Pints With Aquinas - Why Pray the Rosary? + Q&A w/ Fr. Gregory Pine, O.P.

Episode Date: September 2, 2021

Fr. Pine explains why we pray the rosary and answers questions on relativity, vanity and fitness, theological details of the resurrection, and more!

Hello, I'm Father Gregory Pine, coming at you from Freiburg, Switzerland. I am here in my, let's see, this is my third week back to Switzerland, plugging away on the third chapter of my dissertation. I skipped the first chapter, so don't congratulate me too much. I've only actually finished one. And I'm thinking now, presently, about divine exemplarity, specifically in terms of how creation is modeled on God and the ideas that God has of distinct, concrete, particular, individual things. And it's beautiful. It's a

saving study, although sometimes I feel tired and distracted. But alas, such is the case with all human endeavors, insofar as we are weak and yet still on the way. So yeah, we've got our community retreat this weekend, and we're having a Cistercian from a nearby abbey preach the retreat, so looking forward to that. There are two Cistercian abbeys here in Freiburg. There's one for the women, which is called La Megroge, and then there's one for the men which is called Haute Rive. Actually the men's monastery is maybe like an hour's walk away so this past Sunday I walked up there to join them for benediction and vespers and then walked back which was great. It was actually really wonderful and yeah so that's where I am. That's who I am. That's what I'm doing and things are going well.

So for this year episode, we're going to talk about the Rosary. Obviously, the Rosary is one of the more famous of Catholic devotions, and it's one that many of us pray. And perhaps we don't need reasons to pray it. Perhaps the question itself is a little bit melodramatic. Why pray the rosary? But I think that there's some good to be gained from considering the rosary in a more speculative way or from considering it in a more theological way with the assistance of one St. Thomas Aquinas. Now, the rosary came together historically over the course of decades, even centuries. So it would have been practiced in the Carthusian and Dominican communions.

And originally it was a way by which for lay brothers who were not ordained choir monks or friars to participate in the liturgy of the convent where they lived. So oftentimes they wouldn't have been educated, and as a result of which they wouldn't have been able to read Latin. And so they wouldn't have been able to pray the divine office with the other friars and choir in the same way. And so they would have said collections of prayers, which kind of became organized over the course of years from a grouping of Our Fathers to a grouping of

Hail Marys, or at least the first half of it. And then the second half was added, it seems, in about the 15th century, and then kind of came to be concretized with the particular meditations that we see attached to it now. And then Dominicans, it looks like they would have worn it as early as the 15th or 16th century. That's where it first appears on Dominicans in sacred art. But it's common to attribute, obviously, the gift of the Most Holy Rosary to St. Dominic, excuse me, to the Blessed Mother who gave it to St. Dominic, and in part because the Rosary is an especially incarnate prayer. So it's something that one does body and soul while meditating upon the mysteries of our Lord Jesus Christ's body and soul. And St. Dominic would have found the prayers of the rosary to be very fitting in his contest against the Albigensian heresy, which denied the goodness of the body, and as a result of which

kind of set up a dualistic understanding of creation, which is very much at odds with the Incarnation, with the sacramental dispensation, with all these things. So yeah, it's a very Dominican thing to consider, and as a result of which, St. Thomas is a good companion for considering it. So there are many obstacles, obviously, to praying the Rosary, with which we need to be kind of honest if we're going to proceed apace and endeavor to do it. It's easy to get distracted, right? It's difficult to know what exactly we ought to meditate upon. It seems, you know, at times to be not Christocentric. You know, there's a lot of praying to or about Mary.

And even while we meditate on the mysteries of the life of Christ, it can feel to some to be distracting, and especially to those who have been received into the faith or baptized later in life, who might come from more Protestant sensibilities. I myself did not really like praying the rosary for a while, so my father, being the man of integrity that he is, insisted that we as a family pray the rosary every night. And yeah, it was always hilarious, because we all had our different approaches to this. So mom, dad, four kids, none of us especially excited at the prospect, but some of us more respectful than others. So my mom was sneaky and she knew that if you get your kids to share their prayer intentions,

then you know what your kids are thinking about, you know what they're worrying about, you know what it is that they love, you know what it is that animates them. So she would always open up at the beginning for intentions. And this made the rosary interminable because my mother took each opportunity during which a prayer intention was shared to kind of engage further, to suss out all the details, to make sure that everyone involved was okay, that we were doing the things for them that we could do. And I, meanwhile, was just thinking about the fact that I wasn't doing my homework. So I usually offered one prayer intention each night, which was that we would begin this rosary as soon as possible.

So that gives you an insight into my impious rosary praying ways. But my dad knew something. He knew that if we were to pray the rosary as a family, that it would serve us well as a family, right? It would keep us together as a family. It would make us holy as a family. And yeah, I mean, call no person holy until he or she dies. But it seems like he was right. So maybe that's the most eloquent argument for praying the rosary is that it seems to make people good. But I was thinking about it kind of alongside or according to the thought of St. Thomas to provide some further reason still. So we can think about the way in which the church recommends certain practices to us.

So some practices, she says, not only do I recommend these to you, but I command them. So it's not like we have a choice. I mean, we have a choice insofar as we can or cannot fulfill the command. But if a command is the type of thing that motivates us, then we're going to be especially motivated to fulfill them. So this would be like the mass obligation or going to confession when cognizant of grave sin at least once a year, and certainly before receiving Holy Communion, or like fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, or abstaining from meat on the Fridays and Lent, things like that.

These are obligatory. These are commanded. And so it's not so much for us to say like, oh, that's part of your Catholic spirituality. It's not part of mine. They're just Catholic, okay? But when we go beyond commands, we can think next of what is counseled.

And one of the ways that we can access what the church counsels is to read the Incaridian of what is counseled. And one of the ways that we can access what the church counsels is to read the Incaridian of Indulgences. That's not saying that one has an indulgence-centered spirituality, but it is a nice insight into what it is that the church esteems. So you know, you can gain a plenary indulgence by performing an indulgenced act, by receiving holy communion on the day that you do, by having gone to confession at least or within a range of eight days prior or eight days subsequently, by praying prayers for the Pope, and then by endeavoring detachment from sin. And when you do that, you can apply that

plenary indulgence to yourself or to another person. And what it does is that it makes up for, or it kind of satisfies for, all of the punishment, the temporal remission of, excuse me, the remission of temporal punishment associated with sin. So it's powerful. Now there are four acts that you can perform any day of the week, 365 days of the year, or 366 unlapped years, four indulgenced acts that aren't like special, assigned to a particular sanctuary or a liturgical season, the types of things you can always do. They are to pray the rosary in common,

to make the Stations of the Cross in a public church or oratory, to pray for 30 minutes in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, and then to read the Sacred Scriptures for 30 minutes. So, by assigning or kind of recognizing these as indulgenced acts, the Church says that these are especially good things, and it commands our attention that the Rosary is numbered among them, right? I mean, Blessed Sacrament, I mean, obviously. Sacred Scripture, obviously. Stations of the Cross, even though that's a devotion that seems kind of came together in the 13th century, often attributed to St. Francis of Assisi. Yeah, I mean, it's meditating on the passion, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus

Christ. Straightforward. The Rosary, okay. How does that fit in the same logic? So, one of the ways that we can kind of get some traction or get some footing here is to think about what it is that the rosary does. I think it's helpful to think about the rosary in terms of how God communicates salvation. So God just is, right, subsisting deity, but grace is our created share in the life of

God. It's our created share in his divine nature, as it were, his divine life. And God communicates that grace through his Christ in his church by the ministration of his sacraments as given by his ministers, right, to us, the recipients. So there's this kind of chain whereby God communicates his interior riches to us who are destined to share in those interior riches and there's a very important place occupied in this great chain by the mysteries of the life of Christ so Christ came lived suffered died rose lived, suffered, died, rose, so as to bless every aspect of our human life. And as a result of which, every aspect of our human life is suffused with grace and is able to communicate grace

to us who follow after him. And so, the way that we gain access to God, Christ, church, sacraments, ministers, the way that we kind of get traction in that great sacramental chain of causality, as it were, is through the agency of these mysteries. Sometimes people talk about it in terms of instrumentality. So they'll say that the second person, the most blessed Trinity, right, the Word, took to himself human flesh as an instrument. He almost wielded it, as it were, to apply salvation to us. Well, it's not just his humanity that he uses as an instrument. He also uses the mysteries of his life, everything that he did and suffered. He uses

this too as instruments for salvation. And so, when we think about like, what's actually happening here? What's actually transpiring? We're talking about the divine life coursing through this sacramental chain of causality, passing in a special way through these mysteries of the life of Christ, so as to be applied to us, the recipient. And what happens is we get God. God gives us himself, and he chooses to refract that gift of himself through the prism of these mysteries so that we can see it in all of its bold and beautiful technicolor, as most easily received by us, as most easily assimilated by us for the sake of our salvation. So the genius of the rosary is that it puts you in a kind of living, faith-filled contact

with those mysteries. And it does so with she who was the greatest recipient of the grace of God after Christ himself, who was perfectly transparent to God's working in her life, and who, as a result, glorifies God most excellently. So when we think about ourselves as coming from God and returning to God, we see that movement most awesomely in the Blessed Virgin Mary and she who not only accompanied our Lord through the mysteries of his passion, death, and resurrection, and all that went before and all that went after, right? But she herself suffers them. She herself is transformed by them. She herself is glorified as a result.

So everything that he does and suffers in the flesh, you know, as a matter of dignity, as a matter of equal dignity, she, as it were, does and suffers in the flesh by a kind of sharing, by a kind of friendship, by a kind of logic of extension. And so when we pray the rosary, we gaze with the Blessed Virgin Mary on those mysteries which are addressed to us for our salvation, and with her we are caught up in them so that we might be glorified by them. So then, when it comes to actually praying the rosary, you do well to just simply intend the prayer, to say, like, I'm going to pray a rosary. And then beyond just intending the prayer, we do well to pay attention to the prayer, just intending the prayer, we do well to pay attention to the prayer, which is to say, we do well to give ourselves, insofar as we are able, to the words which are pronounced, to the sense of

those words which is described, and then to the reality of those senses, right, to which we ourselves are conducted in prayer, and which are given to us, us as it were in the same. So, the rosary is not just counseled by the church for some passing fancy, but because it's especially efficacious insofar as it gives us to meditate on those mysteries which save us and that it has us gaze through the eyes of the Blessed Virgin Mary who is most transparent to those graces, and who is ultimately most transformed by them. So that, my friends, is a kind of, I guess, simple commendation of why to pray the rosary, and maybe a little explanation of how to go about it. All right, boom, we're on our way. Well, I'm on my way. All right, we're going to enter into some time for questions, so let's do our first. DM says,

Father Pine, have any theologians addressed chastity in practical terms? I wonder if you could speak about how we can keep our minds pure in this respect, perhaps go a little more deeply. Thank you. Something that I'm thinking about is this book by Benedict Rochelle called The Courage to be Chased. I think that has some good theological, philosophical, and psychological insights. He himself was a psychologist. So that's a contemporary work, which is helpful.

Depending on what particular aspect of chastity is difficult, you can reference, there are a couple of books about pornography, which are known to be good. I haven't read either of them, but I've heard that they're good. One's by Monsignor Bransfield, the other's by Matt Fradd. So those both might be good resources for growth and chastity. When it comes to the ancient tradition, there's a really deep monastic meditation on this theme. You can find it, for instance, in St. John Cashin in his Institutes, and then he reprises some of those same themes in his conferences. So let's say start with the Institutes and go to the conferences.

And a lot of that monastic wisdom is kind of collated for you and collected in a really helpful collection by Benedict Award, which is, I think, just called The Sayings of the Fathers. And it's arranged thematically. So there you might find something interesting, too. helpful collection by Benedict Award, which is, I think, just called The Sayings of the Fathers, and it's arranged thematically. So there you might find something interesting, too. St. Thomas weighs in on the matter in the Treatise on Temperance in the Summa Theologiae, and he has a few things to say about chastity. Not as much as one might hope, but a few things indeed. One of the best resources that I have come across is, let's see, it's called, so the name of the author is Marie-Michelle Labourdette. He taught at L'Institut Catholique de Toulouse from 1940 to 1990.

Actually, he might have just taught the friars in Toulouse. I'm not sure what his university affiliation was. But yes, he wrote a 17-volume commentary on the Summa Theologiae second part and his volume on chastity is pretty good. Although he was writing before Humanae Vitae and I think he got a couple of things a little wrong, uh, that he was speculating on and not knowing for sure, for sure. Um, so yes, I recommend that. And, uh, hopefully some of those will be good resources.

I think, I think the basic monastic wisdom on this is pretty simple. It's pretty straightforward. And you can think about it as a matter of making more virtuous, rather. I'm having difficulty speaking. The idea would be to kind of like retrain appetites. So the sense is that our most basic instinctual appetites for food and for drink and for sexual intercourse are all deeply related because they all bear immediately and urgently upon survival. So they all operate with a kind of intense logic that if these instincts are denied, you will die and the species will cease to exist. So they have this kind of clamorousness to them. They have this kind of urgency that they bring to bear on the situation. And yeah, that needs to be

quelled. You need to quell the fear that they induce. So we can work on chastity in a special way by controlling the instinctual urges for both food and drink. So the idea there would be, you know, fasting and sobriety being good companion virtues to chastity. All right. Hope that begins to be helpful. All right. Let's see. Next question is from Finn Dunsythe. Hi, Father Pine. If the Father is the source of the Son and the Holy Spirit and the Trinity, does this mean Jesus can only act if the Father allows him to? Also, how many minds does God have, three minds So, good question. Yes, although I wouldn't use the word allow. I mean, so the Son is God from God, right?

But there's no kind of division, as it were, of the divine will. So, Christ has a human will, right? But Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have one divine will. Each subsists in their deity, and as a result of which, there is no opposition to be encountered, except the opposition of origin or relation. So you're not going to encounter some kind of struggle, as it were. Like, the Father has to be more forthcoming, and then the Son will do as such. But then when it comes to Christ, we identify in Christ what St. Thomas calls like the will of nature and the will of reason. At the level of will of nature, Christ finds,

for instance, bodily death repugnant. So if it's possible, let this cup pass from me, but not as I will, but as you will. But at the level of the will of reason, so his will as kind of fully reflective and taking account of all pertinent circumstances, his will is wholly in accord with that of the Godhead. So there's no opposition. Also, in the Godhead, there's only one intellect. In Christ, there's a divine intellect and a human intellect, but never in opposition, rather operating by a perfect synergy.

I'm going to skip down. We just had a super chat come in from Sparrow Constantine. So I'm going to find that and then I'm going to click on it. And then I'm going to further describe my experience so as to highlight the fact that I have not yet identified it. All right. I'm going to give it one. There it is. Let's go. All right. Here we go. Hey, that's awesome. There wasn't even a question. So thank you, Sparrow Constantine. All the best to you. All right, we're going to skip back up to the top.

Here we go from Scriabin. High Father Pine, thank you for all that you do. Do you have any spiritual advice for seminarians? Do I have any spiritual advice for seminarians? Yes. Settle for nothing less than perfection. Okay? So if you struggle with chastity,

you are capable of being chaste, and you should set your mind on that. And you should not approach orders until such time as you have grown in the virtue of chastity where you feel confident that you can be a chaste priest. Also, pray a holy hour every day. You might have kind of minimum requirements when it comes to prayer, but go for it, right? The church needs contemplatives. The church needs chaste, courageous contemplatives who are learned preachers, who are disciplined in their approach to the study of the faith and its explication, who are generous to the people of God, who are willing to serve them, who are willing to be poured out for them like a libation, who are willing to sacrifice themselves for them. So ultimately at the end, you need to be like

Christ, and Christ will give you the virtues that you need to do that in the way best suited to his glory and the service of his people. So, be of good cheer. All right. Carrie Nevin says, Is there a way to steal man the world's notion of this is my truth? It's absurd on its face, but they don't seem to be speaking metaphysically. Rather, they are reflecting on their lived experience. Yeah, I think that's a good insight. So there is a sense in which, you know, your truth is not my truth.

There's a sense in which that holds insofar as certain things bear the imprint of our own particular humanity. So I think, you know, given who you are, where you were born, what language you learned to speak, whether or not you were baptized into the faith as an infant, where you went to school, who you made friends with, etc., you're going to see reality in a certain way. And that's ineradicable, all right? The Enlightenment Project failed. There's no impartial view on reality that we can access, provided that we do sufficient ground clearing.

That just can't happen. So it's helpful to be cognizant of your own situatedness, no impartial view on reality that we can access provided that we do sufficient ground clearing. It just can't happen. So it's helpful to be cognizant of your own situatedness and then to know the truth through that. That doesn't mean that the truth itself, it's relative. It just means that its reception will always take account of the person, you know, himself, but also his setting in life. And so I think that, yeah, there's a truth in that. And I think that's the reason behind our attempts at accommodating our explanations or kind of giving testimony to the faith in the peculiar ways that are best suited to our audience. So yeah, those are some thoughts. Hopefully those are helpful. If not, my apologies. All right. DMT Core. DMT Core.

What do you do when you feel like you've hit a roadblock in discernment? The anxiety to pull the trigger, to go to the seminary, to find out if you're called might be a sign that you are not called. I mean, if you're getting into questions of, you know, one side or the other, conflicting signs, I think you're already too far into the weeds. I think you just start with the question, like, what do I want to do? Right? And then you wait on the answer to that question. I don't think that you gain much by a just do it mentality, especially if you're young. If you get to a certain point where you're like 26, 27, 28, and if you keep thinking about the summary over the course of the past five, six years, then yeah, maybe it's time

to quote unquote, just do it, especially if you were of a vacillating nature or somewhat uncertain in your judgments. But I don't think that you gain much by saying like, I don't know, so I'm going to do it, right? Because I think that it's for us to wait on the Lord, to suffer his timing. So I would say, don't panic, read Jacques Philippe, Searching for and Maintaining Peace, and then the Lord will make it known in his time. All right, Talia says, hello, Father Pine. If Susie looks in the mirror and thinks, ugh, and exercises so that she doesn't think that, is that a sin of vanity? If so, is it a mortal sin? Thank you. No, I don't think it's a sin of vanity. I think that some people look better and some people look worse. And I think

that it's praiseworthy to want to look better. Maybe it's a little bit vain, but I think that it's also normal. And so far as like every creature in the animal world does something like, whatever you would call it, self-care or self-grooming. I think it's just, just part of life. And especially, you know, it's, I think it's, I think it's wrapped up into certain virtues on attendant upon the virtue of justice, like affability to be available to another person, you know, like means not necessarily looking your best at all times with an anxiety underwritten by the fear that they'll think you're ugly if you don't.

But I think that it's good to be presentable, both in a professional and then in a more friendly familial context. And, you know, to want to look good isn't bad. If it dominates your thought world and it makes it so that it's your sole motivation or perhaps greatest motivation, then yeah, I think that that would be vanity. But as one among a variety of desires? No, I don't think so. Fabrizio Hernandez says, Hola, padre.

¿Qué tal, Fabrizio? All right. E-Rock 5B says, Jesus resurrected bodily, and Mary's body was taken to heaven. So they exist now outside of the material universe in time. This is a perplexing thought. Can you add any comments on understanding this? Yeah. So time is the measure of motion. Motion happens as a result

of change, as it were. Mary and Jesus don't change. And as a result of which, they're not subject to time. Their humanity enjoys a kind of quasi-participation in eternity, while itself not necessarily being eternal, insofar as both of their humanities have a beginning point, and both of their humanities would not qualify for the strict definition of eternity, which is attributable to God alone. Yeah, so maybe that's the beginning of an answer. Here we go. RJC says, Hello, Father Pine. On a lighter a lighter note what three people living or dead would you want at your fantasy dinner party furthermore what would you discuss with them that's a good question um

so i'm really into martyrs i'm really into martyrs i find it fascinating that there are certain people in the world who are willing to give their life at the end for love of their Lord. And they didn't do it out of a sense of bravado or showmanship, but they did it out of genuine love and devotion. So I especially love St. Maximilian Kolbe, and I really love St. Jean de Brebeuf. So certainly one of those guys would be invited. I was very much touched or kind of influenced by the example of Saint Francis of Assisi from a young age. And I went to Franciscan University of Steubenville, where his hagiography features very prominently in the life of the university there. And just total wild man. G.K. Chesterton's book on him I found to be very, very, very engaging. So probably

St. Francis, and then yeah, maybe St. Thomas Aquinas because of obvious reasons, because among those in heaven who are not named Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, he's probably my best friend among their ranks. So you know, I mean, what three people living or dead? I think that the answer to that's got to be Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in a certain sense, but you weren't asking me to give you that answer. You were asking for another one. So I would say St. Maximilian Kolbe or Jean de Brébeuf. Maybe I'll settle on Maximilian Kolbe, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Those are my boys. All right. Ryan Markey says, Father Pine has landed. Indeed, it is well with my soul. All right, CDC says, Father, you mentioned last week that an altar merits a bow and the Eucharist merits a genuflection. Why then is it the norm in many countries to bow before receiving communion than genuflect?

So that's a good question. And I would say that that's the prescribed liturgical gesture that was actually pronounced upon in the general instruction of the Roman Missal. So the genuflection is typically when passing before the tabernacle or entering or departing from a church. So the idea there, when you receive Holy Communion, is you're already in the sacred space. You've already opened the box, as it were, by genuflecting upon entry.

And then you're going to shut the box by genuflecting upon egress. So as you approach the Blessed Sacrament, the bow would be the appropriate gesture. And I suspect that part of it, too, is a consideration of just how communion lines move. So that can't be discarded either. All right. Next question. YouTube watcher says, Ivan Maria. Let's go. Next question. YouTube watcher says, Ave Maria. Let's go. All right. Chris00NJ says, I've been praying the rosary daily for three weeks now, and it has done wonders. One decade for praying to remove temptation, repose of souls,

and other people, forgiveness, and one for Thanksgiving. That's awesome. Party on. All right. Leslie Reader says, can you think of a good argument against oneness? It's hard for someone who is used to this belief system while doing the rosary. I don't know exactly to what oneness refers in this particular context. So apologies for an answer that will undoubtedly miss the mark. But maybe you clarify subsequently. All right, YouTube Watcher says, The rosary has helped me pull out of vices.

That is awesome. Elsa Macarena says, God bless you. God bless you too. I'm not seeing more on this particular question, so I'm just going to start keeping on keeping on. Chris Zerzeran J says, there's a daily rosary on YouTube. I imagine there are quite a few.

So saying it along with helps. Cheers to that. Magister Worthy says, Hi, Father Pine. What is your favorite Eucharistic hymn? Great question. The Adorote Devote. few so saying it along with helps cheers to that uh magister worthy says i'm father pine what is your favorite eucharistic hymn great question the adirote devotee it slays me um yeah yeah it just gets me written by saint thomas aquinas friends all right utmost says hello father do you have advice for people struggling with the truth of the optional but important parts of our faith? Marian apparitions, Eucharistic miracles, and how to focus simple faith. I would say if you're nervous about believing in those things, don't be.

Right? So I don't think you have to worry about that. Obviously, you don't have to worry about them. And as a result of which, I think that you can kind of set them to the side, as it were, and that you'll find that they kind of come in time. But if you focus on them, right, and engage kind of myopically with all the arguments that surround them, it might actually present an obstacle to the faith. Not in the sense that argumentation is contrary to faith, but in the sense that if you fixate

too much on them, some of the stumbling blocks that have presented themselves along the way may rear their ugly heads to mix a metaphor terribly. So, I would say just kind of set them to the side. And when it comes to simple faith, just start where the church starts. So, prayer, sacrament, you know, study, penance, friendship, service of the material poor, and then your faith just grows. It's just how it works. All right, Jonathan says, what are your thoughts on the Luminous Mysteries? Hot takes. It seems to be one of the points of contention between traditional versus Novus Ordo Catholics

seems to be regarding the number 150. Yeah. So good question. I have thoughts that kind of fall along both lines. So traditionally, the rosary would have been called the Psalter of Our Lady for reasons that I explained at the top of the hour. So you would have prayed 150 Our Fathers, and then it became 150 Hail Marys. And the five mysteries of the joyful, sorrowful, and luminous, taken together, make 150 Hail Marys. And I think that's beautiful, you know, Psalter of Our Lady, because it corresponds to the Psalter,

which was the prayer that the Lay Brothers had in mind when reciting, you know, their Pater Nostris, their Ave Marias, in concert with, or kind of in coordination with, or communion with even, those choir monks who would have prayed the Divine Office. So, I'm attached to that. So, I, for instance, have a 15-decade rosary on my hip. Is that a rejection of the Luminous Mysteries? No, I pray them every Thursday. I think that the Luminous Mysteries fit in the sense that they supply for something that, while maybe not lacking, could have been called for in a healthy way by the church's tradition. So, again, I said at the top of the hour, the point of the rosary is to give you entry to the mysteries of the life of Christ, which themselves are saving.

And I think that, yeah, the Luminous Mysteries give you access to those aspects of Christ's life which are not the Passion, Death, and Resurrection, or which are not the Infancy Narratives, but which are everything in between. And it's true that every aspect of Christ's life, all of his deeds and sufferings are saving. And I think that the Mysteries, as it were, bring that into focus in an especially beautiful way. So I think that, yeah, I think that they're great. They're good. They're wonderful indeed. So, yeah. And I think they were promulgated by St. John Paul II in like maybe 2002 in Rosarium Virginis Mariae. So, I don't know that it goes so much along the lines of liturgical persuasion as it does on, yeah, just maybe tinkering with a traditional devotion, which had kind of been set for a while. But that's a good question.

Very good. Yes, very, very good question. All right, there we go. Anne Mary Jose says, hello from India. That's awesome. awesome um all right got some shout out from magister worthy to jonathan there good question um k davis says sorry i'm late can someone summarize why we should pray the rosary that's awesome i would say you can just watch it no longer in real time but in recorded time uh tyler b says it makes people good that's awesome i love this uh all right here we go this is this is a kicker and berlin fan forever and uh okay i think i said that right and berlin fan forever 21 this is awesome what's the saint thomas aquarius say in regards to the evil insect mosquito?

So St. Thomas would identify two different types of evil, right? So there's like physical evil, which sometimes would be associated with this evil of fault, or excuse me, evil of punishment, pena. And then there's not physical evil, but moral evil, which would be associated with the evil of fault or culpa. Okay, so it seems, on St. Thomas' understanding, that the physical evil is kind of baked into material reality. built up in their material lives by assimilating other material things, their edification is going to entail some kind of concomitant destruction. That's about the most confusing way to say what I'm trying to say. Whenever they build themselves up, they're going to tear something else down. Okay. So like even at the level of, um, right. Plants, right. Plants are going to draw out of the soil nutrients and they're going to draw

out water. So they're going to consume goods in order to be built up in their little planty life. Animals, it's more clear. You know, if you're a herbivore, you're going to break down some plants. If you're a carnivore, you're going to break down some animals. Okay. In the case of the insect, they're drawing on the lifeblood, to speak in some dramatic terms. They're drawing out the blood of other creatures so as to be built up in their own terms. They're drawing out the blood of other creatures so as to be built up in their own life. And when they do so, they leave an annoying little serum. St. Thomas doesn't weigh in on this question, particularly on mosquitoes, but my supposition is that mosquitoes would have been before the fall, but they wouldn't have left their little

deposit of poison that makes it so that your skin itches. So they probably just bopped in, bopped out, not born disease, not cause you to itch or scratch or anything else unpleasant, but they would have just subsisted on blood because that's their very nature. Now, maybe I'm wrong. I don't know. Or maybe they evolved from a more benign form of thing, or maybe their deposition of poison is absolutely essential to their flourishing. I don't know, actually. maybe their deposition of poison is absolutely essential to their flourishing. I don't know, actually. I don't know how it works, but those are some vain musings on the life of that fabled creature, the mosquito. All right, so in response to Tali's question, Karina Sacek says, a quote from St. Catherine may help. What it is you want to change, your hair, your face,

your body? Why? For God is in love with all those things, and he might weep when they are gone. That's good. I would say that that quote applies more to like plastic surgery than it does to like exercise or hygiene or things like that. But good to keep in mind that God loves you and that we're not trying to earn love either of God or of other human beings, but we're trying, as it were, to be good stewards of the things that have been given to us. All right, here we go. John Paul Gee says, Father Pine, given the past practice of arranged marriages is the modern practice of courting a bit overemphasized. Isn't the essential thing that man and woman be willing and able to live the life? Yeah, I mean, I'm not like, I think dating's good, right? Or courtship, as some people call it. Even that's getting like a little bit, I mean, dating is getting a little bit outmoded in the contemporary culture, which just finds it entirely passe. So I think it's good insofar as it's a way

by which to cultivate virtues, which sets you up to flourish as a couple. And I think that there are a lot of things that are good to troubleshoot at the outset before a kind of commitment. So the church observes this kind of logic in religious life. You have a period of probation before you're in vows. So postulancy and novitiate. For me, it was a year. For a lot of religious women, it's a period of three years. year. For a lot of religious women, it's a period of three years. And then you have a subsequent period in temporary profession or simple profession, right before you would make perpetual

profession. And the idea there isn't that, I don't know, that you're not like able to make a commitment in your life. But there's a sense like certain things are better to troubleshoot at the outset. Because there's a different dynamism at work at that juncture, right? You're more motivated to correct certain failures in human formation before you make the commitment than afterwards. Because, yeah, because your very vocation depends upon it. So I'm not against, I'm for dating, not for me personally, but I'm for dating for other people. And I think that arranged marriages, sometimes people speak about them a little bit romantically, but yeah, I just don't know the statistics of whether arranged marriages led to sanctity. And I think that'd be very difficult to prove. So it's for us to live in the here and now,

in our kind of contemporary setting. And while I don't think that you need to try everything before you do everything, obviously, because like, you know, you're only going to approach sexual intercourse in the context of a married relationship. And you can't like prepare for that approximately, except by other modes of intimate communication, which are appropriate to your state antecedent to marriage. Right. So I'm not going in for, you know, like the heresy of experience because potency is a principle of potency. It's not a principle of act. And I think that the way in which intelligibility is brought to bear on a matter is by act. So yeah, I would say that

those would be my basic thoughts on the matter. But yeah, cheers. All right, here we go we're cruising hey elsa magarena says this talk is very helpful to my mind and soul god bless cheers francisca says thank you father pine cheers to you. Dude, hallelujahs. Just killing it in the chat. Per usual. Let's go. All right, let's see here. Warren Roybal says, Is there a difference between the anxiety and discernment telling us to change paths from God and that anxiety brought on by the devil wanting you to abandon your pursuit of your true vocation? is yeah and i think that

um it's not especially helpful to get too terribly involved with the psychological the kind of minute psychological states which are presence or absence i think that what you focus on is the general trajectory of a life of grace virtue gifts of the holy spirit and where grace virtue and gifts of the holy spirit are there you will find the fruits of the Spirit and the Beatitudes. So, you'll find, if you are in a fruitful course of discernment, you'll find that you are kind of growing in general in a way that is more peaceable, patient, faithful, loving, etc. See Galatians 5, I want to say. So, with Satan's inspirations come anxiety, strife, quarreling, sadness, depression, all those kind of associated negative emotions, but also higher than emotions, affections, which weigh us down, oppress us, which kind of trap us within our own mind's eye and keep

us from being open to reality and to God as he reveals himself. So those would be some basic guidelines. All right, here we go. Cruising. All right, Maximilian M.K. Gill says, I pray the rosary every day, and it is not that much of an inconvenience. There are always plenty of time to pray. Let's go.

I love it. It says, no matter the day, always find time to pray. Okay. Maximilian says, Father Pond, what do you think is more important for a respectful mass, great chant or a great church to celebrate it in? I think great chant. I think the space is hugely important, but I think that chant is a more, oh gosh, it's something over which not so, what are the pertinent principles? You can actually produce great chant.

You can't necessarily produce a beautiful church except by a singular stroke of providence, many years of preparation, lots of money, a visionary pastor, et cetera. So I think that set your eyes on great chant if a great church comes in turn. Yeah, yeah, man, because great, great churches can do so much for the life of the faithful. It depends. Yeah, but I would say great chant is within reach. So start there. Okay, good questions. We're killing it. All right, Michael Tochi says,

Hi, Father. I often pray the rosary in the car, causing many distractions. I feel like I'm being disrespectful because I'm not as focused as I would be if I were kneeling or walking. Number two, am I being displeasing to God or Our Lady because I'm not yet structured enough to devote real focused time to praying the rosary? So it's a good question. And I would say is praying in the car is good in addition to prayer at home, but it should not be used as a substitute for prayer at home. So I think you need to pray at

home. You need to pray in the same place. You need to pray in a place where you can be kind of maximally attentive. But then if you want to add in addition prayer in the car, go for it. Does your prayer at home have to be the rosary? Not necessarily. Might be good if it were, but it doesn't have to be. So I think that that's kind of what informs your decision. I also think that it helps to see it from this or that perspective. So there's a joke that is sometimes told about, you know, two Jesuits. There's an older Jesuit and a younger Jesuit. Younger Jesuit goes to a superior and asks for permission to smoke while he prays the breviary, and his superior denies the permission. And then he goes to a spiritual prays the breviary, and his superior denies

the permission. And then he goes to a spiritual director, an old Jesuit, and says, yeah, I asked if I could smoke while I was praying the breviary, and he said, no, I was disappointed. And the older Jesuit, his spiritual director says, listen, bud, you went about it all the wrong way. Next time when you ask him, ask him if you can pray the breviary while you smoke. So I think that what you're looking at when it comes to driving isn't so much a matter of, you know, I'm praying the rosary. It's okay if I drive. I mean, your prayer should be a devoted thing. It should be a dedicated thing. And as a result of which, you should carve out some time for it at home when you can be attentive. But I think that when you're driving, you know,

obviously, it's good to pray. So there you go. Love to Jesuits. Father Matt Monag was super influential the summer that I began discerning the priesthood at St. Pius X Parish. Was it St. Pius X? Yeah, in North Portland, Maine. All right, Deborah Nadler says, Hi, Father Pine. Can you explain why and when the Eucharist can be denied? So, the Code of Canon Law says the Eucharist cannot be denied

when the person approaches, when they are well disposed, right? So, in a good state, at the appropriate time. And I think like not, when not bound by ecclesiastical censure, I might be confusing that. But Eucharist can be denied in the case of, for instance, a grave public sinner. So, it's manifestly known that that person is ill-suited to the reception of Holy Communion. Whereas if a priest knew by privileged knowledge that a person was a private sinner, he would not deny Holy Communion because, well, you just kind of take your cue from the way in which the Lord comported himself at the Last Supper, who did not deny Holy Communion to Judas. So communion is not for outing people, it's for building up the body of Christ. And if somebody chooses to consume unto their own

destruction, provided that it's a private sin, the priest is in a certain sense bound. He might rebuke that sinner subsequently in a private setting and encourage him or her not to approach until such time as reconciled. But yeah, so in a grave public sinner, or in somebody who's known to be bound by ecclesiastical censure, or somebody who calls you up at every hour of the night to ask you for Holy Communion when they're perfectly capable of getting to the normal mass times, there's a difference between being generous and accommodating as a priest, right?

After the model of Christ, the good shepherd, and then just kind of getting destroyed by parishioners who might have unjust or inordinate demands. So those might be examples in which. Here we go. Got more questions. Cruising through. Dude, somebody named their kid Maximilian. It's awesome. All right, here we go. Rodrigo Ricardo says, Father Pine, I'm engaged, but wait times are a year long at the church. We have been living together for a few years, and I understand that premarital relationships are a mortal sin along with, all right, here we go, contraception.

If we truly avoid both, if we truly avoid both, we will not be in mortal sin, assuming all else is good. I read that scandalous sin could also be an issue even if we abstain. Yeah, so the move there is to sleep. I mean, so obviously if you can live in separate residences, that is good. That is ideal. That is optimal. That is to be pursued. If for whatever reason you can't, then the next move would be to sleep in different rooms, ideally on different floors, and to install kind of safeguards such as you're not tempted to sins against the sixth commandment. And then to do so in a way that keeps you in touch with the sacrament of confession, certainly, were you to fall. But then there is this concern for the sin of scandal. So, if it's known that you're living

together and you worship at a place where that is kind of common knowledge, you're receiving Holy Communion when people think, would assume that you're sleeping together, would be scandalous and therefore lead to the kind of confusion of the faithful. So, I would recommend that you talk to your pastor about it it and he might recommend that if you are committed to living as brother and sister during the time of your preparation for marriage that you could potentially communicate at another parish where you're not known

I've heard of that happening also I would say that one year is too long to wait for a marriage and I would suspect that you can find another place it might involve having a smaller ceremony with fewer people present, but I think that, yeah, if you're ready, you're ready. So, boom. St. Jose Sanchez del Rio, Preforas. Here we go. Got some people saying, thanks for answering my question. You're most welcome. All right. It's awesome. Got some people saying thanks for answering my question. You're most welcome.

All right. That's awesome. Dude, got some lively chatting going on. Hey, Saoirse Ryan says, Hi, Father. Can you say hi to my friend, Yogan, who is watching this and bless his journey towards the priesthood? Yes. Hello, Yogan. I apologize for mispronouncing your name. The chances that I say it correctly are zero. So, God bless you, my friend. May the Lord bless and keep you. May he turn his face to you. May he shine his countenance upon you and give you peace.

May Almighty God bless you in all your endeavors. May you grow to be a great saint and a holy priest. All right. Bman525 says, Father Pine, what are your thoughts on Gary G. Lagrange? I like him a lot. So, I am very indebted to, very appreciative of the Thomistic commentatorial tradition. So, it's a particular way of reading St. Thomas Aquinas that places great emphasis on this distinction between act and potency and on this idea of Thomism as a kind of intellectual monasticism. So, like, Thomism makes most sense in the context of the Dominican life. And so, you have these people who come along in subsequent generations like Capriles, Cajetan, Ferrarians, Domingo Bañas, Domingo de Soto, kind of Francisco de Vittorio and Melchior Cano, but kind of not.

John of St. Thomas, Charles René Billiard, the Salmatichenses, and Gary of the Grange would kind of represent one of the last of that tradition as it exists as a tradition. But yeah, there's the sense that there's a common conversation and a common life, and you're meditating upon common problems with St. Thomas Aquinas as not only an inspiration, but a guide in a real substantive way, both in terms of matter and form, right, in terms of content and, you know, systematic approach or methodology. And I think that Gary Grange does that excellently. So I've read, I don't know, maybe 12, 15 of his books. Is that an exaggeration? I think that's actually true. Probably more like 12,

and I've benefited greatly from them, and I love the way in which he explains the faith, you know, systematically and clearly with a great emphasis on the truth that saves. saves. Here we go. All right, cool stories. Emily Ann Lucy G says, one of my ancestors was a Franciscan monk who died in the Holocaust and may have known St. Max. His name was Brother Dominic Golek. I pray for his intercession every day. That's awesome. I'm glad you dropped that in the chat. Thanks for doing that. Okay, the Luminous Mysteries are my favorite, says BB4N. Let's go. All right. Leslie Reeder clarifies, I'm speaking of oneness Pentecostal father. Unfortunately, I don't actually know what that refers to. So apologies for my limited range of knowledge, but not able to weigh in because I stink. All right, here we go. Here we go. JJ

Wirtz says, I've been praying a rosary in a group for a while now online and after mass. Do those indulgences accumulate? And can I pray for them to go towards someone? So they have to be gained on the day itself because part of getting an indulgence is intending an indulgence. So start now, start today. So you say your rosary, right?

You receive Holy Communion. You go to confession basically every two weeks, and that covers you in perpetuity. You pray certain prayers for the Pope, and Our Father and a Hail Mary suffices, and then you seek to be detached from sin and then intend the actual indulgence itself, and you can apply it to yourself

or to someone who's passed on. Paul Pereira, oh, here we go, says, Father Pine, any thoughts on praying the rosary in Latin or another sacred language versus vernacular? Yeah, I think it's great. Go for it. I pray the rosary in the language of the country where I'm living. So in Spanish when I'm in Colombia, in French when I'm in Freiburg. But I pray it in Latin sometimes.

I find that to be fruitful. I don't think it matters too terribly much. But I pray it in Latin sometimes. I find that to be fruitful. I don't think it matters too terribly much. It's like when you read the scriptures, I think you give preference to, you know, the language of the sacred text, Greek and Hebrew.

But then next you might read it in another language so as to challenge your conception of the, whatever, polyvalence of certain words. So too with the rosary, I think you can benefit from an experience in a different language. Everyday Catholic says, best advice for neophytes, pray every day. Doesn't matter how long, just pray every day. Boom. Magister worthy. Thank you for answering my question. You, my friend, are welcome. All right. Kyle James says, I may be wrong, but I believe you need to have intended to obtain the indulgence at the time in order to obtain said indulgence. I didn't think prayer travel time, time travel would work

on this one. That is correct. Good clarification. Why was the brilliance of Aquinas not used to Vatican II? Carolyn Climberley, it was. So like, for instance, the catechism, the present catechism, which is the last fruit of the second Vatican Council, as St. John Paul II described it, was ghostwritten mostly by Dominicans. So Jean-Michel Garrigue surveys Pincair, Jean Corbon, all Dominicans. Let's go. All of whom are formed in the Thomist tradition. And St. Thomas Aquinas is quoted most, I think, no, second most after St. Augustine in the Catechism among church fathers. So, yeah. I mean, like, he might not be as present in that as he was in the Council of Trent, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, but still very present. But I think that we're

coming into a kind of season of the church's life where his thought is more appreciated and applied. Anthony Rocco says, I can attest firsthand how the rosary has completely transformed my life. Look up the 15 promises St. Dominic gave to those who pray the full rosary every day. Boom. Let's go. Mimi H. says, I really appreciate how random this question is. Don't know which one you're referring to, but I appreciate you appreciating it. All right.

Kevin Kiever says, please pray for me. I'm in an institution. They are trying to make me take nasty medicine. Thank you. Gloria TB Domine. Okay. Pr praying for you uh here we go anthony rocco doubles down if you need to work up to praying three rosaries a day pray two if you can't pray two pray one no matter what pray the rosary every day that's it all right Parsec says, do we have any other evidence of God besides claims in the Bible? So St. Thomas's arguments depart from his observations of material reality.

For a good introduction to that, I would recommend that you watch Proving the Existence of God, an episode of Godsplaining on YouTube that I did with Father Patrick, or The Five Ways, which is the video in the Aquinas 101 series, which introduces you to the thought of St. Thomas. So both of those would be good places to go. I commend them to you. And boom. Peter007 says, how do you become a Dominican? So you contact the vocation director of the place where you live, and then you get information. And if you need help with that, just email Matt at Pints

with Aquinas and he'll forward the email to me. Boom. All right. Look up Miracle of Fatima. Got some miracles. Ryan Clark says, what's a rosary? What did Jesus say to Peter? Got some sweet action going here. All right, here we go. Ryan Markey says, Father, are the charisms of the Jesuits and the Dominicans similar in any way? I've since taken a great interest in the Jesuits after reading Set All Afire, Louis de Waal. Dude, I love that book.

Let's go. They are similar in certain ways. So the Dominicans pertain to the mendicant movement, right, which is still monastic in its origins and in its orientation, whereas the Jesuits are a modern religious congregation, so they don't have the same kind of monastic commitments, like sung choral office or, you know, like a habit, for instance, or cloister or silence in the same way, although they would have had certain aspects of those elements in their life and may still. I just haven't checked in recently. I think that they're both intellectual in their bearing. Dominicans tend to favor the sacred sciences, so like philosophy, theology, scripture, canon law, things like that, whereas the Jesuits

will teach basically anything under the sun. A Jesuit joke is, you know, when asked if a guy knows a subject, he says, no, I don't know it at all. I haven't even taught it. So it's very much a commitment of theirs to be involved in all aspects of Christian education, especially of poor young boys. That was the idea in the 16th century with their foundation in Rome. So, yeah. Okay. in Rome. So yeah. Okay. We've got some sweet action going on here about the God of thunder.

All right. DMT core says, I heard about cases of priests who gave up the priesthood and married after, and they received dispensation from the Pope to do so. How is that possible? Because priesthood is for life. Short answer is I don't know i just don't know um kevin keever says thoughts on any psychotic medicine um you know i think a lot of it is good uh like ssris for instance i think that there are biological right hormonal aspects to certain like psychic struggles whether that be anxiety or depression or ocd or schizophrenia or bipolar you know whatever and i think that it's you know good to treat those things with an anti-psychotic insofar as it's efficacious um yeah so i don't think there need be any stigma on that. Double Base asks, why pray? Can I change the future if I do, or can I influence God?

So you can't change, well, here's the thing. God wants you to pray because God ordains that his plans come about through your prayers. So God affords you the opportunity or the gift to be a secondary cause, a genuine secondary cause, which is to say, to be the means whereby some effect comes about in the world, whether in the order of nature or in the order of grace. And so, our prayers are invested with a real significance. They're invested with a real efficacy by virtue of the fact that God has chosen for them to be so. So, they're subject to God's providence and included within God's providence. They don't depart from it, nor do they change it. Hope that helps. Boom, ba-doom, ba-doom, ba-doom. Got some wild back and forth. Hey, nice.

Here we go. Hallelujah says, speaking of great chant, there is a great Dominican channel that is Dominicans chanting. It's called OP Chant, and I live with both of those friars. Frere Alexandre Fresato and Stefan Ansinger. The one is from Switzerland, and the other is from, what do you call, Holland.

Holland, the Netherlands. Good dudes. Check it out. Here we go. Nathan Flores says, Good day, Father Pine. Was the resurrection something that our Lord chose to do because it was fitting, or something inevitable that had to happen because

our Lord's divine nature? So, God chose that it happen because it was supremely fitting. It didn't have to happen except because he chose it. So, it's got a kind of suppositional necessity or conditional necessity in the way that it's necessary that Socrates is sitting because Socrates is sitting. So, too, it's necessary that God rise from the dead because God rose from the dead or because it was the best means whereby to achieve his end, which was our salvation and our conformity to him in the life of grace. Dude, we are just cooking. Bo asks,

Do you think praying the rosary with a YouTube video is the same as saying the rosary by yourself? I find the reflections between the mysteries help understand them better. Yeah, if you find them helpful, do it. Boom. Carolyn Kimberly says, our pastor built a neo-gothic church. Awesome. And assembled a beautiful choir. Awesome. End scola for Gregorianregorian chant awesome it's in colorado awesome cheers to you i don't even know what some of these things mean oh my gosh all right here we go.

All right, guys, I think we might have time for one more question. And I'm having difficulty finding things. It's awesome, dude. Some savage commentary going on here. Thanks, guys, for contributing. This is awesome. Okay, last question.

How do I have a spiritual connection to the rosary? I think my go-to answer to that would be through constancy. So insofar as you continue to do it or you do it consistently, you'll find that you form a connection. So it's not something that can be faked or engineered. It's something that comes about organically. So pray it and it will come in due course. All right, folks, that's all for me.

If you haven't yet, please do like this particular video, give it a thumbs up. And if you haven't yet, please do subscribe to the channel and push the bell so that way Google has to alert you the next time one of us go live on the channel. Also, please do check out Godsplaining Podcast, G-O-D-S-P-L-A-I-N-I-N-G, which you can find on any podcast app or on YouTube. And when you do, you'll find a kind of Catholic miscellany where we shed a contemplative gaze on all things contemporary. We've got weekly episodes that are 30 minutes long and then guests twice a month and then live explaining episodes also twice a month. So please check that out and subscribe to those channels so that way you get all the updates.

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