Spiritual Warfare and Divine Mercy - Chapters 5 and 6

In this episode, we had the privilege of speaking with the author of Spiritual Warfare and Divine Mercy: The Weapon for Our Times, Fr. Ken Geraci.  

In addition to sharing his fascinating conversion story, Fr. Ken answers so many of our questions and provides fatherly advice with the missionary zeal typical of a Father of Mercy.

We thank Fr. Ken for taking time out of his busy schedule to walk us through the importance of prayer and confession on the spiritual journey and the benefits of the chaplet and feast of Divine Mercy.  You won't want to miss this episode.

Fr. Ken Geraci's bio

The Journey Home - the in depth interview of Fr. Ken Geraci  mentioned on this episode.

If you like what you've heard, please follow or subscribe to this podcast.  You can also follow us on Facebook at Tuned in to Love, on Instagram at tunedintolovepodcast and on YouTube at Tuned in to Love Podcast.  Content shared on the various media platforms are different and many announcements about upcoming events and plans are shared on Facebook first.  So don't miss out!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:06

Whether you're head over heels in love with God, currently not feeling his presence in your life. You have a no-filling desire to build a relationship with the Creator of all that is a podcast for you. We're just too Catholic women unfair with love for the Lord. We hope that this podcast inspires you to know everything is grace, that God loves you no matter what, and that he never leaves you. So come journey with us as we discover the immensity of God's love and the power of divine connection. All right, welcome back, everyone. Welcome back. We took a little break on this podcast. We had a week off because we were working on something special and we're so excited to welcome Father Ken Geracy to the podcast. He's the author of Divine Mercy, uh Spiritual Warfare and Divine Mercy, The Weapon of Our Times. It's the book that we've been studying for the past couple of weeks, and I can't believe that he actually responded to my email. We're very excited and made himself available. So welcome, Father Ken.

SPEAKER_03 1:21

Well, ladies, thank you so much. I'm so proud of the work you're doing, and it's great to be part of this.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

Thank you. We usually start our podcast just talking about the week past. And I think the last time we were talking about one of your chapters, one of the things that got my attention, Father Jeracey, was the fact that you talked about tithing our time for God. You know, and I and it was the first time that I had actually thought about it tithing in that sense, tithing my time for God in terms of prayer time. And so that was one of the challenges that I had mentioned. And Carolina and I were like, oh my gosh, do we really want to calculate the amount of time that we're awake? Tell everybody, yeah. 10% of how much time we should be in prayer. So how did it go, Carolina?

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Like I calculate, like I was short with my calculate, like with my time percentage-wise, like you had said, the time awake we're gonna go with. But like I need to, like I I said before, I need to work more on my rosaries. Like just to I wake up now earlier to try to do the rosary, but I I I speak to him, like I speak to God. I speak to God all the time. Like this, he's the first, like I he's my the person I talk to. Like, you know how you have somebody who you call when anything exciting happens? That's that's God for me. So I feel like I think I need more of the formal prayer though, Father.

SPEAKER_03 2:55

Right.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

So that's better with the formal prayer.

SPEAKER_03 2:57

Yeah. So what like one of the questions is is do we listen though?

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

He might be the first person we call, but are we are we taking that time to listen to have that two-way conversation? And so, so yeah, that that like informal prayer throughout your day, like we all do that and we all need to do that. And uh, I think we talk about that in the book is talking to Jesus as as a friend, as our savior and our king, right? And so to to cultivate that practice of talking to Jesus as a friend, like that's what he wants. He wants you to call be the first one on that speed dial. But then are we giving him time to speak? Are we giving him time to listen? And but or if we're always in activity, if we're always doing when we're talking to him, it it contracepts that that capacity for us to hear him.

SPEAKER_02 3:45

Yeah, that's a good point. That makes sense, yeah. That's a good point. And I was thinking about that as I was thinking about our conversation, Carolina. Last the last time we were about to record, where we were talking about you always say, Oh, Vilma is a person of prayer, and I feel like I'm just a person who prays. And I said to Carolina, you know, Carolina's the type of person that she's speaking to God on a regular basis. So she is a person of prayer. But then when I went back to think about it, I said, Well, yeah, it's good to speak to him, but it's also just what you said, Father Ken, it's good to listen. And I I think that's probably really important too, is to to really focus on giving ourselves the gift to listen to God too, not just to speak to him.

SPEAKER_04 4:28

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

I I tend to do like, for example, if some if my day's not going the way I planned, like I just like I it's not that I say I listen, I guess I I ask him like God, is this I guess this wasn't part of this wasn't your plan. I guess I just need to go with what you said, you know, like what you're trying to do and you know, try to understand at least.

SPEAKER_03 4:48

Yeah. Yeah, no, I I girls, I think, I think what you're by the mere fact that you're doing this podcast, that the maturity by which you're presenting the information, like it tells me very much that you both are are listening, you're doing quite well. So that that tithing of that awake time is is a good challenge, and that's the goal, right? We should strive for that goal as a minimum, and then really focus on focusing on the quality of it. Like right now, I'm on missions. I I haven't been home in five weeks. I'm I was it's crazy. But but in my prayer time right now is it's it's a mess, but it's like I just I had 25 minutes before our call, and so I went and sat in the chapel, and my mind wandered the whole time. It was just all it was like a like a kitten on catnip. I mean, it was horrible. And but I was there, right? I gave and and again, it wasn't it wasn't my best time, but it was time.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

It was time, it was time.

SPEAKER_03 5:49

So, so you got to do what you can with what you got, especially for those busy moms who are listening to this. I mean, are you kidding? Mom brain is a real thing. Like when you got kids crawling all over you and kids in diapers and screaming and pulling you, yeah, it's a lot, it's a lot. So lots of respect out there. Do do what we can, focus on quality and quantity.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Right. So moving into your intro, father, because I think you'd be the best person to introduce yourself. Tell us what you're all about, how you got here, and how you get to writing this book.

SPEAKER_03 6:24

So the conversion story. I grew up in a Catholic family that was the 80s and 90s. And, you know, where I grew up, the faith was not taught whatsoever, and nor was it lived. You know, for us, being Catholic meant coming to church every Sunday, and we checked that box. And it was very interesting. My bio bio used to read, I came from a nominal Catholic family. Now, understand, I am the only practicing Catholic in my family. My mom and dad don't practice the faith. They're both still alive. Both of my brothers don't practice the faith. And my mom called me one time and she's like, Kenny, she goes, you know, I don't appreciate that you say that you were from a nominal Catholic family. I'm like, Ma. I'm like, how are we not from like, how are we not nominal? And she goes, Kenny, she goes, we did everything the church asked us to do. The church never asked us to pray. The church never asked us to read the scriptures, the church never asked us to keep devotions in our household. The church never told us about daily mass, never asked us to go to confession. They asked us to participate in the yard sale, to help with coffee and donuts, to do the social justice activity, to give to the third and fourth collection. Right? So these were, this was the culture that I grew up in. So it doesn't, you know, again, I and I respect, I I really appreciated what my mom said there. It was very insightful. It doesn't take away their responsibility for having to know their faith and live it, but but it does shine light on things. So this was a culture I grew up in. Never went through the motions, never knew anything, never experienced Christ. And so as I fell away from faith, my embraced agnosticism because I couldn't understand how God could exist if science were true. But also, I was very, I didn't want anyone to tell me how to live. I just wanted to do what I wanted to do. You know, it was the big big hair band era in music, and I was, you know, I was there with Bon Jovian poison and you know. You know, it's uh you know, my therapist says a few more sessions and I should be through it. But you know, but I was I was just rolled up into that world and went to college and thought that if I just made enough money, I'd be happy. And I lived a very secular life and everything that secular life entails. And I went into business my senior year of college. I had a semester and a half left, and I was recruited out of school to go to work in the advanced research and development group of a technology company, and we were developing MP3 players and ebooks, products for their company. And the engineers that I work with are literally some of the smartest engineers in industry at the time. This is 97 and 98. And but all of them were Christian or Catholic. And I was stunned by this. Every time the Jesus conversation would come up, I would go the other way. Then my boss, after working with him some time, he told me about a new software company that he had in mind. And he said, I think we can solve this problem and make a ton of money in the process. And then he told me you couldn't pay me. And then he, but he would give me ownership in the company in exchange for my work. And so we kept our day jobs working nine to six. Then we would work from seven in the evening to one or two in the morning. And in this journey, like we showed our product to a variety of investors, and one venture capital firm invested four and a half million dollars into our project, and that was company money, not mine. But I thought I had arrived. Like my compensation package was out of this world, it was astronomical uh for that time frame. And my ego is the size of whatever. And my boss brought me right back down the planet Earth. And somewhere in this process, I'm gonna synthesize three or four conversations into a few sentences. But effectively, Mike said, Ken, I don't have any personal problems with you, professional problems with you. You're a good worker, but personally I do. When we're with clients or investors, and you see a Christian symbol, you'll make a Christian reference. But you've told me you don't believe in God, you don't pray, you don't go to church, and some of the stories you tell are unbecoming a man, let alone a Christian. So I'm curious which is it. And so, first of all, that's a real friend, right?

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:45

He challenged me to authenticity and integrity to let my yes be yes and my no be no. And that was my first conversion. And I really look at like the conversion I'm having today is I'm asking myself, like I was just talking about my prayer time. How am I letting my yes be yes and my no be no in prayer? How am I trying to live authenticity and integrity in my vocation as a priest? And it's a constant assessment each day. And so it's such a gift. My boss didn't stop there. He then invited me to come to Mass with him and his family. And I began to see a man who was highly successful living his faith unapologetically. And I thought if he believes in this, it must, there must be something here. And so I began to open my heart and I began to have these conversions from agnostic to spiritual, spiritual to world religions, world religions to evangelical Christianity, and then ultimately home to Catholicism. And so there's a lot of details I'm skipping over, but I had to really synthesize in my mind the faith and reason piece, the science and and belief in God, these ancient religions like Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism that like go back you know further than we have records of. Right? How do you reconcile those things? So so there was a lot that I had to work through, but God made quick quick work of it. But that's kind of the story in a nutshell. And then I was on a date when I realized I was supposed to be a priest.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

So that's an interesting piece. That's an interesting piece. But I we we watched your uh interview on the journey home on EWTN. Yeah, and I heard the conversion story, and I really, really appreciate it. And I thought it was really interesting how you approached your research. And the way you the way you referred to it was reverse engineering. Can you explain a little bit about that?

SPEAKER_03 12:39

Yeah. So in a in in business, when you reverse engineer something, so you take someone else's product and you basically take it apart. You break off the shell, so you know, whatever, a computer, right? You take the shell off, you look at it, and you're looking at all of the pieces from the outside in and starting to see what did the company do to produce the the piece that you're looking at, and in in hopes that you could recreate it in your own way that would, you know, benefit your customers, so to speak. So, with my business background, you know, you either build it or buy it. And if you someone else has a better product out there, let's look at that and see if we can't just rebrand it. And so when I was looking at religion, the first thing that happened was I was very interested in the isms, the Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, because I very much have a mystical spirituality. I'm more of a mystic in terms of those things than like some people in our church who are they're very, very intellectual, they're very, very heady, they're very tamistic. I'm very tamistic in my formation, but not I just tend towards the mysticism more. And so I was looking at all of these isms, and then someone said to me, He said, Listen, he says, of all world religions, only Jesus Christ claimed to be God. Every other founder of every other world religion was a philosophy, or they were a prophet, or they worked for their God, but none of them claimed to be God. So if you could prove that Jesus Christ was not God, you can you can wipe out one third of all world religion right there. And I'm like, well, let's just knock down the big boys first. And you know, and then if if I'm wrong, if Jesus Christ, because I had no, like I did not like Christianity at all because of the moral teachings, and again, and I didn't like the the robotic, what I felt was the robotic nature of the mass. So I started going down that road, and C.S. Lewis's book, Mere Christianity, was was a game changer, right? Jesus as Lord liar or lunatic. Someone else wrote a popular book. I can't think of the guy's name, but he wrote a popular book based on that. But so it really began to to lend itself that Jesus Christ might be God. And the thing that really changed my life that before religion was I was at a Baptist church and this youth minister said, if you want to change your life, go home and read one chapter of the New Testament every day. And he said, if you doubt God's existence and if you doubt Jesus Christ is God, I want you to start in the Gospel of John. And I took that challenge. He said, Do it for eight weeks. And I went home and I took that challenge. And within three weeks of just reading one chapter every day, we're talking three to ten minutes in the Bible, I began to experience the presence of God. And it was profound and it was unmistakable, right? And it's again, there's certain little things that you're like, oh, that could be a coincidence, but I mean, there were things that were just happening and moving and whatever. So, so, so that began to do it. So, now to the reverse engineering piece. So, as I'm having these conversions and I'm really kind of getting this sense that Jesus Christ might be God, now I'm looking at all of the different Christian denominations because at the Protestant churches that I was going to, you would hear subtleties and their difference in approach. And I would ask, why do you have these different teachings? And my friend would say, Listen, you know, we Protestants, we all disagree about small things, but we're all Bible-believing Christians. He's like, But here's what you need to know those Catholics over there are completely wrong.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

I'm like, interesting.

SPEAKER_03 16:16

I'm like, okay. I'm like, that's an interesting, that's a strong statement. I'm like, that is a strong statement. And I and I kind of accepted it. But you know, Catholics are funny, especially if you meet a well-formed one. You know, you're like, you'll say something dumb, and they're like, that's an interesting perspective, you know? And they'll kindly and gently present it to you. So reverse engineering to the to the point of your question. I was looking at a certain point who joined whose church? Who left evangelical Protestantism and joined Catholicism? Who left Catholicism and joined evangelical Protestantism? Now, both groups marry in and out of each other, right? So you just negate all of those. Let's look at those who leave Catholicism to join evangelical Protestantism. Normally it goes something like this: I've been coming to the Catholic Church most of my life, and a friend of mine invited me to their Bible church, and I went down the road and they had this incredible music ministry, and they had a very gifted preacher. And I was sitting there and I was praying and I had my Bible open, or not by not my Bible open, I was just sitting there, and I experienced the presence of God in a way that I've never experienced before. I authentically felt this joy and peace. And then I went home and opened up the scriptures and I continued to go back and forth and I began to encounter God in a new, powerful and profound way. Those are the people now, some people go and they just have emotional experiences and whatnot. Okay, that I'm not, I don't want to be dumb and single that out. Literally, a lot of people will go and have authentic encounters with the Holy Spirit, and they stay and they give up the fullness of the faith for the elements of the faith. Now, there are those who look at Catholicism and say, I don't like the moral teachings, and they will also leave and find a church that aligns with their moral compass. So, like a lot of Catholics leave leave Catholicism and go to the Episcopalian or well, whichever moral episcopalian, because they dissent on the Christ's teaching on human sexuality and how the sexual act is reserved for holy matrimony between one man and one woman. And they dissent on that. So they leave and go find someone who agrees with their morality. So those are the kind of two main things that I see the descent of morality and join a Protestant group, or they've gone to a Protestant church on a flyer and experience the Holy Spirit, experience God in a profound way. Those who leave evangelical Protestantism and come to Catholicism, what I have found universally, and the group, the journey home, is birthed from a group called the Coming Home Network. And this quote-unquote Coming Home Network was a group that was established to help evangelical Protestant ministers who were leaving Protestantism to come to Catholicism. And it was Protestant pastors, it was Protestant theologians, it was scripture scholars that hated the church, that wanted nothing to do with Catholicism, that got into the first, second, third century Christians to try to disprove Catholicism, that ended up leaving and coming home to Catholicism. And so that was the whole thing that I looked at. And so I looked at Scott Hahn, Tim Staples, Jesse Ramiro, Marcus Grody, Michael Cumby, who else? Who Jeff, yeah, Jeff Cabins, right? Jeff Cavins. Jeff might be one of the most underrated converts in our church, but he's doing the most. Like Bible in the year is based off of his work. Like I got to shake his hand about four years ago, and I need to write him a letter. I'm gonna do that. Yeah, we got that. We I got to say hi and share with him how he because he was instrumental in my reversion. Has anybody listened to this? There's a Bible study called The Great Adventure produced through Ascension Press, and it's long, it's like 12 hours or something like that. But it walks you through the entire Old Testament into the new. It's the effectively the long version of the road to Emmaus. And it's incredible. So anyhow.

unknown 20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

Yeah. We already we already plugged that one.

SPEAKER_03 20:32

I'm running on at the mouth here. It's you girl, you girls talk.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

No, we were doing the Bible study with them with that ascension press. So we were we we plugged them in. Awesome.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Yeah. So getting into chapter five and six. Chapter five, between I guess between the whole chapter on confession and moving forward through chapter six, I think the thing that Carolina and I wanted to talk about, and and I think it's better if you talk about it because you're the the scholar in that. And you you have you have the the uh the degrees and all that, but to to discuss the differences between starting with confession, where we where you talk about temporal punishment and I wanted to get into the difference between what mortal sin is and what venial sin is, and then the effect that has on our souls, the the different effects that that has on our souls, and then the difference between the effects of having the guilt and the temporal punishment.

SPEAKER_03 21:41

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Right.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

So a venial sin, all right. So mortal sin and venial sin, again, this is represented in scripture and the churches teased this out. So I think it's James that says there are sins that kill and sins that don't. And so when a person is conformed to the body of Christ through baptism, they are washed of all sin. In a rebirth, they descend with Christ into his death and rise with him in his resurrection. And we are filled with sanctifying grace. And as long as we avoid the grievous sins against the commandments. And so when we talk about a mortal sin, we're talking about a sin that is grievous, right? So we talk about killing, right? If someone is in a legitimate car accident and it results in the death of another person, again, you're driving down the road and your car hits black ice and you you collide in someone and someone else dies. You're not guilty of a grave sin against that fifth commandment, right? But if you willfully murder a person, euthanasia, abortion, right? These things are willful choosing of the taking of a life of another. So the sin has to be number one, grave matter. It has to be serious. Then you have to have deliberate consent over it. And then you have to choose to do the act. So, so grave matter, deliberation, and cons full consent of the will, then carrying out the act. So those are the things that make something grave matter. So, like, take for example, someone who struggles with sexual addiction or pornography. They can be online one night and they can start to click on something. And they hear that little voice in the back of their head saying, Hey, this is wrong and you need to stop. And if they stop, it stays a venial sin, not a mortal sin. It's grave matter, but they didn't give deliberate consent of their will, right? So they they caught themselves and they said, you know what? No, I need to stop, and they put it away and and they still need to confess it, but it wasn't full consent of the will, and they stopped the act. So does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 23:47

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 23:49

So when a person commits a mortal sin, it in a certain sense, it's it it's like the the vessel that holds the grace is is broken and the grace leaves our soul. So we are no longer in the state of grace. We are we are not free of mortal sin. And so we're in the state of mortal sin. There can be no grace, sanctifying grace in our soul, and therefore we become the property of the devil at that point. And so it's through the sacrament of confession that we are restored to grace and then back reclaimed by Christ.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

Right. So that mortal sin, it basically separates our connection to God.

SPEAKER_03 24:29

Yes, correct.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

I like the way you said that it in in the last chapter, how we're like, what did you say, the hostage we we take back, he we're released from the grasp of Satan.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Yeah, yeah, very much so. Very much so. The devil has a hold on us if we're not in the state of grace. That's all it takes to be an agent of the devil, is not be in the state of grace.

SPEAKER_02 24:53

So, and then venial sin is obviously not something that's grave, but just what you described as correct.

SPEAKER_04 25:00

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

Sin, but not something that you're consenting to. It's just like maybe halfway there.

SPEAKER_03 25:06

Yeah, yeah. I mean, well, you think of the opposite. So it's it's not grave matter, but but it could be done with deliberate consent, right? You talk about like gossiping or or lying, right? You know, like a person who, you know, did you do your homework today, right? And the kid chooses, like in that moment, knows they didn't do it, and they choose the lie, right? So it's not grave matter, right? But now we're lying, sinning against the fourth commandment, right? And so it does take a toll.

SPEAKER_04 25:38

Right.

SPEAKER_03 25:39

And, you know, what we what they say in the military and the special forces is that ounces lead to pounds, right? The the special forces operators are very particular about what they carry on them because if they, oh, I might need this, I might need that. No, what is essential? Let's just take that. Because if I put too much on me, it will weigh me down and I won't be able to complete the mission. So people who play fast and loose with venial sin, it will weigh up and all of a sudden they will find themselves falling into mortal sin and not be able to undo it because they've conditioned themselves through venial sin to accept the bigger sins.

SPEAKER_01 26:14

Right. And it's almost like anymore nowadays, even just something like gossip online can lead to a mortal sin because you can drive somebody to suicide because by killing their character. Yes, and and it's and it's it's not just gossip anymore. It's not just, you know, because of the internet and and you know, everything being out there.

SPEAKER_03 26:39

So it's a great observation.

SPEAKER_02 26:42

And you know, Father, just since we're talking about it, this it just leads me to your your also your conversation on confession and and how I know during the interview you mentioned how you know we should go to confession as often as as as at least once a month is is what I have often heard. But you know, in your interview, you said you go at least once a week or once every 10 days, and you gave a great reason why. Can you just explain why it's important to go as often as possible without risking being too scrupulous, I guess you would say, right?

SPEAKER_03 27:17

That that's exactly it. So so I recommend for the laity once a month, maybe once every two weeks, if it's readily available, if you're not, if it's not disrupting your vocation as a wife or a mother or whatever your role may be, right? So once a month is a great practice, maybe once every two weeks for a lay person if it's really available and it's not a huge issue. For me, I go every week, if not every seven to ten days, for a variety of reasons. One, because of the type of ministry that I'm in. I need to be hyper-vigilant about my pride, about am I attentive to the Holy Spirit? Am I listening? What are the little infidelities that I'm committing throughout my day? So I have to be hyper-vigilant about those things. And then also offering it up. So that's these are the personal things, right? Just keeping myself free of sin and accountable and calling myself to a higher conversion. That's the heart of the reason why we go. But also, there's another way that you can go is that when I go to confession, because of the emotional and spiritual bonds between myself and my family, every time I go to confession, those graces affect my family unit, right? And so we can offer those graces not only for my family's return to the faith, but I can also offer up my confessional graces for those who I'm ministering to, that they may return to the confessional, right? And so if I'm taking sin seriously, if I'm holding myself accountable, if I believe this and making use of it, then these graces will overflow into other people.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Does that make sense? Oh beautiful. Absolutely. And I I hadn't heard of it that way.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

That's a really beautiful and y'all have it easy because you get to plop down behind the screen. I get to say, hey, father, do you have a minute to hear my confession? So there's no there's no anonymity for me. I get to, I get the I get to take full ownership of it. And uh and I was dry I had to drive through LA the other day. So I'm like, that's a whole nother confession.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

That reminds me when I was trying to do the rosary in in the car. I told you I was trying to fit in the rosary in the car, and I'm like, no, because somebody pull out and I'm doing a Hail Mary, and I'm like, you jerk. I'm like, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

I can't do rosary drive because it's not good. Especially when you're driving. So easy.

SPEAKER_03 29:47

What what stood out to you in that conversation?

SPEAKER_02 29:49

Because it sounded like there was something that I said that really struck you that I'm I'm no that that that you you go also to kind of own to take stock and ownership of you know what you keep falling into. So that's if it's right on our minds all the time, like if you're prideful constantly and you're constantly, you know, confessing that every week, then you know that that's something that you need to work on. And it's gonna give you the strength that you need to get through it, you know, to kind of work on it and be better at it.

SPEAKER_03 30:22

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the benefits of having a regular confessor that you can specifically if you have a friendship with them and and you can you can reveal if you feel comfortable revealing yourself to them and you're going on a monthly basis, you know, over time you the the confessor will will say, Oh, yeah, you know what, there is this pattern here that we're seeing.

SPEAKER_04 30:41

Right.

SPEAKER_03 30:41

And so it can be pattern recognition, and so we can identify what the defect or or vice is that you're struggling with and offer the virtue and counterantidote. So that's a great thing. Yeah, no, great point, great point.

SPEAKER_02 30:55

That's that's what I loved about it because it was it's the more we go, the more we we recognize where we're falling short.

SPEAKER_03 31:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

And so we we we can focus more on tending to that particular thing.

SPEAKER_04 31:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 31:09

And with the grace, like you said, I think we're able to we gain the strength to overcome that temptation when it comes. Just last week I, you know, just last week I confessed this. Let's look, can we can we work on this? Can we get this right at some point?

SPEAKER_01 31:31

And it brings me to the to what you said in chapter in chapter five, where it says healing and restoration you get with confession, and how like you don't go the soldier can't go into battle wounded. So every day with the spiritual battle that we face, it's like if we continue to have one wound after another, or you know, it's just we have to get that restoration and healing to be able to have the strength to be able to fight.

SPEAKER_03 31:59

Completely. Yeah, and that's what God wants us healthy, and He doesn't want us walking through life with the poison of sin pulsing through our veins. You know, I I did a I had a very unique opportunity to do a 30-day silent retreat called the Ignatian Exercises this past January. And I'm a little embarrassed to say this, but the spiritual director I had on that retreat said something that I never heard before. He said, for people like you and I, we should expect to go through the rest of our life without ever committing another mortal sin. And then he said this. He goes, for people like you and I, and I'm including you two in this conversation, we should be able, because of God's grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, we should be able to expect to go the rest of our life without committing another willful venial sin.

SPEAKER_04 32:50

Whoa, wow.

SPEAKER_03 32:52

Now, now a listener is gonna say, but the righteous man sins seven times a day.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

So right.

SPEAKER_03 32:58

So we're making a distinction between sins of omission versus sins of commission. And the key word is a willful, willfully choosing to commit a venial sin. When you find yourself in a conversation where the other person's spilling the tea, right? How do you say, you know what? I I think we're crossing the gossip. I I've got to dislodge myself from this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:20

Right? Not just la la la la la, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:22

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that's a that's a that's a true witness, too. I mean, it is when you're in the midst of a conversation and somebody says, Whoa, she never did that before.

SPEAKER_03 33:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:32

She was always right in the midst of it. Let's she's walking away from it. It means something. So maybe I should take stock of what I'm doing. Maybe it's something that I shouldn't be doing too.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

Yep, yep, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Yeah, because maybe people aren't realizing what they're doing as they're doing. Like they know, but they don't realize the importance of it. But when you do that, it's like a splash of cold water. It's like, whoa, wait, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

Yeah. Well, in in the south, you always know a conversation is about to turn to gossip when you get this. Now, Betty, I'm gonna tell you, we gotta pray for Miss Carolina. So, I mean, so you if you hear we gotta pray for Miss Carolina, we all right, just say, Okay, we're gonna pray for Miss Carolina. I don't need to know what she's doing.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

What she's doing and why. That's a good one. That is a good one. Yeah, that is a good one.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Bless their hearts. Oh Lord. So in the in the book, you say the rosary is a meditation, the chaplet is an action.

SPEAKER_03 34:35

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 34:37

Explain that.

SPEAKER_03 34:38

So the rosary given to us by the Blessed Virgin Mary to Saint Dominic is a meditation on now the 20 mysteries of the life of Christ. And so, as you're praying the rosary, the mind is oriented towards one of those 20 mysteries. Now, whether you're focusing or not, because my mind wanders during every rosary I pray, it wanders. But those mysteries are present to us because we're sitting with the Blessed Virgin Mary, and we pray, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death. So, part of the power of the rosary is that we're sitting with Mother Mary for 15 to 20 minutes, and we're sitting in those mysteries of that day. And we're allowing those mysteries to impact us, and if we can chew on those mysteries in our mind, they're nourishing our mind and our heart, and we're entering into those meditations. And so there's this two-way streak going on here if we pray it with great faith. And so allow Mother Mary just to teach us those mysteries as we pray. But the point of the rosary is to sit with Mother Mary and to meditate on one of those five mysteries that you're praying that particular day. The chaplet of divine mercy is an action, and we know it's an action based on the language we speak. The fourth word of the main prayer, it's Eternal Father, I offer. So the chaplet of divine mercy is an offering to God the Father made by you, the individual. And so it will fundamentally change the way you pray the chaplet if you are in a posture of offering versus a posture of meditating. So you can you can have great meditations. Father Wade Meniza and I were talking about this the other day. We're like, you can have amazing meditations praying the chaplet. But if you really focus it on being in action, you can see yourself united with what you're offering and seeing God the Father and placing it in God the Father's hand, so to speak. Right? So it creates this. We talked about being vulnerable earlier, right? Off camera. Like it's hard being vulnerable, it's hard putting ourselves in each other's presence. But by doing this, it allows you to exercise your your daughterhood, my sonship, and standing before the God the Father and offering him the thing that is most pleasing to him, which is son's sacrifice.

SPEAKER_02 36:59

Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, when I read that, I was like, that's that's a powerful that just little, yeah. What I love about your book, Father, is that every I mean, every little sentence is like a gem.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Like we can think we can spend my mind.

SPEAKER_02 37:17

We can split you know paragraphs and just say, what about this sentence? And you can go on. It's just a gem of information that I I I have so many things that I want to get to, and I don't think that I'm gonna be able to get to them. But Carolina, I don't want to talk over you. You do you have anything that you wanted to?

SPEAKER_01 37:36

No, I just to me it's just the beauty of how you you keep calling us to that we need to use our imagination. It's almost like to be able to see past the veil, like not see with our human eyes, but see with the eyes of our spirit, like of our soul, to be able to see God and in and things and to imagine, like you said, imagine when you're praying the chaplet, how you're offering and it's just like you it you're crossing through that veil almost, like your imagination.

SPEAKER_03 38:11

I think that's so important as a big part of my conversion. Is I kind of referenced earlier, I I I tend towards more of the mysticism. And again, you know, I don't have any problem. I I love the Latin mass, I I I mean, I have a great respect for that, and thanks be to God for for those who like study the Council of Trent and memorize the Summa. And like in their very academic in their understanding of faith, and that's a gift that God has given them. God has given me the opposite gift, even though I know Trent, I know the Summa, I I'm very well versed in these things. I do not, we you don't negate one for the sake of the other. Being good at one should make you better at the other. But but my spirituality is more of this the mysticism of the church, and I and I appreciate more of the Eastern writers in a certain regard. But if you just stay in your head, if you just stay in the academics of faith, this is where you fall into rigorism and then ultimately Jansenism and this rigorism of the faith and coming to church and checking the box and and doing the externals without the heart. If the heart is not involved, then forget you're you're just you're gonna fall away. There's gonna be nothing that roots you. So, what we were taught in our formation and why we have such a focus on to mystic formation for our men is that you cannot love what you do not know. But knowing can be a contraceptive to loving. Because I could be sitting here with you too, and I could be going through your baby book, you know, and I could be looking at the thing, and I'd be like, and I could be sitting there with your mom, and I could be like, hey, tell me all about your daughters, right? And and you're like, and I'm like, oh man, what was she like? What you know, what was her favorite color? And and you're sitting right there, you're like, hey, you could talk to me right here. Like, what do you want to know about me, right? So so we can go to extremes on the on either end of the spectrum. Vatican II was was horrible, absolutely horrible, about going to the extreme of being loved by God and God being a merciful God, that we threw out the whole concept of sin. We threw out the whole, I mean, it just it's not that the church denied it, it that it wasn't emphasized.

SPEAKER_04 40:27

Right.

SPEAKER_03 40:28

And there was lots of lots of liberties taken in the liturgy. I remember one priest describing unfolding the corporal at mass. I can't even say it because it's sinful. It was bad, it was horrible. Like I won't even repeat it, but it was it was scandalous. It's like so they just and again, that's one priest, right? That's not what the church taught. We're not saying Vatican II was bad, we're saying there were abuses. Right. And so if the head and the heart are connected and we could create this deep, intimate union with Christ and with the Father, like it changes things. And it's like this, like people are like, oh, they've got to receive on the tongue, they have to do this. And I'm like, man, if we can just get people to encounter Christ and to encounter the Father's love, and then try to form them, right? But yeah, you got to do both and, but there's there's just a balance to be struck.

SPEAKER_02 41:21

Yeah, and it's it's a hard balance.

SPEAKER_03 41:25

Yeah, but vulnerability and connection is is everything about our faith.

SPEAKER_02 41:29

Yeah, absolutely. And so, Father, uh, before you go, I mean, I I know our time is getting cut short, right? You have to go soon.

SPEAKER_03 41:39

I've got maybe 40 more minutes, half hour, 40 minutes.

SPEAKER_02 41:42

Okay, perfect, perfect. So we just because I I I want to get into the feast because that's you know, I wanna I I just want to spread the word about the feast and the benefits of the feast. And if we could kind of get you to explain the difference between a plenary indulgence, a partial indulgence, and then the extraordinary graces that come to us through the feast of Divine Mercy Sunday.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

Yeah. This is again one of the big problems in our culture and our church today is that you will hear priests say, Come to Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday and receive a plenary indulgence. Now, now there are two indulgences and and one unique special grace that is given on Divine Mercy Sunday. So, so let me tell you what the diary says. The diary in paragraph 699 says, for those who do two things, who have gone to confession and receives Holy Communion on Divine Mercy Sunday, and in the theologians, the church has given the Impermater to this understanding of it, is that they will receive what we refer to as the renewal of their baptismal graces. All of your personal sin and temporal punishment due to sin, all of that is annihilated. Again, if you have gone to confession, you're in the state of grace and you receive Holy Communion. This is not an indulgence. This is, again, this is an extraordinary grace that our our Lord gives us on Divine Mercy Sunday. Our Lord in 699, at the end of that paragraph, it says that all of the divine floodgates of mercy will be opened, and no mind, be it of man or angel, will be able to comprehend the graces that flow on that day. Okay, so so any priest who's listening to this, go look at that, read that, reflect on it. If you disagree with me, you're not disagreeing with Father Ken, you're disagreeing with the church, right? You're disagreeing with St. John Paul the Great, who died on the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday, right? Nonetheless. So, so now, so this is what so for the soul that infosina negotiated with our Lord, you know, so the church basically says if you've gone to confession within 20 days before or after Divine Mercy Sunday, but the key is receiving Holy Communion either either at the vigil on Saturday. Saturday or during the day on Sunday, in the state of grace, being free of any awareness of mortal sin, you will receive the total renewal of your baptismal graces. That means if you were to die on that moment, like John Paul II did, there would be zero purgatory. Right? You go straight to heaven. You are in a perfected state, and you will go straight to heaven.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

That's so powerful.

SPEAKER_03 44:22

It is, and I wish every priest of every parish would hear and meditate what I'm saying on. Because you would spend the Lent four, Lent five. Yeah, even mention it during Palm Sunday that, hey, listen, we as a parish need to go to confession. You all need, again, we're we got Easter coming up, and and we're gonna focus heavily on Easter, but I want everyone to have gone to confession and everyone in this parish needs not only to come celebrate Easter, to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, but to receive these graces because if your entire parish or 80% or 50% of your parish has the renewal of their baptismal graces, the spiritual currency that you have as a priest is yeah, it's amazing.

SPEAKER_02 45:11

It is. Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_03 45:13

So that's the unique grace that God gives. Right. And then there's the two opportunities for plenary indulgences that take place under normal conditions.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

Right. And so what are those conditions, Father? If you could just for us.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

So for those who pray the Divine Mercy novena that starts on Good Friday that goes through Divine Mercy Sunday, you receive a plenary indulgence under the normal conditions. And then those who participate in a divine mercy celebration, whether it be on Saturday or Sunday, also can receive a plenary indulgence. The four conditions of a plenary indulgence is one, there is the act of the indulgence, right? So the novena or the participation in the celebration. There is praying for the Pope, there is having gone to confession and receiving Holy Communion. So those are the four conditions to receive a plenary indulgence, generically speaking, any indulgence. A plenary indulgence, you can keep it for yourself or you can offer it up for a soul in purgatory. This is one of the key differences between plenary indulgence and the extraordinary grace is that a plenary indulgence is transferable and requires four acts. The extraordinary grace requires only two acts and is non-transferable. It's for the individual alone.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Okay, that's great. Thank you for that explanation, Father.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

So the next explanation that I think because it may cause some confusion for some of our listeners, maybe, is the when you go to confession and and the effect of sin on your life, be it mortal sin or venial sin, there's the issue of there's a guilt and the temporal punishment, correct?

SPEAKER_03 46:58

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

So can you explain the difference between the two and the fact that even if we go to confession, our guilt is cleansed, I guess, removed, right? But we still have the issue of temporal punishment. What does that all mean?

SPEAKER_03 47:12

Correct. So this this notion that the God's greatest attribute is mercy. And then the church also teaches that God is equally merciful and just. So the question is, is how could God's mercy be his greatest attribute if there is equal justice and mercy? So the answer is that we have to make a tomistic distinction between time and eternity. So in time, God is more merciful than he is just because he's always willing to forgive us one more time, right? He's always willing to allow you to swipe the credit card one more time, right? Oh, here's another sin. Oh, I'm sorry for that sin, right? But now, once you die and you stand before him for your final judgment, there is the debt of sin, right? Christ doesn't just wipe out the credit card debt, right? You've you've been swiping that puppy and you're gonna pay it. And you're gonna pay it in full until the last penny is paid, according to what the scripture says. And so there is the debt that we owe God as a consequence of our bad behavior, and that can be paid off by offering up our sufferings or or charitable works or alms giving here on earth. And again, we're not talking about being the buy our way out of guilt, because again, that could be a sin in itself. You're thinking you're buying off God.

SPEAKER_04 48:32

Right.

SPEAKER_03 48:33

But but by doing the living the gospel here on earth, we can purify our souls and work off temporal punishment due to sin, mainly accomplished through suffering. Or that's what purgatory exists for is the purification to enter into heaven. Because, friends, the the entry cost for heaven is perfection or the entry criteria. In order to get into heaven, you and I have to be perfect. And I promised if I died in this moment right now, even though I went to confession two days ago, I'm not perfect. Right, I have lots of just lots of purification that needs to happen. So when we look at that, this is where God's justice comes in. In God, in heaven, God is more just than he is merciful because he's getting what you owe him. And it's not because God is an angry God and wants his pound of flesh, it's for our sake.

SPEAKER_02 49:29

Right.

SPEAKER_03 49:30

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 49:31

Absolutely. Absolutely. Totally. So the other the other thing I wanted to talk about was your description of the different modes that we could use to pray the chaplet. And I think it applies also to attending mass. If we could just envision, like you said, you know, get on board with our imagination and just imagine these things happening because it to a lot of people people say, Oh, the Catholic Mass, it's so boring. But Alina and I have said in the past, like if you really knew what was happening at the Mass, you'd be blown away and you wouldn't want to miss one day a week.

SPEAKER_03 50:17

You know, like you wouldn't you would never want it to end, it wouldn't be long enough. It wouldn't be long enough.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

I tell Vilma that I I sit there sometimes and I'm like in tears just because I'm overwhelmed with love and like at the certain you know parts of the mass that are so like beautiful. And I'm I told her, I said, people probably think I have issues, you must have a horrible life, and I'm like, no, I'm just in love with God with God.

unknown 50:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:44

Yeah. So many times people say, I can't wait to go to Mass to receive Holy Communion. And we love it when people say that, but it's ever so misplaced. We don't come to Mass to receive, we come to Mass to give worship. And the Mass is not about Jesus. Mass is not about the sacrifice of Calvary. Mass is about the perfect worship of God our Heavenly Father through the sacrifice of Calvary in the power of the Holy Spirit. So when someone says, I can't wait to go to Mass, the appropriate response after I can't wait to go to Mass should be, I can't wait to go to Mass to worship God the Father. Because through Calvary we have our redemption and divine adoption, and we can only go to the Father through the Son. And one of the things, again, this was this is going to be pretty controversial, especially if any non-Catholics are listening, but you could make an argument that Jesus is not interested in having a personal relationship with you, right? Because Jesus didn't say, I've come for you to be in a relationship with me. He said, Come follow me for what reason? So I can reveal the Father to you, right? I have not come to do my will, but the Father's will. No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son reveals him to. And so the Son comes and gathers us to present us to the Father. And so now that we have been purchased, redeemed, and adopted, we are before God the Father as a family now. And there we are, the three of us. We're like, Yeah, God the Father, we're here. And we're like, thank you for sending your son to ransom us and to save us and to adopt us. What can we do for you, Father?

SPEAKER_00 52:36

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 52:36

And the father's gonna be like, hey guys, see my son over there? I want you to do whatever he says. And we're like, we're gonna run over to the son and we're like, Jesus, Jesus, the father said to do whatever you say. What do you want us to do? And Jesus is gonna say, Listen, I want to, I want you to keep my father's commandments. So they don't point at each other at themselves, they point to each other in the power of the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_01 52:59

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 53:00

Yeah, and so when we go to Mass, we're 80% of the prayers of the Mass are directed to God the Father. So if we can see in our mind that we're there to do a job, we're there to worship the Father, then in the sacrifice of the Son, all in the power of the Holy Spirit, it just will change Mass.

SPEAKER_04 53:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:18

And then, you know, this is the reason this book was written. Excuse me, one second. The reason this book was written was to illuminate how the chapel of divine mercy is the extension of the liturgy of the Eucharist. So when we pray the Mass, we are praying to God the Father. When we pray the chapel of divine mercy, we are praying to God the Father. The Mass is about the worship of the Father by offering God the Father the sacrifice of the Son in the power of the Holy Spirit in atonement for our sins and those of the whole world, and then also our divine adoption. So when we pray the chapel of divine mercy, we are offering God the Father the body, blood, soul, and divinity, which is the Eucharist, right? The body, blood, soul, and divinity is the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the Mass, the Mass is Calvary. So we're offering the Father the Eucharist, we're offering the Father Calvary. And we're all united in this thing. And we call this active participation. So again, you can just focus on seeing yourself united to Jesus on Calvary through the hands of the priest, offering God the Father Calvary, or seeing yourself holding the lamb that was slain, or lifting up the hands of the priest at Mass, being united with the host in the hands of the priest. These are all ways to pray the chapel of divine mercy, also how to enter into the mass more fully.

SPEAKER_02 54:45

Yeah, that's beautiful. Thank you, Father.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

I love it. It has totally changed the way I when I go to mass, I see, especially when you talked about the court, you know, the holy court.

unknown 54:56

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:58

I it changed my whole way of thinking. And and I was one of the ones who was like, I love going to to mass because I love you know, because I'm because of Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 55:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:09

And now I see like it just like a whole new level of understanding.

SPEAKER_03 55:14

Now, one of the things I describe in there. One of the things I describe in there, Carolina, is I talk about seeing yourself as a for you, it'd be a little girl, seeing the lamb that was slain, and walking out and picking him up, the lamb, that baby lamb that is slain, and then lifting up the lamb and going up to God the Father as a little child, offering him the lamb that is slain.

SPEAKER_02 55:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:36

Are you able to could you talk about your experience with that as a woman?

SPEAKER_02 55:39

She's getting emotional. No.

SPEAKER_03 55:43

Well, it again, we talk about vulnerability. We talk about like, but this is this is who we are.

SPEAKER_02 55:49

Yeah, yeah.

unknown 55:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:50

I want to hear your I want to hear your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_01 55:53

When I well, when I when I I have to say, when I go when I go to communion, when I go to communion, I I see myself now as a bride of Christ. So when I'm walking down the aisle, like I'm seeing myself as a bride going to receive, and instead of seeing the priest, I see Jesus himself as my groom. And to me, that's like but as far as like being let the little girl holding the lamb, that just really overwhelmed me right now. It really did. Because it's such a beautiful, just a visual thinking about that.

SPEAKER_03 56:39

Yeah. But that's that's who God, I mean, God didn't call us his young adults, he didn't call us his adolescents, he called us his little children. And when we look at I I remember this, I remember this so profoundly. I was a child, I saw this happen in person, and it was a family gathering, and all of the uncles were around, and one uncle footed the bill for everything. And he was talking to the other uncles. There were four or five uncles there, and he's like, listen, he was like, the bill was 150 bucks, all of you owe me, you know, $30. And the one uncle was like, he was like, I'm not giving you 30 bucks for this. What would you go? Would you go to the the the you know the most expensive place on the planet? You know, whatever. And there was a little kid there, and this little kid had already gone around to all of the uncles earlier in the day and got all their pocket change, you know, back when he had coins. So he he fleeced everybody for their pocket change. So this kid, he he had this pocket full of like he probably had six dollars in coins in his pocket. And so he's he's hearing these uncles bantering back and forth about who's gonna pay the bill. And so he goes up and he reaches into his pocket and he starts pulling out these coins and putting them on the kitchen table. And it's like he's having to reach up and put the coins on the table in front of the uncles. He's like, guys, this can help.

SPEAKER_02 57:56

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_03 57:57

Oh that's awesome. And it and it was the simplest, smallest offering of love that was made. And when we look at, I mean, imagine the divine wrath of God the Father when He looks at the sins of our world, right? The I mean, pick any subject, whether it be abortion, whether it be politics, whether it be the wars, whether it be all of these different things. The fat and just the sexual sins alone, the child sex trafficking, all these whore, like God should send one big giant meteor the size of Texas and just wipe us out. But then imagine yourself as a vulnerable child picking up that lamb and as that loving child approaching your heavenly father and saying, Look at the sacrifice of your son and have mercy on us. Yeah, convert us. Give us your grace.

SPEAKER_02 58:55

Every time I I pray the chaplet, now I'm gonna start thinking of that because that's a powerful, very powerful image.

SPEAKER_03 59:03

Yeah, and that's that's great for the feminine heart. If there's any men listening to this, that again I encourage a man to do that as well, seeing yourself as a little boy. I mean, it it it's hard. It's again, it's it's a little touchy-feely, maybe a little too touchy-feely for a lot of guys, but it can help root you into that that that the young, the child that we are in the eyes of God. Whether we want to see ourselves as children, God sees ourselves as children. So, but for us men, men are men of action. And this is why I love the chaplet for men is that we men, us seeing ourselves as Saint John standing at the foot of the cross, right? Everyone else has run away. But only the strong, only the courageous, only the brave can stand there and not fight the centurions, not fight the Sanhedrin. To stand there and be united with Jesus and see yourself kind of cheering him on in your spirit, holding him up to the Father and offering God the Father, Jesus' sacrifice to God the Father. That's what he asks of St. John. That's what he's asking of us.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:11

Powerful. Powerful. You are on fire, Father. Yes, you are.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:18

And what a gift this book is, Father. This is such a gift.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:22

Well, you're too kind. Thank you. Well, these are the gifts that God has given me. I wouldn't, like, I'm not, I'm not smart. Like, I'm not, like, I have uh God has given me many, many graces. I can't, there's I have lots of limitations, but what I do excel in, and what I've in what this book is. I mean, again, I've got many deficiencies, but this book is a clear representation that God is working powerfully through my ministry.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:46

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:47

And and I recognize that I'm doing my part and God is doing his part, and we are doing something beautiful together.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:55

Yeah, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:57

Yeah. It's not about me, it's not about him, it's about what we're doing, and I just love being part of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:04

Yeah. Yeah. So one one thing I wanted to touch on also when you mentioned indulgences and how, you know, buying our way to freedom, basically, is what would you say to people and how would you explain indulgences? What would you say to people who are skeptical about the Catholic way in terms of indulgences and what we get? I mean, I when I did my research, I I found that it's scripture-based. So how how could how would you explain that to our listeners?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:42

Yeah, like you said, it is scripture-based. And in I don't think I'm gonna give you a very good answer, but I really don't get hung up on it. If if people are are open to discussing it, like if someone's final stronghold to come back to Catholicism is indulgences, which it never is.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:58

It never is, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:59

Never is, right? So, you know, people who want to argue about indulgences are really just it's like the the the flares that come out of the back of an airplane to distract you from something else, right? I've never found anyone like hyper like that being a major hang up because when we understand the doctrine of purgatory, when we understand the the the doctrine of temporal punishment due to sin, these things then come into focus, right? And so it's just like when I look at your your mortgage, right? I could I could look at your mortgage and I could be like, man, I I could I could write a check for $1,000 and help you with your mortgage, right? You you might have a you know $50 to $100,000 left on your mortgage, but $1,000 isn't gonna move the needle, but it's gonna help, right? Or I could make atonement for your mortgage and pay off your mortgage, right? Right. So so again, this is what friends do for each other, right? Friends help friends, and the currency that the currency, quote unquote, currency that we operate in is spiritual currency and the graces. And God invites us to participate in them because it draws us out of ourself. I mean, if you really want to look at the the the spirit behind indulgences, it's to create a culture of selflessness where we're thinking about those who have died, those who have gone before us, and we're we're recognizing that these people died with a debt that's owed to God, and we can help pay it off. And so if we have that mentality, again, it's a spiritual work of mercy, but it can also call us to accountability that maybe we won't do the same dumb things that they did.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:41

Interesting, yeah. So so yeah, so I take a different approach to these things, so right, yeah, because I I just know that that's one of the things sometimes that we get criticized for is you know, and that it's that it's been abused in the past centuries ago. So it's it that's one of the things that's always in the back of someone else's mind, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:03

And there are people who are very serious about that question, but but generically speaking, I mean, you know, it's we we gotta get through purgatory before we can get to an indulgence. Yeah. So yeah. And the consequence of sin and the doctrine of original sin, really. Because our Protestant brothers and sisters effectively, in our culture today, effectively deny the reality of original sin. And that again, you know, they say, Oh, you gotta accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, and they criticize infant baptism. And they say, When you turn 13 or 14 or 15 years old, when you're ready to accept Christ as your Lord and Savior, then you can be baptized. But what if a child dies at age 10, 11, 12? These are all very real things.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:53

So in your book, Father, I think it was in chapter six, towards the end, you say we have an obligation. It's it's not something, it's not something that we can just choose to do, but that we have an obligation to pray fast for penance and almsgiving. Explain.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:14

Yeah. Our Lord said they asked Pharisees asked Jesus, why do your disciples not fast? They say is as long as the bridegroom hears that they won't fast. But when the bridegroom is gone, then they will fast, right? And we look at the spiritual weapons that God has given us prayer, fasting, almsgiving are the three primary weapons we have been given to engage in this spiritual battle. And I think one of the chief principles of this book is to avoid the extremes of spiritual warfare. One extreme is that the devil is around every corner, and you know, the other extreme is that this is all not real. So, so to recognize that we're in a battle for souls, and by praying and fasting, engaging in This spiritual warfare through almsgiving as well helps us fight for the souls of people around us. You know, I talk about Mike as the visible person who challenged me to authenticity and integrity and help lead to my reversion back to Catholicism. But Mike was the visible tip of the spear. We do not know all of the many, many people who were praying, sacrificing, and offering penances for me that led to my reversion.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:28

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:30

I know two Protestants that I worked with, that I worked a part-time job, and man, I overcooked their grits on a regular occasion. I wore them out and I made them miserable. And I know that they prayed for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:43

And so their prayers helped led to my reversion.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

Yeah. Yeah. Like in the interview, you were talking about how you went to that retreat. And that the girl that invited you to the retreat wasn't even there. And then but you saw her later. She was in perpetual adoration. For you.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:03

People who were there.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:04

I went to I lost you. Can you hear? Can you hear me?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:14

I can't hear you, father. I can hear him.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:19

Well.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:19

Oh, there you are. There you are.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:21

All right, there we go. I was saying it was my my first confession in 15 years, the fifth confession of my life. Yeah, yeah. So it's the story of my life. I go for the girl and come home with God.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:32

But it's so better end of the deal. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:35

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:35

We were talking of like Vomana, you and I were talking about how to always invite. Like somebody who might not want to come to church, just always like you know, extend the invitation because you never know when they're going to say yes. They might say no, no, no, no, no. And then the one day that they were kind of on the fence about it and you don't ask, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:00

So, yeah, yeah. And we we have too much of a a comfort in America that we feel everyone is okay. And, you know, the the the music artist, I think his name is Jelly Roll. He wrote a song that I'm not okay. And I think that song went so viral because it really speaks about the heart of many people, and that many people are not okay. And they need God and they need support. And as a Christian, that's our job is to help be present to them and help point them to he who can make them okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:34

Yeah, yeah. And I I just will we'll end with this, Father, because I know you have to go, but with with regard to the obligation, the prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, those are the three pillars that we focus on during Lent.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:46

When I read that, I said, well, then it's not just Lent. I mean, this is all year round. We should be, we should be practicing this. It's not just, you know, the 40 days of of Lent.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:59

Yeah, you're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Again, Lent prepares us to do better the following year, right? Lent should be considered as a conditioning course that when I finish Lent, I'm not going to go back to my lazy flabby ways of before. I'm actually going to take this as a level up.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:15

Right. Yeah. So I like it. This is the end of the podcast. And at the end of every podcast, we have what's called a challenge. So, Father, could you could I put you on the spot and have you ask you to give us a challenge for this week?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:40

I would challenge. I think I would just challenge everyone for the next seven days to pray the Divine Mercy chaplet every single day.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:53

Yeah, just just the chaplet every day.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:56

Hi, everybody. Unfortunately, we lost internet connection, so we couldn't continue the little bit of the interview that we had left. We hope you enjoyed the content that we did record. And until next time, God bless.