#006: Building Your Domestic Church with John Sohl

Join us for an inspiring conversation with special guest John Sohl, Director of Discipleship at Family Renewal Project, as we explore what it means to transform your home into a sacred space—a true domestic church. 

John shares his incredible journey of faith, from his childhood foundation to his work helping families discover who they are in Christ, and enter more fully into the beauty of Theology of the Body. Together, we dive into the sacredness of family life- in it's messiness and glory, discussing how to welcome Christ into your home even when it's hard, how the Saints can become your closest friends, and why interior healing is essential to building a holy family.

Discover how to counter the culture's lies with truth by integrating faith into everyday life at home and experience the abundant freedom Christ offers.

👉 What This Episode Covers:The Domestic Church as Sanctuary

• Practical Ways to Integrate Faith at Home
• The Holy Family as Your Model
• The Saints as Your Best Friends
• Healing and Redemption
• The Triumph of the Heart

✨ Digital eBook! (free for a limited time- so snag yours now!)

⬇️ Download our 30+ page guide: "Building Your Domestic Church: Integrating Faith Into Everyday Life at Home" You’ll find:

• Ways to bring your faith into your home
• Liturgical living ideas
• The 15 Promises of the Rosary
• Sacramentals for your home
• Discount codes for Catholic Shops
• And so much more!

🎧 Listen to John’s Podcast, Spirit and Spire (featuring interviews with Peter Kreeft, Fr. Adam Potter, and more!)

👉 Learn more about John’s work at Family Renewal Project and check out the MAXIMIZE Retreat here!

📚Recommended Resources:

• The Good News About Sex and Marriage by Christopher West
• But When I Fly by Shannon Aides
• Theology of the Body Institute courses
• Triumph of the Heart film

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

Catholic Family Crate
Catholic Family Crate offers simple and fun resources to help families build their faith at home.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

Transcript

Hello all and welcome to the Abundant Catholic Podcast. I'm your host, Melissa Krepp. Today we're joined by John Soul with Family Renewal Project. He is with us to talk about living out the domestic church and everyday life and making it a sanctuary, making your life a sacred space, not just personally, but in your home as well. John shares with us an incredible story of his own life as he discovered God in his generational lineage, really working even through loved ones and helping him build a firm foundation family.

as a Catholic at home, in his life, in his marriage, and with his daughter. So we welcome you today as we talk on topics like building your domestic church, making your home a sanctuary, liturgical living, embracing your faith, bringing sacramentals into the home, and more. So please join us. It's going to be a great time.

speaker-0 (00:50.456)
Hey friends, I'm your host, Melissa Krupp, and welcome to the Abundant Catholic Podcast, where we journey with you in truth towards freedom. In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly. He doesn't just stop at offering us life. He wants to give us an overflow of his love and mercy so that we may be fulfilled. Freedom is here and we can choose to live in it, whatever it is that you're carrying.

know that you're not alone and that God's promises of a hope and healing are for you too. If you're an intentional Catholic and you're ready to journey into the deep, into real relationship with God, intimacy with Christ, deeper healing, restoration and freedom, then this podcast is for you. We invite you to step into freedom today by plugging in your pods, turning up the volume and opening your heart so that you may more fully become the man or woman God made you to be.

So buckle up friends because you're in for a real adventure.

speaker-0 (01:54.37)
Welcome to the Abundant Catholic Podcast. I'm your host, Melissa Krepp. Today I am joined by John Soll with the Family Renewal Project. John, tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

Sure. So I serve as the director of Discipleship for Family Renewal Project and that is a theology of the body apostolate in service to the Archdiocese of Louisville in Kentucky. And I've been full time with them for about four years now and we have five or six other employees in the discipleship department and we have three main pillars, community courses and counseling. And so I kind of focus on the community and the courses for the most part of how we build up the community.

and feed them with goodness, truth, and beauty. that's definitely been a passion of mine ever since I was exposed to the theology of the body when I was in high school. And I would say that has been the catalyst that has followed my entire journey of healing and redemption and deliverance and my longing for love. And now I'm married with a...

Beautiful daughter, my wife and daughter. We just celebrated her 16 month birthday, I guess, last week. So that's been a great gift. And it's Crystal is my wife and Lily is our little girl at home. So what a gift they've been in my life.

Well, today we are going to be delving into the topic of living out the domestic church. We're talking about this great theme of building your domestic church and how to integrate faith into everyday life. And John, it's amazing how the Holy Spirit connected us because I met, I don't know if Donna is your boss or not, Donna Burry. Yes, I your boss through a collaborative group I'm a part of with TOB educators. And I pray to the Holy Spirit about this next topic of domestic church.

speaker-0 (03:50.914)
that he put on my heart for the next podcast episode with the Abundant Catholic. And he just said, hold off. Like, I need you to give it more time, because I've been dropping episodes bi-weekly. And I was like, OK, I'm going to hold off. And lo and behold, I had seen a reel with you randomly talking about the domestic church. And you called it a sanctuary. And it lit my heart on fire. And I knew right then that the Holy Spirit wanted me to speak to you. So I'm really excited.

to delve in with you, have some questions for you today. But really, like every other Abundant Catholic podcast episodes, and my listeners know, we call upon the Holy Spirit. And so we did pray prior to, but we're gonna call upon the Holy Spirit again, as we enter in, also for the listeners, so that they can be touched, and they can be inspired to know of this beautiful Lord that loves them, and how he wants to ignite them, the Abundant Catholic podcast listeners, to live out your faith.

in your home and build a domestic church at home, right? So we're going to talk about this. So let's just say a quick Holy Spirit prayer. Holy Spirit come, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit so they shall be created and you will renew the face of the earth. I just love that prayer. It was by Pope Leo, one of the Pope Leos before this Pope Leo. Maybe you know, it was like maybe Pope Leo the 12th. I don't remember, but I just know it's a really important prayer.

So good. Yeah, so let's dive in. But first you have a podcast, right?

Yes.

speaker-0 (05:23.438)
Tell us a little bit about your podcast.

Sure, so we have our podcast is called Spirit and Spire and that's housed in the Cathedral of the Assumption in downtown Louisville. And we were originally going to start it in, you know, our basement, not my basement, but just in my study at my house, which has now become my nursery, our, you know, for a little girl. So it's probably best that that

It's where they take over, don't they?

Yeah, that's right. That's right. So.

had to do a lot of nesting, which I didn't even know what that term was until a few weeks before. But that was about four or five years ago when we were considering to start a podcast. And we got a phone call from Donna Burry with FRP. And she said, hold off. Y'all don't need to start your podcast right now. Just connect with this guy and the rector at the cathedral, who also happened to be the spiritual founding chaplain for Family Renewal Project. And we connected with them.

speaker-1 (06:22.768)
They asked us to give them a proposal and that landed us with an anonymous $20,000 donation that got our podcast started. We interviewed the Archbishop who was newly installed, Archbishop Shelton Fobb, for our first episode and we just now, four years later, interviewed him for the second time but for our 100th episode that came out two days before Christmas.

Congratulations. That's a huge accomplishment.

Yeah, was definitely a big milestone, but God has been in control of the graces that we've had with all of the powerful conversations with so many people and mostly local. You know, we wanted it to be a local podcast that interviewed a lot of people that honestly just had no idea that they existed in the city or in archdiocese. It's a great gift to connect.

Yeah, that connection is definitely the work of the Holy Spirit, right? So tell us what was your most recent podcast episode?

So we interviewed Deacon Scott Hedges. He's a deacon at the Shrine of St. Martin of Tours in downtown Louisville. And he has just a powerful conversion story from basically an unbelieving.

speaker-1 (07:36.704)
agnostic atheist to non-fire Catholic psychologist who's in charge of, or psychiatrist who's in charge of lot of other counseling services in the city of Louisville and just getting into the depth of mind, body and soul and just how all of those things fit together. It was a deeply psychological and...

spiritual experience to sit there with him. And it was very helpful for me because, you know, just getting to have some additional conversation with him before and after to get to know him, it was always enriching. And that's kind of what I feel with many of our guests.

That's great. Yeah, that's amazing. It is is important to build that friendship and that communion with the spirit, right? Well, let's delve in and so we're gonna talk like I said a little bit about the history of the practice the traditions that come with the way of life of building the domestic church Practical ways of how to integrate it in everyday life. And and really this is for everybody whether you're married your parent a grandparent and You're an educator whatever it is. This is this is for you, right?

And so, yeah, this is really exciting. But before we get started, I just want to mention that we have a digital ebook that's going to be linked to this show and the show notes for you, which is the same title as the episode. It's chock full of resources, including some discount codes with codes for Catholic shops and some of our favorite partners that we like to support and that we have in our house as well.

other insights on much of what we are discussing today as well. So this is going to be free to you for a limited time. So please check it out. And then soon it be available on our website for a small price, but it's over 20 pages of goodies. So we're really excited to share this with you. And a lot of what we're going to be discussing today is going to be mirroring what's in it. So let's delve in. Yeah, let's look at first I want to just talk about sanctuary because you spoke that John.

speaker-0 (09:38.286)
And it hit me, know, like the flame of the spirit hit me. And when we look at the domestic church and calling it a sanctuary, it invites families to view their homes as a sacred place, right? One that requires reverence and respect and fosters love and forgiveness, even in the messiness of life, like we get back up when we fall, right? This is the beauty of our faith. And so you were sharing about how our world is full of domestic abuse.

domestic violence, things that are in the home that are evil and empty and abusive. And really this great lacking of love that we're just seeing surrounding so many of us. So many of us are just struggling from where we came from, from where we've been, the things that are surrounding us. can feel so dark and gloomy sometimes, right? And so it really stuck out to me as I was already feeling this hug from the Lord to cover this topic, to just really look into the etymology of what a sanctuary is. And it literally means a consecrated place.

Like if you look at the etymology of that, how amazing is that? It also means building set apart for holy worship. Holy or sacred object, also means holy thing, a sacred place. How incredible. So can you share more about that on this topic of domestic church being a sanctuary, the family as the domestic church, and that being a reflection of a domestic sanctuary or a sacred place?

Sure. I mean, we of course have to acknowledge the fact that it's hard for people to perhaps understand this topic because first off, the word domestic is most often known when it's associated with abuse or violence, sadly. But also the challenge of

Thinking of your own home as a consecrated place outside for holy worship when you're stepping on Legos and toys constantly and there's food everywhere because your baby just barfed it all up right after the pain. Like how do you even consider your own home? Like you go to a church and you're like, is beautiful and everything's swept clean and it looks put together and there's beautiful statues and stained glass windows and high altars or even in simple church.

speaker-1 (11:54.384)
is it's not like complete pigsty, right? It's not like you walk into a Catholic church and it's the next show of hoarders. But you can feel like, oh my gosh, nobody can come to my house right now. got like, if you got like five or six kids and they're all under 10, like no one comes here, you know, unless we're throwing a party and then we gotta like tie the kids.

So you need some time to prepare your home for others to come home. At least we do. I know somebody who would put all of her stuff in a laundry basket and put it in the shower and close the shower curtain.

And that's okay, that's just, that's how it works. that's more, it's not so much I found, there was an old British TV show I saw growing up as a kid that my mom and dad loved that they called, it was called Keeping Up Appearances. And it was a lady named Hyacinth Bouquet. But really her last name was Bucket.

B for C, K, E, T, and she just hated that. it's just one of those British humor things and every time somebody would say, hello Mrs. Bucket, she said, it's okay, right? And every episode was about her trying to make herself and her home and her.

family look good when she had a lot of dysfunction and issues and things. the situational company was hilarious, but that can be our mindset. It's like, okay, I'm getting my house ready for guests to come over. But the real reason I think we clean and get our house put together is not to keep up appearances, but to reverence the guests that are coming, to show respect to those who are here and to make them comfortable so that they aren't distracted or confused by, you

speaker-1 (13:32.828)
things that might be in their way that we're used to perhaps but you know it might be helpful to you know facilitate conversation if they're not stepping over this or that or tripping on something that we have gotten used to avoiding because

There's usually stuff all over our floor that we have to pick up before people come over. But I think that's really beautiful and telling. And an image that came to me earlier when you were talking about people going into a church where it's not messy. The irony in that is that the church is full of sinners. The church welcomes the messiest being ever, which is us humans. And we come with our mess. We come with our sink. We come with the chaos.

And we're coming to be purified. And so I think in reflection of building that domestic church, we desire that as Catholics and the church promotes it. And we'll talk about that in a minute with what Pope Paul the fifth says, and then even just like the church teachers and leaders as well, talking about the domestic church and what it is, because really it's an invitation to live out your holiness at home and recognize you are a sacred place as a person, right? Body and soul composite.

Yeah, and that's really what gets at the word sanctuary, right? Because the only way that you can walk into a messy home filled with chaos and noise and have peace and a feeling of that sacred, consecrated space is if you have that inner peace, that interior life that calms you down so that you can be that rock of stability and love when others might be falling apart or whatever.

Absolutely. I mean, honestly, too, like to add to that Christ being the rock in us, right, because we only have so much we can do. Like life is messy. Family life is messy. It's up and down. We carry the joy and the sorrow hand in hand, right? We carry the glory and the mysteries, all the mysteries of the face of Christ, all the mysteries of the rosary we carry in our lives. And many of us just want perfection because that's the way of the world.

speaker-1 (15:14.17)
We actually.

speaker-0 (15:40.746)
It's this compulsive behavioral thing where we just, we long for love so much and for unity so much, we forget that like, we are in need, we are, we are supposed to be little, we are supposed to be children in spirit and crying out to a father to, to, to bring us in union with him in this deeper love. But there is that lie of perfectionism, right? And so I do want to quote before we continue to, I said Pope Paul the fifth, but it's Pope Paul the sixth who said this.

Yes, from the second Vatican council. He said the family is so to speak the domestic church in its in it. Excuse me. In it, parents should by their word and example be the first preachers of the faith to their children. They should encourage them in the vocation, which is proper to each of them fostering with special care vocation to a sacred state. Wow. Exactly what we're talking about. Any thoughts on that?

yeah, the fact that we are called to truly know ourselves and to have that patience and reference for one another and our families I think is one of the biggest challenges. It reminds me of another quote from John Paul II who said something like, if we want to have joyful families, we have to keep in mind that each

member of the family, mother, father, sisters, brothers, must become in a special way a servant to the others. To learn to make a gift of ourselves to one another in our families requires what? Patience, mercy, love, fidelity, all of the very

Yeah, and the fruits of experience.

speaker-1 (17:32.982)
Yeah, exactly. You have to have the grace of the Holy Spirit. I've found that... Okay, first off, I work for a marriage and family apostolate, so I always feel like I have a target on my back for that reason. Just, you know, since my daughter was born, I felt like a particular weight of responsibility of protecting my home differently than before we had our child. And so I think the gift of fatherhood has gotten my attention in a new way.

to be more vigilant in protecting my family, not just from burglars or, you know, the weather, but it's more about spiritual forces, like what television shows are we watching, what movies.

Right.

speaker-1 (18:18.862)
What devices have access to the internet? What kind of filters can I have to make sure that stuff is blocked if anything were to come in because it's not like you might It's not necessarily someone seeking it out in the home. It may be see you And so random advertisements things that you're not wanting or inviting can very well pop up that you don't realize even honestly in TV shows Totally fine

So you have to be very attentive to that kind of stuff because you know children can't unsee something I mean you can heal memories of course you can make sense of them, but In if we can protect our children from the ultimate thief and liar That's the goal

There's so much there. mean, our whole podcast is based on I'm sorry, our whole apostola in our podcast, the abundant Catholic is based on John 10, 10. I came so that they may have life and have it more abundantly. And right before that, and I said this on many of my other podcasts, Jesus says the thief will come to steal, destroy and slaughter. And anyone who comes before me, you know, will do that. So anyone who comes for me will come to steal, destroy and slaughter, right, which is the thief, the enemy.

And you say this so well, because it really like we have to be sober. We have to be vigilant. We can't just put pretty Catholic items in our home and think our home is a sanctuary. It has to come from here. It has to come from this interior desire to receive the newness of Christ, but then also to bring light into the darkness and know that darkness cannot exist where there is light. Right. And honestly, it's crazy to me.

I mean, raising, we have four daughters and a little son. What is on the TV? We really like we removed our TV for the longest time. We were very careful. We're very cautious. But we also have to balance that and like have some sort of normalcy because we're raising the future society. And John Paul II talks about that. He says, so goes the family, so goes the whole world. And so when we teach our children, we really want to counter the indoctrination coming at us with, you know,

speaker-0 (20:31.084)
the lack of proper dignity of the person, right? You have this moral devaluing of all of these people and this abusive, like you said, this abusive nature all around us happening in the secular culture. And so really we want to counter that by indoctrinating our children with the truth, which is a hard path. The fire is the Holy Spirit, which is why we need the church, which is why we're called to be the domestic church, right?

And it really is this spiritual realm that we live in. Everything's not just physical. And if you're living in a world thinking it's all just physical and what you do spiritually doesn't matter, like my dear brother, sister in Christ, may this be an invitation for you to come and enter more fully into your Christian identity, into who God made you to be so that you know that there's things you can do to live out your identity as a son or daughter in God more fully in this life to experience the fruits of the Spirit.

and to not be afraid to counter what's coming at us because He will provide, He will give us the tools. And we talk about a lot of the tools on the ebook, especially about sacramentals and bringing those into your home as well. We talk about the Holy Family as a great witness to the family in general. And then we just had the Feast of the Holy Family a few weeks ago before this recording. And I'm just wondering if you could share with us how the Holy Family is a great icon.

and also spiritual shelter for us as Catholics to reflect on and bring into our hearts and homes.

Absolutely. first off, I was baptized in the-

speaker-0 (22:08.236)
No way! Get out of here!

Yeah, and that happened to me my grandpa's 77th birthday. He so proud. He wrote it in his journal and everything. My grandma had also got me to baby Jesus in the Nativity. Of course, I cried too much, so St. Anne had to rescue me. But that being said, I've always felt a connection to the Holy Family just because being raised Catholic, there was some level of

Of course she did.

speaker-0 (22:26.572)
Bye!

speaker-1 (22:41.742)
you know, focus on our faith at every moment as a child, all the way through even to this day. And my mom would always be praying with us.

like my dad was an air traffic controller, so he'd have the night shift a lot of times, and so he'd be gone during the night. And my mom would make sure she barricaded the hallway so that way at night and we'd sleep in the room with her because she didn't want us to be alone. So it was kind of funny, it was like, mom, chill out. as kids, you know, I look back on the, it might have been annoying as a kid, but honestly, what sacred time? Because that's where I learned the Rosarito.

praying with my mom. then before school we'd pray as a family every day. My mom would bless us with holy water. And that was just a requirement. You had to do it. Now, as kids we certainly learned how to say the St. Michael prayer very, very, very, very quickly. Especially if we are in a rush on the way to school.

it was still done. We still emphasized that and that remained in my life. And by the time I was graduating and getting into high school, I was really starting to question my faith and wondering, you know, because I was being exposed to lot of people who had no faith at all, even at like high school. And I just felt this deep sense of, okay, the Holy Family is...

the people I want to strive to be like, but I didn't know what that felt like other than my own family. They were my reference point. So I had a solid foundation. But when I started asking my questions, the next question is, am I going to get good answers? And sure enough, even if my mom and dad weren't able or equipped to speak those truths to me, they knew people who could. And so they exposed me to the right people, conferences, retreats. My mom handed me a book that her friend

speaker-1 (24:45.424)
her called the Good News About Sex and Marriage when I was 16. And it changed my life. It answered my questions and sent me on a trajectory that's remained. And one of the founders of Family Renewal Project happens to be that friend of my mom's who gave me that book called... So I've known...

No, we won't.

speaker-0 (25:03.053)
Full circle.

I've known that woman since I was literally in seventh grade because she's been my friend. So that's Susan Gendron. But just the founders of this apostolate have taught me what the Holy Family is like so thoroughly that it's renewed my own family because I got a solid foundation. But there were also a lot of unspoken skeletons in the closet things that nobody had talked about, pain, suffering from the past that needed to be addressed and how I had even

dealt with some of those unspoken secrets that I learned after the fact. And then having to come to terms with all that, well, Family Renewal Project was instrumental in helping me find my way through that so thoroughly that my wife and I were able to attend the Theology of the Body Institute and go to the Way of Beauty course before our wedding. And that was basically our marriage.

Look at you guys. That is a beautiful.

atomic bomb of beauty that entered our life. And I have been going to the Institute because a lady paid my way through the Institute for my certification, which was a tremendous gift. But this course to be able to go on just to focus on the beauty of art and...

speaker-1 (26:19.982)
creation right before our wedding it just really set the tone knowing that theology the body is focused on spousal love and this is like at the core of what Joseph and Mary were living I mean even John Paul the second said that by by Not being sexually active by not consummating their marriage. They weren't degrading sexual intimacy between a man and woman if anything elevating it to a divine purpose

because they were still fruitful in their marriage in all kinds of ways. And St. Joseph even experienced the height of conjugal love, just not in a sexual, physical, tangible way with Mary. But he was with the most beautiful woman on the planet in human history. He wasn't some old crotchety guy who couldn't handle this.

Right a lot of people paint him as some guy like let's think about he had to walk like 700 miles between Bethlehem to Egypt

of demons and he's like this big masculine St. Joseph buff, know, he's got the snake under his foot. you know, I feel like in the in the crush, he's like in the manger. He's this frail old man. But really, I mean, it's interesting what you're saying, too, because they were with the bridegroom and TOB is very reflective of that spousal love of Christ with his his bride, the church, which is us. And so, yeah, obviously.

St. Joseph not experiencing that conjugal love in person, it was elevated, right? But like we're called to that same elevation too in spirit, no matter your vocation, because the bridegroom is here, he's already done it, he's already given us himself, freedom is here, and that's much about what we speak of with the abundant Catholic is inviting others into that full freedom, because the enemy just wants to keep us from that. But I want to circle back, you were talking about so many good things, like I could just talk on that for a long time because,

speaker-0 (28:21.056)
I too am a student with the Institute, my husband's been, and if any of you guys don't know the Theology of the Body Institute is a Christopher West organization and it's out of Pennsylvania, but they offer classes online and in person. They're great for couples. They're great for individuals. They're great for you to go for personal discovery, rooted in Catholic theology and deep, deeply academic, but also deeply hitting the heart. Like it's very much from head to heart.

real lived out. It's infused with the Holy Spirit. It's just powerful. if you want to check that out, you can go online. We can link that in the show notes as well. I have in the past. We're big fans of TOB. We bring it into a lot of our Catholic couples coaching, our mentorship and whatnot, and a lot of the resources we provide as well. We even have a free digital ebook online for those seeking sexual healing rooted in faith in the Catholic Church. And that has a lot of reflection on theology of body.

But let's circle back because I want to talk about simple ways that individuals and families can be cultivating that sanctuary in their home. And you talked about praying the rosary and we, we offer that as part of the ebook too. talk about the 15 promises of the rosary. Can we talk about getting your house blessed too? Cause it's super important. We just had the epiphany and throwing your heart home to the sacred heart of Jesus is something you can do too. Honoring our lady, consecrating your life to our lady.

having a prayer shelf, embracing liturgical living, making it fun, right? These are all some ways you can begin to integrate your faith into everyday life. Do you desire to fill your home with what is true, good, and beautiful? Are you ready to ditch the outdated, dull, and boring resources and renew your faith with rich, robust, and beautiful Catholic materials delivered right to your door for the whole family?

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speaker-0 (30:37.514)
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John, you talked about how your mom would bless you on your forehead with holy water. That's so beautiful. Like that blessing speaks so much more than just the physical act, right? Like she's saying, may God protect you, right? So John, what are some ways that you've integrated faith into your home? And if you could give us some tips for others as well.

Sure. So I tend to go to an extreme. So take what I share and maybe do one thing. and so I'm going to start with the one simple thing and then I'll end with that as well before I share kind of what my wife and I do. But the simplest thing is simply getting a crucifix and putting it on your wall. I mean, that is the first step you need to take no matter what.

If you have no religious art in your home, if there's no religious rituals going on in your home, at the very least, buy a crucifix that you can stand to look at that isn't ugly and weird. With Jesus on it. Dead Jesus, not resurrected, hippie Jesus giving you the thumbs up. We're talking like, you gotta recognize we're all gonna die. And it's not to be morbid or weird, it's meant to be real.

speaker-0 (32:33.824)
Jesus on it. that's the crucifix. Not the reason to do this.

speaker-0 (32:51.656)
Absolutely.

and trusting in the resurrection because the reason we have a crucifix is to recognize that it has become, by the grace of God, a symbol of victory over death. But you have to show that symbol.

so that we can even begin to cope with the fact that you can't experience resurrection until you've done that. So that's the first thing in the simplest. Of course, holy water is always a good thing. I've heard many saints, you know, talk about the critical nature of holy water and how it casts out demons from all kinds of places.

you me.

You're right, screaming to others. Sick children, like we blessed our daughter when she's been sick or throwing up or all kinds of things and that has actually helped calm her down. Yeah, and this is not superstition. This is relational. You know, you don't do this because, can we wave a magic wand and then God will give us what we want.

speaker-1 (33:56.844)
You can't manipulate God, you can't control God, you trust God, you speak to Him, you plead with Him, you talk to Him, you love Him. And it's through that relationship where you don't just speak, you listen, you receive, that that is what bears fruit. Just like a man and woman in relationship bear fruit in the form of their children and in service and in intimacy, so too can we bear fruit in healing and

mercy and all kinds of wonderful things when we have a healthy relationship with God. And that's what putting a crucifix on your wall is. Saints say if you contemplate the face of Christ crucified, that is the critical step toward heaven.

I love that you're talking about that. Well, that's the first thing we have in our e-book, literally get a crucifix in your home. And I even we even talk about on there, you know, that controversial topic. Well, yeah, why can't I just have a cross? Why does it have to be so morbid? And it really is to us, it's a reminder like Jesus is saying, I can do it every time we look at the crucifix, the crucifix, he says, I did it. You can do it, too. You can carry your cross because I already did it and you can unite your cross with me.

And then in that we have the redemption, the glory. promises us glory through every single cross we carry. He promises us the resurrection, the new life. And so we can't have Jesus without the wounds of Christ. We can't have Jesus without the wounded Jesus. You can't separate the two.

No, you can't. That is so critical. And I just feel like we have to reclaim that in this world. So many people have forgotten the value of praying in the home and showing their faith in the home and then not just letting them be pretty pictures, but really focused on the things that are true and good and beautiful in a devotional way. So you think of

speaker-1 (36:00.578)
various statues of saints. You know, we have a Catholic bookstore in Louisville and for the first couple years of our marriage, we would go to confession on the first Saturday of the month and on the way home from that church is the Catholic bookstore. And so we'd pull in there and we didn't have children at the time, so we had money, which is no longer a reality in our life. we bought several small

miniature-sized saints. Because a friend of mine in his home had found some beautiful pewter-sized miniature sizes of the Apostles and I was like, oh my gosh, that's so cool. So I went buckwild and we bought, you know, 15, 20, 25 different small tiny statues of various saints. So St. Paul or St. Luke.

Or say, Maxamilla Colby, who's my confirmation saint, Saint Rosa of Lima, my wife's confirmation saint. And they're all just scattered throughout the house in tiny little shelves on the high part of the wall.

And it's kind of like that cloud of witnesses, right? And they even all come with holy cards and so we'll put the holy card next to the same. And sometimes those holy cards will fall because just the air current in the house. And so we always look at that as an opportunity. We don't always take that opportunity because sometimes we take that opportunity to say to that saint pray for us, you know? And so those are little ways that we do this.

lying around.

speaker-0 (37:22.955)
Really?

speaker-1 (37:33.134)
And of course, picture of the Last Supper by the dinner table, things like that. These are very simple things. We have a Vatican flag in our premiere. So that's kind fun.

I have a friend who has a mirror flying around, know, you're just like, great, keep going.

Right! We crown our garden statue of Mother Mary in May as well.

These are simple ways that we can live out our faith in the home and recognizing the things we do at church and our parish are connected to what we do in our home and vice versa. So my wife and I actually purchased a statue of the Holy Family for our parish for the 60th anniversary of our parish this past year and it was blessed on Christmas Eve.

as a kind of an act of trust in what God's doing in our archdiocese because there's a lot of parish planning processes going on that are changing some things dynamically but it's just that you know our parish has always said we're a family and we've gone through a lot like any family of families like the parish is called and we realized that

speaker-1 (38:51.648)
Okay, well we can be a family that's bitter and resentful or angry from things that have happened in the past or we can be a family that is forgiving and focused on healing and love and mercy. that to me, that fruit is what allowed us to not just purchase a statue, but because we had multiple parishioners come in on that as well so we could afford it, which was a tremendous thing. mean, we're talking five foot tall statues as a gift to parish. No, they aren't.

Yet that to me was just a symbol of what the Lord had done in our lives, my wife and I and our daughter, even though our little girl still doesn't know fully what family she's been born into. God knows. That's right. Yeah, exactly.

shall find out.

that speaks to into how, people are like, well, that's kind of like what my grandma did. She had statues and, you know, the stoic Mary. But really, Christopher West says like the Saints and Mother Mary actually really down to earth. And they really are. They're real. They're alive. They're the church triumphant where the church militant. We can call on them. And I love, love, love that you brought up the Saints, because my next question for you is about the Saints. Praise be to God. So so fun because it is really real. We need them.

We need them to we need to be in communion. That's very much theology of the body to how we're made, who we are. It's a reflection of the Trinity and the Holy Family is that reflection of the Trinity as well, which is why it is of the utmost importance to embrace your your masculinity or femininity as the way God made it to be and to live out your fertility and view it as a gift and not as you know, a problem or not as

speaker-0 (40:37.102)
What did they call it? even like it's a disease. Women and men are mutilating perfectly working organs and God bless you brothers and sisters in Christ if you are listening to this and that is you or you were confused about something seek clarity from the church because the Holy Family shows us, they show us what fertility looks like and how the Lord forms the future society through us as Catholic Christians.

But he also, his love is so beautiful, he wants to replicate it because he loves you so much. He wants more glory and every human creature is a beam of his glory. So we have all of these saints who were a beam of his glory. Our Lady, Saint Joseph. I just love it. It's so beautiful that the church is so robust in giving us all of these gifts. This Trinitarian love, the Holy Family, the sacramentals you're talking about, and really these old statues.

or icons, even their iconic images, but we're called to enter into the image, right? We're called to enter into the relationship with God and look past the picture on the wall and really enter into relationship. Like you're saying, John, where it's not just hanging something on your wall, it's supposed to be a reminder. And so I love how you shared when the cards fell. It's a prompting for you. made that, that, that the spirit ignited that little accountability with you, you know.

And so I want to share a story about one of the saints with our listeners and with you as well. But first, before I do that, I've heard the phrase that the saints choose you. And our family has found it so inspiring and incredible to learn about the saints and the lives of the saints in our own lives. So the ones that we discovered on our own and the ones that we feel have found us as well. And I don't know if you can relate to that and we can speak about it in a minute.

But we have so many saint books in the house. We're like losing count. Our kids are they made like saint play cards and holy cards and they're kind of like like trading cards now. It's really fun. So this is like a big part of our home, right? To say the least. we're living in a great time where the saints are being beatified right before us. I Carlo Acutus would have been my age if he were alive. He was born in 1991. He's been beatified. It's just amazing.

speaker-0 (42:57.548)
like the times we're living in, right? And so we're all called to be a saint, like St. Catherine of Siena, become who God made you to be and you'll set the world on fire. But can you talk with us about how learning about the lives of the saints and welcoming them into our home can be beneficial and fun for Catholics? I mean, you just talked about it a little bit. And then I'll share my story about St. Anthony, this relic that we have, which is really cool. But I'd love to hear just a little bit about how bringing the saints into your home.

you know, what that does and how that transforms your life.

Sure. So I'll start with my grandma who I believe is kind of a saint in her own way. She'll maybe never have statues in her heart. She died in 2016 and it was very hard because she was kind of a rock of faith in her life and a lot of suffering that she went through but incredible woman.

In fact, this is her old office here at my parish here at St. Luke. And so it's gift to be able to build our initial studio here with Family Renewal Project there. But she kind of was my confirmation sponsor. She was my First Communion teacher, Vacation Bible School teacher. I mean, everything that she did for me in the 90s and early 2000s were part of the foundation I received. So when she died, my mom wanted to do a youth group Saints Alive

production theatrical production and this was before the Saints Alive podcast came out on Hallow. so like this was a little Yeah, yeah, it was just skits and kids dressed up and different Saints and We had a one of the girls in the youth group who played the part of st. Faustina that year Write a blog about our experience and she said

speaker-1 (44:46.894)
When she sent it to me, she said I took a little bit of creative freedom I hope you don't mind and she titled it st. Faustina writes from heaven and the whole Blog was about st. Faustina meeting a what she called a newly admitted resident In heaven and she wanted her to meet all the people in her parish and so she goes down and st Faustina sees all the kids and costumes and playing and and the woman looks at the young man who's leading them since

and she looked so proud of him and then looked at the woman who was a little older who was kind of directing the kids and said you know this was her idea and she was also so proud and and every time the saints you know gave their blessing in the play their heavenly counterpart was blessing their efforts as well and Saint Faustina in the blog said I can't let these kids forget how important this is and how can I help them remember and that night we did Saint

alive, the girl who wrote the blog post actually opened up the diary and saw a quote in there that just really connected with her and she put it in there and the words were, no deed undertaken for God will perish. then at the end of that blog post she said, St. Faustina looked at my grandma, who I didn't even know who it was, the newly admitted resident in heaven.

It said, and thanking Fransol for the night we took our leave of one another. And I broke down. I was just in absolute tears that this little girl, 17 year old girl, could have the insight that was given to her to comfort a family that was so in grief after the loss of such a spiritual giant in our family's life.

That was my taste of the Saints, the communion of Saints as you speak. like bringing the Saints into your home is just, it's like second nature to us. I mean, they are part of our family. And like my dad's an amateur radio operator. And it was years after my confirmation that I found out St. Maximillian Colby is the only licensed amateur radio operator.

speaker-0 (47:07.31)
That's awesome!

I mean, how is that a thing? I mean, it's incredible. So I've always considered the saints like they're basically your best friends that are technically invisible in this world. So they're not really your made up. They're not imaginary friends. They're just that invisible cloud of witnesses, but they are friends that you will one day meet.

into seeking recession is just powerful. you do, I mean, look at your grandma. we, we are loved ones that have gone. We pray not to them as Catholics, but seeking their intercession to Christ, right? Like we still talk to them when they're gone. That's a very natural human way to grieve as well. Like I miss you. What do you have for me? Like, Lord, what do you have in this with my grandma who's passed away and how beautiful.

that you had such an open soul to receive the Holy Spirit and to almost like prophetically speak through a word of knowledge or something in some way. I'm talking about the body of Christ, right? Just the veil is so thin. Like at the end of the day, the veil is so thin. And I think we're so afraid to step into it. We're so caught up in the Marvel movies and all these superhero movies when really we have superheroes all around us in the cloud of witnesses and the church triumphant. We have these superpowers in us.

but the Holy Spirit, God, even graces and gifts and virtues, theological virtues infused in our soul through baptism and confirmation and any other healing sacrament we're partaking in. And then on top of it, we have the fruits of the Spirit, right? Which I do talk about in the ebook as well, but I love it because my next question was, who was your favorite saint? And I'm guessing it's your grandma now. like, you know, if you had a favorite, including your grandma.

speaker-1 (48:56.974)
In an unofficial capacity would have to be my grandma. There was a friend of mine who came to my grandma's funeral and she handed me the written words of, Maximal and Colby, the year it was published in English for the first time, all his writings. And that was 2016. It literally was published two weeks before my grandma died. And so my grandma was my sponsor. And that...

Thanks, you're excellent.

speaker-1 (49:24.738)
friend of mine, she handed those books to me when she came to hug me after the funeral mass of my grandma as we put my grandma's body in the hearse to leave that church that she dedicated so much of her life to for the last time. felt like my grandma's hand was on one shoulder and Max and Colby was on the other.

You are anointed, John. He's got you. God's got you. He's got some great plans there. That's awesome. like, for a lot of us who are living out that, you know, building your home is a sanctuary and you're realizing like we have the sacred place in us and we get to share in it in the fullness of God. Like it's a supernatural, super abundant life. And we're all called to it. And how many of us just want to fill our homes and our hearts with

It's a lie.

speaker-0 (50:15.298)
distraction and the news and whatever popular TV shows on or sports. I can't even get into sports in this episode, right? But honestly, like look at the beauty in that where you're being comforted by a saint that's essentially choosing you through your grandma too, like to know more about his life, to study him, to find consolation in the ways he lived and how he went forth in truth and faith and hope and was a courageous leader in the Catholic Church.

Well, have you seen the movie triumph of the heart that came out recently?

I've heard great things about it.

You gotta watch I saw it on the feast of St. Maximo and Colby on August 14th in a pre-screening approval with all our Catholic friends who loved Maximo and Colby. So it was like an amazing night. And that movie, my brother called it life-changing. I call it a watershed moment in cinema history. mean, when you see the director come on screen before the movie starts and start with a prayer.

powerful.

speaker-1 (51:17.878)
Not even Mel Gibson did that, though to be fair, the Passion of the Christ didn't speak for itself in many ways. But that was like, my gosh, after this deluge of darkness, I really feel like the Catholic Church is coming into this media world in a way that's going to shatter the lies in powerful ways. And the entire movie, the entire time is based strictly on the last two weeks of his life.

and what he did for those men in that starvation bunker. If there could be a place, a physical space, that was further from a consecrated, set-apart place of worship, it would be a starvation bunker in the Auschwitz concentration camps. And yet, St. Maximilian Kolbe was able to turn that into a sanctuary. So why can't we turn our places of domestic violence or abuse into places?

where it is now a domestic church of worship and love and healing. It is possible, even in this culture where we feel like we're starving to death, literally, of true love and beauty because of the pornographic distortions that surround us and attack us. How can we untwist those lies and allow the Eros that is legitimately trying to find good, true, and beautiful things

be untwisted and redeemed so it can be redirected toward the stars as Christopher West has said, as John Paul II has said, so that we aren't starving or going to the fast food, we're encountering the actual bandwidth.

The bank is here and he encountered it in that small cell He encountered he gave the living God to somebody else He fed him the body of Christ through his words in his presence And that's what we are supposed to be we're supposed to embody Christ for walking up to receive Jesus We open our mouth in the most intimate way Right adoration is like mouth-to-mouth. That's what that means We we enter into this intimacy with him into this intimate kiss with him every time we open

speaker-0 (53:15.584)
our mouths. And so we need to know like when we and I'm guilty of it because I'm 100 % a sinner, right? Like it's the struggle of every Christian, right? It's living out the Lord's goodness in your life and letting him really just take reign in your life. It's really the dying to self and the dying to the flesh and the dying to the things that we want in the life we had planned, right? For ourselves and, and welcoming the cross, welcoming the pain and knowing that in that there's this mystery of new life.

And I think for so many people, just because of the way our culture is promising, like you say, that fast food, immediate pleasure, even the pornified, like people long for connection, but they're bypassing the person, right? And when they're looking at pornography or something like that, you're bringing it into their home. We all long for connection and God's right there. And we can have that connection in the Holy Eucharist. We can have that connection with the saints. We can have that connection with our brothers and sisters in Christ, in the church.

and all that, but when we are filling our lives with that fast food, there's not enough room. You can't discern, you can't have that space in your life to really believe, like, just received the living God in me and now I get to go be him for somebody else and embody Christ in my own body, right? And that's like Maximilian's story is he brought Christ.

You know, at the until the end, he literally was Jesus Christ on earth again at the end. And it's just so powerful. Now I have to watch the movie. Thanks for sharing that. That's beautiful.

Well, think about Mother Mary and Fatima said, in the end, my Immaculate Heart will triumph. This is the triumph of the heart moment. I look at like the pandemic of pornography as the fulfillment of the prophecy that those children saw when Mother Mary gave them the vision of

speaker-0 (54:54.03)
Can I get a frame from the heart?

speaker-1 (55:10.094)
people consuming each other, being consumed in horrific ways, and they would have died if not Mary protecting them with her grace. And how many young people and their souls were stolen away by being exposed to the horrors of people literally consuming each other and the diabolic mockery of the sexual revolution and all of

that has flowed from it, or rather what I like to call the pornographic rebellion. Absolutely. That's really what it was. And so to bring healing and peace again in people's lives requires us to return back to that central cell of society, not a cell of starvation, you know, a cell of salvation. That's the state. Not a cell of starvation, but a cell of salvation.

Yeah, that's where it's at.

I really believe that that right there is the answer to see that the family is not a prison or a burden. It's not going to steal your freedom. It doesn't take away your happiness. don't, yeah, I mean, so many people turn their bachelor and bachelorette parties in the time of debauchery and infidelity. And this is not going to prepare you to enter into marriage. I mean, you can enter into marriage as a party or a lifestyle.

a vocation and if it's a party then that's why people end up living together for 15 years and then they finally say well let's get married and then it's really just a big party to celebrate. I'm not saying that

speaker-0 (56:42.762)
you

speaker-1 (56:46.358)
We should judge people in the ways where it's like, because you know, my own parents eloped and that they didn't know the depth of what they were given until years later. And I was eight years old and I was in my parents wedding when they entered the church and or not became Catholic, but rather got married in the Catholic Church. And our parish had actually just burned down. Our church had St. Luke burned down in 1997. And the fire actually started in the confessional.

That's great. Well, there was a, that's its own crazy story, but the family that

that came from that tragedy I look at as my own family. Because, you know, my mom and dad were part of the community that helped rebuild. And my mom was in a Catholic rock band singing music to raise money for the church. I mean, not Matt Marr famous, but, local. But the music she wrote, especially when her parents died, that just launched her into her faith more deeply. wasn't just praise and worship. The Eucharist is a symbol. It was like, no, this is real. She was writing about

The angels, the saints, deep concepts like abortion or other things. The music she wrote when I was a child, like I absorbed into my soul. And when they got married in the Catholic Church, it was on the grounds of the old church before we rebuilt. And so, like, so they were given the permission to do an outdoor Catholic wedding because it was our sanctuary space. And so you talk about my own family.

got to like become a holy family in some ways through the sacrament of holy matrimony outdoors where so many people get married because they don't want to go into a church because they've forgotten the beauty and so they want to be surrounded by beauty but they they they're still looking for the beauty outside of themselves

speaker-1 (58:50.518)
And what I was finding as a child is that the only reason my parents didn't get married in the church was because our church burned down. And so the interior life of my own family was being forged through tragedy and suffering in a way that helped me, by the grace of God all these years later, know what it was that God was doing in my life all those years ago.

and that he's fulfilling now. That my wife and I were able to get married here at St. Luke and we recently discovered that at the dawn of our parish's founding, there was a young woman who had been sexually abused by a Catholic priest, a visiting priest, who wasn't our pastor, but he was a drinking buddy with her dad. They lived across the street from the church right when it was founded and he abused her in all the different places in the rectory, in her childhood home, and in the confessional.

CD.

I mean, you want to talk about the most horrific pain, and I only share this last detail because I think it's important that we stare horror in the face like the crucifixion of Christ, but do so with reverence and mercy and trust in the resurrection. So I share this with great reverence because she put this in her book, and her book is called

But When I Fly by Shannon Age. And it came out in 2023. just didn't even know she existed until that year. I mean, amazing. And she shares this detail that he literally would make her wear her first communion dress and would say to her, I am God's man. You are God's bride and only I can show you. It's heinous. It's so distorted. It's antithesis of the theology of the body, the bride groomer.

speaker-0 (01:00:32.942)
That's so distorted.

speaker-0 (01:00:41.174)
shows you how real that is. It shows you that right there is what the devil's trying to keep us from. That when these little girls go up to receive Jesus for the first time, they wear a white dress. That is the first spouse. And the boys walk up with their little tuxedos on. Christ is our spouse and the devil wants to keep us from that. And for anyone listening, if that is triggering for you or difficult to hear, just know that hope is here and that Christ died already to redeem that horror.

horror and suffering. And, you we talk about it. I recently put out a podcast episode, Theology of the Body and Spouse of Love. Or I'm sorry, not that one. was Theology of the Body. No, it was the episode when your spouse is addicted to pornography. It's all on betrayal trauma. And I talk about in there about Judas's kiss of betrayal because it was very intimate and how Christ was betrayed on such an intimate level.

And so I think a lot of people too, like they have experiences. You talked about bitterness earlier or past family experiences. They have real hurts, real wounds, real ruptures, right? That's a huge rupture because not only was that woman affected physically by this pretty much man who is probably oppressed by the enemy, deeply oppressed by the enemy, she was affected spiritually.

So to heal from something like that is just so profound. And I don't know if you know my story, John, but I have a similar, similar background of, of childhood sexual abuse that I didn't end up recovering from until I got married. So I really didn't have any like full memories. have fragmented memories and a lot of the abundant Catholic was built on the healing from my own journey of the war, taking me out of the grave and into his abundant freedom. But then also my husband's journey as well in our marriage, because as I began to heal, my husband was looking at.

a holier image of God, a sacred place of God in front of him where my pain was in his face. Like look at the face of Jesus Christ on the cross, right? Like the wounds were open, the wounds were gaping, there was a lot of blood. It was messy. And it was during a time that was really critical for us when we were forming a family and we were just having children, everything was like raw and exposed. And it was really painful. It was the cross, right? It was the cross, but Christ was there and I met him for the first time. And I realized

speaker-0 (01:03:01.186)
He is my true spouse. Jesus is supposed to be our true spouse. We are the church. He is our bridegroom, right? And he wants us to enter into this communion for him with, you know, for eternity, not forever. And so we're already living in that communion. The question is, are we going to remain or are we going to go the other way and choose to not live in the full freedom of God, to choose to not live in the love he has for each one of us? Right. So the devil, you know, obviously works so hard. Like you talk about a target on your back.

with families and here at the abandoned Catholic, we help families. And it sounds like you do that too, John, with your ministry in Louisville, but we help families who walk with you in truth towards freedom to help you reclaim and restore who God made you to be. And you'll hear that in the outro in a little bit here. But I want to keep going. There's just so much goodness here. We can link that book that John mentioned as well in the show notes. So much powerful testimony, I'm sure, in that alone of God's providence in the recovery of that woman's life.

yeah, and she's had so much learning and forgiveness, even toward the priest, like she believes he's in purgatory. mean, that's miraculous that she has come to that point. And she gave her testimony here at St. Luke. And when we prayed over her at the end, it was my mom and dad, Crystal and I, and her and her husband, who's a deacon.

And we were praying over her for healing in the very church, now the new church. So they were actually married in the old church before it burned down. My mom and dad were married on the grounds of the church after it had burned down before we rebuilt. My wife and I were married in the new church after it was rebuilt. And I kid you not, a week or two later, Crystal found out that we were

Wow!

speaker-1 (01:04:42.708)
So when we were praying over that woman for healing, we were praying that we didn't even know. And so my little girl, Lily, is like a symbol of healing.

it

It's so powerful.

speaker-1 (01:04:55.758)
The redemption of an unholy family who could have found resentment and anger and bitterness with the pain of not just sexual abuse, you know, the trauma of our school closing, our church almost closed, us burning down, the debt, the abuse scandal, the betrayal, all of those things that happened. But yet the holiness that we found instead, the redemption, the healing that God can do no matter what. And I had even just forgiven my childhood self with a powerful healing mass just a couple days before her testimony.

like all in that space of time that I found that healing and forgiving my childhood self from things that I felt or did or or or experience that just weren't my fault or were my fault and just that weight lifting of my shoulders what we talked about like you have to allow your interior life to be purified to be healed if you're gonna be able to handle the chaos of raising children and the messiness and the noise that that

requires otherwise people don't want to deal with it because there's too much inside that they haven't dealt with.

manifest in other ways. Yeah.

Yes, and so God was like, all right, you've healed to a point where you can now welcome this little girl.

speaker-1 (01:06:13.102)
And she has been an incredible joy and delight in our lives. And it's all a fruit of what I just shared with you. And obviously there's so much more to this story. like it may become a movie one day. But when you asked about the sanctuary and that's how I look at our home. It's messy as heck. I mean, I wouldn't want anybody coming right now, but that's why you have parties, right?

And yet it's such a grace to pray every night. We're praying the guardian angel prayer every night with her.

And I pray the rosary on the way to work when I'm dropping Lily off at our parents' house every day. And that's a gift. All our parents live in town and they love to watch her during the day. So both my wife and I can go to work. And she works at School for the Blind. So our marriage also has become a form of service to the whole community in different ways. And it's all an extension of as best as we can, not perfectly. And recognizing sometimes

you walk into your house and it doesn't feel like a sanctuary but have you ever been in a church by yourself and you're really in pain and you need to get your emotions out? Don't be afraid to groan with the Lord, to scream at him.

Yeah, let me primal. Yeah, absolutely. That's where we need to be level and I've gone through that deep healing. still am like it's so interesting. We were talking about building a domestic church. It has to start interiorly like we can bless our house as much as we want, but it's not something superstitious where we do it and then suddenly everything's gone like we if we are inviting the enemy into our life and allowing him a foothold, we're going to be in trouble. And you know, in our ministry, we have an inner healing ministry.

speaker-1 (01:07:32.622)
You can handle it.

speaker-0 (01:07:55.406)
And that's free to anybody. for anybody listening, you're welcome to check it out. We have encounter ministry certified prayer ministers. It's changed our lives. My husband's gone through the certification program and you learn basically to enter into a deeper prayer. Any of us can do this in any way like Lord reveal the footholds of the enemy. Like what is the lie that I'm believing that I'm letting the enemy, you know, have power. I'm empowering the liar. Essentially, if I'm believing the lie, I'm empowering the liar. I'm not empowering God. So how do we replace that with the truth and

I think your witness is really powerful, John. And I think it's really real and just super refreshing because all of us have crap. All of us have something in our lineage. mean, in the Bible, it talks about generational curses and generational sin. doesn't matter how extreme it is. Like, yes, there's Catholic abuse scandals in the church that have wrecked families. There's abuse in the home that has wrecked families. There's emotional dynamics. There's developmental dynamics. There's all sorts of stuff. Or maybe the listeners.

you know, have been blessed with a firm foundation, right? But it's never too late to build upon that. And if you don't have a firm foundation, let the Lord rebuild it. Like I just had a cap done on my tooth and they had to go in and like take out all the previous infection in the tooth. Like every pregnancy I've had, I've had five kids, I just get this really bad cavity in my tooth almost every time and they have to like redo it. And after a while, they're like, it's not going to hold. Like we have to go deeper. We have to take everything out.

And my husband and I have experienced this on a deep level in our marriage where the Lord has gone down to the roots almost like you think about, you know, when you cut a tree down, like they either go in and grind up the roots or they rip them out. Like, luckily I didn't need to have a root canal, but they went in and then he literally kept saying to me, well, I'm putting a new foundation on your tooth. And to me, like that was just so powerful. I'm like, this is what Christ does for each of us.

He doesn't change who we are. He builds upon who we are, which is a beautiful, divine image of God, remain in the image and likeness of God. And I we could talk about this forever, but John, I just really commend you for sharing your story with us and the intimate details of that. And for our listeners to hear that as well, that real life, like raw reality that we all carry in some way or another in our lives, right? And how even in the mess, we're still called

speaker-0 (01:10:11.714)
to build the church because the Holy family, if we look at them alone, they had their own mess. had to flee. mean, Mary, after she basically after Jesus was born, Herod slaughtered a bunch of babies, right? We have the Holy innocence. And so you have evil just happening, heinous death and murder happening all around. There's so much in the story of Mary and Joseph alone that we can just ponder and pray on and hold in our hearts, knowing that like we're going to have that around us. But it's like Psalm 23.

where the Lord sets the table before our enemies and he's saying, come sit at the table with me. Yes, you live in the valley of the shadow of death, but come sit at the table with me. And so we're invited into doing that. We're invited to fully embrace our Catholic identity. And we didn't get to everything today, but that's okay because you're welcome to check out the ebook. It is free you guys. So check it out. We talk a lot about liturgical living, about the calendar in the Catholic church, about ways you can bless your home with the epiphany blessing.

We talk about living in the fruits of the Spirit, how to celebrate baptismal days, picking a saint to celebrate their feast day. We do that a lot in our house. And I forgot to tell you guys my story about St. Anthony, but I'll make it really quick. Basically, when we moved, my husband and I moved out of the house that we lived in for a really long time. We had to let it go. The Lord was like, it's time to move. And it was really difficult to move. We were outgrowing our home. had our four kids at the time. We got to this house and we had a friend who

has this beautiful reliquary of all these saints. He's just collected them over time and he resourced statues. It's really beautiful. And he was like, come pick out a saint. Like we joined a new church and in this church he works there. He's like, come pick out a saint for me. And I was like, what? This isn't an ordinary question. This is a really extraordinary moment. You're asking me to take a saint home with me. It was basically like, I got to pick out one of the relics of the saints. I should say it was a relic, right?

And this one was a first-class relic. And immediately I chose to say Anthony, because my husband's name is Anthony. And we brought him into our home. And he was just sitting on our shelf at this beautiful Royal Aquarium. I mean, it's gold. It's beautiful. And you have a first-class relic in there. So it's part of his body. And over time, he taught me many things just by sitting there. Right? Like his spirit was with us. Over time, we realized

speaker-0 (01:12:28.12)
St. Anthony doesn't just help us reclaim what's been lost, like our keys or our headphones or our kids' toys or notebook or whatever. He helps us reclaim our identity and who we are as God's children. Because the devil started from the moment you were born to keep you from knowing the love of the Father. He started to distort everything and he can't do anything on his own. He has to use what God's given you. So every diabolical perversion we have, every contemporary issue,

of abortion, of same-sex marriage, of pornography, of sexual abuse, even within the church, it's all a twisting of the truth. So even in, we have Eucharistic adoration, we have Jesus transformed in front of us into this bread and wine, and now we have transgenderism. We just see this diabolical twisting of the truth, right? And so for everything we're dealing with, we just have to know that there's a truth behind that the enemy is keeping us from. And once you start to kind of take on that lens,

And in that perspective, and you really bring the church into your mind and your heart and your home. And really what Jesus gave us, he gave us the church after he died. He gave it to Peter, the keys to Peter and then Pentecost. Right. And then you have, it's just like the institution of the Eucharist, the rest is history. Right. Here we are. We're still living in this beautiful gift of Christ reigning on earth in our hearts and in our homes, but we have to let him and just know that he's going to give us the grace to conquer everything coming at us.

So do you have any last minute comments? I wanna also just mention too, how people can find you in your podcasts that you have and any last words that you have. I'd love to hear any insights you'd like to share with our listeners just to finish up here.

you

speaker-1 (01:14:14.882)
Yeah, absolutely. This is first off. Thank you so much for inviting me be on here. I'd love to come back and we can keep going if you want. mean, be a great time. cause there is a, there is a bubbling story that, it's just been on my heart to share, in God's time, course. Side me, think will happen, but, at when, when that's supposed to happen, if not, we can continue. Cause there's always so much that God does in all of our lives spiritually. But, I was thinking to myself,

here.

speaker-1 (01:14:44.816)
You know, we could spend hours of our lives staring into things like the flesh of pornography, right? And I think I heard Matt Frantz say this one time. Or we could spend hours of our life staring into the flesh of the

wow, that's a first-hand agreement.

in allowing ourselves to be transformed so that when we gaze upon the flesh of our spouse or our children we can see not body parts or beautified perfectionism that the world throws at us that makes us feel inadequate or insecure but rather the beauty of Christ crucified and risen.

in the hearts and minds and bodies of every person in our family so that we can serve them as Christ served us. That's the movement from

Calvary to eternity. And that to me is what, you know, turning your home into a sanctuary or rather allowing Christ to turn your home into a sanctuary. You have to let him in, only he can. So our podcast is Spirit and Spire, Spirit and Spire, kind of like Source and Summit. But in this case, we're at the, they originally wanted us to broadcast out of the Cathedral Spire, but that's a little hold and rickety. So we're really in the Patterson history.

speaker-1 (01:16:09.072)
center across the street of our archdiocese. And so that's where we broadcast from. But that's been a great gift to be there and interviewing all kinds of guests. And you can find our famous interview with Peter Kreeft from a couple of years ago. That was a great gift. Sit down with him.

As well as Damon Owens who helped found the Theology of Body Institute among some others who have been in town since then. But it would be a great gift if anybody connected with that. And then familyrenewalproject.com if anybody was ever in town to Louisville and wanted to come to any of our events. It's always a gift to have anyone new. And we're also offering a Theology of the Body Institute style course. It's not sponsored by the TLB Institute, but it is

with their permission to use the same structures and approach that they take at the Institute at their courses with our Maximized Discipleship Retreat coming up at the end of July at Mount St. Francis Retreat Center in southern Indiana. And that's five, six days, but it goes through the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the story of salvation to understand and impact the theology of the body. So we're looking at our entire Catholic faith, the basics of our

story through the lens of the theology of the body so that we can better understand why John Paul II gave us the theology of the body for such a time as this, connecting our story with his story in salvation. So that's the big exciting thing that would be great to share nationally, but it's been a delight.

It's really.

speaker-0 (01:17:48.586)
Yeah. And I mean, theology of the body is the antidote to our time. Like it really is. It's the solution to everything coming at us. So do they just go to Family Renewal Project to find information on that?

Yeah, familyrenewalproject.com and you can click on the events tab and events and courses I believe and then you should be able to find maximize is the course itself that we're talking about as far as the longer form retreat which if you're coming from out of town it's harder to justify traveling a lot for a single hour and a half talk. A two week series but when you do a longer experience.

Yeah, and sounds like it's going to help people maximize their life, right? And maybe even change the trajectory of their lives. How are you guys are doing? I just want to recap before we say goodbye to John and close out your home is a sacred place. Don't be afraid to enter into the mystery of your own sacredness. Bring it home with you. Let it be messy. We all wrestle with sin. Let it be messy. The Lord knows and he loves you. He delights in you. Take these promises. Hold them close to your heart.

We're happy to walk with you. John has resources through Family Renewal Project. They're everywhere. Satan wants to keep you from the resources. Just know you're not alone with whatever you're going through. And if you need accountability, come check either one of us out and say a prayer to the Holy Spirit. Maybe he'll take you somewhere else, right? He's in charge. So it ought to be a sacred place. And you can start in small ways to integrate faith into your everyday life, like downloading our ebook. Call on the Holy Family, invite them into your home, ponder and pray on their lives.

Unobedience to God, what kind of fruits come from that and then it's not scary, it's actually freedom that comes from that. Pray together, say rosary together, a novena, the angelus, night time prayer, something so simple like a prayer at the dinner table with your family. Take time to thank the Lord for five seconds, it can change your life. Teach your kids about.

speaker-1 (01:19:38.912)
and spend time saying what your grades are around the table.

Go around the table. There you go. Because really then we're again like elevating our hearts to the Lord, giving thanks to him who's good in all things, right? Getting your house blessed, that crucifix on your wall, teaching your kids about the sacraments, letting your home just really reflect your heart and that longing for who you desire to be, right, as well. Like, you know, go big or go, like, just take it, bring it home. Like, what are you holding back for? It's your space and God's with you. So go ahead and build that sanctuary.

Don't let the devil keep you from who you've been made to be, right? And in turn, you'll become a sanctuary to others, which is what our faith is. And this is the mission of Jesus Christ. So thank you, John, for coming on today. It's been a blessed time. It's been wonderful to have you. I hope to continue to have conversations with you again. And yeah, we're just, we just feel thrilled that we've been able to connect. And so to all you listeners as well, you'll know where to find him. Check out our show notes, but until next time, friends, God bless.

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