The Exorcist Files - Discerning God's Voice and True Identity with Fr. Gregory Pine

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

Fr. Gregory Pine joins the show to help us wrestle through how to stay close to God's will and root ourselves in Christ as the ultimate defense against the enemy. Thank you to our sponsors, RocketMoney.com/exfiles - Be a good steward! use Rocketmoney to help take control of your finances. Fast Growing Trees- Get FIFTEEN PERCENT OFF at using the code EXFILES at checkoutGet a copy of Father Pine's new book herehttps://www.amazon.com/Your-Eucharistic-Identity-Sacramental-Fullness/dp/162164796XSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello, Exorcist Files listeners. Short intro today, we are welcoming my dear friend, Father Gregory Pine, who is probably one of the smartest people I know. Unfortunately, he is also burdened with a love for puns, and he's a very sharp wit. Put the two of us together on a podcast, and you certainly have trouble. Just fair warning, if banter isn't your thing, you should fast forward about five minutes into the interview so you can get to the meet. Father Pine joins us today to talk about his new book, Your Eucharistic Identity,

which I've started reading and is absolutely fantastic. And I'm not just saying that because he's my friend. Father Pine shares some really powerful insights and just helps us think through what it means to be truly rooted in Christ, which is, of course, a great way to win its spiritual warfare. So with that, let's welcome the great pontificator himself, my dear friend, Father Gregory Pine. Enjoy, folks. Welcome back to The Exorcist Files. And no, it's not a show about an exorcist's nail care. but in fact something far more profound and far deeper. Today we welcome back a guest whom I am proud to call a friend,

but he's the only person I know who is so smart, we have to put him behind the paywall sometimes. Who's welcome, Father Gregory Pinesall, the one who cleans up my theology with that fresh lemon scent. Father Pynne, welcome to the show. Thanks very much. That was a polyvailing introduction. It was kind of like a wheel of fortune before and after type thing. you're like, I'm just going to append.

That was a nice word. I like the word append. Not as much as I like the word concatenate, both of which means similar things, as many phrases as of pertaining to this guy's life as possible. And you did admirably, so kudos. Well, I want to say this is why you end up behind the paywall because we've been recording for less than a minute

and you've already introduced three words, which everyone has to furiously. Google multisyllabic prose is actually not correlated with appearing on regular appearances on the podcast. I've heard that. Because your host doesn't understand what you're saying. Yeah, but then people always on the sign, I feel like, don't ever change. And so I just take that as the final and definitive word.

And I say, they must mean I should never change my strange vocalic register, including words like append, concatenate, and kudos. You mentioned Wheel of Fortune, and I'm wondering, we've joked that, you know, the Catholics have a better framework for redemptive suffering. So is there a Wheel of Misfortune show that we can start? Like the Wheel of Malice? I mean, that's really hard. I felt Wheel Misfortune these offers, like, you know, there's some hope.

But if it's Wheel of Malice, it's just all intentionally, bad things that happened to you, right? Yeah, exactly. It seems like you're perpetrating them on someone else. Like you're spinning a wheel so as to come up with ideas of bad things that you can, yeah, that sounds terrible. Why would you suggest that? Or its wheel of misfortune could just be, you spin it and you find out how to offer up your suffering to Christ redemptively, right? And it's the people chanting, wheel of misfortune. Yes. Yeah, or it could just be like the wheel of fortune but seen from another vantage. Because truth be told, there are a couple of bankruptcy spaces or like bankrupt spaces on the wheel of fortune. So depending, depending on

on like what light you see it under, there is misfortune on the wheel. I suppose there's no point at which the wheel of fortune is going to take your money from you. Like you're not going to go out poorer than you went in unless you're simultaneously sports betting while on the set of the show, which would be bold, by the way. So maybe that's actually, that's a great idea. Wheel of Miss Fortune is a game show in which you play another betting type gambling game show where there's more skin in the game as a way by which to raise the stakes. You're on to something. We are going to talk about the Eucharist and and some deep question about God, but we did start off with bad ideas with Father Pine and rhyme.

I also want to throw out because even though you can't operate as my formal spiritual director and priest, but as a friend with priestly education faculties, you could advise on some of these hairbrain schemes. Someone asked, what's the between a security guard and an insecurity guard? And I said, an insecurity guard is someone who just offers emotional validation. So I would love an insecurity guard.

And then someone asked me, are you a journalist? And I said, yes, I journal my feelings constantly. I mainly cover emotions and vulnerabilities, et cetera. So are those two career paths that I could explore? Yeah, no, for sure, indubitably. So, like, you're familiar with St. Francis of Assisi, cool guy, cool skills. But apparently he had a guy follow him around just to tell him how much he stank, less to become overblown because there's this huge emphasis in the Franciscan tradition

on humility. So rather than having an insecurity guard, he had something else. I don't actually know how it would work because security guards already taken. That's true. Well, and actually, in that tradition goes back, obviously. even earlier. We know that King David permitted someone to follow him and just taunt him constantly. I think it was someone

in like an Oakland Raiders jersey, or Philly's jersey, just constantly and you suck, you know? Yeah, exactly. Throwing batteries at him from center field, from like the proverbial Davidic equivalent. It's funny, and actually, this is actually a good segue here because we can't talk about eucharistic

theology and giving thanks and these mysteries of God without discussing the Duder canonanical Happy Gilmore or content Gilmore as it was originally called. Right. Because he employed that very same tactic, which we now know was inspired by St. Francis when Shooter McGavin hired the individual to shout out, way to go, you jackass. Exactly. And over and over, except Happy Gilmore did not respond, I think, in the same way St. Francis did.

No, nor David, nor any of the aforementioned humble men. So, listeners, we're actually doing a hard intro today because I'm welcoming Father Gregory Pine. What you don't know is that for the last five minutes, we have discussed completely. completely nonsensical items such as, what is an insecurity guard? What is a journalist, someone who journals feelings, of course. A failed game show called The Wheel of Misfortune. It has nothing to do with anything that we'll be discussing.

We also may decide to share various rap lyrics. Father Pine is rather astutely aware of some of the more obscure lyrics and has a gift to recalling them instantaneously. You also learn the definition of the three words that he offered up in the beginning, of which I can't even remember. But for now, we're going to walk Father Pine

because actually he has expertise in several areas that we care a lot about on this show, the realm of the spiritual and spiritual warfare, but also we're going to be talking today because he is a dear friend and he has a new book coming out. And you know if Father Pine wrote a book, it's basically somewhere between a coloring book and Duder Canonical Scripture. I don't know where the happy medium is. But also in this show, we know there's no such thing as a happy medium.

Don't be a medium. And so, Father Pine, thank you for joining us today. I appreciate it. You're a dear friend, and I'm excited to dig into all this stuff with you. So thank you for joining us. Hey, thanks for having me. And thanks for allowing seven minutes of banter and no threat of going behind the paywall. I am delighted. I know. Well, that's a new church they have in Rome now, right? It's Paul Beyond the Paywall. Nice. I see what you did there. Well done. I actually, so I was in Rome two and a half weeks ago. And I walked to Paul outside the walls, which sounds like quite the feat, but it's only like, I don't know, five-mile walk or something like that.

But as it turned out, we chose a place to eat, which required a little more time than we had originally bargained. And then the event started when it was due to start. And so I ended up having to do some jogging hither and thither, or hither and yon, depending on how you keep your Roman measurements, which was great because I had been preyed over by an individual for healing of my knee, which to that point had been basically destroyed through a variety of sports injuries. And I felt great whilst jogging hither and thither and or hither and yon, depending upon your unit measurement. So, uh, pull outside the walls, man. It's electric. Hashtag the new running man. That's amazing. I assume that you had injured your meniscus and

ACL through extensive prayer and intercession, but apparently that was not the case. It was your aggressive cricket habit. Exactly. Big cricketer. Before we go off into Eucharistic theology, and trust me, folks, this is going to be a brain bender because it is Father Pine. And I might emerge, understanding less about the Eucharist, which he might turn around and say, that's the point, right? But before we even get into all that, too, because Father Pine also does a ton of student ministry, too, on this show, Father Martins is very passionate about people having a solid identity of who they are in Christ and identifying kind of those wounds and holes and trauma that we have that exposes to demonic lies, et cetera. And so, you know, Father Pine, we were talking,

and you mentioned that many folks are asking these questions about identity about who am I? what am I supposed to do? What's my purpose here? And are those the right questions? They sound like good questions, but does the Christian ask different questions than the secular person? And are those the right answers we should be looking for? Yeah, I think a lot of people are asking questions about identity. And my suspicion is that a lot of that kind of comes to pass because the places where you used to get those questions answered are less and less available to us, like the family, the society, the culture, the church. As people grow apart, as people suffer more and more from isolation and alienation, they have a harder time figuring out who they are. You know, if you have two parents

who got married, stayed married, love each other, love you, you have an easier time coming to an appreciation of who you are and what you're for. But if you have suffered like the loss of divorce in one way or another, or if one of your parents passed at a young age, it becomes more difficult. It's just harder. And so I think as we see the breakdown of, the family, the society, the culture, the church in various ways. I think the people are beginning to ask the question with greater urgency. My concern is that a lot of people are asking the question online on Discord servers or on social media, and they're asking it of people who may not have their best kind of interests in mind and heart, who can pray upon them or who can simply influence

them one way or another, and there might be monetary gain in the back, you know, it's just kind of like weird and creepy. And so I think that ordinarily, the Christian asked this question of God, not just like in the Jesus and me sense, but ask this question of God in the setting of the family, the society, the culture, the church, and can rely upon God to answer that question for him or for her. And that, I think, is what the sacraments do in part, is that in bestowing upon us a measure of God's life, they actually reveal to us who we are and what we're for. Because as we heal and grow, we come to an appreciation of our identity and our mission.

This question does come up quite a bit. Maybe you can walk us through a distinction between, there's a concept right of God's general will for people's lives, right? Just like the Mark 16 verse, like, hey, yeah, you're supposed to disciple people. You're supposed to go out and pray for people. I mean, there's just like a Christian life that is marked by, hey, you know, do good deeds, serve the poor. That kind of honor Christ in the way he said, this is how you serve him. But then there's also God's other will, which is like when we think about people who had specific callings or charisms to go out and,

bless the church of the world in distinct ways. But could you walk us through a little about how we kind of think through that? I heard a pastor say one time, like, if you ever unsure, commander's intent, you know the general rule. Like, if you just have no idea, et cetera, you know you can always go out and serve the church, serve God's people, try and just offer a little bit of heaven into the fallen world as like a starting point. But then the Christian also can ask, hey, God, are there good works that you prepared for me

specifically? And I need to find those things because you might have some great things for me to step into. Yeah, so I think maybe we can make a distinction between capital v vocation, lowercase v vocation, and then job. So when I think of capital v vocation, all of us are called to heaven. So in that sense, there's really only one vocation. When I think of lowercase v vocation, in Catholic conversations, we talk about states of life, the ones we highlight are marriage, priesthood, and religious life. And these would be things that institutions that shape our approach to that one capital v vocation. We call them lowercase v vocations because they image something

of that capital v vocation. They're committed, they're vowed, or they're promised, and they give us a share in the covenantal love, which will be abundance and most satisfying in heaven. But then there's also ways in which your lowercase v vocation can be directed with different jobs. I realize that word's kind of a lowbrow, maybe even a bit crass, but we call it avocations, whatever you want to call it. And I think there are various works, which like, ready at hand. And you might not be especially creative or you might not be like especially imaginative or even ambitious and whatever way. But I do think that as you grow in your Christian life, that God gets more concrete as we live for him, in him, with him, as we profit from his grace,

we heal and we grow. And then we can begin to trust ourselves a little bit more. Now mind you, we remain capable of a certain self-deception or we remain capable of a certain selfishness. But nevertheless, like, as God has his way in us, I think that we can rely upon the indication that he gives each of us interiorly to be about the work of God. So it's like a lot of Christian life just comes down to saying like, well, this may as well happen, or I may as well show up for that, or no one else is doing this thing, so may as well give it a go. And I think that it doesn't have to be especially grandiose, but I think that we can trust that as God has his way in us, He will prompt us and conduct us into the fullness of life in its unique arrangement for each

individual, which will typically require of us a self-offering, a sacrifice, which will leave us marked by that, by which we may even feel diminished, but will kind of break open to us a fuller appreciation for who he is and what he is about so that we can step into who we are and what we're about. Amen. Father Martin's here. I want to do a quick plug for one of the most powerful tools I've seen for break. breaking free and growing closer to Christ.

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I don't know if this is thrown around in Catholic circles as much as Protestant circles. This is up there with heart posture. But God has a plan for your life. And I would say, yes, obviously, the plan is we're all supposed to become saints and go to heaven. That's the plan. But as we know from the A team, several of the alien movies as well, the best of plans are sometimes foiled. And we have free will, which complicates things as well. But if someone was saying, hey, does God have a plan for my life?

And maybe we could even focus on our Boyd King David, who, God's plan for him, I'm assuming, did not include best, Sheba and his numerous moral failings, but God's plan account for that. You guys' plan certainly accounted for that. In Catholic circles, we make a distinction between God's perfect will and God's permissive will, or if you want the older language from St. John Damascene, an 8th century, Eastern Father, we can talk about God's antecedent will and God's consequent will. I know you were hoping for more vocabulary, so I supplied it. All these words and their definitions in the show notes, folks, so we're going to play Father

Gregory Pine word trivia next time. Or bingo cards. Like, who had antecedent on their bingo card? I did. I'm just saying you're asking some complicated questions. And I think that people want sufficiently complicated answers that help them to appreciate what's actually at stake. Because if I just wave my hand. In the words of Ceverill-Levin, why did you have to go and make things? Makes things so complicated. In the words of Averillivine, listen, I'm just a skater boy. So, exactly. People have the, these questions, and they're not satisfied by overly facile answers. It's like, oh, don't worry about it. You'll be fine. They're like, no, no, I am worried about it. That's why I asked the question.

And so here's the thing. God's will for our life takes into account all the pertinent factors. So strong is his providence and governance that he can use anything, even sin, even vice, as ways by which to bring us back into communion with him, to lead us more deeply into relationship with him. You think about Romans 828. God makes all things work to the good for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. So God wills that our lives unfold freely because he's made us to be free. He's not a puppet master. He's not a controller or a manipulator. He facilitates our freedom. He prompts us by the gift of grace, virtue, gifts of the Holy Spirit to fulfill that freedom. But nevertheless, less it remains true that we can fail. So God's plan takes account of those failures, and he's always

conspiring. He is, as it were, poised to lead us back to himself. It's not as if, like, there's a best possible way to live our lives, and every time we choose against that, we diminish the fullness that we can enjoy in the end. Rather, all along the way, God is making available various means for deeper conversion, even radical conversion, such that we can become the saints after his imagining. God knows it all, all right? God wills it all, and God permits it all to go by way of our free choice, even as he facilitates that free choice and empowers it. I hope that's not too complicated. That's a huge question, I think, and I know a lot of younger folks ask that. I mean, gosh, I'm constantly asking that to you because we all want to believe that we're significant,

and we are because we're made in God's image, but I look at most of human history. And I mean, I get to wrestle with questions like, what show do I want to produce? Where do I want to live? Who do I want to do community with? And for the vast majority of human, existence, it was, I hope I live and I hope this other tribe doesn't invade me. I hope there's enough produce to last through the winter. I think it was just the different questions that we have the luxury of asking in our day and age, because I think about, even in the Revolutionary War, they line you up and go, all right, farmer, farmer, farmer, college for you, farmer, farmer. And they're like, but dad, I'm not fulfilled growing tomatoes. Well, try eggplant. Get content with that. And to your

other point, too, as far as the internet, et cetera. And I think this comes back to the the realm of spiritual warfare is because the enemy is constantly trying to get us to sell out and go for these things that the world prizes. And you go online and it's like now there's just so much comparison. And it's like everyone wants to be an influencer. And we have just so many profiles of people who are rich in the earthly sense. And so we're constantly comparing ourselves to that. Whereas, you know, Mayo's a little easier back in David's day, right? You either were the king and a few of the nobles or everyone was poor, right? That was just kind of the way it worked, et cetera. But do you find that these problems are being exasperated with the easy access to the social media

in people's lives that we're now kind of maybe even craving the wrong things more than ever? Yeah. So like I think of the sin of envy is the sin that creeps into our heart when we begin comparing ourselves to others. And so G.K. Chesterner famously wrote, it's not familiarity that breeds contempt. It's comparison that breeds contempt. Amen. And so sometimes when we see others receive blessings in their life, we think to ourselves, ah, the blessings that they have received are blessings that I have not received. And so if they profit, I suffer. If they succeed, I fail. And so it becomes this kind of logic of scarcity where I can only ever advance if someone else is diminished by my advancement. And so we find ourselves seeking actively to undermine others

and rejoicing in their downfall because it redounds to our glory, to our fame, to our influence, to our honor, whatever it is. But that's just not a logic of spiritual abundance. The logic of the mystical body is that in the mystical body, if one prophet's all profit, because it's an organic union. I don't begrudge the Blessed Virgin Mary that she has been so exalted above angels and saints because her gifts are in a certain sense my gifts because she is my mother and I receive from her maternal intercession. And so I can celebrate all the transpires in the mystical body because God is glorious and his saints, because I profit thereby. It's not like in a selfish sense, but like I can see this as part of my good insofar as part of the common good. Right. And it's just marvelous to behold. And so I think that

there is a relationship between envy and then sloth, which is the sin where I look at the divine goodness and I think, I get sad about it on account of the fact that it seems so distant or it seems so impossible to realize. So it's not just a matter of seeing somebody else's goodness and getting sad. Now it's a matter of seeing God's goodness and getting sad because I suspect he might not be generous or I suspect that his goodness might not be for me. And so this is why like the emphasis in the book is so much on Eucharistic worship. It's the point here of our life is to be with God. It's to know God and love God and to express our praise and thanks to God in worship because that's the thing for which we're made. And it gets us out of this rut of comparison and a kind of relative sadness

at the recognition of what we don't have, which is the wrong rubric under which to see our lives. That's something I've always struggled with is comparison issues. And I've got to think it's seasoned by our capitalistic culture we live in where actually competition is the force by which we generate all these amazing economic gains and also breakthroughs, right? It's weird. It's a double-edged sword because all that unhealthy competitive drive in sleepless night. and work-life balance, lack thereof, has led to some enormous breakthroughs, I'm sure. But why do you think that happens?

Do you think when we have these reactions, like someone's blessing is my loss, right? Is that a human hardware problem? Is it a psychological, like, wounding? Or is it also sort of a demonic amplification where is that a lie that's just part of this kingdom? And whenever we give in to envy, we're just accepting a lie.

The enemy's saying, yeah, their success is your family. Yeah, I think all of the above. So I think part of it is the fact that human beings are embodied. And so we think about things in somewhat material terms. And in material terms, when you get seven slices of pizza, it only leaves one slice for me. Now, mind you, I don't do well with lactose. So it's not that big of a deal. But still, it's a logic of diminishment by virtue of its connection with matter. So that's just in human beings. But then also, there's the fact of our fallenness. So we, too, suffer this. kind of fear of scarcity as a fruit of the fall. And you can think about the temptation that seduced Eve and Adam in due course. Did he say that you shouldn't eat of this tree? For he knew that if you

were to eat this tree, you would be like gods. And here's a thing. By virtue of the fact that they already enjoyed the life of grace, virtue, gifts to the Holy Spirit, they already were like gods, but they just failed to acknowledge what they had. And so they lusted after something that they thought they hadn't, and then they fell as a result, because they didn't receive their lives from God as they were intended to receive their lives from God. And that's very similar to the fall of the angels. There are various kind of musings as to why the angels fell, the demons in turn fell. The majority position is it was a matter of pride that they simply couldn't have their lives as a gift from God. Either they wanted something other than God, or they wanted God by their own

resources or kind of on their own steam. But the fact is they weren't content to receive from him. And so I think that, like, that's the deal with our identity and with our mission. It's something that we receive from him. That's the deal with our whole lives. It's something to be received from him and then to be magnified in gratitude and Thanksgiving. But sometimes we just, we can't abide the terms. We just can't abide its gratuity. Because at the end of the day, God loves us not because we're good. He loves us because he's good. And while, I mean, that's beautiful. I think a lot of people find it difficult because we want to be celebrated for what we are. We want to be congratulated in our own efforts. What we are in our own efforts are only ever going to be good insofar as they're a

gift from God. So I think that there's something that's deep at the core of our being, but then you see it in these successive ranks that makes it hard for us to receive our lives, to receive our identity and mission from God, and be secure in our identity and mission on account of the fact that we recognize it's good because it's his gift and we can receive that. I've asked a few priests on this show and none of them use as big a words as you, so I'm excited to pose this question. Why do you think God allows for and permits this adversary to whisper in like misinformation? We basically, we all had a trustworthy news source, right? And then in the garden, this upstart serpent channel broadcasts a fake news story. And it's like a TikTok video.

We all just clicked. And before you know, it went viral and, you know, it's in the universe is broken. And it's like, so what are your musings on why? God would allow for an active adversary who actually is offering up plan B, like an alternate option on the menu. Yeah. So I think part of it is the free will of the angels. So God creates and God permits and God abides by the terms of his creation and permission in the case of the angels and in the case of man. I also think it's our free will too. I think part of the reason for which we fall to misinformation is because we want to. It's just part of our own pattern of self-deception. we wouldn't believe it unless at a certain level we wanted to believe it. And then also,

I think God only permits evil to befall that he can bring forth from it some good. And I think here of persecutions which made the martyr's lives so glorious. There's a certain sense in which that glory would not be present to the Christian church, were it not for the fact that people like Nero and Trajan and Domitian and Decius and Valerian and Diocletian. hated the church and persecuted it. In a certain sense, it shows the more textured nature of God's providence and governance that he can bring evil out of good. He doesn't need the evil. But the ecosystematic harmony of an environment in which even the evil is brought back to the good shows just how great God is. And I think part of that is that it's an invitation for us

to live on a higher plane because God's not playing our game. We're playing his game. And the rules of his game are beyond our understanding. We can understand them to a certain extent. But every time we get a further glimpse of how good those rules are, it's like, holy smokes, he is about a deifying work. He is about a saving work. And I think we're astonished and kind of mind boggled by the recognition thereof. And so I think part of it, too, is that God will use everything as a way by which to reveal who he is and a way by which to mediate his divine life, even the evil, which seems most insidious. Yeah, it's Michael Douglas, the game. Also fantastic. And you just realize it's going deeper and Fantastic movie. I'm curious. So along those lines, too, with God's plan, et cetera,

when the Apostle Paul says statements, I long to come to you, but Satan prevented me, right? What is the interplay between God's plan and Satan's adversarial role in trying to obstruct it? Because something that I've noticed that has come up often, especially in Protestant charismatic circles, is, oh, I was trying to get there, and I was late, and it was spiritual warfare, right? And that's entirely plausible, right, given what we read in scripture, right? That's Apostle Paul seems to hint that at many times he is, you know, thwarted. But help me walk through this because it seems like if you are a Christian in general, if you are aiming to live a godly life, you will be persecuted.

Like, end of story. So, or is that just him going, yeah, that's just normal due process that happens for the Christian. Could you maybe give us some thoughts on that interplay between God's plan for your life and then Satan's adversary role to stop it? think about them as transpiring on different planes. God's plan for our life takes into account all of the particulars because it is itself universal. So God isn't just one agent working amongst a bunch of different agents. You know, so you got God, you got the demons, you got the angels, you got men, you got whomever else is involved. God isn't just one in a crowd. So God causes,

not just the things that he causes, but he causes the way in which those things themselves operate. Okay, this sounds confusing, but the basic idea is, so not only does cause all the things to happen, but he causes the way that they transpire. So when we do things, we do them freely, because God causes us to do things freely. When angels and demons do things, they do things freely, because God causes them to do things freely. So when St. Paul says, I, a particular cause was opposed by a demon, another particular cause, that's an adequate explanation of what's going on. But in a higher plane, God, the universal cause, is causing Paul to cause and permitting the demon to cause at a certain level, all in such a way that falls within the bounds of his providential

plan. And God is drawing good out of that. God is using that as an occasion to draw Paul more deeply into relationship with him and to save souls, you know, as it befits or as it seems best to him. So the basic idea is God isn't in conflict. God is transcendent. Yeah, so he's not even in the arena. I guess that's probably where the mistake comes. We think that, like, he's playing the game with us. And he's like, he owns the arena. He's the dungeon master. He owns everything. I want to be careful. He's right, we don't build theology out of just one or two verses. And the Job story is super interesting because that's a righteous man who seems to get caught up in a terrible just wager in front of the heavenly host and also never gets an answer.

And so do you think that God permits Satan to do these things? And is it a way of keeping us sharp? Right? Because obviously, if God allows it, it's for a greater good, right? That's a basic tenet, right? If God is permitting something, even if we don't understand it, it is part of a greater good. Because this is how we deal with tragedy, right?

God only allows these horrible natural disasters and tragedies and death, et cetera, because it's part of a greater redemptive arc that he's working, right? I think if we just say that the greater good is God himself, then we're fine. I don't want to talk about God maximizing or optimizing the good of the universe. I just don't know how invested he is in that. But I know that for rational creatures, namely angels and men, God wants to give us himself and that God will use whatever evil things that transpire as a way to give us himself. When Paul talks about Ephesion 6 and putting on the armor of God, I just wonder, is there a world where he just introduces a threat to keep you sharp,

right? Is that part of why we have an adversary to remind us that, hey, like, I love you. you, you're safe and crying. And there's this weird tension, right? We're never told to be afraid of the enemy, but it's respect the threat. And it's like, hey, I'm putting alligators in the water so you know that like, don't go swimming there. So I don't think that God would cause something exclusively for malign purposes because God doesn't need evil in any way, shape, or form to bring about the good. God uses evil. And that's a testimony to his creativity. It's a testimony to the subtlety of his redemptive plan, but in no wise does he need it. So I think that, like, God can train us up in righteousness in whatsoever way he chooses, and he doesn't need evil for

those things. The fact is, demons introduced evil, we introduced evil by our fell choice, right, insofar as we preferred something to God and evil entered the world, as it were. But on account of the fact that we did, God can use that and will use that. And part of the reason for which is, like you said, to keep us on our toes, to train us in righteousness, to draw us to himself. So as I kind of land the plane here on philosophy question hour with you, since we have the privilege of having you here, you know, one thing I've thought about too is that, and there's a weird tension here where God created all these things for us to enjoy, and we live in like sort of Satan's dominion, but yet God still allows all these things for our enjoyment, right? And just he loves

his children, his creation. There's also lots of terrible things in this world. But how do we walk that line of, you know, we read out in scripture praying always. And, and, you know, And you take this theology to the extreme. If the mission is to know God, you could see someone saying, I'm just going to cloister myself and just pray 24-7, save for naps, and occasionally I'm going to use the restroom. And I'm assuming I'm like, no, no, like, I need you to go out and actually, like, do things. So how do we walk through that tension of feeling this draw to like, okay, pray always and without ceasing, right?

But also the fact that we have basic human needs and we're social creatures and we need to go interact with other people. And so maybe walk us through a little bit of that. I think part of it is like God wills different things for different people, and we have to trust that his will for us is good. The contemplative life, as you describe it, the life lived by monks, is a better life than the act of life. Insofar as it anticipates the life of heaven, and it does so really concretely. It's awesome. That's what we're made for, to live that fullness in communion with God. but it may just be the case that God is educating us and training us up in such a way that we're

better suited to live an active life. And that's not because like we try the contemplative life, but we just couldn't hack it. It might just be that God will something different for us. Truth be told, God doesn't need us. He doesn't need us in any way, shape, or form because anybody whom we might play some instrumental role in saving, God could himself save directly. God could save without any instrumentality or without any mediation. The fact that he concedes to us this privilege of participating in his plan is because he wants to bless us, because he wants to make us himself, because he wants to invite us more fully into communion with him. So this is all a gift when we feel the weight of the world on our shoulders and we think that it's up to us to save everyone. It's not.

It's up to Jesus. But Jesus, in his infinite loving kindness, has seen fit to incorporate us in his plans for the salvation of the world. But that's going to go by way of, your temperament, your constitution, your nature, nurture, formation, and all the indications that God gives as to who you are and what you're for. So I think this question of identity and mission is key, but it's an identity and mission that we come to an understanding of only progressively as we seek to heal and grow in living our Christian lives. And then we can be confident. We can be certain that I'm made for this, and this is good. Even though like others have been made for more noble tasks, the Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, we can number them. no problem. I'm content to occupy my place in the mystical body, to play my part in the mystical body,

because I know it's precious to the Lord. And so I'm going to take stock of the gifts that I've been given and try to use those gifts as well as I know how, mind you, in a human shape. You know, it's not going to be robotic. It's not going to be absolutely tireless because I get tired because I have a body. So I think it takes into account all those pertinent factors and then it gets after it. I think that's the disposition of a Christian disciple. Father Pine, it is always an event when you release a book. Tell us a little bit about your book. We're going to talk about it because I actually really want to dive into this topic today

because we're going to get to something which is a understandably divisive topic among Protestants and Catholics, but also something that I think there's tremendous concurrence on. And it has implications, though, far beyond just the debate of what actually happens with it. So why don't you tell the fans a little bit about your book? A lot of our fans already know who you are. but maybe you could offer just a little brief reminder of why we allowed you to come on this show in the first place and about the boat because you said if you're not willing to go promote what you wrote then basically why do it in the first place because that means you don't believe in it bingo yep so my name is father gregory pine the last time i was on this podcast this august podcast you told me to talk about my educational history but i teach at the dominican house of studies which is a seminary in washington dc for dominican Friars, which are Dominican religious. So like Father Martins, he's a member of a society of apostolic life, but another kind of outfit of consecrated life. I'm part of another different one.

And then I work for a thing called the Timistic Institute, which does programming on college campuses, seeking to furnish college students with the Catholic intellectual tradition so they can be protagonists of the intellectual evangelization of their campus. And then I contribute to a podcast called Godsplaining. I wrote a book. It's called Your Eucharistic Identity, a Sacramento guide to the fullness of life. And so it's basically about how, when Catholics think about the Eucharist, Protestants say that the Eucharist is just a symbol. So that must mean that it's not a symbol at all. But that's a bad way to approach things, because if you define by contrariety, you often end up in an erroneous position. For instance, Catholics will say, Protestants say that we're

justified by faith. That can't be the case. We must be justified by works, which is not true. We're justified by faith, breathing love, which love is manifest and works. So the idea is to kind of reclaim an understanding and a kind of practice of Eucharistic worship, which isn't defined by contrariety or by popular polemics, so much as by the Lord's teaching and St. Thomas Aquinas's reception of that teaching. I do appreciate that point because I think what you just mentioned actually is a really interesting situation that arises, especially with Protestants, where when you over-index against one opinion, you end up jettisoning all the other stuff. And so we end up with, okay, well, if the Protestant tradition says, oh, I think there's too much of an emphasis on Mary,

suddenly there loses any semblance of like, oh, this is the mother of God and the theotokos, right? Or, you know, there's, oh, relics can be abused. Dergo relics are not valid, and they're all bad. And yet you look in scripture, and we see clearly multiple instances where physical objects are used to be conduits of God's power and grace. So it is interesting that does plague both sides, where you say, oh, well, it can't be that, so we just totally go on the other side. And, you know, oh, man, I think there's some things outside the Bible that are messing up. Ergo, I will never look at any truth outside the Bible, which is very limiting because the Bible, while full of amazing things, was not helpful when I was studying for my calculus test or trying

to run my business financials, right? Nice. All right. What is the actual heart of this book? What got you excited to write about this? And perhaps you could just extend an ecumenical olive branch. Do you think Protestants would actually find some of this book interesting as well? So I wrote it because we Catholics in the United States were preparing for a national

Eucharistic Congress, which was last year, last summer specifically. And one of the brothers and I were like, hey, let's write a book about it. And after a few months, he was like, yeah, I don't actually want to write a book about it. But at that point, I had already written my chapters. And I was like, okay, I guess I'm halfway in. So in for a penny, in for a pound. So the idea was basically there was a study that came. out, which suggested that most Catholics don't believe that Jesus is present in the Eucharist,

not like really present in the Eucharist, or substantially present in the Eucharist. And some people will say that the results of that survey were largely dependent upon the language, according to which it was framed. But there is the sense that, like, hey, this is a great treasure, and we're not receiving this gift as we ought to receive it. So let's do what we can to explain the church's teaching and practice as a way to furnish folks with resources. for a fuller appropriation. As to Protestant reception, so I think that, like, in its loose conception, it is ecumenical in its drive, in that a lot of times Protestants will hear Catholic teaching, and they'll hear it kind of framed and polemical or otherwise controversial

terminology. But what I'm doing here is kind of like reclaiming a tradition which antedates a lot of that polemic and controversy. So scripturally rooted, patristically seasoned, and medievally kind of set forth for easy consumption. I suppose like when people hear medievally set forth for easy consumption, like what in the world does that mean? So I think that St. Thomas Aquinas is my leading light. He's my main squeeze. He's my top guy. And the reason for which isn't because he gives me cool words slash grammatical structures with which I can impress people at cocktail parties. Number one, I don't go to cocktail parties. Number two, I haven't impressed anyone ever. But the idea is that St. Thomas has keen insight into the nature of the thing. And he's able to see.

set it forth in a way that's comprehensible and that gives you real access to the church's riches and to the tradition itself. St. Thomas Aquinas doesn't want pole parrots. He doesn't want people just going around, copacadding him and saying the things that he said so that way he can have a big following. St. Thomas is in service of the truth, and he's going to set that truth out in terms which are most easily received, digested, interpreted, and then applied. And so the idea here was to kind of go back to a biblical, patristic, medieval understanding of the Eucharist, which could be more broadly applicable for, yeah, teaching and life. Are you saying enormous number of Catholics actually don't believe the dogma of the church,

which is that, and when you say don't believe, is that they just disagree, or do you feel like they just don't understand? Because there's a sense of mystery when it comes to the Eucharist, right? As someone who's not Catholic, the church wouldn't expect me to try and strain my faculties to imagine that it has actually becoming like, that I'm seeing it, right? There's a sense of mystery in, like a gray area that we live in, right? Like, you believe it.

They don't expect you to actually see that, right? Yeah, so I would say it's revealed in the sense that it's the type of thing to which we don't have access by the unaided power of reason. So you're not going to reason your way to Catholic Eucharistic teaching because it's beyond the capacity of our reason. But the idea is that if God reveals it and then he furnishes us with resources in the life of the church to receive that revelation, to understand that revelation, to interpret that revelation, that we should make use of those resources. And I think there are various ways to do that.

You can do apologetically. You can give arguments which prove that people who say otherwise are wrong. Or just more basically, evangelical. You can set forward the teaching as part of a basic proclamation. Jesus is Lord. He came. He suffered, died. He rose from the dead to save us from our sins. I don't know if I mentioned the fact that his lordship means that he is the only begotten son of God. He is, okay. But also as a way to continue his incarnate presence amongst us, he leaves us the sacrament of his body and blood. Like you can make it part of that basic proclamation. So you got the apologetic, the charismatic.

What I do here in this book is kind of more catechetical. So it's the type of thing where it's like, okay, given what has been revealed to us, how do we begin to connect the dots? And then mystagogical in the sense that like, all right, these are mysteries for your contemplation and for your transformation. It's not just the type of thing where there's going to be a test at the end, you better get the questions right. The idea is that if God reveals himself and mediates his interior life for our contemplation and transformation, then we ought to take steps to use that, as it were. And so the disposition of the book is folks who are curious, whether they've engaged in some of the arguments or already heard the proclamation, but folks who are curious and then want to take up some of the reasons catechetically and mystagogically for not only why this is true,

why this matters and how this can be transformative. I think you used the word mist, did you use mystologic? I said mystigas. Is that not one that you say in Protestant circles as much? It's actually not. We say heart posture, stewardship, etc. So. So mystogogy is like, the basic idea is you've received these things.

And then mystogogy is a matter of unpacking these things. In the early church, for instance, you would have a time where, say, somebody wanted to become Christian. There'd be a time of like initial inquiry. and then there'd be the time of the catechuminate, and then there'd be this time of further instruction and enlightenment, and then you'd receive the sacraments at Easter, but then there'd be a further time of instruction,

which was referred to as mystogogy. You'd refer the word pedagogy. You know, that word just means to lead or to be led into, and so it's to be led into the mysteries, which you yourself are already in possession of. So you've received the sacraments, and now it's a matter of saying, what's actually happening in your sacramental life,

what's actually going on inside you, in your spirit, in your body, as you receive these things or as you're in living contact with the Most High God, as a way by which to enter more fully into that. That's the basic idea. I'm just generally curious. What do you think is the most plausible reason for why a divergence of thought emerged? Did everyone absolutely agree for most of church history?

I've heard this said, but was it universally understood that this is the physical body and blood of Christ? And then only in the 1500s when Luther came around did this idea of co-substantiation, happen, or were there other divergent sects that actually say, hey, it's a mystery, we're not sure, it seems like something that is, on one hand, so sacred and so important, but also because it is a little bit of a mystery, I do empathize with questioning why it's turned into such a huge fight. Why would that disagreement arise historically? So there are various, I mean, heretical movements or kind of Christian sects who differ from the church as to its Eucharistic teaching. And obviously,

it takes time for the church to enunciate or formulate her teaching in the way that she does. The word that often gets battered around transubstantiation, this idea that there's a change in the very substance, that doesn't really get used in church teaching of a formal sort until the 13th century. So that'd be latter in four. And mind you, it's in the tradition before then. It's in the tradition after then, obviously, but it kind of gets solidified in that way in the 13th century. But you have biblical roots for an understanding that there's a change that the typical Catholic reading of John 6 is the idea that when the Lord says this, you know, he's referring to his body that the scandal caused amongst those present is a scandal

which he permits to abide because what he's teaching differs from what they think sensible, right? So there's something here that is scandalous and that in our reading of the institution narratives in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then in Paul, we have some indication of a transformation of the Seder meal with its use of cups and its covenant theology, which reorients Jewish worship into the fullness of this new dispensation. There's something going on, but I think it takes the kind of sustained meditation of Christians over the years to formulate the vocabulary and the grammar with which best to explain that. I think it's a thing that's worth fighting over because it is so central to Catholic faith and to Christian belief more broadly. And so I don't want to diminish the

fights. I think there are ways in which the fights can be overblown or ways in which the fights can be kind of overwrought, but I understand why people fight about it. Because it's either true worship or it's idolatry. I don't see there being something in between. Is there a fair argument, and even if it's erroneous in the end, was part of the division over what happens with co-substantiation or transubstantiation, and this idea that there might be more symbolic than physical. Did that arise because there were accusations of the Eucharist being sort of weaponized, for lack of better term, being withheld for political reasons, et cetera? Is that something that's like a fair statement?

Is that where that concern arose? Everyone thought a certain way. And then suddenly out of nowhere, like, actually, maybe it's not that. I would assume that there had to be some instigation there or potentially, was there an overreaction to some abuses of the practice. I think it's a hard doctrine to understand as the church explains it. In the sense that, like, you said that Jesus is physically present on the altar, that's not the language that a Catholic would use to describe his presence.

He's not present physically. He's present sacramentally and substantially. And you might say, well, what's the difference? Well, Christ is only physically present in one place in heaven. Insofar as he is there, body, blood, soul, and divinity in his glorified state. Honestly, we just don't want Jesus flying around, you know? We don't want Jesus kind of making visitations like Santa Claus on Christmas night because that's weird. I mean, there are a lot of things about Christian faith.

And it's his birthday. He should have the time off, right? Exactly. Nailed it. No, but the idea is that what we're talking about here is a sacrament. How is it that sacraments make God present? They make him present by the power of a sign. Okay.

So that's just what it means to say sacramental presence is there's a sign here. What is the sign in the case of the Eucharist? The matter is you got bread and wine. the form is the pronunciation of that institution narrative over it in commemoration of our Lord's sacrifice and his institution on the Last Supper. And so the idea is that sign makes God's power present. But there's something peculiar about this sign which differs from the other sacraments. Because, for instance, with the washing of baptism, you say, I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, you're making God's power present, but you're not making Him

present because you don't say, like, I make God present who then baptizes you. But with the Eucharist, you're saying, take this all of you and eat it. This is my body. So it's the sign itself says God's about to show up. So there's a novel mode of presence in the sacrament of the Eucharist. He's not just sacramentally present. He's substantially present. Why do I say all that?

Because I want to complicate things and make you tempted to put this behind the paywall. No, no. There's so much intellectual tradition I love about Catholicism, but I also go, man, I am now more confused 20 minutes in on the Eucharist. But maybe that's good. Maybe confusion is humility. It's like double-think. I feel like an Orwell novel.

where it's like, it's bread and wine, but it's not. But it is, but it's not, you know. Okay. Well, I think that's a helpful confusion insofar as it leads to a clarification. All that I'm trying to say is that I suspect the part of the reason for which people disagree about this is that it's a really strange mystery. And you have like San Ambrose in the fourth century saying, I acknowledge the fact that it's a really strange mystery.

But do you believe that the only begotten Son of God took flesh in the womb of a virgin? Okay. in for a penny, in for a pound. So there's this, the strangeness of it is that you have no physical change. All right. So it looks like bread. It looks like wine before, during, and after the consecration. But we believe that while those appearances remain, that the substance of bread has been changed into our Lord's body, and that the substance of wine has been changed into our Lord's blood. And that wherever his body is, there too, is his blood, soul, and divinity. And wherever his blood is, There too is his body, soul, and divinity.

So we speak of his true presence or his real presence. That's the basic Catholic teaching. But that he has made presence by virtue of the sign, all right, by the sacramental power. But that in this one instance, so we're thinking here of the Catholics hold to seven sacraments, baptism, confirmation, eucharist, penance, anointing, orders, marriage. So you have seven sacraments, but only in one of those sacraments does God say, I want the sign to make me show up. that's the sacrament of the Eucharist. So in addition to this sacramental presence, we have this substantial presence

because he says, I want the substance of my body, the substance of my blood present on the altar. That's the reason for which there's so much back and forth on this particular doctrine because that's a very strange thing. And so in your book,

what did you want Catholics and just anyone to walk away from when they engage with this topic of the Eucharist? Because I remember my first experience just like, actually with you, I went to adoration with you and I was like,

what's adoration? It sounds so, like, actually, it's just sitting in front of what we think is actually Jesus is right there. And you're like, oh, and I'm like, okay. So now, actually, that's a greater question. Jesus is not physically present in adoration, right? He's sacramentally and substantially present, not parts of him, the whole of him, but in a distinct mode than the mode of physical presence. So, like, you are present in your room physically. Yes.

You're only in one place. You are nowhere else. Christ is present in that way in heaven. All right. Christ is present in that way in heaven. But as God, he institutes sacraments, which wield a certain power to make God present. And all seven sacraments wield that power to make him present in one way or another to give a grace. But the Eucharist makes him present, we'd say, not just sacramentally, but substantially. So it's not like he's present, let's say that he's 511, 165 pounds. He's not present there as 511 165 pounds. He's present there under the appearance. of bread and under the appearance of wine, but in his totality. And that's the craziness of the Catholic teaching. So basically, Zoom and Riverside are sacraments because they allow me to be substantially

present in your room right now, though not physically present in your room. Is that a fair assessment? I'm there in some way, right? I am there in your room right now in some way, though not materially. I am there. So I'm not able to receive you here and profit from the graces that you bestow through your sacramental life. So there are distinct ways in which people can be present at a distance. I know you meant that as a joke. But here's the thing. Like you're where you are. I am where I am.

By virtue of the magic of internet telephony, we can be present to each other in some way, shape, or form that can visit changes upon one or the other. Like, I can begin to think distinct things and feel distinct things. I can encounter you in a new way or I can profit from your presence in a new way. Those are all changes which are rotten me. But those changes don't work. the virtue of faith. I'm not like believing that you exist in the way in which I'm believing that God exists. And they don't engage me in the same way in the order of grace. You can bless me after a manner, but not in the way that forgives sins, not in the way that increases charity by its very working. So Christ's presence, the Catholic teaching is when he shows up, he bestows a greater

measure of love, and he starts dealing with all the gunk of sin, and he starts bringing us more closely into communion with him in the setting of the mystical body. So his presence is of a higher order. It's of a more potent sort because he's present there substantially. And his body, blood, soul, and divinity, even though he's not present there in the way in which you or I are present in a place. Making more sense? I think halfway. I love it. You're making 50 cents. Yeah, that's it. All right, I want to land our plane on a couple of ecumenical tones here. First, given that you're now the author of the breakthrough book on the Eucharist, solving all the theological mysteries of our times.

Maybe it's kind of a three-part or classic Ryan question. But what do you wish Protestants knew about the Eucharist or that you wish they could experience about the Eucharist? And what do you appreciate and how would you encourage Protestants right now who just say, you know, I disagree with the Catholic Church, but we're doing communion, et cetera? Is there any encouragement you could say, you know, coming from a Catholic where it's like, hey, we're not condemning you,

we take it very seriously, believe differently, but is there an olive branch that could be extended there? And then an invitation maybe to go study and learn a little more about this. Yeah, I mean, as for studying and learning, you can definitely pick up a book, your Eucharistic identity, Sacramento guide of the fullness of life. As for practices, I would recommend going to Eucharistic adoration. So for like a Protestant who thinks that Jesus is present in some way, shape, or form in the Eucharistic liturgy, I don't know how sensitive folks will be to Eucharistic Adoration as a potential form of idol. But my sense is that if you believe that Jesus is in some way, shape, or form present in the Eucharistic liturgy,

then it might make sense for him to be present in the prolongation of that Eucharistic liturgy, which is how Catholics understand Eucharistic adoration. And I know that some Protestants will say, like, it's a kind of static thing. The Eucharist ought to be a dynamic thing. But if what Catholics say is true, then you want to expose yourself to it in some way, shape, or form. And I think that Eucharistic adoration kind of gives you space, and it kind of gives you permission to talk to Jesus about the things that you're thinking about in a very low stress. or low anxiety environment. Sometimes Catholics will invite you to join them for Mass, which is awesome. And I would say take that opportunity, join on up. But it can be a little stressful or anxiety-inducing for Protestants because they're like,

there's a lot of call-and-response type stuff. There's a lot of expectation that I render the right words, and I'm not prepared to do so. And then, like, you get to the Our Father, and it's the one thing that you're rip-roaring and ready to go for. But then the Catholic way of saying it is ever so slightly different. And you're like, ah, out it. Plus, if you're on a bonus at the end of it, too, afterwards, you know, with that. Mary pray for us now.

And you're like, whoa, whoa, new lines. And wait, there's no, thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. Yeah, that's how we out you. That's how we out you. Because you guys keep going with that and we just cut it right on off. I don't know what you're talking about with the Blessed Virgin Mary, but whatever. Oh, no, I was at one they did in our father. And then it wasn't a mass.

It was actually just, it was a prayer group. But they said, and right after that, they went right into Mary, pray for it. I was like, whoa, whoa, I didn't know what it was going on. You may have been saying a rosary. I didn't know what Eucharistig adoration was, but essentially for not to oversimplify too, but it's also just a chance to sit a reverential quiet space and pray, right? Whether you agree what's happening or not, you could just go sit there and see if you feel something, right? You can. I don't know that you'll feel anything. I can't tell you the last time that I felt something in Eucharist degradation.

The point of it is to refer your life to God. And he makes this concession of making himself very much available, concretely available, so that it's easier for you to refer your life to him. Because I think that's the whole point of human life is to refer our lives to God. because otherwise we just get forgetful and self-reliant and then we just drift. So the point is to remember and tend to depend and then to stay fixed. And that's what we do in the life of prayer and in the life of Eucharistic worship. And then to encourage Protestants and or ecclesiastical communities, as you affectionately refer to us, any encouragement there and then any also admonitions of things to go research and look up. Research and things to look up?

Good question. Your Eucharistic identity available. Yeah, there you go. Your eucharistic identity, a sacramental guide to the fullness of life. I love it. You keep giving me these like bumps set. So thank you for that. I'm just bad at promotion.

I'm just back on, you know, the questions that you asked me like 27 minutes ago and I'm thinking of further arguments that I can supply. But I'm also trying to make it such the vocabulary and the grammar is accessible enough that you won't make fun of me, which is difficult. But I'm playing that all out in the back of my head as in the front of my head. I'm answering the present question. It's somewhat complicated. It seems like a lot going on in your head there, man.

I would definitely encourage you to. We can double click on that and another one. I just, on the show, we do like to strike an ecumenical court. I appreciate Father Martins has said that many times, you don't have to be Catholic to practice an area of the faith, potentially in a profound way and learn from that. And so obviously we appreciate Protestant focus on scripture and just the biblical literacy that comes from that.

But I think, obviously, if the Eucharist is worth diving into, and actually as an aside, I should mention when I was younger, I always tried to pronounce it, and I mispronounce it, and I called the Eurro Christ. That's nice. Which sounds like a really cool band or a performance as you have to do. But I appreciate it. It's something worth fighting for.

And it is the pinnacle of the mass. It is a sacred thing. I've gone to different Protestant churches in my life. And many of them are, it's actual wine and bread. But on others, you know, it's like a Welch sippy cup and just throw a disposable cup.

And while the intent is pure and obviously, I do think God is present in some way. Anytime people are gathered in his name, he's there. And I think you appreciate it. It feels a little like strange. And I was like, also Welch's grape juice. Like, give me the good.

stuff, you know? Exactly. Yeah. That's the point of the book, right? Get the good stuff. Come to a Catholic church. Appreciate the good stuff. I'll tell you this, Father, and then I know we've got to let you go because you got to get

to, we walk 10,000 miles before Vespers. But I had a friend who got back from a monastery, and he went there on a whim, and they said, come on in, and they're hanging out. And somehow someone served him communion, and he didn't know that you're not allowed to take it, not as a Catholic. and I don't know how it happens through the cracks. And later up, he went up to one of the sisters. I was just like, I have to tell you something, right?

And they're like, why? He's like, I took, am I going to be okay? And she's like, don't do it again, right? Just pray and I was like, okay, I do appreciate the macarena you got to do when you go up to the front. You're a wild man. I do try to be. Last thing, and then we'll go, because we got the words of Christ, it is better that I should go. final encouragement to anyone right now, speaking God's plan, who is like, I went off God's plan.

I ruined it. I made a mistake. I'm feeling like I totally destroyed the plan that God had for my life, whether it's a severe thing, maybe someone who's stuck in a moral failing or someone who just had a failed business or whatever, just someone, a marriage fell up or whatever it is. Someone's like, this wasn't part of the plan. And I'm struggling to believe that God can still work with me. I get this question a lot on the show. what would you say to that, Father? So first thought is, if you want, like, longer explanations, we've had a couple of episodes on Godspining pertinent to the question, one of which is called messing up the will of God, and the other which is called, can I miss my vocation? And so I think that what I talked about earlier in the episode about this idea that there's the capital

v vocation that we're all called to heaven, that remains in force until you take your last breath. And it's always possible to attain to the heights of holiness by God's gift. You know, like, God doesn't give vague gifts and see, like, I wonder how this will go. Like, God has a particular plan for you. And by comparison to the Blessed Virgin Mary, it's probably going to be modest. It's probably going to be humble. But I think the point isn't so much to compare ourselves to what God could have given or to what God gives other people as it is to recognize that God's gift is precious because he loves us and that it's sufficient, more than sufficient, to lead to life everlasting and to be of genuine service to those whom God has entrusted to our care.

So I think it's like you could lament past graces that you failed to seize, or you could lust after future graces never to be given. But I don't think that there's any real fruit to be harvested from those enterprises. I think it's more fruitful, in fact, to just try to identify the actual graces that God is giving you at present so that you can live in accord with them, so that you can make good use of them and that you can become the saint whom God intends you to be. So your life might be a dumpster fire. To be Christian doesn't mean to deny that. It doesn't mean to say, like, I am required to be very happy at all times. Like, you can be sad. That's fine. But in your sadness, there's an ongoing

recognition that God is at work in my life and that it's my responsibility to respond to that work generously, tirelessly, to do so with patience and perseverance. And God, who has begun a good work in me, will see it to completion. So I'd say that. Okay. Awesome. God can put out dumpster fires. That's what I heard. Amen. Hallelujah. Amen.

Awesome. Well, folks, this has been Father Pines' wild adventure. Wild ride. It's the craziest journey you've ever been on. I know we only talked a little bit about demons, but you can't talk about demons all the time. We have to talk about other topics because we're not just playing defense. We want to be on offense and be holy, righteous, amazing people.

Just to emulate Father Pine as best we can. So, Father Pine, if you are down with Father Pine, OP and you know me, you're going to want to click that link in the show notes, get his book. He is, I think, the smartest person I've ever met. And again, I know a lot of people. So Father Martin's is very smart too, but Father Pine, too smart for his own good. I'll do my impression of him next time, folks. So he's a, thank you for being on the show. Thank you for walking us through the landmine of the Eucharist. And we will talk to you next time, folks. Thanks for joining us, Father Pine. Any final words?

I'd say keep crushing it. That's for you in particular. That's a singular address. And then as for the people of God more broadly, you keep crushing it too. But I wanted to differentiate the way that like our Lord differentiates at the end of the gospel of John. You know, my father and your father. My God and your God. You know, it's like different things going on here.

You got a special connection, my man. You're just living your best life. Okay, that's it. I'll stop talking. Son of thunder. I like it. Awesome. All right, folks.

God bless you all and stay demon free. Oh