#752 The Catholic Spiritual Life Has A Map You Can Follow: A Path To Union With God

Most of us don’t need more religious trivia. We need a clear path that shows how a man actually changes. That’s why we brought back Cooper Bohn with Mark Schmidt co-hosting with me, and went deep on one of the most practical frameworks in the Catholic tradition: the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways.

We start with the real world where guys live: dating, marriage prep, and the fight to love well. Cooper shares how Theology of the Body and Natural Family Planning (NFP) stopped being abstract Church talk and became a concrete invitation to honor his wife, tell the truth in his vows, and root out sin. We also name the problem that too many people tiptoe around: porn culture reshapes the heart, and if it isn’t healed it can follow a man straight into his marriage and poison intimacy.

From there, we zoom out to the spiritual life “training plan.” We talk about why you have to begin with the end in mind, what union with God actually means, and why the road can feel harder over time even as you grow stronger. Cooper lays out the purgative way with blunt clarity: stop mortal sin first, go to confession, and start fighting like your soul matters. Then we move into the illuminative way: consistent mental prayer, deeper vigilance, and God drawing you into quiet so your soul becomes ready for communion.

Check These Out! 

The Claymore Battle Plan Handbook by Jack Rigert

The Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis De Sales

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Transcript

Intro And Power Of Witness

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I am excited to be back with Mark Schmidt as my co-host. Mark, how are you? Great to be here with you, Jack. Doing well. Good, good, good. Who do we got up in the corner? It's at least in the corner by me here.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Well, we got our good friend Cooper Bond, related to James Bond. Cooper has been on the podcast before. I'm excited to have him back on today to, you know, share more of his own story. You know, Jack, we have done a few of these podcasts now where we're bringing in, you know, guys' experience where they're encountering the truth of Catholicism. But really what people want to know is, well, how has this changed my life? You know, we want that practical theology. I can't remember exactly which Pope it was that talked about the power of, you know, the witness. You don't just want a teacher, we want a witness. Yeah. So I think we're kind of just continuing that conversation. But I think what I'm very excited about today, Cooper is going to be unpacking something that's really important in the spiritual life, which is the purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways. This is something that's really rooted deeply in our Catholic tradition through the great spiritual doctor. So this isn't some kind of new path that we're going to be talking about. This is something that's been part of our great Catholic tradition for a long time. You know, we we want to know, okay, where am I at? How do I keep progressing? Maybe I'm regressing. What needs to go on here? And what we're going to be unpacking is very practical and specific of this journey towards heroic sanctity that, you know, St. Teresa Babala, St. John of the Cross, these great saints that have gone before us. So I'm excited today to unpack this more because I think it's really questions that everyone does wrestle with is, you know, where am I on the journey and how do I keep going? How do I keep progressing on this journey to becoming a saint? So, you know, I'll kick it to you, Cooper, if you want to introduce yourself a little bit more to the listeners.

SPEAKER_02 1:52

Yeah,

Cooper’s Return To The Church

SPEAKER_02 1:53

I appreciate it. Um husband and father, and um I've been back in the Catholic Church probably about 10 years since I sort of began to pay attention to where I'm at where am I, whether this is the church cheat teach, and then reintroducing myself through the teachings of the church. Um, so all of this happened, you know, began to happen around 25, 24. You know, I got out of college and realized I didn't necessarily know what a what a man was. What uh what am I supposed to be now? A few things really hooked me. One of them was my wife said we were getting married in the Catholic Church, and I I wanted to mean what I was saying in our vows. I wanted to tell the truth uh in front of God. Um, you know, I had a vague belief in God, but had didn't necessarily listen to what he was what he had been telling us uh for 2,000 years plus. But so that that was the initial kicker, and then what really seemed to satisfy me was the teaching of John Paul II in theology of the body. Um it was a a teaching I had heard, but it didn't stick at all. Uh you know, going through Catholic education from kindergarten through through undergraduate degree, it was all in Catholic schools, um, but I didn't retain any of it. But that's kind of a brief brief note.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

And I think I think what you just said so important, just to pause on there for a second. John Paul, when he was unpacking this, and this is why I think it doesn't stick sometimes until you're ready for it. He said, once you dive into the human heart, we're gonna be talking a little bit about that today. And he said, then then you have the human heart, that's desire for the truth, if you really can get down to it. And it's very tough with young guys today, and with you guys too. Uh young uh husbands, fathers. We grew up in this like the proverbial pot with the frog, and we you you don't know what you don't know until until you have to dig into the second part of this, which is your experience of life. And so you you have the human heart desiring truth, you've you you've got experience of life, and at the right place and the right time, the gospel can touch you, and you have that aha moment, you know?

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Yeah, I think if I had to pin it down, because it it's rich, and I'm sure the

Marriage, NFP, And Theology Of Body

SPEAKER_02 4:00

the introduction, my introduction to it was in the context of preparing for marriage. I think what the Lord did was use my desire for union with my wife and to honor my wife, and I really want and and still want our marriage to be a very strong one. And then we went to our pre-CANA retreat. Uh we basically heard about NFP for the first time, and it definitely fit how with well, how we were thinking, because my wife's a dietitian, so if you pay attention to what you're putting in your body, you should also pay attention to medications, including birth control, that you're putting into your body. And so that got our attention. We were like, oh yeah, we don't want to poison ourselves with food or anything else. And and it, we were looking at it more as a a you know physical interruption of the procreative cycle. That then when we went to the NFP class, we also saw the spiritual disruption in the contraceptive mentality and and in actually use sinning by contracepting, right? And so we we wanted each other, and we then through the church were able to identify natural family planning and the teaching of theology of the body specifically, which is what under is the entire foundation for the practice of planning your family in a holy way. That that gave me a way to practically enter into a greater and holier union with my own with my wife, which was also eliminating sin from our lives and reorienting my mind to union with God through union with my wife. Um, so it gave a really a holy path through planning a family, starting a family, you know, working with God to make our children, right? And that that's what hooked me is like this is the confluence of everything, which is you know, we wanted we want clean bodies, but now I'm paying attention to God and I want a clean soul, and I also, oh, I want union with my wife, but I also want union with God now. Like that and it gave a a very, I think, lofty, but also a the call of everyone is is to be united with God, and it gave a real way to do that.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Mark, I'm almost afraid to do this, but I'll just do it for a second, and then you could throw me off. Sure. But but so just for for guys that are just wondering about natural family planning, there are so many men that I meet my age, say boomers and then Generation X, they never they never really made love to their wives like this. They don't understand the power, the transcendent power of two becoming one in the sacrament, you know, without contraception. And when they're finally ready to say, okay, well, let's try to have a child. Well, the mentality of this, the heart is not, doesn't understand it. And it's still not this beautiful power that can transcend, you know, when two people come together in that marital act, John Paul would say, you know, men, take your shoes off while you're approaching the marriage bed because you're entering onto holy ground. And it and and it sounds preposterous, but it's this beauty of these two people being entangled in the sacrament of love, reflecting God's love. It's so crazy and so beautiful, and so many people have never experienced that. So that's all I'll say about it. Uh it's in the Claymore Battle Plan handbook, guys. Uh, there's there's three or four acts, we call them, on NFP and contraception, and so guys can read that contraceptive mentality and and see the beauty that you're alluding to. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:28

Uh, I think all of us can resonate with this with you know, guys we've talked to over the years. The theology of the body is such a gift because it really does portray the beauty of of our sexuality, of our sexual desires as God intended it to. Because I think so many people, you know, they've never heard it displayed in this way. Christopher West in Theology of the Body for Beginners talks about it's like we're driving around in flat tires. You know, people, they just don't even know, they haven't even heard the beauty of what it's like to see it in its full, in its full truth. I think so many young guys, especially with pornography and that culture, is I really resonate with, you know, the the culture kind of puts forth this idea that, you know, the Catholic Church has such a negative view of our sexuality that it's it's repressive, it's it's so bad. And that's why we say no, no, no. But really, through theology of the body, you come to see that it's not that it's bad, but it's actually so good. It's actually better than you could have ever imagined. Amen. You know,

Porn Culture And The Marriage Bed

SPEAKER_00 8:28

and it's and and it's when you when you hear it, you know, I was talking to a girl who's in her early, early 20s about this, about just looking for the right guy, trying to uh, you know, find find a good man, and just talking to, you know, how many guys do you think you know are addicted to pornography, addicted to online gambling, all this stuff. And it's like they they know that something's wrong. You know, they they know that this cannot be, that this cannot be it. And I think like you like you said, Jack, is so many guys, they don't really hear the good news, they don't hear the beauty of theology of the body, and you know, they go into their marriage and they never really be able to encounter that real intimacy and union with their wife and with God the way that He has intended. So I think it's it's just important and a good reminder to just always keep bringing these points up because there's so many men that just yeah, they they've never heard the good news.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

And I think this is gonna segue into Cooper's purgative, luminous and and unitive way. Because can you imagine how many young people, to your point, especially young men, have just extended this pornographic culture, the pornographic mind that they have right into their marriages. So so they're jumping into this marriage bed, not entering into holy ground, but it's almost like this is just something I gotta get out of me. It's just it's this lust, you know. And they missed, they really missed the beauty, the awe and beauty uh of what this is all about. Unfortunately, just wait, way too many people have never experienced it. No wonder that divorces and and and a woman after a while gets a headache. I'd get a headache too if I'm just feeling used. And even though in in the beginning they didn't see anything wrong with it, and later on they're going, ooh, I'm feeling an emptiness after a year or two or three or four of this stuff, right? So I think this segues into to Mark and Cooper what you guys were bringing to the table today, because this is a way to kind of almost get a reset going, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Cooper, how did you come to encounter just even learning about these three ways?

The Three Ways In Tradition

SPEAKER_02 10:35

I think we just hear about it a lot, especially if you're starting to if you're coming back into the faith as a as a young adult, you're probably watching videos and apologetic teaching from like Catholic answers or compliance with Aquinas or any of these very, you know, the ton of material out there. And very regularly you'll hear about you know, the purgative way, right? Or the unitive way, a limitative way. These three ways of the spiritual life. And so I think it was probably just kind of in the background with all some of the other apologetic stuff that I was listening to as I was re-learning and re-engaging with my questions about Catholicism specifically, genuine and somewhat Christianity at first as well. Um but the more you start to dig into like what what are the reasons we believe what we believe, then there's sort of a natural next step of like, okay, why do we live that belief and how do we live that belief in a proper way? How has the church always lived that belief? But that was kind of probably my initial is it was just kind of in the background of anybody that was talking about their prayer life or their kind of interior life as they progress toward union with God and they learn how to live those, live the beliefs out. Um, because you can't just know about the faith, right? This is where James says that even the demons know and they shudder. Um, but that if you know the faith, but you also work that faith out through love, that's where that's where you become a saint isn't because you can be you can be a demon and know everything the church teaches, but you have to live it. It has to get down to your heart and then out through your body and to your neighbors through you. So then I went a little bit deeper with it. A lot of a lot of books have been written kind of to introduce people to the spiritual life. That's where I then dove deeper into those three ways. Sure. But I hadn't quite heard like where does this come from in the tradition. So that's that's what I had kind of researched a little bit on my own, following footnotes of different documents and trying to find out like where does where does this come from from the church.

SPEAKER_00 12:30

Well, and maybe that's a good place, just given some of that background of where exactly this comes from in church history. But then two, maybe you could give just kind of a quick summary of the three ways, and then we can get into get into them.

SPEAKER_02 12:44

Yeah. So this uh this kind of it tickled me. It always it's I always love it when things are like I think they're complicated and they end up being super simple. And a lot of I think a lot of theology of the body is like this. It's like we're like, oh, but what's the details? And it's like just give your whole self to your wife and don't let anything get in the way. It's like that's it ends up being way simpler than I I always, you know, I I set out like learning trying to learn something complicated. So I started and this I'll walk you through kind of my method because I think it's useful for learning what does the church teach about this, right? Starting out with like the Catholic Encyclopedia, it's free online. Uh and so you go to the three ways, right? And then it quotes Thomas Aquinas, and then you can go to Thomas Aquinas and say, okay, what does he teach about it? And then who does he reference? And he references Gregory the Great, right? So you can follow the church kind of through uh the Catholic Encyclopedia is like a way more reliable uh Wikipedia page, basically. And they so it took me to Thomas Aquinas, and Thomas Aquinas is like I say there are these three stages because everything has three stages a beginning, a middle, and an end. And so I was like, that's yeah, that's as simple as an explanation as you can get.

The End Goal: Intimacy With God

SPEAKER_02 13:55

So we have the beginning of our spiritual life, the middle of our spiritual life, and the end of our spiritual life. And one of probably one of my soapboxes, I've talked to Mark about this a couple of times, is I think we we don't hear enough about the end. Uh I'm an engineer by degree, and you can't design anything if you don't know what you're trying to design for. And you so you you have to begin with the end in mind.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

And so I think it's important, Cooper, because when we're talking to young men trying to figure out what is the truth of things, they need that model, they need that goal, where we're going from a practical standpoint. Like, what does that look like? Okay, now that I'll figure out how to, to your point, how to get there. But I think too often we give them these these little tidbits of information and don't say, hey guys, here's here here's the end, here's the goal, here's where here's why you're battling along the way, right? So it is important for sure.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

Yep, and I I think for a long time, I think Vatican II is trying to correct this in a very good way, is to make the universal call to holiness, right? Which is also huge mission of John Paul II, right? Is holiness is for every single believer, right? For every single person on earth through through the church, and God's will is for everyone to be united to Christ through his church. And that includes it.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

And again, it's such a great point. You think about all the arguments about Vatican II now, and and that's the number one thing that they wanted to get across. I don't hear enough about that, you know. If we did that the number one thing is made it, yeah, there we wouldn't have the other problems. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:35

Amen. So thank you for that. Yeah, so and that's what and that's what draws me forward, right? That's what that's what John Paul II did through his theology body. He said, this is what marriage could look like, right? This is the kind of union that you can have with your spouse, and that is achievable. Let me tell you the steps, right? And so I think we can't look at the unitive way, which is the end of the process, through the purgative way. Like we have to we have to move that way, but that's not how we should understand what union is. Union is not just more purgation, purgation is a form of union. And I think if we get that right, and if we we start with the end in mind, and the best way to do that is just reading the lives of the saints, right? What does this look like in different times and different places? All right. And I can see a man who, especially some of these great saints, they go all in, and then we see Saint Francis, you know, announcing that uh, you know, God is his father, and then you see the beauty that comes from that, that radical giving of himself to the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 16:39

When we talk about unitive, this last stage, I mean, this is an intimacy with God. You know, this gets back to this everything we've said so far, that God wants that intimacy with you that's almost sounds too good to be true, but that's the very logic of our our faith, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Yeah, and the way the the way the church has phrased it, which has always needs clarification because it's that God made game man so that man might become God. Um we shouldn't we sh should understand that properly uh and that God is still other than us. Uh he's still he's still ontologically very, very different than we are. But um like Teresa Vavila, her definition of grace is that it's a created participation in the life of God, right? In the inner life of the Trinity. And so he wants us to participate in his being, and he is being himself, right? So we we we start to get all these signposts that say, like, hey, you're supposed to be completely and totally united with God without being annihilated, right? You're still gonna be you, but now you're gonna be you fully you through him and because of him, and you know, gospel passages where Jesus says, I'm gonna be in you, and you're in my father, and I'm in the father, and I forget the exact thing. That's what historically people have tried to symbolize with any depiction of the Trinity is this intertwining of the three, and what Jesus is doing is subsuming us in his own body so that we can we can be fully united with him. And so like that's the lofty goal. That's that's what I want to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

If you think about Jesus hanging on the cross or just Jesus' incarnation, that's exactly what he did, isn't it? He took on, in a sense, John Paul would say, he took on our humanity, and in a sense, he took on all of our humanity, united with divinity, and and so so this is already this radical coming together in the in the very incarnation of Jesus Christ, which he pours out to us and we receive uh in the Eucharist. He actually wants to give us a way to participate in that union right now. It's incredible, actually.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Yeah. And then you no go ahead. Well, one thing kind of on this, Cooper, is you know, there's a lot of guys listening to this, you know, who are part of this movement of Claymore, right? Where they're they're really they're coming to recognize these bigger questions in life. They're they're feeling drawn to what's true, what's good, what's beautiful, they're they're coming back to their Catholic faith. But maybe they're carrying a lot of a lot of things with them. And I think it's important to hold out there, though, as we talk about this this end goal. I think it's it's it's it's beautiful and essential to hold that out there as this is where we're headed. But I think too, it's also realistic because men, we need to be challenged and we need to be honest with each other. So what I'd say to you, Cooper, what I'd ask is, you know, you have these, you know, maybe some younger guys listening who are just starting on this journey. I mean, maybe let's talk honestly about like how difficult is it to reach this? Like, let's let's be straightforward about what does this path look like? Is this something that is just kind of the default and an easy path to go down as you come into the Catholic Church? Is this, you know, how how would you describe that from a

Why Growth Requires More Strength

SPEAKER_00 19:55

from an aspect of our own cooperation where our will comes into play with this?

SPEAKER_02 19:59

Yeah, absolutely. This is not it's not a path that gets easier over time. It's a path that makes you stronger over time. And that's this is one of the reasons physical exercise is so important is increasing your capacity for physical exercise. It it doesn't get easier. It only gets easier if you don't try to do new things, right? If you don't know that you can be stronger. But just because it's not easier to, you know, deadlift 600 pounds than it is 400 pounds, but it it feels easier if you're stronger, right? It's not it's not physically easier, it requires more force. And so that's it's something similar here, is like you're you're getting stronger, but you're also as your mind is conforming to God, you then see the world as God sees, and you also see where you are not currently in union with him. So this is a path that gets it gets more difficult over time, and the challenges challenges change over time, and there's also different plateaus, just like with weightlifting. If you're if you've ever tried to do a powerlifting regimen, there's plateaus, and you can't keep doing what you were doing to get up to that plateau isn't gonna work to get you past it. Um so there's there's gotta be changes in method, but you're still, and this is why you again you're starting with the end in mind, is because you can vary your method along the way depending on circumstances, but the end never changes. And it's so one of the the big shifts in thinking that I think has to happen from people who are just living in the world that we live in. We we often do things so we don't have to do them anymore. And this is how I view a lot a lot of people view retirement this way is I'm gonna work so I don't have to work, right? And it's like you don't do that with anything that really matters to you, right? You you work to create, right? In prayer, like in the spiritual life, there's no good spiritual practice that you're doing so that you can stop doing. It later. It's you're doing these practices, you're you're walking, you're beginning to walk this hard road, this narrow way, as Jesus calls it, because it's leading to something better. And you're taking the next step because there's steps after that, and then eventually there's there's the end goal of of our lives, which is that union with the Trinity.

SPEAKER_01 22:22

And I think it's you know the awe and beauty continues to open up. So you start to say, I want to I want to lift 600 pounds or I want to break the world record. And and you find you know other people that are doing this, and and you're putting yourself up to your point, you know, like an Olympic athlete. He he continues to train and it continues to want to break a record. And and so in this life, you you see the awe and wonder, and you realize, ooh, I came a long way, but ooh, there's something more. So so it really becomes because I don't want people to get the idea that it's just hard work, it's unfolding, and you're starting to see, ooh, look where I came from, look where I am today, and there's even more.

unknown 23:02

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:03

And it's it's not like that's no union, no union, you know, all of a sudden you have union at the end, right? It's increasing union. And that's because it's a relationship with a person. You know, relationships with people, you know, my wife, my children, right? They grow, they develop over time. There's ups and downs. You have to change, uh, you know, especially with kids. My relationship with my kids changes every day because they change every day. Um I can either expect more or I expect certain stages to be certain ways. And we know about child development, if if people are parents, you're very aware that your three-year-old is different than your three-month-old in terms of their will and resistance to doing what you want to do. So you're gonna, if you have that same sort of rough blueprint, right? Every every kid's different, every spiritual life's different. But if you have a rough blueprint, which is what the church provides, then you can you can kind of know what to expect at different stages at different times.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

Sure. Well, let's get into those stages. But I think I just want to say, I I think it's it's really good on the outset here too. I think that working out analogy is really good. I I think that's very there's a lot of great parallels there. But I think it's really important for guys to just realize that as you get going on the journey, I think there can be this temptation that that maybe can creep in subconsciously is like, look, I'm gonna start on this journey, I'm gonna work through these things that are difficult, and then I'm gonna coast. You know, I'm kind of like getting over, so then I can stop doing maybe these things and and life is just gonna get easy and simple. Yeah, and I think what what you're what you're laying out here is that as you progress on this journey, it doesn't mean that your sufferings would eliminate, that there's not gonna be challenges. I mean, union is still possible throughout all this, like you were saying. I think that's important uh to note that that it's not just like no union and then at the end you finally get get the union. But yeah, I think it's really clear I think it's important on the front end for guys to just know that look, we are in a battle and it and it is a lifelong journey. But this journey as you progress through these different stages isn't like, oh, I'm working hard, I'm working hard. So that one day I no longer have to work in this union is just like the passivity and total comfort. You know, it's it's something that we continually we keep, you know, we keep sliding the weights onto the bar, we keep progressing, we keep getting stronger, but it always is it's always demanding all of ourselves to for this for this union. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

So so let's dive in. Yeah,

Doctors Of The Church As Guides

SPEAKER_02 25:33

I think that's what I wanted to say about the unitive. Um, just because I it's hard to describe. Uh so that's what I'm saying. Look to the saints, look to how they spoke about their interior development, uh, confessions of Saint Augustine, Teresa's autobiography uh called Her Life. John of the Cross writes about a little bit, he writes about the journey and a little bit about himself specifically. And then just to point people to there's five doctors of the church that where most of this teaching comes from. I'm only have cursory familiarity with most of them. Um I'm kind of diving into John the Cross right now. But John of the Cross is the first one. So these are and kind of going back to the basics, doctors of the church are people that they've taught on specific aspects of our faith, and the church points to them and says, This teaching is for everybody. So even though you've got Carmelites, Dominicans, like uh Franciscans, Salesians, their writings on certain topics aren't just for their spirituality. The church is saying these writings are these are universal doctors, and these are universal doctors that specialized in the interior life. So these are sure guides forward to union with God. So John of the Cross and Teresa Babila, the two two big Carmelite doctors of the church. Therese is now probably in that same category. Catherine of Siena, that you mentioned, Jack, uh just a beautiful soul. Her dialogues are incredible. She and she's a lay Dominican. Uh Bernard, I think was Franciscan. Uh Bernard of Clairvaux has a lot of writings on interior life, and then uh St. Francis de Sales. Uh, and his introduction to the devout life is, I'd say, probably a must read for young men that really want to that are ready to take this seriously and and translate their head knowledge into their life. So he has meditations that lead people to kind of analyze their relationship with God, and then he has very practical steps, very practical advice about everything from the role that sports play in your life to dating and marriage, the prayer and attending mass and regular practice. Um, it's a very, very beautiful text that he wrote to a young woman. So, so those are the sources, right, for this, for a lot

The Purgative Way: Starting In Muck

SPEAKER_02 27:51

of this. So the beginning, right? So the the beginning step, everything has a beginning, a middle, and the end. The beginning of the interior life is the purgative way.

SPEAKER_00 27:59

Okay. So how would you kind of summarize and unpack this? What is the what does this stage look like?

SPEAKER_02 28:03

So the purgative way, uh, this is what I love about the church, is it encompasses everything. Uh so the beginning point of the spiritual life is about as you know, decrepit as I was, right? It's it's as mired in sin. You're you're in the muck, but at that moment that you look out of the muck and you you re or you realize like this is not where I need to be, you're now you that's the beginning, right? You you the church has a place for that. Uh you are now you're now entering the journey. So this would be basically you're you're habitually committing mortal sin with no real regard for it. You don't even know venial sin really exists. You couldn't even identify your own venial sins if you you know, if you could. You're terrible at suffering. Uh suffering bugs you a lot and you're trying to seek pleasure in all things. Prayer, maybe you'll shoot up a prayer occasionally when you're in a pinch, but like something really bad has to happen to you before you pray. Um, and then you're you're not really examining your life at all. Um, you're not looking back and saying, Did I, you know, how did I do today? Right? You're just not, it's not on your radar. All right. So this was my starting point coming out of college, definitely indulging in pornography, drinking way too much, you know, kind of want, you know, I wanted money, I wanted pleasure, I wanted to relax, you know, I wanted good things. It was helpful that I was broke, so I couldn't really have any of those. So that that that stopped me from being uh too ridiculous. But I've made some very terrible purchases. I was, you know, thinking with my feelings most of the time. And, you know, that was exactly my starting point, is what it described as just habitually mortally sinning and then looking at marriage and saying, if I'm gonna have this marriage, I can't stay the way I am.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

I love, first off, I just love the honesty, you know, of the church, which is you know, painting this picture of like, look, that this is a stage, right? And I've I've been exactly what what that is described, you know. And so I I think it's just beautiful because it's like, look, everyone has a place here in the church. You know, we're we're acknowledging that we all come from different stages and are stuck in different places. But the beauty is like, we don't, we don't need to be ashamed. We just acknowledge, like, look, this is where I'm at here. This is the starting stage. But I think the the next question that comes in, maybe a guy's listening is like, okay, I resonate with a lot of that. Maybe that's where I'm at. Where do I go from here? You know, how do I how do I start to even form my conscience to, you know, start to be aware of these mortal and venial sins?

SPEAKER_02 30:29

Yeah, because really that, you know, that first step is being aware that you're here. Right. And that that is the precursor. So if the first words of Jesus in Mark's gospel are repent and believe, right? And you can't repent if you don't recognize that you need to repent. So there's sort of a step zero is recognize the need for that. So that's that is a beautiful place to start.

Stop Mortal Sin First

SPEAKER_02 30:55

And it is kind of it is where everybody starts, right? You can't you can't get through adulthood without some miraculous graces, without starting at that point.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

So you you acknowledge you know, you're acknowledging the you know, the sin in your life. Kind of how how do you how do you progress? What's kind of these next next steps from that?

SPEAKER_02 31:16

The first step is you begin to fight. To begin a battle against sin, you have to recognize you're in a battle, right? So then you say, then you decide, right? This is this is the first choice you have to make is I'm going to stop mortally sinning. Right. So, you know, there's always the list of them, the most common ones that the church puts forward or that I probably I see around me is usually not going to mass every Sunday, uh, masturbation, pornography, uh, drunkenness, drug use, you know, some of some of these big ones that are very what I would say are very normal in the world and even expected in some circles, those things you have to begin to fight against those, and then get to the point where you don't do any of those things for any reason at any time. That would be the first step. Is is mortal sin. You know, the rest of these, like you can you can have venial sin, you can suffer poorly, you can really struggle at prayer, you can be terrible at the examine, right? Being bad at those things doesn't send you to hell. Mortally sinning does. Right. So in terms of if anyone's what's that?

SPEAKER_00 32:26

Priority-wise, we'll start there.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Priority one, don't go to hell, right? And so this is the first, the kind of the first step of purgation. If anyone's like worked in an ER or watched a lot of ER shows, right? There's a there's a strategy to how do you deal with somebody that comes into the ER and they're just, you know, but they've been in a car crash, right? You don't start bansioning up their finger if they've got you know a piece of a door stuck through their shoulder, right? You address the worst wound first. And what the church is telling us is mortal sins are mortal wounds that will kill you spiritually. And so address the address the deadly wound first and then get to the the other stuff, right? Don't get distracted, you know, you you'll you'll fall. But there's a clear line uh that the church draws between mortal and venial sins. So reflecting on that, if you're not sure, just stop doing the sin anyways, and you'll be fine. But those that'd be the first thing to address. So for me, and this was part of my part of my story that I I can't I can't explain why it happened, but I I stopped drinking on on a drop of the dime, and I basically didn't have any alcohol for eight or nine years and never plan to get drunk again. Right. That's that's kind of that's that's my commitment. I'm not sure if I'll have a glass of wine here or there or not, but like I this was and it was a miraculous thing where and it's because of my wife, and we had just gotten engaged, I got drunk again, had a terrible night, missed fireworks with her, and she was like, if this is what you're gonna keep doing, I'm not marrying that, right? And so that was it was that was an easy choice. And this this I think lays out the blueprint for the rest of the spiritual path is love is what pulls you through all of these stages. If you ever find yourself decreasing in love for God and others, then you are off the path. If you're on the path, you will continue to increase in love. And that love, God loving you is what makes you capable of loving him and others, and that will if you don't have love pulling you through this purgative stage, right? It's just not gonna happen. So that's what my my love for my wife and uh got a lot of God's help, because a lot of people, you know, I have other struggles that that aren't that have taken a lot of time for me to detach myself from. But one the desire to get drunk disappeared in an instant because of I think the love for my wife that God had placed in me. Like that it was a clear choice for me. So if your choice is love God or keep sinning, and your love is increased to uh a level, and if it's not there, pray for it to be there, right? You can he's the giver of love, and he wants that that's his main desire for you is that you love him as his son loves him. And if we do that, then these decisions do get simpler to make. Uh, they don't necessarily get easier, but that's that's gonna be the battle. Uh and the battle is won by the God who is love.

Love Drives Real Conversion

SPEAKER_00 35:34

I appreciate you sharing that. And it points to a lot of that I resonate with too, but within you know, speaking the language of theology, the body, where you know, Pope John Paul II talks about, you know, man finds himself by giving himself away. And so this opportunity where you know your wife is saying to you, look, you got to make a decision. And you you choose to instead of turning in on yourself, you choose to pour yourself out. You you you deny yourself to make yourself a greater gift to your wife. And I'm sure you could look back at this now, right? Because what happens when we have these vices and these attachments, now you had said you received this grace of just, you know, I I you know, it kind of took away that desire. And that does happen, but for but for a lot of guys too, maybe a common experience is there's that lie. It's like, I cannot give this up. I cannot picture my life without this, right? And there's this kind of fear and trepidation of like this, this, this vice that kind of closes us in. I'm sure many of us have experienced that. I know, I know I have. You know, I had a similar experience with just an addiction to chewing tobacco. I just couldn't stop doing it all day nonstop. And before I got married, I knew I resonated with what Pope John Paul II said. He said, if you are not free, you cannot love. And I knew that I wasn't free. I knew that this vice, this addiction, it was, it was restricting my life. It was just affecting my decisions and so forth. But and it's funny because leading up to that point, I had I had tried to quit so many different times. But it was this desire for my wife and her goodness that that pulled me out of out of that. Like it, I, you know, it was that love with her that that gave me the strength and and God's grace to to move beyond that. But it's funny now because you know, it's been you know, over a decade or whatever, it's been without chewing tobacco. And in that moment, right, we have these attachments and vices. And what the devil is trying to convince us is you cannot let go of that. You cannot let go of that. You need you need this vice, you need to stay in the path that you're in. And and there is that journey, which is, I think, one of the most challenging things in this purgative way is this death to yourself is hard. It it doesn't, I mean, death, there's no way to around it. You are dying to yourself, you are letting these things go. But I think that's why it's so important you said in the beginning to kind of hold this unit of way towards the end is like we are moving, like we have to hold on to that hope. Because there might be guys that are like, look, I got I'm addicted to pornography, I'm drinking way too much, I'm doing all these things. I I can't even picture my life without these things. Maybe there's this sadness there. But we have to hold on to that hope, even if we don't fully intellectually understand it or we haven't experienced that freedom yet. That, but what God offers us and that union is so much better. It is so much better than that beer. It's so much better than whatever that vice is, that the the pornography, whatever, whatever it is. And so I think something to just kind of highlight too is it takes a lot of courage to go down this path because you face so much adversity, especially in the beginning.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yep. And there's there's gonna be threefold adversity as well, right? Everything's in threes, but your the resistance to you coming out of sin, mortal, venial, anything like that, any any progress is gonna be opposed by the world, the flesh, and the devil. So uh John of the Cross says the world's the easiest to overcome, the devil's the hardest to understand, kind of what his tactics are, and the flesh is the most persistent. So I think that for me, that's been a a good layout uh is that because the world is out outside of you, so you can see, it's a little bit easier to see and be like, that didn't go well. That guy loved money more than his children, and that didn't work out too well for him. You know, this guy ran off with someone else. You know, you you can see people, and it's a little bit easier to identify, okay, the temptation, the temptation of the world, although it's powerful, more powerful at the beginning than it is in the middle and the end. But if you know, if you know the enemies, which are those three world, the flesh and the devil, then the church is going to help us identify tools, virtues primarily, that help fight against those attachments and those temptations.

Practical Helps: Prayer, Fasting, Friends

SPEAKER_00 39:56

So as we're moving through the purgative way, kind of what's this, what does this journey look like? And I one kind of practical question. I don't know if the the doctors of the church have touched on this. I mean, do they get into specific periods of time? Like, look, usually you're on the purgative stage for five years, ten years, or they don't even touch time frames.

SPEAKER_02 40:16

They don't touch time frames. Uh, there can be very grace-filled acceleration through certain things. Uh, there can be a lingering Teresa Vavila was in the convent for 40 years and says in her autobiography that she was on her way to hell before she started practicing prayer regularly. So she like I'm gonna reiterate that she's a nun in a cloistered convent in Spain, and she was attached to too many worldly things, even in that position. And so she she claimed of herself uh that she was on her way to hell. So and then she spent the rest of her life, you know, accelerating, again, you know, plateauing. Like there's there's a lot of different ways the Lord can bring us to there, but his will is still that union, the path for each person. He because he's a good doctor, he does not treat he does not treat everyone's wounds the same. Um, he's gonna cater your program and the circumstances of your life, everything is coming from him in order to bring you to union. So that's that's the beauty of it, but it might not look it's it's it's not gonna look exactly like everyone else.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

From a practical standpoint, when we're uh talking to somebody that's or people that are just coming back into this and and looking at this battle, the Claymore 10-minute morning ritual, the the second part of that, the first part of that is opening up your desires, right? So so you have these desires for tobacco or alcohol or whatever it is, uh pornography, is is not to kind of squash those desires, but to open them up to God Himself, redirect those desires. God, God doesn't want you to get rid of your passions and desires. You have to open those up, right? This is part of the purgative way. So, anyways, number two is praying with temptation. And so I just want to allude to that again. And in Act 11, if anybody hasn't read that yet, it shows you how to do that, how to take that desire. Mark wants this the the this tobacco. It's not just about white knuckling it, it's about opening that up to grace and say, I I God, I give you this time, this beating I'm taking right now with this desire, and I'm opening up to you. And it's amazing uh how important that is. And fasting is important. I fast on a regular basis because you're building up those virtues, those muscles, those spiritual muscles, Cooper, that you were alluding to. And just like weightlifting, you know, as you start to use those muscles, you'll see they'll start to grow. So I just want to give people hope right off the bat because you'll start to see the battle, first of all. You know, you until you try to stop something, you don't really understand the force of this battle. But as you win, you might fall here and there, but those periods will become longer and longer. You know, uh now I quit for a day, then I quit for a week, and then I quit for a month. And and so uh yeah, so so you'll see progress along the way. It's an adventure that you're on, and uh and and the battle's real, but you'll make steps, share it with some friends and stuff too, right? Go to Grace and then share it with each other and and overcome these things.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Cooper, one one kind of getting getting more practical, right? Going back to the the weightlifting analogy, right? So I think what can happen a lot of times is you is you start to have this conversion is you have this great fervor, right? And then you you run into your own poverty and you realize how difficult this is, you know, and to really have that self mastery, to really become who God has created you to be. And so how do we kind of balance? Because you know, back to the analogy, you know, you're you're you're benching 135 pounds and you're thinking, All right, I have all these heroic goals, you slide four plates on there, and you just get crushed. You know, what is that? How do you Kind of balance having patience with yourself of, you know, all right, let's slide 10 pounds on on each side and keep working because it is it is a journey, right? You don't just go from working out to hitting these crazy PRs or anything like that right away. It's this journey over years and years and years. So on a practical side, how do you encourage a guy of like to have these, you know, these lofty goals of wanting to rid yourself of sin and really move in this journey, but also being honest with yourself of not kind of sliding more weight on the bar too soon. You know, how do you how do you work through that?

SPEAKER_02 44:33

So the devil loves laxity, he loves extremes, right? And the virtue of being in the middle. He if he can't get you to be too relaxed about your sin, he's gonna try to get you to be too scrupulous about your sin, right? And so if you if you say, you know, before I didn't care, but now I'm gonna, you know, now I'm gonna care a lot and I'm gonna do all these things, and you're not you don't really have a guide, you know, you you don't have a coach saying, no, like here's remember what remember what we're aiming for, right? This is you're not trying to work out and then get injured and then quit, right? Or you're not trying to like do something too hard and actually you know not be able to do the volume of weight that will actually build muscle. And this is where a guide, a coach, uh, you know, somebody that's gonna walk with you along the way can remind you of what's best for you in the midterm to long term. All right. You you could try to do something for a you know, so you can post about it, you know, too soon or whatever, but that's not gonna help you. Uh that's gonna that's in for fitness, that's not gonna help you be stronger for the rest of your life for spiritual uh practices, it's not gonna help you into eternity, right? So if you're if you're working out for long-term bodily preservation, you know, that's a lot shorter than forever, right? Which you're trying to preserve your soul forever, moving, moving toward heaven. So I think that's having a guide to temper you. And if you're like, hey, I'm thinking about fasting four days a week now, and you haven't fasted before, like somebody wiser than this is this is why you want people who are stronger than you to say, nah, slow down, slow down. Actually, you need more rest. Like you're there's a point in in weightlifting, depending on the volume you're doing and the goals you're trying to achieve. You might actually be getting weaker because you're not resting enough. Right. So there may be a period where you have to rest in the Lord more. Like you you've been gunning for a long time, and the Lord keeps calling you and say he he pulls back a little bit. He's like, the way to get stronger right now is to let yourself rest, heal, you know, just be with me. Right? Those are those are all stages that that these doctors talk about. I love the practical.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

That's why we always encourage all of us to build community around ourselves, to bring friendships into ourselves. Uh it could be a a a guy initially that's just on the same journey as you, but you'll also find a friend that's going to be maybe a little bit ahead of you, to your point. And and so you encourage each other. So build community. Don't try to just uh do this by yourself.

SPEAKER_02 47:08

Yeah. Yeah. So this in terms of like your your benchmarks of mortal sin, venial sin, suffering, prayer, examine, sacramental participation. Right? Mortal sin, you're going that first step is and it's it's I think helpful to simplify it to this degree, is you're going from habitually saying yes to that sin to habitually saying no to that sin. And that means that doesn't mean that before you said yes every time, but you had to have a habit of saying yes. So when you're when you go to habitual saying no, like stuff can sneak up on you, surprise you, you caught off guard, bad day. That's for mortal sin, you go to confession right away, right? But for if you're habitually saying no, you're building the habit of saying no, right? If you're if you're going to the gym and you've got a plan to go three days a week and you do that 95% of the time, you're gonna make progress, right? It's not perfect, it doesn't have to be perfect for that progress to exist.

SPEAKER_00 48:04

We're moving from habitually mortally sitting to habitually saying no. We're starting to probably form an awareness of venial sin, bring in prayer into our

The Illuminative Way And Quiet Prayer

SPEAKER_00 48:13

life. What you know, as we start to work through this, let's unpack what this illuminative stage looked like.

SPEAKER_02 48:19

Yeah, so as we we progress, right? Habitual sins have ceased. We've fought all of those mortal sins, we've fought all those venial sins. We're now embracing the suffering as a gift from God that brings union. We're beginning to do that. We've created a habit of prayer. John Lacrosse says, you need to get to a point where you don't miss meditation and mental prayer for anything. No occupation. Like if you've got to get up 30 minutes early to do it, that's what you're doing. But you you get to a point where you you you were and this is where the love draws you in. Like, this isn't just grinding. It's I I love my Lord, I need to spend time with him. And if I'm gonna do that, I gotta get up early, I gotta take a break here, I gotta, you know, maybe, maybe it's start your work day 30 minutes later if you've got that freedom. You know, you're not you're you're not missing prayer for any reason, you're not missing your nightly examine or daily examine for any reason, and you have consistent and joyful sacramental participation, right? You you're drawn to the mass, you're frequently going to confession. That's when you get to this tipping point where through different means, through different, through different experiences, God will draw you into the illuminative, illuminative way. When God begins to share his life a little bit more directly, right? Before a lot of the grace is coming from meditating on the gospels, right? You're reading scripture and that's you're you're realizing things about him, right? You're spending time with him through the words that he's giving you. You're spending time with him through vocal prayers like the rosary and our fathers and creeds and through the mass, but you're beginning to rest a little bit more. And in the illuminative way, God begins to draw you more into quiet. And what he wants is to prepare your soul for union. And if you ever uh if you've read through Esther, there's this period where Esther goes into the court to prepare to meet the king, and they perfume her, and they put her on this regimen, and like all the he's about to, he's he's going in to pick a wife, and there's this preparation where they make her more beautiful, right? They they make her more illuminated, but it's it's a disciplined regiment. So that illuminative way is something like that where you're drawn into more disciplined guard over your soul, and God will, behind closed doors, make you bore more beautiful in preparation to present you to his to his son for union. So that that's kind of how I visualize it. But practically, that typically means that kind of toward the end of the purgative way, you're tipped in a lot of cases, it's recommended you'll like be going to confession sometimes weekly to address venial sins that are still sticking around. This is the beauty, because I don't think people think this way, is that God wants you to stop committing habitual venial sins also. I don't think people think that's possible, but God wants you to get to that point where you're you're you've dropped all of those and you're s and this is typically the time when you begin to pray without ceasing, as Paul says. Right? At the beginning, to pray without ceasing, you first have to pray at cer at frequent times throughout the day with a mental prayer examined. And so, Jack, I think this is exactly this is where the Claymore 10-minute morning ritual, right? This is it it lays the foundation for that. Like you can't pray without ceasing if you don't pray first thing in the morning. So you don't you don't miss that first moment. And then you wake up and you and then you love the first person you see, right? So then you learn, you know, how do I pray until I and I meet that person? How do I how do I keep God, how do I keep my heart's attention on Jesus as I'm loving the first person I see? Am I loving him through that person? Right? And then you continue to keep your mind and heart raised up to God. So like that's from what I can tell, that's what the illimited way generally looks like is a, you know, the the you this your sins are under control. You're very vigilant against sins, and then you're also probably more than like more than that, what's overshadowing your vigilance against sins is that you're falling deeper and deeper in love, and you're you're you're becoming your soul is becoming more beautiful because you're now detaching from all the all the old things, all the things of the old man, and now you're you're you're lighting up as the new man.

From Sin Management To Fully Alive

SPEAKER_00 52:35

Yeah, you know, I as you're saying that a couple couple things are coming to mind, Cooper. First is just the in the gospel where where Christ is talking about, you know, if you if you lose yourself, you find yourself. So this journey of kind of the purgative way, it it's not suffering for suffering's sake. You know, it's it's losing yourself, it's dying to yourself so you can find yourself. You know, something that we, you know, within Claymore, a great quote from St. Irenaeus has brought up is the glory of God is man fully alive. Like this, this really, I think it's just so important for men to realize is all of this is an invitation to be fully alive. Like sin is not proper to our human nature. Christ reveals man to himself of what it means to be fully alive, what it means to be fully human. Like I think it's important to hold that bar. Is I think a lot of guys might think, well, you know, I'm I'm I'm working on the big stuff, but I'm always just gonna struggle with this little stuff. It's like, you know, Jack, you always say, you know, Christ didn't come for just sin management. You know, we he came so that we could be fully alive. And so I think it's just uh it's just a great reminder and encouragement that it is worth it, but what we're going towards is is better than what we could have ever imagined. I mean, look at our lives, look at the look at around us of of just the dysfunction and the chaos that comes from, you know, marriages, husbands making bad decisions with porn, leaving their wives, not treating their kids well, not being uh honorable in their work, all the just just different chaos that comes. And just think about the freedom and the order that comes from someone who is living in constant union with God, who has rid themselves of mortal and habitual venial sin. I mean, I think when we see that picture, we think that is the freedom that we're looking for. I think that speaks to something in all our hearts is like that is it, you know, and the invitation of Christ that I always feel convicted with, because in that same journey, I know that I still have my own attachments, things that I haven't, I have not trusted God with is this journey is the pearl of great price. You know, you find that the treasure.

SPEAKER_01 54:35

These stages are not totally separate stages. As you start to to get into the purgative stage more, look at this divine mercy picture is behind me, right? Christ gets stuck with the lance and and water and blood pours out. That water is that nuptial bath that we're talking about with the purgative stage. We're we're actually getting washed, getting ready for the wedding feast. Christ is there now. We're already meeting the bridegroom. Like you said, Cooper, in the beginning, you saw your wife, you started to get in a relationship with her, and she put she she impels you to something higher. Christ will be there for you. It's that person will start to come in, and he'll start to come into your life as you open yourself up, as you as you become washed, you open up space for him. He's gonna start to come into your heart, into your life. You'll you'll see this. He's gonna be there for you. That divine mercy is being poured out. You see it on the cross. This is my body given for you. And so the relationship becomes closer. So, all along the way of this journey, this adventure, look at we have the claymore uh sword behind me. We know it's a battle. John Paul would say it starts right there. Everything starts on the battlefield of a man's heart between being a person of love and a person of lust, a person that starts to be filled with divine life and love and then pours this out around him. As you start to pour that out around you, you start to, to Mark's point, you start to give yourself away, you start to find yourself, and you see God in the other people. You'll you'll see it. It's an experience and an adventure. And at the end of the day, it's it's about beauty, and it's really about the beauty of authentic love. And and this is all starts with the desire. What is the truth of things? You know, what am I looking for in life? You start this, you just start this journey. Um, grab that uh Claymore Battle Plan Handbook, too, because for especially for guys that are starting to get into this, it's not a one and done deal, man. You're gonna have to continually fill your mind full of good things as you're along uh this journey, right? And and and find some brothers that you can share this, share this journey with. It's gonna be a good adventure.

Prodigal Son And The Eucharistic Feast

SPEAKER_01 56:43

And I'll tell you what, you know, we're talking about things that are really hard, but I as we go out, I want you to get your impression on this. You know, we say, okay, this is difficult. Oh man, why should I even do it? It's difficult. Well, I'll tell you what, you get to my age and you look back at your life, and you know what's really hard? What's what's way harder? Don't do these things and see what your life has ended up being. And you're gonna look back and you're gonna go, oh my gosh, I had this beautiful path open to me I could have taken. There's only two paths, really. You're either gonna start to aim toward this one, or that the Satan will take you down. Those three full concupiscence will get bigger and bigger and bigger. You'll be enslaved. You you'll never find yourself if you don't go on this path, right? It's either the broad highway, Jesus said, you know, and most people are on that broad highway. He was very clear about this. He said, very few actually find the narrow gate. But you be one of those few to find the narrow gate and then turn around and help the next brother behind you. You're gonna see a life unfold behind you that you could have never envisioned before.

unknown 57:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:47

Beautiful. Go ahead, Cooper.

SPEAKER_02 57:50

Maybe leave you with a couple of biblical analogies for people who uh want to sort of imagine, imagine the stage not as not as just stair steps, but as a at this fluid process, right? This is this is the life, this it's the life that God is drawing us into. Um so the first is anyone who hasn't spent time reading through the prodigal son that's beginning this journey. Um it is well worth spending as much time as you have available, praying with it, meditating on it, imagining yourself in there, in in that position, in the position of the son, but also in the position of the father, in the position of the older brother, right? Depending on what what draws you in most. But there's this, there's these stages, right? So the beginning is he he recognizes that he's feeding the pigs and he's and he knows it's better at his father's house. He said, Even the worst position in my father's house is better than where I'm at right now, right? So if you're in that position, rejoice, right? Your father is waiting and he's gonna run for you. He rejoices when he sees his son show up on the horizon.

SPEAKER_01 58:49

And he's been waiting the whole time. As the prodigal son turned, the father doesn't wait out here till you get to it to this perfect point. He he has been walking out toward you this whole time. And so, you know, Jesus on the cross, right? I thirst. He said the last words, you know, I thirst, I thirst for you. So he he rejoices when you turn around, when you make those baby steps. It's like Peter walking out on the water, and then he starts to doubt and he starts to sink, and Christ grabs him. Why did you doubt, right? But I'm here for you, I'll pull you back out of there. So, so uh yeah, beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 59:24

And then and also the next steps of the story, which the beginning gets so much attention, right? But sort of the illuminative stage, right? He's then dressing him in his robe, dressing him in his ring, slaughtering the the fat and calf, right? There's this there's this process where I mean it's a sacrifice. The father's sacrificing to give to give this feast, right? And then there's the feast, the unit way, like communion union is a you know, symbolized by the feast. So I just anyone who's coming back, you know, look look at look at mass as that meal that you've you've recognized that you're you're with the pigs, right? It's it's not going well, right? You come back, you go to confession, you give you you get cleaned up, right? They don't they miss that bath part, and it maybe it's in there, but he's gotta wash up before he puts those robes on, right? He's gotta prepare for the meal. So get go to confession, get washed up, put on the virtues that Christ wants you to put on, remember your baptism, and then come back to the meal. Uh and he he's very excited to have you there. Keep that in mind. Uh and when you see Jesus on the cross, uh, analogy for that that continual process that you go through to prepare your heart for union with God.

Take The Risk And Lead

SPEAKER_01 1:00:41

Cooper thank you. And Marcus, we're gonna we're we're we're gonna allow you to take us home, brother.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:47

I think the only thing that uh that comes to mind at the end is just that it's worth it. I think we're we're as you said, Jack, we have a fork in the road. We can either take the risk and sell all that we have and go down this road, or we can go down the road that the world offers us. And and I think it takes courage to do it, but but it's worth it, you know. And that's what Claymore is about. That's what these conversations are about is men encouraging one another to keep going down that road to sell all that we have. And and when you do all that, you'll you'll to find that reward, you have to be willing to give an appropriate risk and a total death to yourself. That is what God is asking of us. So go for it. Take the lead.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:26

Beautiful. Cooper, Mark, thank you so much for your time. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for joining us.