The Everyday Apostle
The Everyday Apostle
The Everyday Apostle - EP015 - Bryan Enriquez
Welcome to the Everyday Apostle, where ordinary lives meet extraordinary faith. Join our host, kendall Peterson, as we explore how everyday men and women bring the gospel to life wherever they live, work and play. Let's dive into it right now now.
Kendall Peterson:Hello and welcome to episode 15 of the Everyday Apostle. So great to be here to share these stories of people living their faith in the day-to-day 15 episodes. I can't believe we made it here. I pretty much thought it was going to end with episode one, but here we are. God had other plans, so thanks for sticking with us, thanks for all of the messages of hope, thanks for all of the messages of how this is impacting your life, and also thank you for the prayers, because without those I couldn't do this. I'm your host, kendall Peterson. It's an honor to have a wonderful guest with us in the show today. And before we get to that, let's have a word about our sponsor. Today's episode of the Everyday Apostle is sponsored by Fugoid International.
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Kendall Peterson:Now let's dive into today's show. I have an awesome guest, somebody that I met just a couple of months ago, but I'm thrilled that he's here in the studio. Please welcome, brian Enriquez. So happy to be here. Thanks for having me, kendall. Awesome, my pleasure. We've been trying to put this together for a little while and I'm glad we made it work, so let me share with you guys who Brian is. Let me read his bio. So, brian is a founding team member of Halo and serves as the head of the customer team. After graduating from the University of Notre Dame in 2015, he moved to Washington DC where he worked in public service for three and a half years. In 2018, brian and his friends from Notre Dame started the Halo app after a search for a Catholic meditation app yielded no results. While working on the app, he earned a Master's of Business Administration from the Yale School of Management in 2021. Brian is passionate about sharing his faith, spending time with loved ones, golfing and traveling. Great to have you here with us.
Bryan Enriquez:Brian. Thanks, Kendall. Yeah, I should probably update that to be learning how to golf, because I'm still. I haven't broken 100 yet, so we'll see when that happens.
Kendall Peterson:Okay, Is that a thing breaking 100?
Bryan Enriquez:Yeah. So you know my dad is big into golf and you know that's one of the milestones of saying, hey, I'm going from not really knowing how to play the game to actually, you know, doing decently is breaking that 100. So I've gotten close, but not quite there.
Kendall Peterson:So we'll see. So my golf game. I don't actually measure score by the number of shots. I measure it by the number of balls that I lose on each hole. Okay, I'm still over 100 in that Gotcha. So, Brian, let's start with where you grew up. Where are you from?
Bryan Enriquez:Yeah. So where does the story begin? So for me, I was born in Puerto Rico. Both my parents are Puerto Rican. They actually left Puerto Rico for college. They went to the Iowa State University in Iowa and they met there. So they didn't know each other on the island and they met in the cornfields of Iowa so they moved back to the island. I was born in Puerto Rico, left when I was two, moved back to Iowa and did a bunch of moving back and forth. So my story, kind of early on is a lot of early transition.
Bryan Enriquez:So from there I moved to Missouri. I lived in St Louis for a little bit. I moved to Kansas City, missouri, which I didn't know. I thought Kansas City was in Kansas. Then I moved to Kansas City, kansas, then moved down to Mississippi and so I say that I'm from Mississippi.
Bryan Enriquez:That's where I spent most of my time, lived a few years in Biloxi, which is beautiful right there on the coast, and then moved to the middle of nowhere in Meridian Mississippi. There's a naval air station there, which is why some people may be familiar with it, but it's a town of about 30,000 people. So I did high school there. My high school, my class, was about 30 people, most of which were guys. So I spent seven, eight years there and then ended up moving to Alabama, went to the University of Notre Dame and my first professional experience was in DC, as you mentioned, and so, yeah, it was an incredible experience growing up and my faith was always something that also kind of changed and grew. It hit this acceleration point after I went to Notre Dame. That was a big moment for me, interesting.
Kendall Peterson:So back when you were growing up, a lot of movement, a lot of moving around. I guess when you were very young, I would imagine that's your dad as a professional, kind of moving the family to where the opportunities were Exactly.
Bryan Enriquez:Yeah, it's, 100% it, and I learned early on to the skill of making friends. You can't just rely on the people that you've grown up with, because you know those people are in a different state and you know when you're back. Then you know cell phones were just becoming a thing so it was super hard and we didn't have social media really when I was a kid. So learn the skill of making new friends and then trying to keep up with the friends that you know.
Kendall Peterson:I've had in the past Critical life skill for sure, 100%. So did you guys go to church when?
Bryan Enriquez:you were young. Do you remember all of that? Yeah, so, always Catholic, both my parents, my entire family Catholic. Some of my earliest memories from Puerto Rico in my grandmother's house. She had different images, some of which were just family heirlooms or family pictures, but there was an image of the divine heart of Jesus, divine mercy, from Sister Faustina. It's got the two rays, the red and the pale light. That was one of my earliest memories, is just kind of like meditating on that as a kid.
Bryan Enriquez:And then so, yeah, we'd always go to mass on Sunday, but I would say it was like one priority out of many. My mom and my dad were were always faithful Catholics. But I think, you know, there was maybe a lack of catechesis. We knew that we were Catholic and we knew we needed to go to mass, but, for example, I didn't pray the rosary every day. Um, I had no idea what Eucharistic adoration was, um. So you know, there was just a lot that was, I think, missing, in particular from the lack of community that we had growing up In Meridian Mississippi, there was a very, very small community of Catholics. I went to a school of about 30, and of those 30, maybe three, four other people in my class were Catholic. So, yeah, it just wasn't. You know the norm, so to speak.
Kendall Peterson:Right, right, yeah, probably a very common story For most people. You go to church because that's what your parents do and that was a thing right, right, and if you're really faithful, it was every Sunday. But that catechesis is often missing, and it is for most, so it sounds like it was like that kind of all through high school and then you go off to you wind up once again in the breadbasket of the US. That's right For a kid from Puerto Rico. You spent a lot of time in the Midwest, that's right. So you wind up at Notre Dame. Why did you choose Notre Dame?
Bryan Enriquez:So I mean, I would say honestly, notre Dame chose me, and specifically our mother, mama Mary. So in Mississippi, the University of Notre Dame is not really in particular. Where I grew up, in Meridian, it was not a known item. So I'm a senior, I end up coming up with a list of schools that I want to go to. I really wanted to go to Yale University, primarily because they were the first school that actually sent me one of those little admissions packets and I was like, oh, this seems really cool, it seems fancy, why not? And then you know there was a few other schools that I had on my list, about five schools. I talked to my counselor and then she was like you know, I think you're missing like two more schools. Put two more that are maybe like reach schools that are hard to get into but that you think you might be able to do well in. So then I put Vanderbilt University and the University of Notre Dame only because I had a friend who had just gone to Vanderbilt and he was like, hey, it's a great school. I was like, okay.
Bryan Enriquez:And then in Puerto Rico, I actually spent a year there in high school and I met somebody there, david, who was like, hey, notre Dame is a great school, you should apply. Never heard of it, never seen the football. I didn't know what the football team was, the Fighting Irish. None of that, right. Neither did my parents. So I applied and then, lo and behold, out of all the schools that I got into, notre Dame was the best school, and they also gave me the best sort of scholarship package at the time.
Bryan Enriquez:And so for me it was a no-brainer. I was like, wow, this seems like it's a good school and they gave me a great scholarship package. Why not? Did I visit? No, I was just like sure, I'll do it right. And then my dad and I drove up from at that time we were living in Mississippi right before moving to Alabama, so drove up and then went into South Bend and we were like, oh, this doesn't look like the pictures. You know, this is not what I expected. And then you get to campus and it's just this beautiful place and we're like, wow, this is incredible. So my experience was very much, you know. So my experience was very much, you know, being ignorant of all things Notre Dame, going there and having an incredible experience, having my faith reignited and just being really blessed.
Kendall Peterson:Interesting. So going off to college and having the skill of making friends quickly and surrounding yourself with like minded people Right, obviously that's a great skill in college. Did you find that to be relatively easy when you got there, or what was that like?
Bryan Enriquez:Yeah, I mean it was, I would say, culture shock of not really knowing I mean. So I was the hardcore nerd, you know, who did a little bit of sports. I did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Taekwondo, I loved weightlifting, but I would not have considered myself a jock. I didn't go to parties, you know, in high school. And so at Notre Dame it was like work hard, play hard is the mentality. So people studied, people did their assignments, they learned, but then we also had a good time, and so I just wasn't familiar with that culture. And so, thankfully, I was surrounded by just a great group of guys. My roommate Alex, who's actually the CEO of Hallow, that's who we met.
Bryan Enriquez:We were randomly assigned at Notre Dame. Alessandro and Joe and a few others of the founding team were on my floor in Keough. So at Notre Dame we have single sex dorms, so there's no Greek life, thankfully, in my opinion, everyone kind of belongs to their own community, and every community has a priest in residence and a rector, and so our rector was Father Pete McCormick from Notre Dame, which was incredible, and so I think, from that little community there we just supported each other and it was a safe place to grow, and so we had Mass every Sunday. Every chapel in Notre Dame was located within one of the buildings, so our dorm had a chapel inside of it and we could go to Mass. It was super easy, and so for me it was the first time that it was sort of seen cool to go to Mass and like, oh, you're part of the community, and so then growing into that was really transformative for me.
Kendall Peterson:So I mean knowing others that have gone. That's not always the path right. Not everybody goes into Notre Dame and comes out with a strong faith, and that's kind of the way life is. But do you think it was the people you connected with, like those people that you made your close friends, that everybody was on a very similar point in their journey? Or were they further ahead or further behind? Like what was that? Like that dynamic?
Bryan Enriquez:Yeah. So Alex was my roommate. He was atheist, agnostic, so he was straight up like I don't even think this is real. Alessandro was very intellectually attuned to the faith but in his own sort of testimony, as he shared it, he would admit that he's like. You know, I knew a lot of this stuff, but my practice was maybe falling.
Bryan Enriquez:I was very much the cat, the sort of cultural Catholic, the status quo Catholic. You know, you I would, we would go to mass on Sundays, but if you don't go to mass on Sunday once, that's not that big of a deal. Praying the rosary, that you know that those for monks and for nuns, like that's, you know you don't really do that, um. So my experience was very much like my. The faith was important to me, but it was kind of an idea and and I would pray, but it wasn't a deep relationship with Christ, and so I think for us one of the things that was really transformative is seeing somebody like Father Pete McCormick, who he was cool, he is and was a cool priest, and so we respected him as guys and so we were like, oh okay, so there's this way of living that is not weird. To be a priest Like he's cool, he can be cool and be Catholic.
Bryan Enriquez:And so I met other people that were super faithful Francis, we met on the study abroad program at Notre Dame in Toledo. So I got to live in Spain for three months, which is where St Teresa of Avila wrote the Interior Castle, and so there's a lot of rich tradition there, st John of the Cross and that part of Spain, and so there's a lot of rich tradition there, st John of the Cross and that part of Spain. And so, yeah, just getting to be with people who had different you know kind of faith perspectives was helpful because it caused me to question OK, this guy doesn't even believe in his faith, so the guy really, really believes, but then thinks there's more to do. So it was helpful because it was a time of questioning and reflecting and just trying to grow.
Kendall Peterson:So you had mentioned earlier the work hard, play hard mentality there, right? So how did that? Obviously you've got studies and, by the way, what were you studying? What was your degree?
Bryan Enriquez:Yeah, so I studied political science and economics so I got a dual major. I thought I was going to be a lawyer and then God had other plans and thankfully he revealed those to me before I got into debt and going into law school. So that was you know. That's nice.
Kendall Peterson:Yeah, Thanks.
Bryan Enriquez:God Exactly.
Kendall Peterson:So so you guys are studying right, you've got all of your classes and going to mass and spending a little bit of time over and above that, or maybe, in lieu of the partying, did you guys find yourself in fellowship around your faith? Did you start doing like Scripture, bible study and things like that, or did that maybe come later?
Bryan Enriquez:I think for my friend group it came a little bit later, I would say the fellowship came from the dorm mass. So every Sunday night, you know, 9, 10 PM, we would go down and then it's all the guys and sometimes they bring their girlfriends, and so we would have, and sometimes, you know, we'd be in sweats or whatever we'd be in and we'd be there and it would be mass. And that was a cool experience because it felt, like I said earlier, like there's this community element to the faith that I had not experienced before. So I think that was certainly helpful. I think it took some theology classes at Notre Dame that intellectually kind of created a foundation to then have further growth later.
Bryan Enriquez:I think our story at Howler really begins after we graduate. We're sort of thrown into the world where young adults are trying to figure out like, ok, so I have to pay bills, I have to figure out, like, how to commute to my work. You know, do I get to pay bills? I have to figure out, like, how to commute to my work. You know, do I get a car, do I, you know? So, just like the very tactical things of life, and it was amongst that that we felt a lot of pressure, a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety. How do you manage that you don't have your friend group anymore? I moved to DC after I graduated, alessandro moved to New York City, alex was in Chicago, so we were all in different places, and so then at that point we started searching for ways to manage the stress, and that was sort of like the beginning of the of the hallow sort of journey.
Kendall Peterson:So interesting, all right. So I guess in my head I thought that you know, I guess the seeds were planted, but the discussions weren't being had. It's like, hey, we're missing something, maybe we could do this. And then years later it came to fruition. That wasn't even a discussion when you were in it.
Bryan Enriquez:So I would say, you know we had a lot of debates, so I would frequently debate Alex and he's like oh, this is you know, this doesn't make any sense, like what's the point of believing in this? This is all just made up. And St Augustine who I had never heard of before so I would say that's a facet of our relationship as friends is definitely a lot of debate, but it was never like okay, being Catholic is the number one thing in my life. That didn't occur for me or I wouldn't say for Alex or Alessandro until after we graduated.
Kendall Peterson:And it doesn't sound like software development was either right.
Bryan Enriquez:Yeah, exactly. So, like I said I was, I thought was gonna be a lawyer. Thankfully, one of our co-founders, eric. He studied computer science. We weren't friends with Eric actually at Notre Dame. We met after the fact. So he started working at a consulting firm with Alex. They met and then he was sort of the and is now our CTO. So he was the one who kind of helped code the first version with Alex. Out there was a mechanical engineer, so he knew enough to be dangerous, so to speak. So between both of them they helped with the other prototype and we sort of got going.
Kendall Peterson:So that's interesting. So let's kind of fast forward to that time point. You guys are obviously staying in touch and very engaged post-graduation, which I think is a great blessing. In your bio you say you were looking for that way to bring that calmness and that peace into your life. In the flurry of everything you were trying to do, walk me through like how did those discussions go about the possibility of creating your own solution to that problem?
Bryan Enriquez:Yeah, so we in 2017, alex is introduced to an app called Headspace, which is a Buddhist app and it's like a mindfulness, secular app. So he starts using it to try to find peace and he starts feeling something. He's like oh, maybe this is working. This, this, this app is, is is different from all the other ones. Um, and then he keeps using, keeps using it, but then, interestingly enough, keeps being drawn back to the image of Jesus Christ, which is strange, because there is no Jesus in Buddhism and Buddhism is an atheistic religion. There's no, there's no God in Buddhism, there's no deity to worship. So he's like this is really weird. So he calls our priest, father Pete, back in Notre Dame and he's like hey, father Pete, I'm having this experience. Is there a way to combine like meditation and prayer? Is that like a thing in the Catholic church? And then Father Pete's like Alex, we've been doing it for like hundreds of years. This like a new age thing in the church, like Lectio Divina, the examine, like all of these things. He mentions them to Alex and then Alex is like oh, okay, I've never heard of these things, starts to implement them, and then, over that 2016, 2017 time period, he sort of reconverts back to the faith. You know he's, he's married. He married to his wife, megan. They have three beautiful children, and they were married in the faith and married in the church, and so that sort of reconversion sparked my interest, because I'm like, wait a minute, this guy who was like basically an atheist, right now he's like praying the rosary all the time, he's like going to mass, so what's up with that?
Bryan Enriquez:So then I started getting into it and at the same time, in the Department of Justice, we were doing a project on the mental sort of wellness of our operators. This we were doing a project on the mental sort of wellness of our operators. These are people who disarm bombs and who, you know, kick down doors and rescue hostages. Unfortunately, there was a murder-suicide, you know, in I would say, probably this 2017 time period, with some agents, and so we were tasked with trying to understand. You know, hey, how can we better support the mental health needs of the workforce?
Bryan Enriquez:And at that time, I was put onto the discovery of mindfulness. There are these scientific benefits that can be found in terms of your heart rate, for example, when you are entering into this mindfulness state. So then I said, okay, so there's this mindfulness thing. There's this meditation thing in prayer. Is there a way to have like Catholic mindfulness, a way to grow in your faith that's in line with the teachings of the church but that helps you find this peace? And the answer is yes. But we didn't find that in an app, which we were mind blown. Alex is like well, this, why don't we just build one? And you know, and that was kind of the entry point, it was January of 2018.
Bryan Enriquez:I'll never forget, I had on a white t-shirt. I was sitting in my apartment on Swan Avenue with my Adidas shorts and he called me. He's like I know what we're going to do with the rest of our lives. We're going to make a prayer wrap. And in that moment I just I knew deep inside I was like yes, this is it.
Bryan Enriquez:Up until that point, I had a sexy job out of college, you know, working for the department of justice, like doing all these things that most people out of college wouldn't do. But I always felt this like lack of calm and peace. There was like something missing, like I was being called to something. And then that's when, really, where?
Bryan Enriquez:Sort of the seeds that Gout had planted for me in Notre Dame, sort of bore fruit, because when Alex said that, hey, we're gonna make a prayer app, I was just I knew. I was like, yeah, there's no doubt. I was like this is the thing that I'm going to do. I don't know if it's going to fail, I don't know if it's going to succeed, but, like, I know that God is wanting me to do this thing and that's all that matters. And so when he hung up the phone, I heard a voice say from now on, nothing will be the same. Wow. And I just started taking my faith more seriously, started going to mass, started going to confession regularly. That was really big for me, um, and yeah, it was just. My life was transformed in an instant from um, from that conversation.
Kendall Peterson:Well, that's an interesting way to open up a conversation, right? Hey, uh, we're going to build this prayer app and, like, that's what we're going to build, this prayer app and that's what we're going to do for the rest of our lives. Man, that's fascinating. So when did you start bringing the other guys in? How did?
Bryan Enriquez:that happen. Yeah, so at the time, I was working at the Department of Justice, so I didn't have a ton of time to be working on something. On the side, alessandro was one of our roommates early on. Eric, as I mentioned, was friends with Alex and they were kind of all we were having conversations. We actually started a blog in 2017 called Managing and Faith. That is now defunct, but we wrote a few pieces and we were just trying to like wrestle with our faith. So that was kind of already in the background.
Bryan Enriquez:And when he was like we're making a prayer app, he was like, like, okay, this is the thing that we're all now going to do. Um, so then we needed a voice. Francis is fantastic. Has his great meditative voice called him up along with abby, who was one of our friends. So joe lived on our floor and he ended up marrying abby. So joe got involved. So the team of seven kind of got united from the beginning, and then it was like, okay, so we're gonna do this to do this thing. So now, what do we do? And we started calling our friends and saying how do you build an app? We had no idea how to build an app. Yeah, that was kind of like the beginning piece. We started Halo in June of 2018 and then we launched it for the first time in December of 2018. So it'll be seven years now this December, which is crazy to say out loud so Abby, the name sounds familiar.
Kendall Peterson:One of the voice selections.
Bryan Enriquez:One of the voice selections Abby Francis. They were two of the original founding members.
Kendall Peterson:Okay, so real quick for the listeners and for the viewers. If you're not familiar with this app, pause right now. Go to whatever app store you need to go to and download it and check it out. I guarantee you you will be grateful, and I think the reason that you should do that is twofold. Number one the amount of resources on this app are phenomenal, especially when you go back and listen and hear how this started and that it started in 2018. Second is the context of how all of this comes together. Right, and you've got one of your friends' wives is doing the voice, because at this point in time and we're going to kind of fast forward to where you are now- and all of that.
Kendall Peterson:But at this point in time, the concept that it's just some friend's wife that's doing the voice. I mean, you have major, major celebrities contributing to the content on this app and it blows me away every time you add more people. So I'd love to you know, this is the business side of me coming out as well, but I'd love to know how do you make a jump from a bunch of guys cobbling together something you know that brings meditation and prayer together and using whatever voices you have, to now this worldwide phenomenon with celebrity voices and content generated? I'll give you the two-word answer Okay, the Holy Spirit and content generating.
Bryan Enriquez:I'll give you the two word answer Okay, the Holy Spirit, because I do. I mean, it was very clear to me that this was a call from God to do this. Didn't promise it was gonna be successful or anything, he just wanted us to do it. So I was like we'll do it and whatever happens, you know, we're trying to be faithful, right. And so initially it was a few hundred people that were our friends that downloaded it and started using it and then, you know, by the grace of God, people started hearing about it. We had word of mouth, we got people on, like Matt Fradd, who has his podcast Pines with Aquinas. He was one of our first supporters and so from that it was that little like ember that slowly kept being, you know, kind of blown on.
Bryan Enriquez:Another big name for us that was early on was Jonathan Rumi. So in 2020, the actor who plays Jesus in the Chosen. If you're not aware, he's incredible. He actually started as a voice actor, so his talents were super helpful for us. He started with us right when the Chosen was in season one, season two. So then the Chosen starts getting big and then we have Jonathan Rumi, so then Hal starts getting big. So that was incredible.
Bryan Enriquez:Mark Wahlberg was. I mean I grew up watching Mark Wahlberg movies. You know what I mean. Like it was, you know. I mean we can go through the list. You know the Departed, you know, more recently, lone Survivor. I mean just all of these movies that I really appreciated. And then getting the opportunity to work with him is just a tremendous blessing because he's really kind of moved from I am an activist Catholic to being very outspoken about his faith, you know being on different shows and playing Father Stu in the movie recently as well. So I mean that was incredible. And then we've got some names like Father Mike Schmitz, bishop Barron, who are some of the more recognizable, you know, religious and sort of priests in the US. So Sister Miriam, james Heidlin incredible. If you don't know her, look her up.
Bryan Enriquez:So it really kind of started to grow from people encountering the power of prayer, because that's all that the app is. We are basically encouraging you to have a relationship with God through prayer, and that takes different forms. You know whether it be the rosary. We have meditations that are very custom, so sometimes it's music, sometimes it's sitting in silence, and so that's the nice thing about it is that we have all these different ways of praying that God has given us, that we've been able to put in the app that people don't feel like they're necessarily being preached at. It's more like, oh, I'm having an experience, and, and god's, of the under end right, because he's searching for each and every one of us, and so that's kind of how it really grew from just a few friends to, I mean, look at jesus's, his ministry was like 12, 12 guys, you know, and and and some, uh, and some others that were following him.
Kendall Peterson:So yeah, I mean that's the only explanation, right, because you couldn't script that out. There's no way you could specifically plan for that Absolutely amazing. So one of the last questions that I want to ask you to try and stay on topic and bring it back from a business show. So it's hard Like I've had eight startups myself, I've been in Fortune 500 companies. When you're in the business world, the business world looks very different than our faith. Life sometimes right, and you guys are running a business, you guys are moving fast and furious. I can see all of those changes. I can see how tough that would be. What ways do you guys use, either you individually or you guys as a team, to remain faithful, remain in prayer while you're conducting business?
Bryan Enriquez:100%, yeah. So I mean, I think for me it starts with what's number one in your life and this has been a realization over the past, I'd say maybe 18, 24 months. That's really crystallized for me. It's your calendar. At least for me it's like what's on my calendar, and if mass is only on my calendar on Sunday, it's hard for me to argue that God is the number one thing in my life. If I'm doing the minimum and Father Mike talks about this, it's. If it's if I'm doing the minimum and father mike talks about this, it's like, yeah, going to mass on sunday is the minimum, not the maximum.
Bryan Enriquez:And so trying to um go to daily mass when possible, um, I would say, seeking to weekly or bi-weekly confession, um is, as seeing it as not, um, I'm gonna go be, you know, um made guilty about something. It's instead, it's a, it's a sacrament, that that brings healing, um and and is an outpouring of grace. And so just trying to always access that grace and really it invites humility, which is the foundation of the virtues is growing in humility first. So I'd say, for me those are some big things in terms of how I spend my time is making sure that I'm going to mass, receiving the sacraments and then daily prayer is something that I always thought was like oh, I'm super busy, how do I do daily prayer? And that's a ridiculous. I now realize that's a ridiculous thing because I mean there's praying in the morning, is just waking up and just being like Lord. Thank you for this day. It takes 10 seconds and you've already started off your day with prayer. So I'd say number one is like always start your day off with prayer.
Bryan Enriquez:The daily rosary. I'd say it's a spiritual weapon. For a reason the devil is terrified of it, and so I'd say that spiritual warfare is very real. Sticking to a daily rosary is incredible. Dr Edward Shree is one of the co-founders of FOCUS, the Fellowship of Catholic Universities in the US, and it's incredible, and he gave a talk recently and he said if you go into Mass every day and you go into confession confession and you're praying the rosary, you're still missing something.
Bryan Enriquez:I'm like well, what could you be missing? He's like meditation, and that's sitting with the Lord in silence every day for a few minutes and just trying to listen, just being like Lord. I just want to hear your voice, whether that be you can read scripture and then just sit and reflect on it. But that's another big thing is just trying to find moments where you're not always rushed, and for me recently that's been in the car. I just try to like drive in the car with no music and I just say Lord, like let's spend some time together focusing on the road. But you know, it's a nice. It's those little things that kind of help keep you grounded and keep you focused on Christ. You know so, seek first the kingdom of God. That's what I try to live by. So awesome.
Kendall Peterson:Wow, Brian, I wish I didn't have to bring this to a close, so I have a million other questions for you, but thank you. Thank you for sharing that journey. Thank you for thank you for sharing the Halo app. I know in our family it's tremendously important. We're in it all the time. Thank you for sharing with the listeners how to acquiesce to the will of God, which is always hard, but then how to stick with it and keep going and bring faith, not just as a thing that you do, but the way you do things. So thank you for sharing that message To you guys out there.
Kendall Peterson:If you didn't pause earlier, then go ahead and end this and go download the Halo app. You will not be disappointed and check it out. Let it bring into your life the things that Brian was talking about the prayer and the meditation and just bring God into his due place, and it's it's a beautiful way to do it. So go ahead and do that. I encourage you guys to stay in prayer. I encourage you guys to continue to listen like, share, all of those things you need to do podcasts, because that that keeps us relevant in that space and we have a message that we want to get out Anything that glorifies God. We want to be out there, and so thank you for your support, and God bless you.
Bryan Enriquez:Stay prayed up.
Announcer:Thanks for tuning in to the Everyday Apostle. Don't forget to like and subscribe on YouTube, on your favorite podcast outlet, and at our website at everydayapostlecom. Until next time, stay blessed.
