The Jeff Cavins Show (Your Catholic Bible Study Podcast) - Meet My Friends: Fr. Josh Johnson

Episode Date: March 22, 2019

I’m speaking with Fr. Josh Johnson, pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Parish in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Fr. Josh has a new book out, Broken and Blessed, about how we are broken and our Church is broken, but that the mercy and blessings of God surpasses all our failings. We discuss the theme of brokenness: how to respond to it in others, what to do about it in the Church, and what God thinks of us when we fall. If you know someone struggling with brokenness, I highly recommend Fr. Josh’s book—you can get it at ascensionpress.com Snippet from the Show There was a priest in my diocese that I did not like … but one day I needed the sacrament of reconciliation … and in my 31 years of life the best confession I’ve ever experienced is with this priest. -Fr. Josh Johnson SHOWNOTES Navelgazing vs looking at God (6:02) Confessing the same sins over and over (9:00) How to overcome a habitual sin (13:20) Isolation (17:09) Presuming God’s mercy (19:40) Our attitude toward other broken individuals, especially in the Church (24:05) RESOURCES FROM THE SHOW * Broken and Blessed by Fr. Josh Johnson - ascensionpress.com * Ask Fr. Josh Podcast - ascensionpress.com/askfrjosh Special Guest: Fr. Josh Johnson.

Hey, I'm Jeff Kavens. How do you simplify your life? How do you study the Bible? All the way from motorcycle trips to raising kids, we're going to talk about the faith and life in general. It's the Jeff Kaven show. Hey, I want to welcome you to the show today. I am coming to you this week,

not from the deep woods of Minnesota, with the loons in the background and three feet of snow, but 82 degrees. in Cajun country. That's right. I'm in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with my good friend, Father Josh Johnson, who is the pastor of Holy Rosary and Sanema. Sanamo. Sanamo. You got it right. Okay, I got it. That's my accent. You can hear him already. He's going to be a part of the show today. We're going to get to know him. I have certain people in my life that I enjoy talking to, and I think that they have something that you need to hear, and I want to introduce him to you. He is

a priest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. We've known each other for a little bit. In fact, last year he brought me to the center of LSU to see Mike the Tiger. And we had an absolutely great time. And he's come out with a new book, and I think the book is timely, and it's for you, and it's for your teens, it's for your friends, it's for everybody, and it's broken and blessed. And if you've known anybody who is broken, they need to hear this. I want to welcome you to the show.

What's up, Jeff? It's good. It's good to be with you, and it's good to be here in the south. I cannot believe that I left 28 below in Minneapolis, and I came down here, and it was 82 degrees. I got a question to ask you. So you've been doing this mission in my church for the past few days. I have.

And I think on Monday, we had the church kind of cold for us. Were you cool because my people were complaining, saying they were freezing? But I was thinking about you, and for you, it must have been. It was like a hot summer day. I figured that. I figured as much. Yeah. In fact, I don't think I taught as well as I would have normally.

I wanted to talk to you about that. But really? Yeah. I'm glad we're able to talk about that now. No, it's been good. You know, the last couple of days, we've been together on a mission in your parish, and we've been talking about becoming an activated disciple, and perhaps sometime here in the future, I can get on your show and talk about that a little bit.

That would be awesome. But I want to talk about your new book. You've been doing some great things. You've been speaking around the country and writing. And tell us a little bit about the book, you know, as far as the beginning of the show and why this topic? Why now? Yeah, so the book is called Broken and Blessed, an invitation to my generation. And essentially, I wrote the book because I recognize that all of us, every single one of us, we all have mess in our lives.

We all have sin. We have imperfection. We have mistakes that we've made. And I've also recognized that my own walk toward eternity, that that's where God has. has encountered me the most and transformed my life and helped me to abide in a deep intimacy with him. And if God can love all of us in the midst of our brokenness and choose to dwell with us there and transform us into saints in that place of brokenness and mess and sin and shame and pain and hurts and wounds, then who are we to not share that gift with the other members of the body

of Christ the church? And I think you and I both know that we dwell in a communion of sinners who certainly longed to be saints, but all of us are sinners. And so if God can love us our mess, then I want to give people tools to love each other in all of our stuff. Sure. Well, you know, there's two things I would love to talk to you about with your book. One is how do we handle personally ourselves when we know that we're broken? I want to get into that a little bit because so often when we realize, you know, man, I am broken. We want to just give up. It's like I gave it a shot. I'm broken. I'm never going to be the same again. How could God accept me? and especially at home, you know, for people who are married and they, they blow it.

And then they suddenly are brought back to a place where you've got to be close and you've got to be intimate with your family, but they know who you really are. You know, that's one thing I want to talk about. The second thing is our attitude towards other people who have been broken. Because one of the things that I have noticed over the years, and it's sad, is that we kill our wounded. We write them off. there's no second chance there's no second chance particularly in the in the public arena and i think that there's a lot of people now who are especially with social media with what people are doing on news networks now people are frightened that their life is going to be exposed they're going to be done with

and i think our country is living in a great amount of fear uh being broken publicly i agree with you 100 you know and so i think those are two things that that i'd like to talk about first of all this idea of being broken. You know, a while ago I did a show on my Subaru. I had my, I call my Subaru my white leopard, you know, in the snow, snow leopard. And it gets through anything. And when I brought it home, it was perfect. It was white. And it was beautiful. Not a spot, not a nick on it. I got into it. Wow, it felt good. That nice smell and everything. And about a couple of weeks later, I was at the store. And somebody, I realized when I came out, someone, to decide of my car with their car and they were gone there was nothing I could do about it

and then I backed into somebody and the back had a dent and and suddenly my perfect car was broken it was marred and I didn't feel the same way you know about it was there was something I wanted it to be pristine and beautiful the whole time but the fact of the matter is any car that's two or three years old looks like it's two or three years old and I started thinking about that with my own life I wish I could go back to the beginning and just be like, wow, there's no problems. I've never done anything wrong, and I'll continue, Lord, but it isn't that way. We all experience that brokenness, don't we? Yeah, yeah, every single one of us, we're all broken.

We all have a past, but the goal is to never let our past mistakes dictate our future walk to eternity, our future to become saints. And so many of us, we get caught up in navel-gazing, and we just focus on the imperfections. We focus on our wrinkles and the wrinkles of other people. but that's not helpful if we can take our eyes off of ourselves off of our car, off of our stuff and focus our eyes onto God

and get caught in the gaze of God then we can open ourselves up to hear his voice whenever I was a kid my mom used to always say to me boy you better look at me when I'm talking to you and Jeff why did she say that why don't have to look at her when she's talking that's a real question yeah because if I'm not looking

you're not listening I'm not listening and so the same rule applies with us with God. If we're not looking at God, then whose voice are we going to listen to? Right. And that's just not going to be helpful. And so I say that rule would apply for you in your car, man. Take your eyes off your broken car and look at God. Right. And let God speak to you. Right. When we talk about brokenness, what are some areas that you've noticed? And obviously, you can't tell anybody anything about confession. But just in general observation, looking at people today, what are they the areas that people feel broken in.

Yeah, so a lot of people feel rejected. A lot of people live with wounds of rejection, with wounds of abandonment, with wounds of betrayal. And a lot of people, because of the ways in which they were rejected are abandoned or betrayed, they've then done things themselves to protect themselves out of that. And so then once we end up doing things, because of what's happened to us in our past or whatever,

we often didn't get ourselves into a little rut, and we think, oh, well, I'm already gone, so I might as well give up now. I've done enough. What I see a lot of times happening is sometimes somebody might commit a sin and they fall, and after they fall, into a particular vice, then they'll say, well, I'm already in sin.

I might as well just keep at it right now and not come back to God because I'm not wanted anymore, because we then project unto God that which happened to us with people. Whenever someone in my family saw my limitations or they saw my weakness or whatever it might be, they saw me and they rejected me, well, now that I've done X, Y, or Z, God's going to do that which this person has done. God's not going to want me anymore as well. And we begin to just isolate ourselves from God.

And in my limited experience as a priest, the people who isolate themselves from God are the most miserable people in the world right and it's a tactic of the enemy you know if he can get you to be isolated he can he can come down you can come down on you know when it when it comes to being broken to being being busted i know a lot of people will go to confession and then uh they go back out in the world and they get broken again and then they go to confession and then they go out in the world to get broken again and then they go to confession they're saying you know hey father it's me ditto. I'm here again. And talk to me a little bit about that. You know, about some people will give up on that sacrament of reconciliation. Let me tell you. So one of my favorite saints is a guy

named St. Mark Yi Tai Ching. He was from China and I think it was the 1800s. Maybe it was the early 1900s. And he was a doctor and a husband and a father, a good guy. And one day he prescribed himself opium because that's what the main drug was at that time to get to find healing after you were injured. And he ended up becoming addicted to opium. And he lost his practice as a doctor. He lost his family because he could not provide for them anymore. The people in society rejected him

because he began to abuse this drug every single day. But every single day, this man went to daily mass. And every single day, he went to confession. And every single day, he prayed the rosary. Now, the priest of his time was not very educated in addiction. And so the priest of his time said, you know what, you clearly aren't sorry for this sin, so you can't come to confession anymore until you become really sorry because you keep using the same drug every single day.

But so he said because of that, you can't receive the Eucharist anymore either. So this guy, Marquis Taichin, continue to go to daily mass and continue to pray the rosary and continue to fall into his particular vice. It was his, it was his dominant fault. And he's a saint today. And guess what? He never overcame his addiction. And he's a canonized saint.

Isn't that amazing? That's interesting. But he never, but the reason why he's a Canaanite is two reasons. One, because he persevered in the struggle. He never gave up. That's what the guy who founded Opus Day, what's his name, the saint. Is it a saint that found an Opus Day? Yeah.

Whatever his name is, that dude. He said a saint is a sinner who struggles. And that's what Marquis Taichin was. He struggled every day with this vice, but he kept coming back to the mercy of God. He kept coming back to the throne of God. But he also died a martyr because in this time, Christians are being persecuted, and the people asked them, do you reject Jesus? He said no, so he was beheaded.

But it's a beautiful story of someone who never gave up, because some of the greatest saints in the history of church had vices that they were able to overcome, like Teresa of Avala. Her dominant vice was pride in vanity, specifically vanity, and she struggled with advice for 20 years as a religious sister. 20 years. It was a struggle, and she finally overcame that with the grace of God. Francis DeSelves, he struggled with advice of wrath for decades, and Augustine struggled with lust. for many years. And those saints were by the grace of God through frequent disposition to the sacrament of reconciliation, but also through prayer and fasting and avoid their occasional sin. But there are other saints like Marquis Tai Ching and also a more recent saint who is incorruptible,

St. John 23rd, he never overcame his vice of sloth. From the time he was a seminarian, he was a seminarian when he was a little kid because back in the day when they were super young, from the time he was a little kid, so he became Pope, one of his dominant vice. was he could not commit to a prayer life, to a consistent rule of life. Every single year, he would say, God, this is a year. It's a lot of here. That's a saint, you know. And he said, this year's going to meet the year, God, I'm going to commit to a holy hour,

I'm going to commit to a deeper devotion to the sacred heart. And every year, if you look at his journal from the time he was a seminary until he became the pope, he would always say, I messed up again. I did it again. But this year, I'm going to be able to do it, God. And so he just could not overcome this weakness of his to be consistent in his relationship with Christ. But he's a canonized saint whose body is.

incorruptible. So the goal is to just keep struggling, to keep coming back to confession. If you have to come to confession once a month, once a week, if you have to, however you need to come to Jesus in the sacrament of the church, come as you are, and he will give you grace. I got it. Jose Maria Escriva. Yes, that's him. Yes. Ten points. I go to the bonus round. Okay. All right. I just came to me all of a sudden. I don't know why. Maybe he came to you because. he's with us, body of Christ. There you go. There you go right there. From your book, give me the kind of the heart or two or three things that you would say to someone listening

right now that say, Father, I'm struggling. I'm struggling with addiction. I'm struggling with a sexual sin. I'm struggling with something that's inside like pride or envy, and nobody else knows it, but I know it. I think other people might sense it. We only have a few minutes. Father, What direction would you point me at? So one of my experiences in my walk toward eternity was this. I find myself going to confession every week committing the same sin over and over again. It was like St. Paul and Romans. He says, I do what I don't want to do.

I don't want to do I do. Who will deliver me from this body of death? Right, right. Like, Lord, this is this throwing on my side. Why can I overcome this particular in perfection? And what I came to realize in my walk, which I think is for many of us the same thing, is this. Whenever we pray, the act of contrition, we recite that beautiful prayer, we say, oh, my God, I'm hardly sorry for having offended you.

I detest all my sins because you're just punishments, most of all because I've offended you, my God, who are all good and deserving of all my love, I firmly resolve with the help of your grace to do my penance, avoid the near occasion of sin, and sin them more, amen. And say that prayer, I feel sorry for my sins, do my penance, get absolution, go back to my regular life, and then I'm back in confession with the same sin. Here's why, because for years, I did not take serious the words I was reciting. And specifically this line, I will avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.

The actual Latin says Fuguri or Fugari. I'm sorry. I'm... Guzante. Failed Latin class. Thanks, Jeff. So the Latin word actually means I will flee from the near occasion of sin. Not just avoid.

I'm going to run away from it. I'm not going to be in the presence of it, right? Because I'm that weak. I think one of the things that we have to come to as disciples of Jesus Christ is recognize our limitations and recognize it's not a bad thing. say, I am just too weak. I'm too weak. And so I'm going to have to avoid the near occasion of sin. And so for a lot of people, specifically with lust, a lot of people will struggle with lust on their iPhones. And so they look at pornography, give it to masturbation under that context.

So I'll say, okay, you're praying in rosary, yeah, you're going to confession, yeah, you're fasting, taking cold showers, yeah, and you're still struggling with this vice. Do you have any accountability partner? Yep, all that. I'm on covenant eyes and whatever, and I'm still finding ways to look at pornography. So what would the Bible tell us to do? The Bible would say, if your hand calls you to sin, do what? Cut it off. Cut it off. And so clearly we don't want to have people with hands that are not there anymore. And so I would say get rid of the iPhone, right? Your near occasion of sin is an iPhone. It's not serious. It's not good or bad. Get a flip phone, right? But it's

not good for you. And so I think in our life for all of us, there are what we call, I call near occasions of grace and near occasions of sin. And in the scriptures, for the men that were coming to visit Jesus in the cave, a star. A star isn't good or bad. and of itself. It's just a star. It's neutral. But for them, it was a near occasion of grace because that thing drew them to Jesus. And so there are certain things that are going to draw you and I to God into a deeper intimacy with God. And then there are certain things that might draw you closer to God. Like your iPhone might be a tool that God is used in your walk with him to become a saint. But it might be bad for me. And so that wish is a near occasion of grace for one person

might actually be a near occasion of sin for the next. So I would say the very first thing we need to do is examine our conscience, examine our day and destroy. And so that was the very first thing we need to do is examine our day and discern what are my near occasions of grace. And whatever they are, I need to make sure I'm prioritizing on my calendar. And what are my near occasions of sin? And whatever they are, I need to bring to the light to my confessor, to my spiritual director, to some trusted brothers and sisters in Christ so they can hold me accountable to avoiding that which, for me, has been drawing me further and further away from the saint that God desires for me to be. What about isolation? We mentioned this earlier. One of the sure ways to stay broken

is to stay isolated or don't tell anybody. Nobody knows. And you think, I'm just going to deal with this myself. There's no reason that anyone needs to know. I got my reputation on the line. I got work and employment. My wife, my kids, whatever. um that's not a good recipe is it no so i always propose that we first and foremost the way that we pray so prayer is the foundation for everything that we're doing here right right um the way that we pray will affect the way that we live and so if in my prayer i can be vulnerable with god who is very vulnerable with me if i can expose my heart before jesus in a eucharistic adoration are in my time of lexio divina with the sacred scriptures if i can expose my heart before jesus christ who is

completely exposed on the cross from me who is exposed in the blessed sacrament We call it exposition of the blessed sacrament, right? If I can share my art with him and a practical tool to do that is the ARRR method, acknowledge my thoughts, feelings, desires, relate them to God, spend time receiving from God from the Word of God, and then respond to that, the way in which I pray would then affect the way in which I live my life. So if when I go to pray, all I do is say, give me, give me, God.

I treat God like a vending machine. I say, I want this. I want thought. If I'd say, thank you, God, for taking my family. Thank you for loving my family. Thank you for loving me. If I just have that kind of prayer life, then I'm not going to, I'm going to have superficial relationships.

people because my relationship with God is pretty superficial. Sure. But if I can go deep with God and be vulnerable with God, then what I can do is I can apply the way in which I pray to God to a certain group of people first and foremost. And I can share my, I say this, we're called to share our chicken nuggets with everybody, God included, but we're only called to share our barbecue sauce with God and then with a few individuals, right? So I can learn with proper vulnerability that which I'm called to now share with someone else

who can help me. because no man, no woman, no person is an island. If we try to do it ourselves, we're going to fall hard. We're not going to be able to get out of it ourselves. We have to rely on other people. And so, but that can only take place in relationships with people if we first cultivated that in the context of prayer and been really vulnerable with our Savior.

Right. I want to ask you a difficult question. And it comes from the result of working with a lot of men and a lot of men's groups and men's conferences and so forth. There are times where a man, and this can be a woman too, I'm assuming, but I have to speak as a man, where a man can say, well, I am being tempted by a certain sin, which I know is going to break me, and men know what these sins are.

You know, they're on a business trip or whatever it is, or alone in a hotel room, and they're thinking about doing something, and they know, I know that it's not going to make me happy. I know that I'm going to be broken as a result of it. but they even go forward into, but I can go to confession tomorrow, or this Saturday, and I can deal with this and get good with God once again. What is it that we're not understanding about God when we take that mental posture? Dang, that's a good question.

I think what's really abusing our relationship with God, Jeff. I mean, God wants us to be happy. He wants us to be in a state of grace. He wants us to abide in communion with him. at all times. And I think whenever we take that approach to God, we are looking forward to having communion with God once a week only, and that's on Sunday when we receive communion. And so we make mass about ourselves. We make worship about me, right? I can go to confession on Saturday, therefore when I go on Sunday at my family, I can receive communion. Mass is, I mean,

I don't want to sound, I don't want to offend people, but mass isn't just about receiving holy communion, right? That's like land yeah. We don't actually have to receive communion when we go to mass, except what, once a year? Mass is about worship of God. God. That's what it's really about. It's about the sacrifice. And so I think the deeper issue, even with that, is a pride of everything's about me. Even my relationship with God, it's all about me. And so I would focus more on humility with a person who's in that kind of season of life. Sure. So that we can fight that vice with that particular virtue. And then therefore, that mindset that won't even be operative because that mindset

flows from the vice. And so we want to attack the vice with the virtue. We're talking with Father Josh Johnson. He's the author of a really great book that I want to suggest to you and family members. And if you know of anybody who's broken, hello, it's everyone

around you, I'm still broken. I want to suggest this book. You can get it at ascensionpress.com. It is broken and blessed. When we come back, I want to talk about our attitude towards others who are broken and, you know, what is our heart towards them? Because one of the things I'm seeing in the world today, and that is that people serve a God who's a one-chance God. They only

give God one chance to turn their life around. And as a consequence, you only give other people one chance. You blow it. You're out of fellowship. You're not going to be a part of my life anymore. And that is crushing to live in a family like that. You're listening to the Jeff Kaven Show. We'll be right back. And if you're looking for a way to learn more about your Catholic faith, I invite you to check out the Ascension Presents YouTube channel. You're going to find tons of free videos featuring Catholic presenters like Matt Frad, Leadero, Jackie Bobby Angel, and Emily Wilson. Go to YouTube.com slash Ascension Presents. That's YouTube.com slash ascension presents. And if you like what you see, please share and subscribe. I want to welcome you back. We're talking with Father Josh Johnson. I'm down in the South

My wife and I have come down here for several weeks to be a part of the Cajun, the Raging Cajun country. And we're with Father Josh Johnson at Holy Rosary. And we're on a three-day mission. You know, I haven't done a mission for a long time. This is fun. First night, I speak all over, but I haven't done three nights in a row. Oh, wow. You're special.

Thanks. Your people are actually special. You're special. So the first night we're talking about the activated disciple. Which is absolutely amazing. What a great time with these people, Pact House. Last night we spoke about giving people a free cup of curigma, that is the good proclamation of the gospel. How do you witness to people?

And tonight we're going to talk about suffering in the life of a disciple. How do we deal with the suffering in our life and the difficulties? And it's amazing, Father, how many people are hurting and they're broken not only themselves, but things are happening in their life that are causing them to break. It's really incredible. You know, I want to talk a little bit about our attitude towards people who are are busted, broken. Yeah.

And I have noticed this so often is that somebody's life is broken, scandal, shame comes into their family, and people back away like a pariah, like there's something wrong with you, and I'm not going to fellowship with you, I'm not going to be around you. And I'm wondering, you know, what have Jesus done? did that. I mean, what if the lady who was caught in adultery was brought to him in John chapter 8 and 9? And then Jesus said, well, you know, I too, I'm not going to have anything to do with this lady. You know, she should have known better. And my reputation is going to be ruined as a result of it. What is our attitude towards people who are broken? Jesus Christ

in the Gospels is a divine person. So he knew everything. And that's what I love about the Gospels is they really teach us about Jesus, like who he is. Like, I can say I not only know about him, but I know Jesus because I know him intimately from the scriptures. And in the word of God, he reveals a God who told the disciples, like, Peter, guess what? You're going to deny me three times. And all of you are going to abandon me.

He straight up told him what was going to happen. He knew they were going to hurt him, and yet he still chose to dwell with them for three years and more after that, right? Right. To this day, he knows every sin that, we're ever going to commit before we've committed it, and he still chooses us and wants to be in relationship with us. And so if we're really going to be church, if we're really going to be disciples of Jesus and follow the master and imitate Christ, and that means that we are obligated

to do the same, to know someone's mess, and they still choose to dwell in communion with them because God does that with us. A prayer I learned a while back that I pray daily now is this, God, help me to see myself the way that you see me. So first I focus on that, God, how do you see me? Because I know how I see myself at times is not authentic. It's not how he really sees me. And when I pay attention to God and how he sees me, I see a God who loves me and who delights in me

and who's aware of all my stuff I've done in the past that he's forgiven through the sacrament of reconciliation. He's aware of my imperfections today. And he's also aware of what I'm going to do tomorrow that I don't want to do, but I'm probably going to do. And he's aware of it. He still delights in me. I'm the father's beloved son.

Then I pray, God, help me to see this other person who I'm really struggling with right now, the way that you see them. And what I recognize is that same gaze of love that I receive in prayer, he has on that other person. Again, if I'm going to be a Christian, I have to imitate him. I must now love that person the same way that he loves me.

Another scripture that I'm often drawn to, specifically with messy members of the body of Christ like myself, But for others as well is St. Paul, who inspired by the Holy Spirit, he said, like, I need you. He said, I can't say the hand, can't say to the foot, I don't need you. We all absolutely fundamentally need each other, all of us. And even if I don't like you, like the apostles didn't always get along. They didn't always like each other. They argued all this time. Jerome and Augustine. Right? Right. They wrote hate letters. It was like, if we were in modern media, like Twitter, you know, right? But so they did not like each other, but they dwelt in communion with each other. And I found in my walk that some of the people who I dislike the most and don't get along with the most

and who've even like hurt me and I've hurt them because of our sin we work the best together oh and I do appreciate it I'm talking about you Jeff but we needed you there's one time I needed a priest for confession years ago and there was a priest in my diocese who I did not like man I thought this guy was so sketchy I thought this guy I thought his theology was whack I thought his his political views were questionable there's so much about him that I just could not I could not stand, but one day I needed the sacrament of reconciliation. And imagine if I would have said, you know what, I'm here on my deathbed and he's the only one available. I'll pass. I don't, I can't dwell with him. But he has a gift to offer me. He had a gift. And I'll be honest with you,

in my 31 years of life, I know I'm pretty old. I know. I'm already wake up in the middle night to use the bathroom. I'm seeing a gray here. I do have one right here. I just thought I'm talking about. Oh, great. Yeah. So I have one for sure. But in my 31 long, 31 years of life, the best confession I've ever, I've ever experienced was with this priest. Wow. Absolute best. Isn't that something? Who I can't, and I don't like the, really, we don't get along.

I don't like this priest, but I need him. I absolutely need him, and God rocked my world and it through him. And so if we don't dwell with other members of the body of Christ, then the church will limp. Yeah. We will get into our little holy huddles, and we're not going to experience the church running toward God for all eternity. we're going to limp. But whenever we can abide in relationship with people who are different from us and who think different from us and who sin different from us, then what we can experience is renewal in the world because the church will be on fire. One more question. I know at times of the

essence here, I got one more question for you, and that is that one of the hardest things I think about being the body of Christ and encountering brokenness in my family, my brothers and sisters, among the clergy today. A lot of people are really upset about the scandal that they hear about in the news. They turn on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, and so forth. And they hear about it, and it wearies. It's weary, wearisome. Years ago, I used to work in a level one trauma unit,

and I would have to sit there at the head of the table for head injuries, motorcycle accidents, shots of people being shot by pistols and rifles and rifles and stab wounds and, you know, just I saw everything and I was only two feet from it looking and looking at what the doctors were doing. And I noticed that the doctors were, they were almost aggressive, going to the wound, treating the wound. They didn't stand back and go, ah, you know, they went after that wound. And that's a physical wound. And I think there's a certain kind of, you know, we don't want to touch the wound. We don't want to touch the wound. And I think this is one of the great things about Mother Teresa. She touched the physical

wounds of people, but spiritually and emotional wounds that people are going through. A family that is struggling with adultery, they're struggling with alcoholism, they're struggling with bankruptcy or whatever it is. Everyone around them is like a little uncomfortable. What do I say to them? You know, there's this gaping wound of infidelity and they're broken. And everyone's like, and how are you guys doing? But they're standing around the emergency bed and they don't know what to do. And I try to encourage people

and I think that this is the gospel is tend to the wound. Don't be afraid to touch the wound. What would you say to people who know of people around them right now that are terribly broken? And it is, as they say in Greek, icky.

Yeah. So as you were speaking, I was drawn to the image that Jesus gave us in the gospel of the Good Samaritan. who went who was who was drawn to that person who was really messy and and then who brought that person to the end which is to the church for the church to tend to that person who is broken and who is wounded so I would encourage members of the body of Christ who are aware of other

people's wounds to simply ask them if they're invited to go there with them right because the person who is wounded must first give the invitation right so when I always pray with that particular passage, I'm always drawn to the person who was wounded. They allow the Good Samaritan to touch them as well. There was a freedom of like, I will let you. It's going to be painful, but I'm letting you touch me as well. And so we have to like reverence other people's freedom,

but to at least dwell with them and relationship with them, invite them for coffee. I say the greatest evangelization, the greatest prayer, the greatest everything happens over coffee, to just sit with the person and cultivate relationship with the person. person where the person's at, and then little by little, ask the person if you can have their freedom to go places with them, to draw them to Jesus so that Jesus Christ himself can love them in the midst of their brokenness and their wounds. I think the goal for all of us

is to orient our gaze to the face of Jesus at all times. And that sounds so simple. It really does, but that's what it is is to draw people to take their eyes off of their self and to focus on Jesus so that we can listen to Jesus tell us how he wants to address the woundedness and the brokenness

or how he wants us to sit back and let him real quick I have to say this because I think a lot of times what we do is whenever we I speak to ourselves because it's always other people but it's also ourselves we're all really really wounded every single one of us

even the most holy nuns I know and priests I know, and lay ministers, I know, are all very broken. And so sometimes whenever we go into those places of prayer, those intimate seasons with Jesus, what I notice we do is we expose our stuff to him, but then we try to control where and how he's going to, like, heal us. And if I was sick, I wouldn't go, I would tell the doctor, hey, I have a tumor right here. It's clear. Now, you do your thing.

I wouldn't trust the doctors to do what he needs to do. and so I always invite people to after we expose our stuff before the Lord Jesus Christ to then take our eyes off our stuff and to focus on him and if if we need help focus on him then pray the rosary out loud so we know what we're doing pray the scriptures out loud sing praise and worship songs out loud or whatever you have to do but that way we're we're not navel-gazing trying to like because we get in the way you know oftentimes the best work God does when we're sleeping and so just to let God take it from there that's why they put you to sleep for surgery.

Yeah, go figure. Stop talking. Right, like get out the way. And so, but to be a witness to other people. And Pope Paul VI says that people don't listen to teachers anymore. They listen to witnesses. And so if people can see us praying this way as well, then that might give them the comfort of saying, okay, well, I can do that too.

I can do that with Jesus first. And then from there, I can let you walk with me in places that I'm really, really hurting right now. So the book is called Broken and Blessed. and who's it for? It's for everyone. It's for everyone who's broken and everyone who's blessed. Amen.

That's good talking to you. And next time I come down to this beautiful country of Andoui and gumbo and et tufei. Yeah. I want to talk to you about your own vocational journey.

You know, you becoming a priest and a good priest, a great priest. And I'd like to do that sometime. A broken but blast priest. Nice. Nice. New book of mine. Who's an activated disciple? Exactly. Where can people get the book? Ascensionpress.com.

And you've got a podcast yourself. Yes. Ask Father Josh through Ascension as well. What's the nature of that? People are writing you? You ask me any question you want based on morality, spirituality, apologetics, discipleship, relationship advice, anything you want, anything goes. And I pray with your questions and then hopefully respond in a way that it's helpful for you to grow in holiness and your walk toward eternity. Fantastic.

Well, my friend, I hope you have enjoyed meeting my friend, Father Josh Johnson, and get in touch with them. If people wanted to get in touch with you, where would they go besides your rectory? Yeah. Please do not come to my rectory. So you can definitely check me out on social media, on the Instagram, at Father Josh Johnson, as well as Twitter. But then you can get in touch with me on just Google me and my parish will pop up. And if you wanted to schedule something, you just go through my secretary at Holy Rojas office. And it's Holy Rosary in the big city of?

Santa Maw. Santa Maw. Nice. It's a bad rouge. Very good. And by the way, if you want to get in touch with me, if you have questions, you have topics you want me to cover on the show, you can email me at the Jeffcaven show at ascensionpress.com. And you can share your thoughts about this show and every other show on Instagram. I'm actually, I'm getting with it, Father, I'm starting to use Instagram. I got Twitter, Facebook, and all that. But suddenly I realized, everyone's using Instagram. So I'm on there now. I'm going to like you. I'm going to like you on Instagram. Once we become

friends on Instagram, it's like official. It is. It is. It's a cyber high five. And it's Jeff Kavins. That's simply my name on Instagram. I love to see you there. And I look forward to the next show already. Let me pray with you. Can I do that for a moment? I know that you're in the car probably. So I want to pray with you. And I want to pray about that brokenness that you might be experiencing. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, Lord, I lift up my friend right now. And I ask you, Lord, to bless them. I ask you, Lord, to help them. them in the midst of their brokenness, to be honest with themselves, to gaze upon you and to not gaze upon them, their own problems and their own ingenuity, but to take their eyes off of themselves and put them on you, the answer, the answer to our problem. For Lord, you are everything and within you is contained all wisdom and knowledge. And so we look to you, Lord, for the blessing and the healing that we desperately need. bless my friend oh lord in jesus name amen and the father and the son and the holy spirit look forward to

seeing you next week god bless