https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=dIKP8WvXTuU
Good evening and happy Laetare Sunday, otherwise known as the Sunday in Lent where the priest wears rose, which I did today. Unfortunately, do not have any photos of it, but you know, it looked generally okay. And I’m going to start off our little stream here with a little rant. This is some news that you may have missed from the National Catholic Register. That’s the good NCR. Here’s why a popular Canon Law website will have to remove much of its content. A popular Canon Law website, Canonlaw.ninja, is removing much of its content by Friday, March 17th to comply with a copyright complaint, which will leave the website without an English translation of the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law. The website, which describes itself as a resource for both professional and armchair canonists, includes an up-to-date translation of the Code of Canon Law with a tool that helps users easily find the information they’re seeking. Father Paul Hedman created this website when he was a seminarian and pays for the website’s upkeep with donations from users. Now, this story is near and dear to my heart for two reasons. One is I am a semi-regular Canonlaw.ninja user. It is a very slickly designed and rubbed website. It is filling a need in the church. And the second reason is that Father Paul Hedman was a year behind me at St. Paul Seminary and he and I are friends. And I think the Canon Law Society of America is behaving in a silly manner on this one. As Father Hedman says, prior to my site, the only place that the code was online was Vatican.va, which was out of date, poorly formatted, and unsearchable. I would also say that its 2002 raw HTML code look is charming, but yeah, unsearchable and poorly formatted. So Father Hedman was served with a cease and desist order from the Canon Law Society of America, which is the copyright holder of the translation. Now here is my take on this, is that I’m not even upset that they would do this cease and desist order. I don’t think they’re doing anything wrong. It is very clearly the case that the Canon Law Society of America is within its legal rights to do so. Producing a quality Latin translation is not free. It is not even necessarily cheap. What I am upset about with all of these lawyers is that they are missing a business opportunity. Absolutely a business opportunity. I think that you could get basically every Canon lawyer in the United States and a large number of priests and a considerable number of ordinary lay faithful to pay five dollars a month for a CanonLaw.ninjas subscription, giving you full access to the website. Five dollars a month. So let’s imagine that I’m correct about this, and let’s imagine that there is a market for this. Well, let’s say we’ve got 20,000 people in the United States who are willing to pay five dollars 12 times a month. That is 1.2 million dollars that Canon Law Society of America would be leaving on the table. Let’s take even a more modest number. Let’s take a mere 5,000 Catholics paying five dollars 12 times a month. That is 300,000 smackaroos right there. This right here is not a failure in Catholic cooperation. This is a failure in business acumen. I would happily pay five dollars a month to have access to CanonLaw.ninja because it was such a top quality resource, and I can’t imagine anybody thinking that this is a raw deal. This goes on to trigger a further rant in me about the status of a few translations and publications managed by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Here I have a little less sympathy for them. They have their own operating budget, and they in particular publish two texts that are integral to any Catholic life. One of them is the New American Bible, revised edition at this point. The second one is the English translation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. It is not uncommon for somebody to have published a little bit, few too many quotes from one or the other in one of their books, and all of a sudden they have to go scurrying to the lawyers over in Baltimore and ask them for permission to share the spiritual I’ve even seen this with emails, right? That’s a service that wanted to provide a Catechism of the Year email sort of thing. They got like a cease and desist from the U.S. Bishops Conference. This is, I think, a little more wrong than the Canon Law Society of America for two reasons. One of them is that the Bishops of the U.S. CCB is kind of a standing body. It’s a little bigger. I think it’s probably a little better funded than the Canon Law Society of America. The second is that the Bible and the Catechism is, that’s a part of like the public goods of the church. Those things should be made readily available to anybody who wants to use them, and I think that based on the number of Bible sales and sales to the Catechism, they can almost certainly recoup the costs of translation for themselves just on their regular book sales. So, when I’m Pope, all of this will be different. All righty. Oh, we’ve got a, we’ve got Xander here. Hello, Xander. How you doing? Doing all right. After the Synod on Synodality, do I get to vote for Pope? You got my vote. Maybe. You know, it’s, it’s, we’ll see. Is it okay for the priest to wear white on this day of Lent in celebration of Mother’s Day, say in Ireland? Is mentioning something like Mother’s Day okay in a homily, asking for a mutual friend? It’s Rose today, right? Yeah, but it’s, we got the Joey Day in Lent, so that’s it. Yeah, so I wore the Rose today, as I mentioned. So, here’s the funny thing about white is that white is your backup color, meaning white is always right. You can always, it’s always an option to wear there. Oh, okay. That’s good to know. I’ve seen it on a lot of feast days. Yeah, it’s normally, it’s Easter and feast days of saints who are not martyrs. Those are kind of the days that it’s for. And then other, other certain feast days like the Annunciation and all that. But it is 100% okay to, to wear it at all times. Now, I would not have worn white just because it’s Mother’s Day. Yeah, well, whoever is telling you, you need to question yourself whether they’re as well educated on the Turgical Law as I am. Because it’s, so, so, so this, why do we have this law? Why is it that white is always right? Well, this, this enables a few things. First off, when I’m traveling, say to some strange man’s house in South Carolina, I don’t have to bring, let’s say, three chasables with me in order to keep up with the different days of the, of the liturgical cycle while I’m celebrating daily Mass in his living room. And the second is that when you have something like the ordination of a priest, you can give everybody white vestments and no matter what day it is in the church calendar, white will be the correct thing to wear there. So, white is always right. However, I would not do that for Mother’s Day. And I think doing that for Mother’s Day is kind of, not the right thing. I think that any mother should be happy to see a priest wearing the rose vestments. And then the second question was, it depends on what you mean by mentioning something, right? So, if you were to lead off your homily, like happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there, let’s talk about the Gospels. I think that’d be 100% fine. I’m not here to tell guys exactly how they are to preach. During Lent, I would not have a Mother’s Day themed homily, but mentioning it is fine. Lots of people are going to lots of people are going to be celebrating that. Too much secularism in the church. We must defend the church against this heresy. I’m not going to draw the battle lines on Mother’s Day though. That is not going to be a winner battle line right there. That’s not the hill. That’s not the hill. There’s much better hills these days to defend and die on. Hypothetically, my cousin is highly jealous of me now, by the way. Perhaps you can visit New Hampshire next time. He’ll host you if you do church in his living room, apparently. Okay. I’ve never been to New Hampshire, never been that far north in New England. So, that’s what we got going on. So, all righty. That was a good listener question right there. That was the theme apparently. I’ll draw that line. Okay. Yeah. Fourth Sunday in Lent, you should be getting some pretty juicy gospel readings. This year, it’s the man born blind. I think in year B, it’s actually prodigal son. And year C is probably also something good. So, yeah, if that’s the main theme, I’m kind of like, boo, don’t do that. I got a question about the second reading for today. Sure. Well, hey, since we’ve got our technology here, I’ll pull it up on the USCCB. Okay. Yeah, we’re going to do the American readings. Yeah, Ephesians 5. It’s the same, isn’t it? Yep. I have 8 to 14. But it’ll be the new American Bible. Hopefully, I don’t get a copyright takedown for putting this on my live stream. Brothers and sisters, you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord, live as children of the light, for light produces every kind of goodness and righteousness and truth. Try to learn what is pleasing to the Lord, take no part in the fruitless works of darkness. Rather expose them, for it is shameful even to mention the things done by them in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says, awake, go sleep, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light. Okay. How is that? So it goes, yeah, it’s 8 to 14. All right. So it is there. Don’t clip anything out there because I was actually looking at the full Ephesians 5. And it’s interesting the context that it gives. It’s actually sort of like, it goes with my intuition when I encountered this more today. Like I thought it was interesting, like the emphasis on the fruitlessness of the works of darkness and the power of truth to expose them, right? Yeah, so if you look at the, look at from the beginning, it talks about the imitator. It starts off like the imitators of God. A New International version. What is that nonsense? Here we go. Yeah, so the context, do you think it would have been good to include this context here, to be imitators of God as beloved children and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us? And so that gives you the goal, and then that gives you what to walk away from. I like the sixth verse is the one that I really felt needed to be included. I’ll let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things, God’s wrath comes to those who are disobedient. Like the idea of empty words. I remember before I was talking to you about the separations of identity and essence, right? How you use so much, we use phrases there where the words have been separated from their essence, right? So they have no deeper meaning. And then we’re supposed to be told to just embrace the slogan, embrace the words and say they are true, right? Even though they’ve been disconnected from their meaning. Yeah, so what is the empty words? St. Paul’s talking about filthiness, nor silly talk, nor levity. Goodness, no levity, huh? Alrighty then. Instead, thanksgiving, no immoral or impure man or one who is covetous, that is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. So maybe these empty words are what are supposed to draw you into disobedience. Yeah, but yeah, I guess verse four talks about the obscenity, foolishness, coarse joking. I think it’s a list of things, right? And you have the improper for God’s… Yeah, so three, like they’re talking about a list of things. And then the empty words are listed separately. So let no one deceive with the empty words because of such things, God’s wrath comes to those who are disobedient. Yeah, so I think that that connects to words that are separated from truth, right? Hello. Right, which would be what… Are you back on the… What translation are you reading from? I got a revised standard version and dual rhymes. Oh, I know I don’t have dual rhymes up. I meant to have… It’s new international. What’s going on here? Yeah, yeah, that was in the link you gave me. I’m like, what an international version. That doesn’t sound like Xander. No, there we go. I gave you the wrong link. Here we go. Try this one. Okay, here we go. No man deceive you with vain words. Okay, so that’s it. Empty words is different than vain words, but that’s prideful words, vain, prideful. Well, which meaning of the word vanity are we talking about? Are we talking about the pride or are we talking about that it doesn’t bear fruit? Are those that separate? Because I know that sometimes I hear… Right, right. Like it was in vain did they hold the bastion for the peace treaty had already been signed, something like that. That’s a different meaning of the word vanity, which means we get to go to Bible Hub. Okay, I’ve never been to Bible Hub, but I’ve heard good things. It’s Ephesians 5 or 6. Yeah, we get to see what empty words is. This is great. Check it out. Bible Hub is a great thing. It’s probably maintained by evangelicals, which is just fine by me. You come over here, you highlight the word empty. Kenosis, apparently a primary word, empty. Okay, kenosis. Yeah, kenosis. That’s the word it uses there. So you could just do like a us like you don’t even have to click. It just gives you a Greek study word there. So yeah, yeah, it is empty is probably I don’t think vain is like a bad translation. Yeah, but I think you’re right. It’s not the pride. It’s not talking about the words in vain and futile. Futile words. Yeah, futile words. Futile, empty words, which is exactly Xander what you’re talking about with these identity being separated away from the essence. Because your words like if I’m going to make up a word that refers to something that doesn’t exist and could never possibly exist, and then start to use that word, it’s literally empty. It’s just this verbal noise with no proper signification that goes nowhere and means nothing. Yeah, it goes nowhere and means nothing. And you can see how those words can be captivating because people are captivated by slogans all the time. Well, if it’s got the promise of giving you power over something, then yeah, it is captivating. Yeah, but even then, I mean, okay, I’m going to throw some political slogans out here. I’m trying to balance it a bit and think of some that aren’t right, but Black Lives Matter, trans women are women. I think like you could say, make America great again, I guess, would be sort of a similar type thing where there’s slogans and they can be separated from deeper meanings, right? Or the meaning is not coming from the words, if they are, right? The words have been captured and are in sense of invocation of something else. It’s almost like when you’ve got these lying words and these lying ways of doing things, what you’re really dealing with is words that aren’t aimed properly. Yes. It’s like the aim of these words that I’m putting together is not to strengthen, like let’s take marketing. Yes, well, that marketing is because we have lots of this, right? Right, right, right. Marketing is the realm of bullshit in the strict philosophical sense, I’m not swearing. Yeah, and this is actually just on that. I think that religious people should be harder on marketing. It might be hard to do, but I think that a lot of what has moved society astray is that whole manufacturing of content that’s given a buy because it’s done for marketing, right? It’s done in the name of capitalism, so it’s okay. Sorry. Here’s the thing, it’s impossible to have any kind of a business without something that needs to be called marketing, right? Because it’s like, I have a product. You may even have a useful product. You may even have a useful, delightful product called CanonLaw.Ninja, which gives you an indexed and searchable English translation of the code of Canon Law. How are people going to know that I have this delightful product unless I tell them about it? So, you know, I’m not saying that our current society is well constituted in its relationship to marketing because it’s not, but I don’t see how you, unless your entire economy is more locally organized, right? Yeah, no, I think you’re right. Like in the old world, it’d be like you walking down the street and, oh, there’s a picture of a pig. That’s probably a butcher, you know? There’s probably a well-oriented version of marketing, but I think there’s something that’s become very… Parasitic. Parasitic and maladaptive and sort of taken on, well, I mean, in the, certainly in the Piagio sense, taken on demonic traits that is now called marketing, right? Where as soon as you hire a marketing firm, they’re not just going to stop it, giving people an accurate portrayal of your product and why they should buy it. They’re going to actually try and entice you to do things that are… And I think there’d be lots of companies that would just lie about things if there wasn’t any kind of civil penalties, right? Yeah, well, they lie anyways. They just lie about things that there’s no civil penalties for lying about, right? Yeah, yeah, but at least, you know, they can’t like, like there’s a law that if you’re advertising food, you have to actually show the food you’re serving. Yeah, insane. You can’t like take a Red Robin burger and use it in a McDonald’s commercial. But they still manage to like spruce it up enough where the bund is perfectly inflated and every sesame seed is perfectly spaced out and then they’ll cut it in the back and kind of shift it outwards to make it look bigger on camera. Yeah. All righty, we got some chatter going on in the chat. Evangelization could be seen as marketing and maybe that would be a model of healthy marketing and Mark coming in with the negative, it is not, but it is corrupted by it because they adopt marketing and economic frame, also materialistic, as their goal instead of commercial. Most marketing companies are just breaking laws all over, but we’ve stopped enforcing rules for so long it’ll be hard to fix this. Fraud is rampant. This is a meaning crisis. There’s our sunshine report from Mark. He’s not wrong though. Yeah, yeah, but it’s like, okay. Well, let’s say, let’s say, connect that phrase to the meaning phrase crisis, right? Is it is sort of a warning of more meaning crisis when you say, let no one deceive you with empty words because of the things that, things that the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Like it’s sort of saying that like, hey, if you, if the words are empty of meaning, if you surround yourself with words that are empty of meaning, you can create a meaning crisis. You will end up in this meaning crisis. And I always extend it to the flip side of the meaning crisis is an existential, an identity crisis, right? If you have a meaning crisis, you also have an identity crisis. Both sides of a being are affected. So you don’t even know who you are anymore. And I think, yeah, that’s very much where we are. And what you see our institutions flailing and falling apart, just dissipating because of they have this, it’s not just the meaning crisis, you also get the identity crisis. So you have things like Ireland sort of falling apart. I was just watching a video on the changes of, in changes in Ireland, were 800 years of, of being a bastion of Catholicism, sending out more missionaries than there were anywhere else in the world. And then like through, through poverty and starvation. And now it’s, you know, it’s, It’s after three generations, it’s completely collapsed. It’s collapsed. Yeah. Mm hmm. Maybe got Mark coming in. Identity is wrapped up in meaning. Both are a function of intimacy. Yeah. I say, I think I would, I would challenge it that that’s what Mark is coined intimacy is the, is really the love of God is the, is, is charity, right? Is that the connecting spirit between things. And that’s, that’s, that’s the, that’s what, that’s the glue that keeps the Trinity together. Why in, oh my gosh. Not that the Trinity’s in any danger of falling apart. Yeah. Yeah. But, but for the rest of us. We can’t embody the most Holy Trinity perfectly. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right. So this is, this is something I thought about actually a long time ago, like back when I was still in seminary is that people look for identity in the wrong places. So you could read Aristotle’s categories and he gives you 10 categories and people who weren’t trailblazers like Aristotle said, ah, you can reduce these categories to four. One of them is substance. And the other three accidental candidates, categories are quality, quantity, and relation. Alrighty. So substance pertains to the essence of a thing. So both myself and Zander would share the same essence along with Mark. And I’m not just talking about bald men. I’m talking about human nature itself. So you can’t locate identity in human nature, right? Because it’s like, I’m a human being and we’re all human beings. So, and the substance is out for, for, for identity. You could go with quantity. That’s a really, a really bad thing to try and find your identity and how much of me there is and how much space I’m taking up. It’s really not a suitable thing to find your identity in. But what about quality? And I think this is where people are going wrong is that they are trying to find their identity in a particular quality that they have. Right. So I, you know, you could say, Oh, I am a white male. Those are qualities that in here in my substance. And that’s true. I can’t run away from that. I have a white male. Therefore my identity, who I am is a white male. And therefore I need to, then usually this is, this is the empty words, right? This is the slogans. This is where you become susceptible to slogans because you’re not thinking clearly. Like, well, I guess that means I need to be like a white nationalist or something, or, or I need to not like myself and, and subjugate myself to every where, yeah. Where the, where the Marxists are going to take you with that, right? Where the Gnostics are going to, they’re going to bunch you into it’s like, yes, you identify with that white identity or that blanket, like that racial identity. So then you actually have to be an exemplar of, of the race, right? That is what that’s, that’s how you affirm your identity, right? That’s a, and, and, but then they get to play the game of determining what exactly it means to be part of that race collective. This is, this is called a vokism or folkism, right? And it is what the Nazis were going for, but it’s also, like there’s a cultural Marxist roots or there’s heavily, that was, that those ideas were introduced to cultural Marxism once it was reached that sort of level, that stage. And that’s where those identity groups come. And, but it’s, it’s, I think that, that there is maybe something there. It’s not, well, that maybe instead of trying to find your identity in something that’s an accidental quality of yourself, it’s going to be a relationship. Actually, I was going to say it’s, it would be the qualities that, that one aspires to is where you should really be aiming your identity. So to virtues. Okay. Aiming, aiming that’s relation right there. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Fair. That’s good. Yeah. Aiming, you’re aiming up. That’s a relationship right there. Right. But it’s like, where did you get your name from Mr. Miller? Right. Because that name that you get is an identifier right there. It doesn’t encapsulate the entirety of your identity, but it’s a core constituent of it. You get that from your father, which is a relationship, right? It’s not a quality and it’s not a quantity and it’s not a substantial category. It’s a relational category. Okay. So virtue is not a quality then virtue is a quality, but, but what you said was, was your, your, your identity. And I, I correct me if I’m wrong, but when you said was your identity should be your aiming at virtues, which you don’t have yet. So even that right there is a, a, a function of relationship, right? Yeah. Relationship to an ideal, which exists outside of you. It’s not a quality because otherwise you would be Christ, you know? Yeah. I mean, so you can see it’s a relationship at like that. So yeah, cause they’re sort of like the platonic ideal of, or like the, of, of the virtues, but that they, cause what you see the Marxists do when they create this folkism, right? So if you, it’s not enough, is that folk, F O L K it’s, it’s like, it’s, it’s folkism, but it’s like, it’s, it’s like Vogue cause it’s German and I don’t, and then it also counts. It sounds like woke, right? Yeah. Well, yeah, that’s not like woke, but it is. Yeah. All right. But yeah, I, I think it’s like the V it’s like, it’s V O L folkism. Yeah. No, no, no. That’s, that’s just the, it’s where we get the, we get the, the English word folk from the German Vogue. Yeah. Yeah. Vogue-ish movement. I think I, I am, I’m sending a link in the chat without actually verifying that this is the thing, but I think this is the thing. Vogue-ish. Vogue-ish movement. Yeah. I’m not going to broadcast this swastika today. Yeah. It was Wikipedia in case anybody was wondering. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I mean, you can look at all sorts of, all sorts of people who are getting lost in identities that aren’t identities, right? They’re just taking a quality that they may or may not have and amplifying that and saying, this is my identity. And we’re getting all this weird behavior around that. Yeah. So, one of the things I think that the, these cults like the Marxists and other cults do is they take our, they, they take our nature or the actual truth and twist it. Right. So what, what we should actually, where we should be finding identity is in virtues, but they take these accidental traits and then make them into something that apes the virtue. Right. So it’s not, so like say it’s, it’s, you’re really, you’re really stuck on this virtue thing. And I don’t know if that’s, it’s the right place to locate it at. You don’t think that the identity should be? Yeah. And I think, should be connected. I think virtues are great and we should pursue them. But like, what happens if, let’s say you weren’t raised in any church and you were raised in a really bad household and there was nothing in your environment that was conducive to getting virtues. And then you find yourself lost in your mid thirties and all of a sudden you realize you have no virtues and it’s like, well, do you have an identity at that point? And I think virtues are a quality that in here, in you. And I don’t think, cause identity, you need to be able to sort this person out in regards to every other human being on earth, right? Cause we’ve identified human nature, human nature. We can do that quickly and easily once you’re old enough, establish an I-thou relationship. And it’s like, okay, what about this guy? Well, this is Mark, Mark LeFavor. Alrighty. So we now have a name for him and we know that he’s got some kind of crazy French background. What else do we know about him? Well, we know the different relationships and his kind of his status in society and all those sorts of things. So I think, I don’t think virtues is the place to find it. What you can find is that you can find groups of people all pointed towards the same virtues and values or at least a common aim. So as Mark would put on his fabulous YouTube channel, Navigating Patterns, is that a church is a community for protecting a highest value. That’s what a church is, protecting and promoting a highest value. Just one though? Yeah, because the other values come underneath it. You’ve got to have one on top because otherwise the thing can’t cohere. Yeah, but the one, they have to emanate from the one on top, right? So like, in that case, yeah. But once you’ve got the one on top, everything else will find its way into its way. And so, but it’s like you’re identifying, you’re identifying, let’s say, the members of this particular church based on their mutual relationship to that one highest identity, that one value or virtue that they’re holding up as being above all. And that’s how you identify them. And it’s like, well, that priest didn’t really live out Christian values. And it’s like, yes, you can identify, you know, let’s say some jerk priest who’s really rude to a waitress and didn’t leave a tip. No, he wasn’t living out Christian values. He absolutely was not. Yeah, so I think I’m still 100% that every identity that’s a true identity and helpful is, is founded in relation. It’s not found in any kind of quality. So, and maybe you could still, maybe we could maybe make it like what I was, where I was going though, and maybe the Marxists make it into an identity though, right? Because I make it into a relationship because they say you need to be, you know, will dictate what black is. And even, and like once you, once they have buy-in that this is your identity, then they sort of raise the bar and say, well, you have to aspire to be our kind of blackness, which means adherence to our political ideology, right? So that’s where they get like the you ain’t black thing. If you don’t vote Biden or you ain’t black, if what’s the Thomas all well, isn’t black. It’s amazing that Joe Biden got away with that. Yeah, it’s, he has an amazing, he’s just Teflon, Teflon, nothing sticks to him. Yeah, right. So they’re starting, they’re starting off with something bad. Well, they’re starting off with the accidental characteristic, right? So incident, relationship is still an accident. Relationship is still an accident, right? Oh yeah, it could be. Yeah. Yeah. But it is an accidental quality. Oh yeah. It’s excellent quality. So something is sort of a quality and saying, well, you, you are this thing, right? You can identify with being this thing. Okay. And now we have you on that hook. We’ll, we’ll raise the bar and make it into sort of a pseudo or false virtue, right? Where now we have, we dictate the terms of, right? So it’s, yeah. So in order to, you are black, but in order to stay black, you have to agree with all our opinions and go to our rallies and, and do what we say. Otherwise we’re going to throw you out of this, this identity group that you have, you know, we, we brought you in the door by just noticing your accidental quality. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s kind of a Mott and Bailey then it is right. Cause it’s like, Oh no, you, you belong to this group because of this characteristic that you have, but in order to stay as a part of our club, you have to orient yourself around a value that is not the highest value, but we’re going to treat it as the highest value and it’s going to cause destruction everywhere. Yeah. And that Mott and Bailey like goes back to like, that’s one of the dangers of these, of the empty words is that they can be used to create Mott and Bailey’s quite quickly and effectively because there, there’s no underlying essence to the thing. There’s no foundation of the thing where you, one can appeal to, right? And this is, I mean, one of the reasons why I, I ended up in Catholicism was like, I, I’ve been running for over a decade now from the wave of the woke, the woke, right? I’ve started just running from hell. Like I saw the devil and said, Nope. And started running in the, the wave of woke has just been crushing the institutions behind me. And I’ve noticed that they don’t have any foot, so many institutions because they have no foundation. Like they’re based on, on empty words, right? They can just be so easily consumed by the woke who can play their little Mott and Bailey language games and consume the identity because they, the weak, the connection to essence is so weak, but the Catholic church, because it has like this deep tie to tradition and, and, and, and, and, and this liturgical connection, I think, which is stronger than just like the more propositional hermeneutic connection that the Protestants use to, to, to connect to, to, to Christ in the word that you have the, there’s, there’s, there’s some strength in the, in religion. There’s at least some, there’s some foundation where I can, you know, I can plant my foot and start pushing back against the wave of the woke, right? I feel like there’s some sturdy ground there. Yeah. He who hears these words of mine and acts of them on them are like a wise man who builds his house on rock. The rains come and the floods came, but he, his foot stand firm because he was set on the rock. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s, it’s these words of mind that you’re acting on, right? Real words, solid words that give you proper orientation and the right, the right work to do. Yeah. And not the empty words. Identity is not also entirely up to you. This is a deeply selfish, individualistic viewpoint. They cannot have truth. They are stuck in their head. That is exactly right. Identity is negotiated in a community. That is the only way to make this work. So I didn’t make myself into a Catholic priest, right? That wasn’t something I just carved into myself by my own work, but I received that identity literally kneeling in front of the bishop and having him lay his hands on top of my head. Generation after generation, that all goes back. And there’s the, that’s, that’s the community, but there’s also, I think, like I would say the relationship with God too. Like there’s a wrestling with God to, to get your identity as well. Not necessarily the priestly identity I’m taking here, but just in general. Right. Right. Because you, you have to receive that from God. You just, you just have to. You just straight up have to. There’s no way around it because God’s the one who created you. God is the one who put you in your parents’ home. He put you in this continent at this time and place. He’s the one who’s placed all of that for you. And it’s like, that’s literally everything that you have and everything that you are was given to you by God. So it’s like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I think there’s part of my parts of my identity that aren’t given by God that may run afoul of the community’s hopes or desires for me. Right. Or yeah, that, that, you know, that, that, that sometimes the community tries to shape people in ways where they just can’t be shaped. Or for good or for ill. Well, I’m, I’m thinking of John the Baptist as part of it. Well, sure. He still had a relationship to the community though. It was just, he was on the outside yelling. Yeah. But I think that that’s important. And I think that that’s actually, and this is, did I, did I talk about, I have the red book. You know, the red book. Oh yeah. I know the red book. Everybody knows the red book. Everybody. I bet you Mark doesn’t know the red book. Yeah. Mark doesn’t know the red book, but okay. So in the red book, they have the old right of penance, right? Penance is what it’s called. Where we start, we start the mass with the right. Yeah. Yeah. The confedier is we don’t normally call it, but that’s a part in the old right of the prayers at the foot of the altar. Okay. Where’s, oh, I mean, I can, do you find it? Do you have the, the old, I’m looking at prayers in front of the altar. I have, oh, ordinary mass. You do a prayer. That’s what you’re talking about. Yeah. That’s it. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. And you’re establishing, you’re establishing that relationship with all the saints. Yeah. But before Vatican too, they specified some specific saints. And I think that there’s, there’s some important balance there that’s been lost. Right. Holy Mary, mother of God, St. John the Baptist, St. Michael the Archangel, St. John the Baptist and the Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, which gives you a breakdown. You’ve got the Theotokos. I’ll go ahead and use a little bit of Greek every now and then. And I know Lance is watching and I know he’d like that. Then you’ve got the highest or the captain of the Lord’s angels. That’s Michael. Yeah. And then you’ve got the last of the prophets, the Old Testament, St. John the Baptist and the Holy Apostles, Peter and Paul, the brothers who founded the Roman church, where from our Roman right comes from. Yeah. But they’re like, if you get into the, the, um, pageau, like the right and the left of Christianity stuff, right. So that’s, that’s one of the reasons why you have Peter and Paul being that right and left balance there. And also, but I think that, um, Mary, well, actually Mary and Michael sometimes, but also Mary and John the Baptist. Yeah. Right. Because Mary and John the Baptist are both, uh, both of the, the, the, the gospel start with, um, uh, Gabriel prophesying both of them, right. They get going to Mary and saying, you know, you know, you’re going to have the son and, and, and going to Zachariah and telling, and him not believing it. Yeah. Even though, even though giving women who shouldn’t be having any children to have children, like it used to puzzle me, it used to puzzle me why. It puzzles me too. Yeah. Why would Zachariah not? No, no, no. Why, why Mary’s questioning to Gabriel and Zachariah’s questioning to Gabriel were treated so differently. And then I’m like, duh, because God had done what he was promising to Zachariah before. And he was a priest and he should have known that. So why did he doubt? But with Mary, they were doing something new. Yeah. There wasn’t any old testament, uh, prefigurement of that. But like, you think of the situation though for Zachariah, like I, he deserved, he deserved some comeuppance for, like, it’s like, he was a just punishment, right? It was a just punishment because he’s like, no, so he’s, he’s the, he’s not only any priest, he’s the high priest has been selected that year to go into, uh, behind the altar and in the temple, like the one man for the entire, you know, the entire year at the one time of the year where this is allowed. Um, and he followed and there he encounters one of God’s archangels and the archangel gives him very specific instructions. And he says, no, I don’t believe you. You are literally standing in the Holy of Holies right now. Oh yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds a little far fetched to me. My wife’s going to be pregnant. Come on. Um, but where was it? Yeah. Well, well, but that, that John the Baptist side of the Holy Spirit, I think is what’s, what’s missing so far, right? Is, um, um, like, so it, it takes, so one of the, the more remarkable things about John the Baptist is he was, he was so very good at evangelizing, even though he was out in the wilderness, right? He was out in the wilderness and people would come to him to be baptized in water. And he was certainly not telling people things they wanted to hear. There was a complete rejection by John the Baptist of all the worldly things. Right. And that was, um, and, and that would, people would respond to that. And I think like Jordan Peterson touches on this in a way, like when he, I don’t know if you’ve seen this, his message to churches, but he’s, he has a beautiful thing that he says to about young men. He says, expect more from, if you want to bring young men into the church, expect more from them, not less. Right. And that’s, that’s connected to this, right. Is this idea of, uh, it, the, it’s the exact wrong response to start trying to ape the world and think that’s going to bring more people into the world, bring more people into the church. Instead you have to, if you want to bring people, um, into the church, if you want to actually have evangelized effectively, you have to be more like John the Baptist and bring them out from the world, have them bring them out to the wilderness and baptize in the water. You don’t, you’re not, you have to speak the truth come what may. Right. Yeah. No, no, no. You’re, you’re, you’re singing, you’re, you’re singing, say what I want. You say the world promises you comfort, but you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness. Right. Well, that’s a good way of putting it too. And I, maybe Benedict the 16th had the best way of putting it, uh, second to our Lord himself, at least for our, our, our century here. Uh, said that at world, you know, the context, he said this, it was the world youth day, right? Oh yeah. Youth day, 2010, you know, so it’s like, oh great. We’re now all figuring out what Benedict let me figure it out. Yeah, no, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a, yeah, it’s, it’s a good way of putting it. Um, but, but also, I think that that’s a big part of, of prayer and, uh, and the fasting of why they’re so effective and the, of lent, like, um, is fasting, especially is designed to help, help us achieve the discipline to, to separate our identity from comfort. Right. Because that is actually the, that’s the, because that is actually the, that’s actually slavery is like when you, that’s the ultimate slavery, slavery to one’s pathos is the ultimate slavery. I don’t, I mean, you’re familiar, Jocko Willink at all. I like Jocko Willink a lot. Discipline equals freedom. He has this whole thing. Good. Yeah. Good. That guy. Yeah. But he, he has a discipline. Good. Yeah. Your lent is a complete failure. Good. Get up, pick up, you’re not getting any support from anybody. Good. Yeah. Um, yeah, but, but yeah, the, uh, but, but that, that discipline equals freedom is, is that’s the discipline to follow Christ. That’s the discipline to do what you ought, what you know you ought as opposed to do what you are, what is comfortable or what, you know, what, what you want, like what you, what you want to do, what your pathos would, would drive, drive you to do. Right. Um, and that’s when fasting helps you, helps you separate your entity, your identity from that and, and see that you’re, you’re, you know, like as Benedict said, greatness, right? You’re, you’re, you, you are designed to follow virtue. You were made for greatness. You’re made for greatness. Yeah. Again, that’s, yeah. And that’s what people I think don’t see about, um, worship when they, when they hear, often when people hear that you’re worshiping the Lord and they say, well, God made us to worship him. And they think, oh, that sounds like what an egotist making us to worship him. Right. Or, right. Like, but it’s, it’s like, no, that means what you’re looking at it the wrong way. He’s looking at us is, is to aspire to be, um, the greatest possible thing. We’re aspiring to worshiping God means aspiring being the best version of yourself. Yes. Or expiring, always aspiring to greatness. Yeah. Instead we can actually see, uh, what we are doing with all of our time, huh? Google, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram. Oh my, okay. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, none of it. Oh, oh, what about, what about prayer? Where’s the hollow app on here? Yeah. Oh, oh no. Wikipedia is beating pornhub. That’s, that’s something. Yeah. But it’s not beating porn hub, that’s videos and all the other ones combined. Yeah. I I’m surprised being is on there. So well, that’s what duck duck go uses. Is it just pings being, and then puts a layer of security on top of it. Are you really? Oh man. You’re, you’re pulling back the curtain here. Father. I did. I was not aware. I just know that. I don’t know how I know that because there aren’t really that many search engines. Cause I think getting a really good circuit engine is a pain in the butt. Think about how ridiculous it is that Google can find the exact website you’re looking for. You know, like, like when I found that Benedict the 16th quote, I said Benedict 16 comfort greatness. Boom. Pulled up exactly what I wanted. That’s a trick right there. That’s a pretty cool trick. Yeah. We can give a few props to, uh, yeah. And it makes, it makes more sense that that’s what, what duck duck ducks going duck duck go is doing because when they said that they’re developing a new search engine and so forth, it’s like, well, like how does the startup do that? Because there’s so much resources in infrastructure that goes into that Google trick. And I it’s a piggybacking off of Microsoft makes a lot of sense that that’s okay. Yeah. So that’s, it’s a mutually beneficial business arrangement. I’m sure. Yeah. Yeah. As long as it pumps those Bing numbers for sure. Yeah. Even, and, and all those people who would never pumps those Bing numbers for, for people who never in a million years would willingly use Bing. Yep. Yep. Yep. That easy. Yeah. So I, what kind of things are you doing in, in, and I don’t, I’m not trying to put you in the spot, but just maybe in your, your parish or in your diocese to reach out to young men. Oh, we’re running Catholic schools. It’s so as I’ve got all these dreams, I just, it’s hard to actually make a dream into a reality. You know, it is. So I have this, I have this solution to the meeting crisis dream that we would just, who do I? Companions of the cross. Have you read this book yet? I have not. There’s always more books. Well, this one is, it’s really cool because it’s all about, you know, his journey as a parish, the Holy Spirit, getting out of the way of the Holy Spirit journey as a poet, parish priest, not only like restoring a parish that was on the rocks, but then starting a new Holy order. Mm hmm. Right. Yeah. So, so, so this is, this is just been something I’ve been thinking about, right? Is we just got to find work that almost anybody can do that needs to be done. I don’t want to deal with a whole bunch of background checks and I don’t want to deal with a whole bunch of training because both of those take time and they’re barriers. And for some things it’s worthwhile, right? So like people who are going to be doing Wednesday night catechism class, it’s like we need the background checks of the training, right? Cause that’s something that needs to be done. No background checks or training. And then we just, we just advertise to the most degenerate parts of the internet, right? Like all of your TikTok, all of your Instagram, what are the kids looking at? Well, geolocated in Fargo and it just says young men need it, right? And then maybe it’s got like a cool picture of somebody manly doing something manly and that’s it. It’s just young men need it, right? Put the message out there. We’ve got something for you to do. And then we just show up and we put them to work, right? Yeah. And so, you know, it’s like young men needed, ah, we’re not doing a background check. We’re going to be picking up garbage today. That’s what the young men core is going to do. And you’ll just sign up for like an email blast. Yeah. You, uh, I’ve got, uh, I’ve got Mark’s approval. So have you, um, have you looked at this man as you at all? I’ve seen a few of those things. Okay. Um, but I’m not all that terribly. I mean, it’s a good formation program, right? From what I saw, they’re watching one of their talks. The talk was on anger. The guy was decently well-educated and was giving solid practical advice on how to not let the anger get ahold of you. Um, so that’s, that’s what I’ve seen of that man is you. So there’s a couple, I mean, I’ve talked to a couple of the guys who’ve recommended running the program. One of the most recent was when I was on the, uh, uh, pilgrimage walk on Friday, uh, there was a guy there who was like, he said like, oh, you know, it, it, it, it changed his, his whole Catholic life. And now he’s a, um, an organizer or like somehow involved with the group. And, um, and he hooked me up with the, the, the Canadian, Canadian organizer by email. I haven’t responded to the email yet, but one of the things that, uh, you know, that struck me is they, they try to have their events early in the morning, like before men start their day type thing. And they have them like with breakfast and a video. Um, so men who are already busy can, can participate, but also sort of gets people up early in the morning too. Right. Which is like something that Jocko Willink. There’s something, there’s some camaraderie that can come about when everybody’s meeting at six. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like, uh, we’re all kind of tired right now, but I’m up out of bed and there’s a, there’s some masculine energy there. I don’t think, uh, Ard Hon, honey. Oh, Ard honey. Oh, do you think I’m pronouncing that right? Xander Ard honey. Oh, hello. Ard. Yeah. Your dad’s been enjoying it. Although he said most people dropped out after a point and he feels like they missed all the really useful stuff. Okay. Good. Now that’s why you got to put the really useful stuff at the beginning, not the end or mix it in between. So people can sort of say, oh yeah, there’s some good stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, it’s just worth, worth coming for. It’s not, it’s not all filler. Um, but yeah, so I’m going to, I’m going to look more into that. Our Arthony. Oh, it’s Sedar. Yeah. All these new words. What is Sedar? Sedar. Oh, it’s a J R R token language. I should have known that with the green. Yeah. Okay. Oh, nice. Okay. So it’s a Rohirin thing. I guess. Yeah. Yeah. I’m guessing from the green, the horse. Yeah. It’s the language of the elves. Okay. No, the gray area elves of Belarriand. Just put it in the last, then I’ll be able to pronounce it just fine. Right. Latin pronunciation guide for Tolkien. Super Catholic nerd. Yeah. Well, you know, where is my Latin to Tolkien translation book? You know, most of the, uh, most of the homeschooled kids I know, it’s like there was the Bible and kind of most of the time in second place, but at times in first it was Lord of the Rings, you know? Yeah. I can see that. Um yeah, yeah. So I think that this man is you, is worth checking out. At least I’m gonna, I’ll check it out. I will check it out and report back to you, Father Eric. Yeah. Oh. I’m not. Um. Here. Oh, hello. We are. Arthoniel. Arthoniel’s here. Emma’s gonna school us. Hello. Hi Emma. I’ve never done one of these before. Okay, great. Okay. I like your chair. This will be recorded forever and so if you make any mistakes, they’ll live on it. Well, if Chris is watching, I’ve given away my riddle, so. Okay. I like your chair. Oh, thank you. I like it too. I’ve been lurking on his streams as just Arthoniel for a couple weeks, so it’s the Elvis translation of my name. Oh. It’s my screen name for most things, so. Yeah, yeah. Very good. You said you’ve been lurking on whose channel? I didn’t catch that. Grim Grizz. And like everybody else too, but I started actually commenting on his for whatever reason. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. How did you find Grizz? Probably the, I mean, Jordan Peterson to Paul VanderKlay Pipeline and then Paul VanderKlay keeps, kept talking about him and I thought it was interesting and yeah. Alrighty. Are you a student or? I am. I’m a graduate student. Okay. Studying anything interesting or? Latin. Latin. Ah, okay. And Greek. And Greek. Well, the classics, right? Yeah. I hated Greek though. The verbs were just awful. They are awful. I have to take a like huge test on them in like a month. Yeah. A lot of the irregular verbs. Is that what it is with Greek? I’ve never learned Greek. Even the regular ones are just stupid complicated. Yeah. There’s like six different forms of every verb. Yeah. Sometimes they just don’t resemble each other at all. At least not according to any logic. My Greek professor was an absolute stinkin’ genius. He was Polish. Father Tokarski. And he would just be like, he would like, he had all of these Indo-Europe, these reconstructed Indo-European language roots memorized and he just memorized the transformations they went to get down to quite a Greek. I had a professor who did that too. It doesn’t work for me. I don’t want you to memorize Greek. I want you to fall in love with the Greek language. So I didn’t. I fell in love with that. It’s got a little more use for me. And if I ever need to do the Greek, then I’ve got BibleHub.com. Do all the Greek for me. Alrighty. Very good. So your dad’s been doing, that man is you, huh? Yep. And it’s at like six in the morning on like Thursdays or whatever. All right. And what it, both like, and so he has positive reviews. Do you actually also see him growing in his faith or any sort of positive change in him? I’m not at home anymore. Oh, okay. Because I’m in graduate school in a different state. But whether it’s that or, I don’t know, general growth, he does seem to be, to have been growing over the past couple of years, which is good. Good to see. Yeah. You don’t want to see, you don’t want to see people get stuck. Yeah. Even slow growth. And he was stuck for a little while. Yeah. So that’s good. So we’ve actually got two, that man is groups running in our parish. Oh, nice. But one of them’s on Wednesday nights and that’s our kind of our catechism night. So I’m always busy with my seventh graders. And then, yeah, the other one’s Thursday morning at six. And usually after the seventh graders, I’m not looking forward to getting up to Thursday morning at six. So how’s, how are the Knights of Columbus in your? They’re reasonably, reasonably active. I think they’re, you know, all of these organizations, no matter how well run, they’re going to have like, they’re kind of, they’re going up and kind of they’re going down. They’re going to have to rebuild again, sort of thing. So I think it’s, it. Well, they have their own, like the, you know, Pajos is going to say that they have their own angels, right? But they have their own identities and they have their own being that has to be maintained. Right, right. So I think, I think we’re, we’re getting to a point where, you know, the head of gold isn’t, isn’t quite there and it’s, it’s moving down. It’s not quite as like, like, I think they just need vision and I think if they had the right vision, everything would click back into place. Like here’s the good work that we’re doing. Right. And it’s, it’s just, it’s just not there right now. And because like a, like a silly person, I scheduled our R CIA classes on Monday nights. When they meet, I haven’t been to their meetings in months because I’ve been busy doing R CIA. So it’s like, I was asking like, so like father sites, the guy who’d been doing R CIA has cancer now. So it’s your, your responsibility now. It’s like, okay, I’m not doing it on Sunday afternoon for two hours because Sunday afternoon is, it’s not the right time for that. So I want to do it on Monday or Tuesday. Is any one of them better? And they’re all like, I found out that Tuesday would have been way better for multiple reasons, but it was Monday anyway. So it’ll be Tuesday next year. Yep. It’s not going to run for that much longer anyway. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Could you outsource it to someone in your parish a bit like R CIA? I don’t necessarily see that the parish needs to be doing that. At least it should be keeping an eye on it, but. Yeah. Well, the problem is, is I actually really enjoy doing it. And it’s, I feel like it’s a great use of my time. I like teaching and I don’t know how to do it without like teaching things. Cause that’s what I’m actually able to do. You know, I can’t just go in there and convert people. I’ve got to leave that for the Holy Spirit. So, so I think I’m going to keep on doing it. I do have some people helping me. So on a few occasions that I haven’t been able there to run class, they can, they can do it. But it has, yeah, it is mostly just been kind of, kind of me running the classes. So yeah, yeah. Talking about confession and the right thing to do tomorrow night. Nice. So here’s my, my, my pitch for the rekindling of the mission of the Knights of Columbus. Right? So the Knights of Columbus were originally founded. And I, I’m a bad Knight because I keep up for it. It’s Father McGivney. McGivney. McGivney. Father Michael, Venerable Michael McGivney. Venerable Michael McGivney. They’re founded by Father, by Venerable Michael McGivney to protect Catholic families. And at that time, the threat to Catholic families was the fathers, the heads of the household dying doing the jobs that Catholic immigrant men were doing at that time. Right? So they were dangerous jobs. And when the Catholic men died, they, their wives would end up as the sole provider, their wives would end up in the poorhouse and their children would end up in orphanages and often end up with Protestant families. Right? So the idea was that we, that we would create a fellowship of Catholic men to protect families and ensure that the Catholic families would, in the event of one of the brothers dying, that the, that the families would, the other men would cover over and ensure that the family could take together, take, could make a whole. They did this in several ways. One of them was, is that they founded a life insurance company that all the members would pay into. Yes. Which still, I, I get my life insurance through the Knights of Columbus. So, you know, if I were to die, my funeral expenses would be pretty well covered. I don’t have anything else that really needs to be insured. There was a, there was a second threat to Catholic men at that time was secret societies. Right? Because these secret societies, they were in kind of your, like, breakdown, industrial disease, drab drinking. Yeah. We could. New England towns that were pretty miserable. These secret societies provided men with fellowship and like that mission, that sense of belonging. And they were the ones who like basically invented life insurance, as far as I could tell. I think we could, we could, we could do another shout out just to this point to the Ephesians 5 pronouncing pagan ways. Yeah. Reading that we, that we’ve sort of been our theme this evening, but the secrets, because that’s, that also sort of connects to the secret societies. But yeah, so continue on. Some of these secret societies were explicitly anti-Catholic, like the Freemasons. And they didn’t want Catholic men joining them because like, I don’t want my family to starve to death if I die. It’s like, that’s a real problem for people. So they basically just came up with the Knights of Columbus for the Catholic men. It’s got that insurance, that insurance thing. And it’s also got the secret society thing, which was really hot in those days. Yeah. And the reference to Columbus was a bit of a FU to Protestants who were sort of implying that Catholics don’t belong in the Americas. Yeah. So he was a real, a real, a real Catholic American hero before. He should still be. That might be like, might be down the list of missions for the Knights of Columbus, I think is- Promoting the legacy of Christopher Columbus. Yeah, restoring the legacy of Christopher Columbus. But good luck, but I think you should. Yeah. I think the first, the first thing though is to go back to that theme of protecting Catholic families, but just reorient it towards the threats that our Catholic families are facing today, right? Which are divorce and men and weak men not being able to start families and provide for their families in the first place, right? Weak men sounds harsh, but I think that young men are lost and see no hope in establishing the things that would, building the foundation to actually have the families that they desire, right? How am I going to even start or provide for a family or, you know, and build that institution? And I think that we could, that that’s a very noble calling for the Knights today, and that would reinvigorate the Knights. And maybe speak to young men in a way they haven’t, that they’re not currently doing it. Emma, is your father involved with the Knights at all? He is. I don’t think so. Okay. I know my husband was looking at it, but hasn’t like gone beyond that yet. I think it, you know, you just never actually get around to doing things. Yeah. At events, you know, all these councils are built different. Some of them, they got all sorts of stuff going on and they don’t have any trouble, you know, because they’re doing stuff. It’s the doing stuff you actually have to start with. Some of them are doing stuff more than just doing a pancake breakfast, although no complaints whatsoever about pancake breakfasts. But if all you do is pancake breakfasts, that’s not enough. Yeah, it doesn’t feel, it’s not an aspirational calling or an inspirational calling for most young men to help with the pancake breakfast. I’m sure there are decent amounts of fun to put on, but that’s like the sort of thing that you do to do other things. We actually went to a pancake breakfast this morning. There was one at… The nights of Columbus. There was one on one of my parishes today, but I was in transit back from Ottawa, so I didn’t go. But I think that’s, yeah. But connecting it, I think the night should be doing the kind of things that you’re sort of suggesting with cleaning up. But I would actually try and… What I wanted to get the nights doing is actually, like you were talking about the training as being an hindrance, I would actually see potentially the training as the draw, right? And this isn’t a super well thought out thing, but it’s sort of on the theme of like the talk that Scotland gave at Thunder Bay. Guys tend to hang out. I have the most fun with my friends if there’s a project. If my friend Eric, not Father Eric, but my friend Eric, calls and asks me to come over and just watch a sport, like an MMA event, where she sometimes says, I’m like, but he says, you want to come help me fix my porch? I’m all over that. That sounds like it’s like, because we’re going to be doing something. As long as you know that this guy’s going to reciprocate, right? Yeah. Because if this guy’s just a giant mooch, it’s kind of like… Yeah, but still, it’s fun to fix stuff together. Like when I was with Mark and we put a door on in his house, so my guest bedroom would have a door. That was fun. And then I had a door for the rest of the time I was there. Yeah, those kind of things I think are more attractive to men. And I mean, Camille Pagla, I don’t know if you’re familiar, you should be. Her talk with Jordan Peterson is probably one of my favorite videos on the internet. Yeah. I mean, honestly, she’s kind of all over the place. So like sometimes she’s dead on, another time she’s just like… Yeah. One of the… Stupid, stinking hippie. Yeah, but she’s super smart. You have to say whatever her flaws and that, she is super smart. And one thing the way she described growing up Italian Catholic is how the women would congregate in the kitchen, right? And the men would congregate outside and they would always, always have like the hood of the Ford up, right? And be like surrounding the… See, that’s back when you could work on your own engine too. Yeah. But they would all… The men would draw the men together would be the project, right? The figuring the thing out together, right? A barbecue grill could still do that, you know? Yeah, barbecue grill can do that. But I think that to bring the men back in, the Knights need to connect… A strategy the Knights could use to get, bring the men back in and restore the vitality of the order would be to connect to that, like get that project focus. And I don’t really know how to do it at this time. I don’t have like a clean idea of how this could be accomplished, but I feel like… Yeah, just we want it. If you want to get young men out, tell them that you’re going to show them how to build a shed, right? We’re going to build a shed for brother Nick and you’re all invited and we’ll… If you don’t have tools, we’ll supply you some tools and we’ll show you how to how to scaffold or put up siding or something, right? So what I mean when I said no training, I meant no like, oh, you have to go through this workshop first before you can do anything with us. But I don’t mind on the job training. That’s, you know, it’s like, oh, you’ve never used a power drill before. Let me teach you how to do a power drill. Yeah, but I think that can actually be the attraction for young men, right? That can actually be like, oh, you’re actually going to show me how to do this thing. And then I know how to do the thing if I ever get my own house. And even showing people how to save up for a house or something like that. Well, see how that goes. But yeah, these are the kind of things I think… It will connect to men more and maybe like get Emma’s husband over the hump, right? If you can actually like say it’s like, oh, I can actually learn how to hang drywall by going to the Knights of Columbus meeting. And then when I actually need to… Aug like build smash with other augs. More augs, better augs. Yes. Go to spell with one G though, Mark. Aug the king of Bashan and all the kingdoms of Canaan. Yeah, no, that’s what we need to do. It’s just I’m too lazy to do it. That’s the main problem. How many of my life’s problems are all summed up by that? Yes. Give it to the Holy Spirit. Give it to the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Yeah. Get out of the way. Give him permission. Give him permission. Yeah. Stop trying to do it yourself. That’s basically how RCIA worked out for me. I didn’t… I’ve got like 13 people coming into the church this Easter. And none of them… It’s just like they just showed up. They just showed up. And as far as I could tell, it’s like they’re all doing it for real solid reasons. Yeah. Oh, hey, here’s another bit where Mark happens to coincide with Catholic theology. Stop trying to do it yourself. Yeah. Without me, you can do nothing. I am the vine and you are the branches. Yeah. Have I talked about the Companions of the Cross Christ-Grucified Prayer? I have not. Okay. This is the prayer I start every day with. I actually got it up just snooping around the Companions website. And they had a PDF that had like their Christ-Crucified Prayer and their Marian Entrustment Prayer. You could make it into prayer cards. And then I went out to Staples and got them laminated. And I made a bunch of them. The Marian Entrustment Prayer is more like Companionsy, really sort of targeted. You got to be a priest for it. Um, so I don’t say it as much, but the, uh, I like the Christ-Crucified one. And I’ll, I’ll just throw it out there right now. Oh, Jesus Christ-Crucified, reigning now as risen Lord of all creation, fill me anew with your Holy Spirit and lead me by your power and wisdom. I choose you this day as my Savior and Lord. I take up my cross and follow you, uniting myself to your passion and work of redemption. I surrender myself completely to you and give you full permission to do with me as you will. I love you, Jesus. Use my life to extend the triumph of your cross. Amen. Amen. Yeah, I like that. It reminds me of the Surrender Novena. Surrender Novena. Okay. I’m going to check that out. I don’t know who like wrote it or anything, but I’m part of a like women’s group at my church. And that’s like part of the study book we’ve been doing. It’s the Surrender Novena right now. Surrender Novena. Okay. I’ll go that up. I think I’ve already found it. Is it this one? Uh, yes. The daily prayer changes. Yeah, changes every day. Yeah, that’s the one. Well, this is one of them short novenas. Well, this is one of them short novenas. It varies a lot day by day, but. But there’s, yeah, there’s not a lot of little prayers to it, which is kind of nice. Okay, eight prayer, eight and a half prayer. Answered prayers from this novena. My financial problems were solved. My husband won a good amount of money as well. The Lord healed me of stage four cancer. I needed a job after praying this novena several times through his grace. I found true liberation and indescribable sense of peace. And yeah, offered me a position that more suited for my experience and before pay. So, Surrender Novena has results. Proven results. That’s what’s important, right? Well, actually. If Catholicism gave you nothing, then you shouldn’t practice it. Because that’s my definition of a cult is a religious community that takes far more than it gives. Yeah, well, I think that’s that’s indirectly sort of my definition of a cult too, right? Because I think that the cults are a theological, anti theological religions, and true religions are theological in nature. And Catholicism being sort of above the rest because it’s the one where God’s working back the other way. But what makes a theological religion, it’s a religion that is striving towards God, like striving towards the transcendent. Whereas an anti theological religion is they’re trying to block the connection or disrupt the connection to the transcendent, so they can actually take control of you or society. So, but the result of that is like the reason, the practical side of connecting to the transcendent is that you get that this transcendent is associated with this generative loop. And I think that’s really the body of Christ, right? So, there’s that what the the Eucharist is, is, you know, is the embodiment of that, but how this is sort of projected in non-Christian or pseudo-Christian symbolism, right? You have things like the the cornucopia, right? Or the the plorin of plenty, which is always providing more. This is also this is describing the Eucharistic relationship. The other one would be like the the fountain of youth, right? It’s like we’re sort of the eternal life, right? Like Christ, you know, often says in my life, I provide you eternal life. You would come to me and you would receive living water. Yeah, the living water. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do we actually talk about that last week? That was like one of last week’s last Sundays. It was only a week ago we had that. Yeah. The Samaritan woman. We have to talk about the Samaritan woman sometime, Father Eric. That’s such a beautiful reading. I’m here every Sunday night. I might even do this on Easter on Easter Sunday. I’ll be tired, though, because I’ll have the Easter vigil the night before, which I’ll be the main celebrant of. Never been the main celebrant of the Easter vigil before. Yeah, it is exciting. And then I’ll have the 9 a.m. mass the next day. And then we’re doing a solemn mass. And I think I’ll probably be the deacon for that one. Traditional Latin mass, really nice vestments. Oh, and I’m going to be tired. Is there amplification in your traditional Latin mass? Only for the sermon. OK. Yeah. See, this is where I think that this is one of the positive things of the Vatican, too, that I think that the traditional Latin mass, like this side could learn from or benefit from. It’s the things like bringing in amplification. I would really like to hear the priest when he’s performing the traditional Latin mass. I know it’s not. But then there’s the conversely, like, and I think I saw Father Goering say this, sometimes to the Aquinas, like what he wanted to see brought back from the traditional Latin mass or just before pre-Vatican, too. And he said right away communion rails. And I was actually in his church yesterday and on Friday, and they have communion rails. They don’t go all the way across the sanctuary, but they go over, like, they’re there and visible and very nice. And it’s good to receive communion at the communion rails. I think there’s something that’s more divine. And also, I’ve noticed this, and I think this is actually partly because of the communion rails. I may be wrong about this, but having the communion rails there, I noticed in St. Mary’s Parish, people sit in the front row, right? They sit in the first pews right away. And I don’t see that in other parishes. And I think that the communion rails actually putting a barrier between the sanctuary and you. We’ve got the holiness contained here. Yeah, we’ve got the holiness contained. Fires are going to come out of heaven and consume you. Exactly, right? I think that it’s sort of like that. It’s sort of like having a hockey game without the glass. People don’t want to sit in the front row anymore. Interesting. How close are you to the sanctuary making that barrier? Yeah, I want the barrier. I don’t like… I want the barrier there between me and the sanctuary. It is. It is. It’s based off the… You’ve got the Oldie of Holies, and then you’ve got the Court of the Priests, then like the Court of the Men, the Court of the Gentiles, and then the world. And we need to just put the dividing lines up because everything isn’t all one. It’s all different stuff. Also, not that this should necessarily be a motivating factor, but communion rails make communion distribution much more efficient. Yes. Yeah, they actually… And the way they do it at St. Mary’s that I like is they still have priests who are if you want at the hand, you can do that. So they have the express service, but then the people who want to receive on the tongue go straight to the communion rails and they can be done quickly as well. So it’s also a very efficient distribution system as well. So I find it much more… Much is maybe not the wrong word, but I’ve had the most… Oh, yeah. I think I’ve had the most… I mean, the posture that your body is. Most connected, yes. Yeah, most connected. You’re embodying your worship in another way. Another way, yeah. Right, because you’re like a baby chick. That’s what you all look like. Like baby chicks. They’re just feeding you, you know. Yeah, I’ve gotten used to the communion rail at my home parish. Every time I visit my parents or go somewhere else, it’s really awkward. Even when I don’t have communion rails, I still go kneel in front of the priest to receive communion, but it’s not the same. It’s not quite the same. I’m always afraid I’ll trip or fall over and maybe knock a priest over and that would be worse. I haven’t had that happen yet. But I haven’t been a priest all that long, so there’s time. How long have you been a priest? Two and a half years. Wow. So you really became a priest during COVID? Yeah, no. On the bottom of my chalice, it’s engraved June 6, 2020, and it was actually August 8, 2020. But we didn’t know that when we were getting the chalice replated. So yeah, it was just one of those special things. But it ended up being my bishop’s birthday that I got our day done. Oh, that’s cool. Nice. Happy birthday, bishop. Here I am. If he ever sees the live stream, he’ll know the significance of the present he received. I think he realized it. He got three priests that day. I think there was much rejoicing. Thanks. I was watching the stream a couple weeks ago, and you mentioned being in Michigan in Christ the King Catholic Church. I never actually went there. Not that you were there, but hearing about it. That’s where I got married, actually. Alrighty. So I’ll ask on a YouTube stream. So my wife’s anniversary is coming up. Not just your wife’s anniversary. I would be involved in that, too. I’m thinking of asking her about… She’s still an atheist, but I’m interested. We’ve been doing some things. So she’s doing the Alpha course with me. And we’ve been doing Father Mike Schmidt’s Bible in the Year podcast. So she’s curious at this point. And I’m not trying to push her with anything, right? But she does have a legitimate desire to know what is this guy getting into. Exactly. So I’m interested in, in the future, sanctifying our marriage in the church. And I was interested in talking to her about, like, sort of proposing that on her anniversary. But I don’t know if I can do that until she’s baptized. Is that the problem? Yeah. I mean, so you can go there and have the priest give you a blessing on the day of your anniversary of your wedding. That’s easy. That’s no problem. It’s a real marriage. I mean, neither you have had ever been, like, married before you married each other. So that’s, that’s super easy. So you could just say, hey, Father, it’s my anniversary today. Could we have a blessing? And any priest who’s got any sense whatsoever will be delighted to do that. That’s the fun part of work. When it comes to actually sanctifying your marriage. So on the potential but very happy occasion of your wife’s baptism, your marriage would be upgraded to a sacramental marriage. Yeah. Right. By the very fact of baptism there. Okay. Automatic upgrade. Automatic upgrade. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. Because I think that because it’s a natural marriage right now, which is a real marriage. It’s got the real, you know, it’s got the four goods and the essential properties, you know, unity and indissolubility. So I’m not talking down on it. It’s just you need to be baptized in order to receive a sacrament. Okay. So. So there isn’t actually. Okay. So because I’ve had my sponsor was like who was sort of my godfather when I went. He actually, I think his wife is baptized though, but she’s not. I don’t think she’s confirmed. Okay. And he went through some process to sacramentalize his marriage because he wasn’t married in a church. Okay. Well, that’s different, right? So was he was he born a raised Catholic? Yes. So he would have had an obligation to get married in the Catholic church or to go through a Catholic process to get married in another church. Okay. And so and those circumstances, he needed to get his marriage validated by the church. Okay. That would either be doing a Catholic ceremony or something magical called a radical sonation. But it was probably usually in those circumstances, we would push pretty hard for the for the Catholic ceremony. Okay. Yeah. And I’m doing that for like three couples right now. Okay. So that sort of thing, you know, they come back to the church and they’re like, how do we do this? And it’s like, what was your anniversary date? Let’s do it on that date. So you don’t have to worry when your anniversary was. But for you and your wife, neither of you being baptized, neither of you being Catholic, anywhere that you would have exchanged marriage vows would be like we look at that. We say it’s a natural marriage, right? We’re not going to say that Muslims or Jews or atheists can’t actually get married because they’re not Christian. Marriage is a human thing before it’s a sacrament, at least chronologically. So we would have looked at your marriage and say that was a legitimate natural marriage. You guys are married. So there isn’t any need to validate it. Okay, that’s good to know. Yeah, in case other people had the question, Father Eric with the answers. That’s why that’s why I’m upset about Canada Law Society of America taking down Canada law dot ninja because I’m kind of into that anyway. Okay, but and then it’s and it’s so there won’t have to be any validation, anything as soon as she’s about she doesn’t have. Okay, I guess is it. So you guys are married. Okay, I’m going to be a little nerdy now because I guess now as an adult, you go through the RCIA program to be baptized and then you’re baptized and confirmed in the same ceremony. But it’s the baptism, not the confirmation that that sanctifies the marriage. Okay, and you are sanctifying your marriage right now, actually. I mean, maybe not right now, right now, but but as your your status and St. Paul has some things to say about that in the first letter to the Corinthians, which I could it’s like one Corinthians eight or something, eight or nine. When he talks about the believing one believing spouse and an unbelieving spouse. Okay, so with that up right now. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. For a second, because I think it’s it’s somewhere in like that first Corinthians six to 10 range. And as a Catholic who apparently doesn’t read the Bible, I feel pretty good for getting that close. So I never know the numbers for things. I can sometimes tell you like roughly where they’d be, but I don’t know the numbers. Because you you just remember hearing it in church, right? And it’s like, oh, yeah, that was a reading in church once. Yeah, I know, like this story happens right after this other story and like right next to this day. But like, I can’t open the Bible point to it, but the chapters and verses are all fake. That’s what we have Google for now or duck duck go. Because you could just be like, oh, man, here’s a here’s a fragment of a Bible quote that I remember. And duck duck go knows what you’re looking for. So yeah, don’t worry about it. The numbers, Mark, I don’t even know how they did it before the numbers. I could you imagine just like that somewhere on the scroll of the prophet Isaiah, you know, I got this big scroll, tons of tiny comments. I think I watched a whole like Trent Horn episode about this, actually. Yeah, the numbers were like early middle ages for the chapters, because it was standardized by the time you get to Thomas Aquinas. Oh, that makes sense. And the Vulgate. Yeah, but he described it as like Protestants know the Bible, like the mailman knows a neighborhood, and Catholics know the Bible like a kid who lives there knows the neighborhood. Interesting. Well, that might be true some of the time. Yeah. But yeah, but I think that that’s I don’t know. What would you think? Like the way I described is, is that the Catholicism is more liturgically focused and and and Protestantism is most part most this is all sorts of Protestant. When you see Protestantism, then you know, there’s you’re talking about a thousand different. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But sort of the mainline Protestantism is more of this is hermeneutically focused. Would that be? Well, I mean, you can think of it this way is that our our tradition is the hermeneutic through which we read scripture. Right. So we don’t have to like, I would I don’t want to say we don’t have to think about it as much because I do an awful lot of thinking. But it’s more like the foundation is already laid for us. Right. And you can you can just look at the continuous practice of the church. You can look at the statements of ecumenical councils and popes and of approved theologians. And that gives you an idea of what other people who have been taking this seriously thought. And if you’re in line with that, or at least not contradicting it, then you’re probably OK. Right. So it’s yeah, it’s like, I think the best way to put this is that the only context to read scripture in is ecclesial. What do you mean by ecclesial in that framing? I was using like the nerdy Christian terms without defining, but ecclesial is one I still don’t entirely understand. Yeah, churchy, churchy. Yeah. OK. All right. We’ve got a third bald man on the stream. Hello, Michael and bearded bald and bearded. Yeah. Hello. Compensating for something with the beard. Right. Hair line recedes. We’ll grow hair where we can. I’d put it there. Yeah, I’m just I’m following orders here. Yeah. Exactly. So this is back from my atheist days, but I had this they had this whole theory of of why religious like so many religions had headwear was because they were run by by men with receding hairlines. Right. Especially what really made me suspicious was the whole yarmulke that the Jews have. It was just like looks like very strategic for covering the bald spot. Yeah. The Zuchetto, which is kind of like the Catholic equivalent of a yarmulke was specifically designed to deal with tonsured men. OK. So you would you would go to the seminary or the monastery and they would they would cut the tonsure on you. And it’s like my head’s cold now. So they would put the Zuchetto’s on. Well, the the tonsure, though, too, is just is also sort of like you could think of it’s the older men telling the younger men, you knew the haircut like me. I think like literally it’s it what it symbolized was humility. Right. Like we’re just going to cut the hair off even if you have it. And then and it’s like it’s really it’s really intense when they do the ring where they cut it down below because you just look ridiculous when you do that. But yeah, so anyway, Father Eric, have you had a chance to listen to Sam and Father Stevens Convo? I have always very always very stimulating conversations over on Transfigured Channel. All that theological nerdiness can’t get enough of it. So if you’ve got any questions on anything in particular, I might remember. But yeah, no, I usually catch just about everything Sam publishes because I find it interesting. And challenging. So how are things, Michael? Good. I had a question for Father Eric based on something Jacob put up on Twitter the other day. OK. So he had had a criticism of the word love within a Christian context and the manner in which Paul muddies it, as I think this is what maybe he might try to say. Right. And so when I was reading that, what I was reminded of was Peugeot’s talk during the Thunder Bay conference, where I think I think the way that he positioned it was something like love as the solution, for lack of a better word, for combinatorial explosiveness. Here’s infinite possibilities. And here’s the narrowing. So is that and then something like the word used there, right, is like a gapé, specifically over and over again in 1 Corinthians 13, which strikes me also as something like a like a gratitude and love for life, right? Like a deep joy and appreciation that is also in relation to the other, which is also what helps that narrowing of focus, right? It’s all those things together. And so there’s I think that Paul is actually saying something really specific and important that allows for our focus to come into place. So I was curious on your perspective on that, if you had any, especially when it comes to the English word love, Latin roots, where that comes from and any incident that you had to offer. Yeah. So it makes me think of my man Thomas Aquinas, who comes up over and over again on this live stream. Thomas Aquinas drawing on the tradition that had come before him places love as the highest of the virtues. And that I think actually manages to fix a lot of things. So our human love should be for God above all things. And then for the sake of God, we love those whom God loves. And that is our neighbors. The same way that you, you know, when you marry somebody, you’re also in a way marrying into your mother-in-law. And it’s like that’s now that’s now somebody you at least have to treat with with proper care and dignity and respect. And so I think having that understanding as love, like the way we’re supposed to embody this as a virtue, because I would need to know the specifics. I’ve heard a little bit of this chatter on Jacob’s server. And Joseph was talking about how Hebrew is not an essentializing language, apparently. Like they won’t use a X is Y construct very often, if at all, in Hebrew, whereas both Greek and English are, I have this essentializing danger. And they were pointing at the language differences because the way we the way we talk has profound implications on the way we think, you know. So basically, and the contentious patches for them is more, they also look at God as love. And Jacob says, but love is not God. And that sounds right to me. That seems to make sense. Because I think it, it’s, it says something different. I think it, it’s, it says something different when you try and say that love is God. But I haven’t figured out why that’s different yet. So I’m not going to going to commit to it. So basically, I think that understanding of the way that we relate to God, that being a virtue, something that causes that draws us to excellence, that builds up our character, that cannot be used for bad, when it’s actually a virtue that draws us to the highest. And that cause, especially the virtue of love draws everything else in your person together and brings that up to God. And it’s like, that’s actually where your soul consummates its contact with God is, is in the love, which is begun in faith, faith, hope and love. So you start off with the faith and that’s your mind’s contact with God, but the whole person actually comes in with love. And from that is supposed to come the love of neighbor. So anyway, I have a hard time understanding why this upsets Jacob so much. And maybe there’s some kind of distortion he’s seeing that I don’t see. Okay, so does that help, Michael? Yes, I’m very curious what Andrew’s gonna say. Yeah, so from the conference, this was actually my big takeaway from the conference 13 was this whole idea of connecting the virtues, actually, no, the Trinity, and connecting the Trinity and the divine virtues or theological virtues of faith, hope and charity. Novel, theological project. Yeah, and I regard all novel theological projects as needing to prove themselves before they’re with deep suspicion. So yeah, so with opponent processing, right? So from which is something that Verveki emphasizes, which is like finding the frame or solving the frame problem, which I think is what he’s talking about with love, combining or helping us resolve what’s important. Or how did you frame it in the beginning, Michael? I think it resolves combinatorial explosiveness. So yeah, combinatorial explosiveness. Exactly. Multiplicity, right? It brings multiplicity into unity. Multiplicity into order because it’s bringing, it’s putting boundaries around things and bringing the attention or focus to where it needs to be. And that’s actually a huge problem in computer processing and that as well is like, how do you find the frame of a problem so you can actually resolve it in a discrete fashion, right? Because once you have boundaries around a thing, then you have a search base and you can search within that space. So finding the frame is key to solving a problem. So love can help us do that by taking hope and by having that opponent processing relationship. So hope you could see as sort of the hopeful or the expansive side of the equation and faith being the more strict and searching for things that are more specific. And when those two sides are listening to each other in this charitable fashion, why charity or love is the highest virtue, then they can resolve the frame together. So the hopeful, because the hopeful is constrained by the strictness of the faith and the faith is, the rigidity of the faith is kept in check by the aspirations of the hope. Right. So between the two of them, they can resolve the frame. And actually, when you are setting up neural networks to resolve a frame problem using opponent processing, then that’s, you have two networks. One that’s more faithful and one and more rigid or one that’s more hopeful and more flexible. So those two perspectives, taking the hopeful perspective and the like, or the merciful perspective with the charitable or zealous perspective and combining them through charity is the way of resolving the frame problem. I think that another place that God’s love is, sorry, so what I just heard from from where you wrapped up is actually something like the critique side is actually like deconstructing. Right. It’s like, here’s a critical nature of what should be right. And the other side is a gathering. Right. And so that’s actually like a oneness and a manyness, right. Trying to balance each other. Yeah. Well, it would, you could also look at it as the theoretical and the practical. Right. So let’s actually apply the frame problem to, I see a person, a shadowy figure by the bus stop. Right. So I may. Hopefully it’s a person I’m not, I shouldn’t be too concerned about. Right. I can just go to the bus stop and sit there. But if the shadowy figure may be of a threat to me, or practically, I may have to actually judge this figure more harshly. Right. I have to sort of think, OK, well, I’m alone. I’m not well defended. Or this isn’t the best example. I’m getting down. But there may be, there’s the concrete of the situation versus the abstract or the hopeful side of things. Right. So there’s so you have to actually balance the frame and judge the situation both by what you’re actually in and the hopeful theoretical of what it could be. Yeah, I did not explain that well. I apologize. So, I mean, would you call that something like a dialectic? It is. Because it’s really like how the right and left hemispheres of the brain work. Right. Where one is more theoretical and is sort of like riffing on things and trying to test, bring in new possibilities. Where the other aspect of the brain is more concrete and trying to be governed things by regions and say that’s nonsense. You actually sort of see it with Father Eric and myself right now, where Father Eric is the more faithful saying, I don’t know about this stuff, Xander, you and your novel ideas here. And me being the more hopeful one saying, no, I think this is really cool and we have all these awesome possibilities. And hopefully, like the charity between us can get us together in the same church. Yeah, exactly. I don’t have to actually communicate to you. So you see it as a master and emissary dynamic? Yeah, I mean, I’m not familiar exactly with that language, but it sounds right. It sounds right. Ian McGillicrest, left here. McGillicrest says the right hemisphere should actually be in charge. The left hemisphere should do the job that the right hemisphere gives it, which is language processing and virtual systems building, that sort of thing. Whereas the right hemisphere, because it’s actually in contact with reality, should be like the art handling reality. And so soldier general, right? So general strategy and vision. Yeah, that’s a good way of putting it. So it actually executes. Yeah, yeah, like that. But what I would also actually, because I think that you see this pairing of faith and hope within military structures, too, right? Because they have that officer versus non-coms dynamic. Like, if you look at it, and you’ll see all within the submarine, you’ll see lots of these opponent processing relationships being developed within the command structure. So even within the officer structures, they’ll have a tactical officer and operations officer who have to sort of riff off of each other and sort of are the opponents who are going to find the frame and resolve problems within the boat. Because I’m tired of hearing about it in the comments section, I’m just going to say Mark says there isn’t opponent processing, there’s cooperative processing. The reason he says this is that the commanders in the submarine both have the same mission, and that’s to blow up enemy submarines and to keep their own submarine intact. Yeah, he’s right. So that’s not actually opponent, that’s them cooperating, but they have to have this process of tussling and pulling on each other to pull out the best operation of the submarine possible. And this actually is a beautiful segue into, I think, understanding the love of God. Because I think one of the key points where the love of God is demonstrated and not really emphasized that people don’t pay attention to in the Bible is actually with Jacob, right? So Jacob’s actually just been thrown out by his brothers, and he’s off in the wilderness. And what does God do? God comes down and wrestles with him till morning, so spends the whole night wrestling with him, right? And in the end, Jacob wins, right? And God tells him that from henceforth you’ll be known as Israel, he who wrestles with God, right? And that’s really the foundation, it’s very much sort of the foundation of our faith. And I think it connects with what Father Eric was saying about God isn’t love per se, but a relationship with God is love. If that’s maybe- Well, God is love because St. John says it. St. John says it, but yeah. It’s not their inspired scripture or all of this is a bunk and I should go home. Well, good. I love that. I love that. So if there’s a narrowing in the focus, okay, so there’s like a mercy giving, a mercy asking. And then the mercy asking is vulnerable to something that’s more than the soldier, it’s like the soldier turning over, right? And then maybe we encounter something like logos which manifests in this focusing in love for our neighbor, right? And that that orients us, right? And that’s like a light in the darkness. Yeah, it is. And it’s sort of because you’re getting it and it’s like, but the key with the wrestling with God that’s critical is that I think that, of course, God could smite Jacob at any time if he so choose. Like this, it’s not really a fair wrestling match, but he’s so God’s perfect love is wrestling with Jacob to elevate Jacob, right? So God’s love is he’s doing this wrestling to improve and inspire. It’s through his struggles. He knows this is how I bring out the breast in Jacob, right? And that is the model for our love with others because there’s always, we’re not always equal, right? We have our strengths in some places and we have our weaknesses in other places. So any most of our relationships are going to always have that sort of disproportionate power dynamic. But we if we engage with them with charity, then we with love or with charity in the same way that God engages with us, then both parties are elevated, right? We both find that frame and we both bring out the better in ourselves. And both people are served by that. Like the servant servant leadership relationship there is brought out by that. Like God is leading Jacob, but also serving him in the sense of leading Jacob by serving him in that wrestling, by sort of leading him towards his possible virtue by struggling with him. And when we do the same thing in our other relationships, so that’s really what God’s. I think that’s what God’s love is. A better relationship, a better understanding of God’s love. And I know why people are uncomfortable with that the love word sometimes. And that’s why I like the word charity or like to really balance it with that word charity. Well, Father, I think that you were sort of getting at this in a very practical and beautiful way. And beautiful way and like. You get married and you got your mother in law and it’s like figuring out all of the different possibilities of who I can be and how I should act in the world. And it’s my love for my partner, right? In this in this directing towards Christ that allows me to take care of my mother. Yeah, yeah. Ultimately, subjugating everything to God. Placing it all under him is the right way to go. It keeps everything in balance, as Mark would say, it’s the right container for everything. And, you know, the nice thing about our Lord is that he doesn’t expect us to get it perfect on the spot. He doesn’t expect us to get it perfect on the first try. That maybe sometimes we we follow a bit of a red herring and we don’t we don’t go straight for being perfectly virtuous right away. But as long as we’re willing to repent and turn back to the Lord. And stay on the path if you could stay on the path. Yeah, you just struggle through it. That’s all we’re asked to do. It’s awesome way to end it father Eric. It is it is I’m on three yawns and once I’m on three yawns, it’s like time to end the stream. If you want the eight hour streams, you got to go on to Mark’s channel because mine are two hours and we’re done. But I’m curious, curious just a little bit about Michael, because I think you hopped on the end of another one of my streams, but I don’t know anything about you. So how did you find me? I’m in the lurking in the corner for some time. I might the shortest version of my path is something like grew up in a hostel, was in the Marine Corps, left the faith. Got really resentful. Spent time on the far, far left is like a Marxist communist for like 10 plus years. And then took the path that were that’s all too familiar to us already in the vein of a Pearson, Joe kind of thing. And I now find myself in the depths of a Orthodox Church. OK, it’s the beard. The Catholics have the trimmed beards and the Orthodox have the wild beards. That’s right. Get that get that John the Forerunner thing going. It’s good. It’s good. It’s all good. All righty. Well, glad to have you, Michael and Emma. Nice to have you on to for your very first being on one of these live streams instead of just lurking. So, yeah, glad to be here. All righty. Good night and God bless you all. Good night.