil Lizzano makes a real point of that, and Unbound, to say, a curse has to have a place to land in us. And then what can I do? I can't do anything about the one who's doing the cursing, necessarily. But I can do something about the potential landing place in me,

which can be a place of fear, or a place of woundedness, or a place I can bring that about the potential landing place in me, which can be a place of fear or a place of woundedness or a place I can bring that place into communion. I can bring that place before the Lord. So certainly this person should, could consider contacting the diocese about a possible annulment. We don't know, so we can't speak to it. Caleb Dawson says, father, I have to know,

as a barber myself, what is your beard care routine? I use a head and shoulders shampoo conditioner, and I brush it. And that's it. How much hair do you lose a day? A day, I don't know. Do you find it's always kinda coming out? It's always coming out.

And did it worry you when that first started happening? Like, oh no. A little bit, I mean, some of those were long and I thought that took a long time to grow, but it's, anyway, it kinda maxes out. Cody says, what advice would he share to young parents wanting to effectively disciple their young children? We are currently Protestants discerning the Catholic Church for our family.

We are most concerned about the low emphasis on discipling children in most Catholic parishes. So what was the question about? What advice do you have to young parents who they want to effectively disciple their children? And his concern maybe as someone looking at the Catholic Church that we don't do a lot of that in Catholic parishes. I see. I'm sure that's more true some places than other places. In terms of the formation of children, something that I've really come to appreciate is the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, the Montessori approach to formation of children, starting at 18 months for the toddler atrium and then level one being three to six, level

two six to nine, level three nine to twelve. And it's a real formation in the language of God and the sacraments and the scriptures and making that accessible to developmental levels. So I think that's actually quite beautiful. You have children who really become contemplatives in the way that they receive the Word of God. But in terms of other programs of discipleship, even into the teenage years, so beyond something like Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, it does seem to be a little bit more dependent on who the youth minister might be or what sort of groups might be available in the parish.

I think life teen has done good things in some places. Anyway, different programs, certainly whatever, net ministries or something. There are a lot of programs for evangelization. It's not actually my forte, neither is parish ministry. But then I think also, I mean, certainly in the family, the parents are the primary formators of their children. parents are the primary formators of their children. And then I think forming those Catholic friendships, I mean, I'm inspired by, now his name slipped my mind, who was here when Jordan Peterson was here?

John Henry? John Henry, yeah, yeah. Between you and John Henry, the way that you, whatever, have encouraged each other in the formation of your children and some of those family friendships, I think a lot of beautiful things can take place. Nate Klein asks, he doesn't know me or any specifics about my life. Can he answer why I don't have the courage to join the church? My current church, Pentecostal denomination,

hasn't answered my questions, but is looking to find me some apologetics but listening to people like Trent, Jimmy, Joe, Tim, Keith Nestor and Matt Frady, the baddie, okay, have given me all the answers. What's wrong with me? He wants to know. Can I start? Yeah, there's nothing. I mean, yeah, maybe you're a coward and maybe that's what's wrong with you. But also, this is a really difficult decision. When you change churches like this, that's a big leap in the dark, especially because you probably don't feel certainty or if you do, it comes in waves.

And you, a lot of your friends, maybe even your employment revolve around your current denomination so Fear is somewhat appropriate I would say just be gentle with yourself and say to the good Jesus in your prayer Lord I love you I only want to honor you if I'm not honoring you by joining the Catholic Church Slam the door shut and prevent me from entering into this. Something like that.

No, I think that's beautiful. I also would say it's not merely an intellectual decision. There's some dimension of trust that's in faith. And and then this is a matter of also entering into relationships, communion, entering in and, and having somebody to support that step is really vital. The role of sponsors, which I read a licentious thesis on, uh, goes back to the early church that you would have someone to present you to

the Bishop, but somebody that knows you well enough to support you. And I think courage grows in communion, in relationship. So I think that's also a vital part of it. It sounds like he's done all the intellectual work and it's not a matter of intellectual objections, but there are other things that. I think I was talking to Keith Nester, who's fantastic. He's got a great YouTube channel people should check out.

I had him on the show and I believe it was him who said he approached Steve Ray, apologist Steve Ray at one point and said, he's really considering and nervous about joining the Catholic Church. And he went, either join the church or turn and run and never look back. And I think what he meant by that was

it will haunt you forever. Like where you're at right now, like you got two options. You can join it or stop playing with it because it'll, I'm not sure exactly what he's, it made sense when Keith said it anyway. You ever do that? He shared a story that you think is gonna be super profound and everyone's like,

I don't know if that's orthodox. All right, anyway, go watch the show. Christopher says, thanks so much for all your wisdom. I'm going to be coming into the church after RCA this year. I could use some guidance on my relationship with Mary. I love praying the rosary and I've seen the graces from this devotion in my life. How do I explain this to my Protestant friends? The idea of consecration sounds great, but my old prop brain says that's too far. Any advice?

Well, I wrote a consecration called the fruit of her womb. And yeah, I always like to try and connect these things to, I don't know, something that's a little bit experiential and where Mary is, we make it seem like Mary is something out there that I need to go get. Okay. But rather, I'd like to say, where is she already in someone's life? And you know, then to make certain kinds of connections. So she's the baptismal font.

That's her womb. So as you were immersed into that, and that's actually a line from St. Augustine, we are baptized into the womb of Mary until we are born into eternal life. So that's the whole focus of my consecration. You would have known it if you read it. Sorry. That is glorious. That's a real quote.

That's not just a quote Catholics wish were true. Augustine said that. Augustine said it and Louis de Montfort quoted it. So that's a piece of his consecration from the secret of Mary that's been a fixation, a meditation for me for 20 some years. But to be in the womb of Mary, to be in that total embrace. So there are ways that we're already in her receiving from her. And, and Louis de Montfort's simple idea is, well, you, the only way you got Christ is through her. So if you're receiving him,

you're already receiving Him through her. That's the only way that He comes to us. Literally. He was in her womb. He was born of her. She gave Him to us. And so she is always the one giving Him to us. Or we could think of it also as she's the place I am when I encounter Him. So that, you know, we see a lot of these connections in Scripture, the Mount Zion or the Holy City, or the place in which we meet Christ is always the arms of Mary, the womb of Mary, the presence of Mary, because she's also the Church. She's the Church's perfect center, the type and figure of the Church, the Church's perfection in heaven.

And so the same way that we receive Christ in the church, through the church, in the midst of the church. And so it's almost my relationship with her starts in a way of just paying attention to what's already around me. I'm already in her. I'm already with her. And then I can start to learn the tenderness, the maternal qualities, the generosity, the the openness, the way that she invites me to meet him, the way that she's sensitive to

my needs, the way that she's praying for me. So, so many other things sort of cascade. It's really the way that we come to it. Just as a child, every child really meets the father through the mother. So a child emerges from the mother into the world and lives in a sense in the mother's arms and learns the father's name through the mother. And so really our encounter with Christ is always in her and with her and through her. That's just already happening. But a lot of children, you know, move away from their mother and that, you know, anyway, we're, uh, so we're, we're tempted to leave her behind or not notice her, take her for granted. It's just sort of being aware of what's already there in a way. That's beautiful. I would say much more superficially because that was beautiful and profound.

Indeed. I would say that sometimes it helps to use different words that scare us less. So if consecration freaks you out, like entrustment might not. And that's the language that John Paul II used at times. We give ourselves to Mary. Well, why would you pray the rosary? Well, because the saints are not dead, they're more alive than we are. And I can ask you to pray for me without usurping the authority of Christ and mediation of Christ. I can also pray for those in heaven. We seem to have good evidence from revelation that the elders are taking our prayers and giving them to the Lord.

So and this is something I mean that I think that was understood in the church up until shortly after the Protestant Reformation, at least in some strands. So yeah, there you go. There's a lot of people converting, a lot of people here. Yeah, back to our, the beginning of our conversation, right? Signs that things are going well. Yeah. Yep. How should the scrupulous asks Grant navigate controversial aspects of the church such as attending charismatic events there's a fear of what's spiritually safe when people have conflicting views good question well I would say for one thing you're not

obligated to do those things I think we can be sensitive to our own sensitivities. And if there are things that are gonna be too triggering, that book, The Heart of Trauma, likes to use the word awakening rather than triggering. But if there are things that are going to activate our nervous system that are gonna be hard for us, then we don't have to go there. And then the other thing, a lot of times,

is scrupulosity. It's more heightened or less heightened at different times. And so I think being aware of where one is in the moment and not letting the scrupulosity make the decisions for us can be helpful. But also, if I'm too activated right now to do that, okay. But maybe in a clearer frame of mind, I can see a little bit more clearly what's good

and I can enter into it and receive from it. Yeah, I'm thinking of an analogy. We'll see how it goes. Usually my analogies come on the spot and sometimes they fall flat. But you've heard the experiment where the teachers don't tell the children how far out they can play.

And the children all stay very close to the buildings. Whereas if there is a clear perimeter, the children feel the freedom to play all throughout the yard. I think today, many Catholics feel like the perimeters are blurry, perhaps because of bad leadership, perhaps because we believe what we believe about Pope Francis, perhaps because of what we're being told from certain traditional leaning people online, and so we're

really kind of like those children in the first example just like frightened that we're gonna go too far or something like that. And then what happens, imagine this in the first situation without the boundary, that the children start drawing the boundaries for the other kids, since the parents or the teachers aren't doing it. And I feel like there's a lot of that in the church today. There are a lot of people who are well-meaning, who love Jesus Christ, who want to be faithful to Him, drawing boundaries for other Christians when it was never their job to do so. And so they'll say something like, you have to pray the rosary every day or else you're not really doing what you should be doing. That's not a boundary the church has taught. You

have to be devoted to Aladiya Medjugorje. That's not something the church has said. You have to go to mass every day. Nope, you don't. You shouldn't be going to the nervous order. Church definitely never said that. Shouldn't be going to the nervous order church. Definitely never said that. Shouldn't be going to charismatic meetings. Okay. So I think I really am still a fan of this. And I think this advice frustrates people who are scandalized by the lack of boundaries

being set. Nevertheless, I think it's good advice. We shouldn't demand uniformity with a church allows diversity of opinion or custom. And so if the church hasn't condemned things like what you're referring to I don't know the specific group then you shouldn't either and you should feel the freedom of a son of God to attend it And just like you said if you feel uncomfortable there, then you don't have to go there But not to allow our brothers and sisters who might be reacting to the lack of boundaries to draw the boundaries for you That's right. Yeah, that's a great analogy

Seth says any tips for someone who is trying to discern if the person they are dating is the one they should marry I am also trying to discern if I should stop dating and go to the seminary Whoo, that's uh Yeah intense to discern if I should stop dating and go to the seminary. Whew. That's, yeah. It's intense. Yeah, I think it's great to ask the question. I guess I'm always interested, the kind of question I would ask my own direct is, you know, what's, what brings you together when you feel closest to God? What are your thoughts about this person about marriage? When you're at your best?

And does she make you your best? Do you feel like she brings out the best in you? Yeah. And so I think, I think starting from that point and then, uh, yeah, exploring from there, why, and then, you know, maybe the opposite, why, why wouldn't you? And what are the, what are the difficulties there that you may be moving away from? I think one danger can be just doing too much of this in our heads. So there isn't sort of a right answer in itself. There's only a right answer for you in this circumstance. Even that is a right answer anyway,

but it has to be discerned by you in this circumstance. It's not like priesthood is better than marriage or something like that. You can't sort of turn this into a logical puzzle. We need to be in touch with what's happening interiorly, how the Lord is speaking and guiding. And I was once given advice for a good fella named David, different David, who's part of my net ministries team.

As I was discerning dating Cameron or not. And I felt really strongly about her. I also felt really strongly about becoming a priest. And he said, Matt, you can't walk two paths at once. You'll split yourself in half. It sounds like the Lord is making a sound with Cameron. And if you were laying in bed at night and you heard a sound, there's a sense in which you might be obligated to go and inspect what that thing was. I think you need to inspect what that thing was. And so I made a decision that very day to cease discerning the priesthood. Like, I made an active decision to no longer go to those websites, to no longer chat with, you know, and

just to give this a chance. I also think the question like, what do you want to do, might be helpful. Do you think? Like, what do you want to do? Yeah. What do you, if you, if God gave you the option, what would you say? Yeah. Do you think that's helpful? Yeah. I know, I know our desires can fluctuate from one week to the next. So that's on any given day, that might not be the answer. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's certainly, certainly helpful is what is it? What is it about priesthood that is, is it really attractive or is it something what's, what's drawing you there?

Yeah. Yeah. How do you want to, how do you imagine your life? How do you envision things moving forward? St. Ignatius provides these questions like, what do you wish you did on your deathbed? If you look at the end of your life, where do you wish that had gone? Not yelled at my kids. Probably said, it's okay that you're eating a cookie without a plate under you

and you're dropping crumbs everywhere. That's fine. I don't even care. Instead of being like, brrrr! And I think it's also important to set, you know, the end is holiness. The end is the glorification of God. These other things are only means to an end.

And as we move, so I think there's also a temptation to think that there's some kind of right answer out there somewhere. The question is, at this moment in my life, what is the best possible path for me to become a saint, for me to glorify God and for the salvation of my soul? And as I make certain decisions, that may adjust, that may change what might have been the best thing for me, but then I took a little different path, became a little different thing. So, yeah.

Beautiful. Yeah, there is that sense among new converts. And I had it too, that there was this invisible line I had to walk. And that line is what I thought was God's will. And I was just really afraid that if I step outside of that, that's me done. One of the most consoling memes I've ever seen was when God placed a call on your life, he factored in your stupidity. Do you know how comforting that was to me? The greatest thing I think is so nice. Father Bonavus, thank you so much for coming on the show. Did you have a book you wanted to promote?

Or did you go get books to promote? I feel like I could have done that smoother, I'm sorry. What have you written lately? I just published a book on the mass. What? Actually, Hidden Power of Silence in the Mass. Yeah, I could have brought books, that would have been good. I have boxes of books in my car and didn't bring a single copy up. But speak to a couple of them because I actually asked someone recently, you know who Father Boniface is? He's coming on the show and they're like, oh, I'm reading his book on personal prayer. They say they absolutely love it. I think personal prayer has really hit, I think

it's the the highest selling, although all of them have done pretty well. So I wrote with Father Tom Acklin, my confere and my spiritual father, a book on spiritual direction and a book on personal prayer. And the personal prayer book is, anyway, I think has a pretty wide reach. It's deep, it's hard back, it's a couple of hundred pages, but I think it leads people into prayer just in reading it. It really tries to get, express the truth of the spiritual tradition, but really in terms,

Father Tom and I do a lot of spiritual direction, so we try to express things through human experience. What does this look like in real life? How does this feel in human experience? And to make that as tangible as possible. And then the third book I wrote was on St. Joseph through the heart of St. Joseph. And it's really about, you could think of it as an application of personal prayer to a devotion to St. Joseph.

How do I develop a relationship with St. Joseph? So it's really meant to foster that. The fourth book was the fruit of her wombomb, the 33 Day Consecration to Jesus. And that's about really entering into the womb of Mary. It's 33 days of readings and meditations, some prayers. How does it differ from other 33 days? What makes yours different? Why should I choose yours? Yeah, that's a great question. So Louis de Monfort didn't

actually sketch out all the details of a consecration. He gave the themes and he gave sort of a bit of a big picture, 12 days of emptying of the spirit of the world, a week of self-knowledge, a week of knowledge of Mary, a week of knowledge of Jesus, but he didn't describe writings. He indicated some prayers, not all of them. So I flesh out his structure. And then I just make a little shift around, he obviously talks about slavery. I just feel like you can't do that well in the modern day without gathering up a lot of other connotations that make things confusing. And so I take this word from him that we talked about earlier that Christians are baptized into the womb of Mary until they are born into eternal life. And so a fetus in the womb is even more surrendered than a slave. And so the choice to be in the womb of Mary

is that radical surrender, but with the tenderness of the mother rather than the harshness of chains. And so just that little shift. I don't think I lose anything positive from St. Louis to Monfort's presentation. I like that a lot. It's actually a little closer to Colby's understanding.

You familiar? So Colby actually addressed this. He says, how is my my consecration different? It's like, well, in Louis, you're a slave and a slave still has his own will. So in mine, you're an object and Merrick can do whatever she wants with it. I kind of love the fetus is not an ob. Well, it's an object. Merrick can do whatever she wants with it. I love it. The fetus is not an object. Well, it's an object that's a subject that's not. Yeah. So my like mine corrects Colby by taking by renewing our subjectivity.

Yeah. And yet still not having a will of our own. I like that. So a total, total surrender. I wish I had that book on me. I know you gave it to me a long time ago, but I don't think I have it anymore. I'd love to. I'd love to do it. I'll you gave it to me a long time ago, but I don't think I have it anymore. I'd love to, I'd love to do it.

I'll give you a copy. Yeah. You just, uh, who did you publish it with? So the first two are with the Mace road, the first three rather, uh, through St. Joseph, but, uh, Sophia Institute press published the 33 day consecration. And then the most recent one, which is the hidden power of silence and the mass, a guide to encountering Christ in the liturgy. That's Sophia too. That's also Sophia.

Yeah. Yeah. Really trying to foster deeper interior participation in the mass as much as in the, and it's all focused on the new rite of mass, although I appreciate very much the old rite and have celebrated it. High masses and solemn high masses and all of the things. But sort of with an insight from the old mass, but then how to really enter into the new mass.

We know that there's more speaking happening in the new mass. When you attend the Novo Sordo, you do more speaking than you would do in the old mass. But still like 95% of the time you're not speaking. So what are you supposed to be doing during that 95% of the time? Waiting for the next speaking part?

Clearly not. So that's sort of what I try to sink my fingers into is how do you pray interiorly through the different movements of the Mass? Good. Father Boniface, God bless you. Thanks for being on the show. Great to be with you, Matt. Thank you.