Open Mic： Scandal! Rooted Relevance Realization, Jerusalem is the Center of the World (RONhywMXKzY)

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=RONhywMXKzY

It’s Saturday. It’s a slightly unusual time to be doing this, but here we are. And I thought for today, our little opening rant, we could take a look at St. Thomas Aquinas’s question on scandal, because I think this word scandal is commonly misunderstood, especially in colloquial American English, and there’s actually a very precise meaning and definition to it. So as with all of the questions that Aquinas asks, starts off with a good definition. So he’s asking the question whether scandal is fittingly defined as something less rightly said or done that occasions a spiritual downfall. And as with all of these questions for the summa, you’ve got objections to the proposition at the front, and then you’ve got the magisterial response. And so he’ll quote an authority to support his position, and he gets this straight from St. Jerome. And so we’ve got to remember that this word scandal comes from a Greek word, scandalon, which may be rendered offense or downfall or stumbling against something. So the original meaning of it is a stumbling block, putting up a stumbling block there. And so St. Thomas Aquinas says, in like manner, while going along the spiritual may, a man may be disposed to a spiritual downfall by another’s word and deed, insofar as to wit one man by his injunction, inducement, or example, moves another to sin. This is scandal properly so called. And so he’s got a very, very tight definition of what this is. This is a word or deed, something external that somebody does, which is the occasion for a spiritual downfall, ruining of somebody. It induces another person to sin. So there’s a few things that we need to note here that are really important of it. First off, if this isn’t anything that occasions a spiritual downfall in somebody else, it’s something less rightly said or done. The first thing we note about that is it is possible for you to do something good and have that be an occasion of spiritual downfall for somebody else. I can imagine in some of my being in the chapel early in the seminary, right? It’s an early morning. Maybe I didn’t sleep well the night before. I’m kind of grumpy and I don’t want to be there. And I look over at Mr. Perfect Seminary and there’s hairs perfectly combed. He’s just kneeling and he just looks utterly serene in his prayer. And I’m just mad at him because I don’t have that right now. Well, he isn’t doing anything wrong. He’s just sitting there saying his prayers. So that wouldn’t be something less rightly said or done. He’s doing the right thing. And the fact that that ends up being a stumbling block for me is my problem and not his. So it needs to be something less rightly said or done. It also should be noted that something less rightly said or done could be a matter of poor judgment or poor execution or something like a venial sort of thing. So it could be a matter of you didn’t think this through properly. You let your mouth get ahead of your brain, which can happen to us at any time. And that is kind of less perfect than you could have been, less excellent than you could have been. And that could be an occasion for a spiritual downfall for somebody else. And it’s also worth noting that depending on your position, you can be more prone to scandalize somebody or less. So as Jesus says in the gospel, to one who more is given, more will be expected. So certainly it is actually easier for me to scandalize somebody, to be a stumbling block from somebody, on account of the fact that I’m an ordained priest, than it would be for just an average fellow in the pew. It is easier for me to scandalize somebody because what I do is given a greater weight. All righty. So we’re looking at whether scandal is a sin. First objection, I wonder if it’s not a sin. And he says that anything that lacks rectitude is a sin. So anything that doesn’t live up to the highest standard ends up being a sin. So yeah, that’s pretty clear there. And then there’s this idea of passive scandal. So you have active scandal, the person who’s doing the thing that leads to another spiritual downfall, and that there’s the passive scandal that’s being affected by this other person’s word or deed that leads to your spiritual downfall. And on both ends, there’s sin, obviously. The person who has the active scandal might sin greater, but it might also be the case that the person who is affected by the word or deed they’re also sinning. So passive scandal is also sin. It does not entirely absolve you from your responsibility in being a Christian, being following after Christ, if you are scandalized by somebody else, but let’s say you know better, you have the possibility of knowing better, then that is a part of, yeah, so it’s still a sin. So we’ve got Bazzani here who might have missed the very beginning of this, so I’ll go back and cover that. So basically, Aquinas is limiting this to particularly something less rightly done, or said, that occasions a spiritual downfall. And he covers this in a very specific way. So he’s not just saying that, rightly done, or said that occasions a spiritual downfall. And he covered this somewhere. Scandal is a sin. Yeah, so basically, when he’s treating this into summa, he’s not using only biblical language, but he’s kind of tightening the concept of it there. And so he doesn’t say that if you’re let’s say preaching Christ crucified and that leads somebody into sin, that that is a sin for the person who’s doing it, although it would end up being passive scandal for the person who is, yeah. So he’s using a slightly more tightened up language there, and it was in here somewhere. Making me think. I didn’t sleep well last night, so thinking isn’t going to be my strong suit this morning. Yeah, so here we go. Objection one. As stated above in this passage, scandal is used in a broad sense to denote any kind of hindrance, hence our Lord and Peter vow are to scandal to me because he was endeavoring to weaken our Lord’s purpose, undergo what he has done, and that is our Lord’s purpose, undergoing his passion. So we could use this word in a broad sense, and we could use this word in a narrow sense. That would be the way we do it. He’s still on his first coffin. So just from our brief little reflection on what Thomas Aquinas teaching is on this, it always behooves us as Christians, as ministers, and as people who bear God’s word. It’s not enough just to avoid sin, but we also have to look out for each other, look out for our weaker brethren. So yeah, this possibility of scandal is something that weighs especially on the leaders of the church here. For some reason, I thought this would be a worthwhile thing to share this morning. Christmas retail. Yeah, well, frankly, you’re probably working harder than I am, but I do have a few masses that I’ve got to… All right, let’s see what we got here. Theo is very happy about our European friendly time. I did specifically choose this to try and get some of my European friends in. And speaking of European friends, we’ve got Mr. Irish himself, we’ve got Corey, we’ve got Phyllis. Hello. We’ve got Bubblevice, we’ve got Sandy. Yeah, we got that. We got everyone. Everybody except Mark and Ted. Yep. Soon enough, soon enough. Don’t worry. I have good feelings. Maybe they’ll appear before the end of this. Well, what’s on your mind, young man? Do you know what? It’s kind of, it’s Advent. I’ve been reading the Gospel of Luke recently and the start of it. And what’s read in mass is, of course, the kind of something like the Annunciation and all of that. But I did not all preamble. There’s a kind of dance between what’s happening with Mary and Joseph and what’s happening with Zachary and Elizabeth. And I found that really interesting because… So the Angelus basically kind of encapsulates, to some degree, the Annunciation in terms of what’s happening and Mary’s response. And everyone kind of knows that pretty well. But it’s like right before that is the whole Zachary thing. And I find that even more interesting because I’m like, well, to put it in short, it’s like, you know, what does Mary say when she’s approached by Gabriel? And of course, you pointed out, I don’t know if it was on a stream or not, but basically the word used in the Latin and in the kind of older texts for how the Angel greeted Mary is familiar. Yeah, it’s a casual greeting. So, you know, the Catholics, we pray our Hail Mary’s all the time. But if we were translating both the original Greek and the Latin, it would be the, Hi, Mary. Yeah, right, right. Yeah. So there was that familiarity. But then the response as well for all that was said by the Angel Gabriel, you know, Mary’s… There’s no hint of not being on board. It’s just, well, how can that be, you know, since I have no knowledge of man? And then it’s explained to her. But what happens to Zachary is at the temple, right? He’s before the temple and he’s burning incense before the altar. And that’s when Gabriel comes to him and it’s the same, you know, do not be afraid, and explains what’s going to happen with his wife, Elizabeth, you know, lays out that like, look, your wife, Elizabeth is with child. And then she looks and then Gabriel explains to Zachary who this child is, right? John the Baptist, the forerunner, right? So he’ll be a prophet and etc. But the response that Zachary gives straight out of the gate is like, but Zachary asked the angel, by what sign am I to know that this is going to happen? And let’s put a little bit of context on this, right? Yeah. This guy’s a priest, right? So he is not ignorant of the Old Testament. He is in the Holy of Holies and speaking with an angel. Yeah, right. So he has to be aware that, you know, this happened to Sarah, right? This happens to the mother of Samson. Like, yeah, this has happened before. Major precedent. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Well, yeah, that’s helpful as well. Yeah, he’s right there. He’s in the Holy of Holies, burning incense, and he’s performing his duties. And so that’s his response. He’s like, how am I supposed to know? And the immediate response of Gabriel is like, I’m, you know, I mean, I don’t want to paraphrase. I think I actually have an open ear somewhere. Yeah. So by what sign am I to be assured of this? Zachary asks. I’m an old man now and my wife is far advanced in age. So then the angel Gabriel answered, My name is Gabriel and my place is in God’s presence. I have been sent to speak with thee and to bring thee this good news. Now, just after that, behold, thou shalt be dumb and have no power of speech until the day when this is accomplished, et cetera, et cetera. So this is this. You want a sign, I’ll give you a sign. Right, right. I just, I looked at that and I, you know, I know that story as well, right? So the way that plays out in the end is, you know, Elizabeth conceives and when the boy is born and the name is to be given to him, Zachary is still silent, but they say, we’ll give him the name John. And it’s when Zachary confirms, no, no, his name is going to be John and like writing down, you know, on a piece of paper effectively that then he is allowed to speak again. But there’s something, there’s that contrast between how Zachary, you know, responds to the angel Gabriel and how the blessed Virgin Mary responds. And I looked at that, I’m like, yeah, I’d be Zachary like 10 times out of 10. Like, you know, because you, you, you, you hear like, oh, you know, with angels and stuff, you don’t, you don’t know who you’re dealing with. But I would be the sort of person even in the middle of the Holy of Holies to be like, yeah, how’s that going to happen? Yeah. And, uh, Byzantium comes in with a good, uh, good point here. I notice how in God’s providence after his mouth was shut, everyone listens to what he says when he speaks again. And the, uh, the canticle of Zechariah is done by, uh, in the, in the Catholic liturgy of the hours every day at morning prayer. So it’s like, you know, after that, after that period of silence, after he endured his, uh, his relatively modest punishment, as far as things go, um, yeah, he was able to speak well of our Lord, um, and, uh, and, uh, prophesy. Magnificat as well, right? Because there’s no silence apart of Mary. Mary will just, you know, and that’s a little bit, it’s a little bit of time afterwards, right? But, but still there’s kind of, cause they’re two pretty significant liturgical prayers that, that you do, right? We, we do magnificat, the Magnificat, every Vespers. So I think at least every Vespers on Sunday, which is the one I do. So yeah, every Vespers, yeah, every time I pray Vespers. And, um, you know, it’s like, there’s a nice, uh, so the, um, the, the Benedictus, uh, which is the prayer of Zechariah, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s kind of about John the Baptist, the forerunner, the one who, that who goes, goes first in all of these things. And then the Magnificat, which comes later in the day, um, is about, uh, is about Mary, really. And, um, and the, the blessings that she’s received to, uh, to have her, her unique place in salvation history. Um, so I thought it was going somewhere with that, but I, I, I think I need more, even more coffee or God’s grace. That would actually be better than coffee, but, uh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. But that’s, that’s kind of what I’ve been looking at. And that’s, that’s kind of something that I noticed. And I sort of thought, okay, this, and it is, when you see it in the context, it’s like, well, yeah, there’s, there’s kind of no excuse for Zachary to be asking, yeah, how am I supposed to know? It’s kind of funny. You’d think, well, if you wanted to really know, you just sort of be on board with it. And then you’d see that Elizabeth would be pregnant eventually. Three or four months down the line, you’ll have your answer, you know? Right. So it’s even in that context, it’s like, you’re going to have your answer anyways. You’re like, no, no, I, how am I supposed to know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it’s, it’s an excellent, like all the first part of, of, of, of the gospel of St. Luke is like, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot going on there that I probably aren’t, I’m not even seeing below that, but I was just very like, I was like, oh, there’s, there’s, there’s a lot going on here. And I’m not even, I haven’t even gotten to the point, very early on, because I only just got off work, you know, like, it was a week ago, and I’ve been reading it every night. And I can’t, I haven’t even gotten to Christ ministry yet. But that’s, there’s a lot of preamble, but it’s, it’s a lot of great, like kind of setting the stage, because you understand a lot more even about John the Baptist in that context as well. And it also kind of ties in with the, the scandal bit we were talking about there, where you’re like, Gabriel didn’t do anything wrong. Yeah, he was, he was literally, he had everything set up perfectly for Zacharias to like, you know, go home and kiss his wife. And yeah, yeah, really. And he, he stumbled on that. So, you know, this got the broad sense of a stumbling block where it’s anything that you end up stumbling on, but that might be your fault. And the narrow sense that quite a street, so it’s like, well, no, this is you actually put a stumbling block in front of the blind, let’s say. Yeah, I suppose in that, yeah, in the context that Aquinas is talking, he’s, he’s kind of giving a proper use of the term in the sense of like, you know, I think Nick mentioned that the, the Christ was seen as described as a scandal. But that’s probably, like, I suspect mostly that’s coming out of the mouth of Pharisees and all of that. And it’s, it’s kind of a misappropriation of the terms, you kind of basically heap scorn upon. Well, passive scandal is still a sin. Yeah. And so when you allow yourself to stumble over something, does it matter if it’s on you, right? Yeah. There might not be any active scandal in there. There might not be somebody with a word or deed less well done that induces you to sin. It might actually be goodness in it. So in that sense, the passive scandal is still like, I’m stumbling over this, even though it might be a hundred percent my fault. Yeah. So that’s really it for me. Oh, I forgot about Advent as well. This Advent, you know, this is a special Advent because of the, how kind of short it is, but it’s also an interesting one because tomorrow is Sunday and that’s Christmas Eve, but there’s the vigil on Christmas Eve as well. So we basically kind of have two Sundays effectively in terms of like obligation and all that of, yeah, two Sundays in a row, because you’ve got, you’ve got the Sunday, the, you know, Advent of Christmas Eve, you know, and then you’ve got Christmas day. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, it’s, it’s interesting. I’m, I’m celebrating the, the Latin mass tomorrow. And, oh cool. So in the ordinary form calendar, you would celebrate the fourth Sunday of Advent, but in the old calendar, you celebrate Christmas Eve vigil mass. Right. So it’s just, I’ve never done it before. So this is like, oh, that’s, that’s interesting. Yeah. I’ll be going to the, to my local Latin mass. I say local, my, my, you know, the Latin mass in town for, for, for the vigil. They have one on at 12, which I don’t know what like that would be, whether that’s the same or not. Yeah. I, I, that counts for your Sunday obligation, but not your Christmas obligation. So. Right. Cause it’s too, either way you got to attend mass basically twice. Yeah. Yeah. But that was, you know, and that, that was, so we still have Christmas Eve, but in the, in the old calendar, you had, you had like the Pentecost vigil, you would have the Ascension vigil, you’d have the vigil for St. Peter and St. Paul, you got the Easter vigil. And those masses would, at least in the medieval era would happen at like eight o’clock in the morning. Really? Yeah. Well, it was, you know, you had the, the communion fast. Yes. And that was considered extremely important that you would fast for midnight the night before. It was probably something that started in a monastery and then like made its way out to the people. Yeah. And you know, like, you know, you can expect a monk, you know, like monks are pretty hardcore. They’ll fast for midnight the night before from everything and then go to mass at 8 PM. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I could see that happening. Yeah. Yeah. But for the people, it’s like, that’s, that’s a big ask. Yeah. It’s like, if you could do it for a morning mass, then like go ahead. But yeah, I guess, I guess in the sense of if you’re, if you’ve got, if you’ve only got an evening mass, which is sometimes the case, yeah, it’s a little bit, that’s a little bit harder. I do have a question in the chat that I want to attend to. Is it acceptable to go to Sunday morning mass and then Christmas mass the evening of the same day, twice a one day? The answer is yes. So because of the modern praxis of the church to anticipate the next day’s mass and the way that that fulfills the obligation for the next day, the Christmas Eve masses come in this, this like, you know, combo bonus zone where if you went, you know, Sunday morning and then Sunday evening, that covers both of your obligations. If you went Sunday evening and Christmas morning, that would cover both of your obligations. So the church actually wants to make things easier for you. It doesn’t want to put up unnecessary burdens. And so it interprets obligations in a generous manner. And so going to interpret, yeah, going to interpret that as making things easy for you. But you can’t get two for the price of one. That’s, that’s where we draw the line. Yeah, yeah. That’s why I was thinking until I, until I realized, actually, no, these are basically two Sundays in a row. Yeah. You know, you got to, you don’t get two for the price of one. Yeah. Philip, of course, is going to have the exact same schedule that I have with three masses in 24 hours. So I’ve got the noon mass tomorrow, then I’ve got midnight mass for the bishop. And then I’ve got Christmas day, the Latin mass again. So, okay. Okay. He’s doing like a priest schedule there. Yeah, that’s, that’s, that’s amazing. I love it. Yeah. Yeah. But we don’t want to, so the Romans don’t want to calculate sunset all the time. So the code of canon law defines a day as midnight to midnight. That makes sense. Just because, yeah. So that’s why, that’s why all of this, all of that complicated Christmas stuff works is because we calculate days midnight to midnight. Talk about calculations. Don’t the Orthodox like to have Christmas later and stuff, right? Or not? Some of the Orthodox will be on the old calendar. As usual with the Orthodox, things are just a little bit chaotic and everybody’s kind of doing their own thing, but not enough to cause a schism. Yeah. Yeah. So I’m gonna use the Julian calendar. Yeah. Cause I remember, I think it was last year or the year before. I remember by the time we hit epiphany, the Orthodox, I think were only some, some Orthodox people who I knew or was watching their YouTube or stuff, they were only hitting Christmas. And I’m like, Whoa, that’s, that’s, that’s the big difference between the Julian and Gregorian calendar, I guess. The Orthodox just need to get an emperor again. That’ll fix it all. I suppose. Yeah. I’d fix them because he could just be like, Hey guys, we’re going to update to the Gregorian calendar. Like this whole, you know, drifting Christmas further and further away from the Solstice businesses is not okay. Yeah. Yeah. That’s interesting. I mean, this is, I mean, this is going to be, I’m now about three, three quarters of the way through a whole year in the extraordinary form. And like, that’s, there’s a lot there. There are, I think I can see some, some differences. I like the Ember days actually. Yeah. I did this. I did the short form this morning for Ember Saturday. I wasn’t going to do the full vigil. Oh, in my private chapel. Yeah. Oh yeah. Does that have the longer that’s, that’s a little, cause I know it’s got like five or six readings. And that’s right. Cause the past couple of days it’s been like, Oh, maybe one or two readings or something like that. I do remember. I think once you get to Saturday or one of the Ember days, it, yeah, it expands. But yeah, to have those kind of mini, like penitential times, like throughout the year is kind of like, it’s, it’s, it’s not even the case of, it’s not, it’s not even that. Okay. It’s not even that I kind of like, let’s say observe it in the way, like it might be observed in the past, which is like fasting and abstinence throughout the whole thing. But it’s like, I try to observe it in the sense of, okay, we got to, there’s, there’s gotta be some time set aside. You got to kind of heighten up your, your act. And like, maybe, maybe like for Wednesday and Friday, I abstained from meat. But then like for Saturday, I was like, okay, well look, I’ll, cause I was doing weights training as well. I was using my barbell. And so it’s like, okay, I, you know, I kind of had to ad hoc it and be like, I’m not, I’m not cut out for this. I was, I was, I was lifting too much, actually that I could handle. So I had to kind of set it down, but to have those days kind of set out is handy. Yes. Yes. And another yes, yes from Bazzani, the dating of Christmas is nothing to do with pagan Roman festivals. It’s true. There’s, there’s some indication that soul and Victus was actually instituted to combat Christmas. I’d heard some scholar propose that somewhere rather than the other way around. But like, you know, it’s also true that Christ was probably born around the winter solstice. Like, I don’t think it’s that, like, is that really that big of a stretch? Lots of people get born around the winter solstice. It’s actually pretty common. There’s nothing special about the winter solstice that makes it so that people don’t get bored then. Yeah. I think maybe this actually has to do with history. And, the Lord could choose when to send the angel Gabriel down to Mary and get the nine month clock ticket. Yeah. Yeah. I think it’s, you know, September 11th, three BC. Would that be Mary’s birthday? So Catholics celebrate the birth of Mary on the 8th of September. Yeah. But we celebrate the Annunciation of the 25th of March. Mm hmm. Revelation 12. Never heard of that. I’ve read Revelation 12. I haven’t gotten anybody’s birthday out of that. So you leave that in the chat. And we’ll evaluate it, see if there’s anything to it. Philip’s giving you some lifting advice. Oatmeal with hemp seeds. Okay. Oatmeal with hemp seeds, you say. Well, that’ll help. Yeah. Don’t put any sugar in it. It’ll also be nice and penitential. Well, actually, I’m reporting back on penitential bulking, right? Because I said during Advent, now it’s a little bit slack initially, but now I have the protein powder and it’s the unflavoured protein powder. And it’s disgusting. So, right. I just fill up the whole thing and I just drink it up and I’m like, yeah, this is, I know now, this is going to be part of my lent. I don’t care how, this is going to be part of my lent. This is going to be part of the penitential season. And the oatmeal and hemp seeds, I’ll have a look at that. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah. Hemp seeds, I guess those are probably legal now, huh? How’s your gym stuff going, Father Eric? It’s going well. It’s going well. The weights are still going up. Cool. And so, yeah, it’s, you know, it’s like when you start getting to the nice, the nice heavy deadlifts, you know, when you got three Krabby Patties on each side. Yes. Yeah. Like it’s fun to watch the weight go up, but it starts to get like, oh gosh, that’s a lot of weight. I’m not going to let you pick that up. Right. Yeah. But that’s kind of cool as well, because you’re kind of, I guess with the weight continually going up, like that’s kind of actually, your body is adjusting to the, to the lifting. And I’m finding that now even about two or three days of a consistent training schedule, I can just like walk up to the bar and I can pick up stuff that like straight, starting off, I couldn’t even, I couldn’t even try to. And it’s like, that’s kind of impressive that the body can do that. I think, I don’t think it’s just the muscles either. Like there has to be stuff going on with your tendons as well. Yes, definitely. Like these, you know, and I know the world’s strongest men competitions, they’re probably roiding up. Of course. Yeah. And I don’t, I don’t think you, you and I definitely have no business. No, I don’t. No, not even slightly. I would like to live, you know, I wouldn’t like to foreshort my life for just body sculpting. Yeah. Yeah. But there has to be stuff going on with their tendons and bone structure as well, where they’re, you know, picking up a car and flipping it over. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s probably good for your long-term health to have nice strong bones and tendons. I don’t know if anybody’s got opinions, leave it in the chat. Yeah. Sally, Sally’s even your bones and joints conditioned to weight. See Sally, Sally’s backing me up on this one. She knows everything. Makes sense. Makes sense. And it’s so it’s still up. Yeah. Okay. I think we’ll bother with this theory later. I don’t, this is very deep and esoteric. This is definitely, this is definitely on my alley. The theory is based on Revelation 12 describing the astronomical alignment, the mage I saw. Oh, okay. Oh. So you’ve got to have, you know, Matthew’s gospel over here, the book of Revelation over here, and then the stars up there and get them all aligned. Yeah, something like that. I knew a guy who actually part of his, he’s a Catholic now, thanks be to God. He, part of his conversion, he knew a Persian and this person was actually, all right, this is a little bit, he’s a magus, right? He’s actually part of that tradition, that Zoroastrian tradition. And this magus, who was not Christian in any sense of the word, just told him about like, because they have their own tradition and they hand it down, how they’re like all of the astrological signs or whatever of the time of Christ’s birth, they were all pointing to like, yeah, Savior’s going to be born now. It was kind of like, he was, he was proving from his own tradition and he said it to him. So he said it to this guy I know. And that was kind of interesting that you even kind of put that across, but it, yeah. It’s also strange that that tradition has kind of lasted for so long, but I suppose in some instance, you know, it’s a very ancient Persian thing. The longer it’s around, the more likely it’s going to be to stick around probably. So. Yeah. You know, it’s like, so part of my recovery from, you know, default materialism in the 21st century was noticing that my own flesh wasn’t just a bunch of electrons and neutrons and protons and subatomic particles and all of that. But it’s like, the parts become more than the whole, right? And it’s like, well, just how far does that go? Is that like just something special for human beings or does that actually project all the way out into the cosmos? Right. Like, is it actually the case that the arrangement of the stars, while stars are physically speaking, burning balls of hydrogen, which is cool that we figured that out. Like maybe this whole thing is actually arranged with lots of meaning rather than us projecting meaning into it, you know? But what do I know? Oh, you know, that’s fair enough, I think. But there’s also an aspect of tradition there as well, which is actually kind of, it’s hard for people. It’s kind of hard to interact with tradition now at this stage in the world because people are so atomized. And so there’s a kind of, there’s a certain amount of experience you need with actually being part of a tradition and a practice that if you don’t have it, you kind of, there’s just stuff you can’t know. And it’s not the propositional knowing. Like I could maybe explain stuff that I might have kind of learned from doing that sort of stuff, but it’ll never go in the same way I experienced it and gained it through the participation. And a good example of that would be like, well, like alter serving. So while I’m not an alter server, I serve during Vespers and like, you know, but I’m not handling the incense yet. But part of that whole- You gotta work up to that. Right, right. But part of that whole kind of dance that you’ve got going on there is like, when you’re doing it, you’re thinking, okay, well, I’m doing it. And there doesn’t really seem to much order to it. But then you repeat it over a long period of time and you see there’s just repetitive patterns. And then you realize, oh, this is just kind of an optimal, not even an optimal setup. This is just kind of the best way things can go. Like not just in, you know, when we have five people, but when you have three and two. And, you know, so it’s not just going like through time, it’s scaling in terms of people. And then you think, yeah, I’m, I’m, like, I’m, I can see how this is so robust. Like this could just last for 500 years. Cause like, who’s going to come up with something better? And so I’m thinking like, when I’m doing the Vespers, I’m like, I’m doing stuff, like I’m doing stuff that like, I don’t know, who’s the saint from the 1500s? Pope St. Pius the fifth, right? Or something like that. Or anyone, right? Pretty much anyone who was, who was attending mass would have been familiar with and would have been doing. And then he could do the same for the previous 500 years and so on. And it’s like, that’s, but that’s me saying it, right? You kind of have to experience it to understand why that is the case. And when you don’t have that access, it’s like, people come up with very strange ways of talking about tradition. It’s, it’s like, I remember I was at, I did a summer program in Omaha as a seminary and it was a spiritual formation program. And so we would go over to the church and we would pray, you know, Vespers, Compline, all of that. And, you know, we had about a hundred, 170 guys there, plus priests running the program. And it was the end of Compline one night and we were chanting the Salve Regina. And I got that sense of like, oh, I’m actually being backed up by the entirety of Christendom right there. The Salve Regina is only a thousand years old, right? So, you know, that’s a relatively recent tradition there, but you know, it got pretty widespread and embedded in a thousand years. So, I think it’s probably pretty solid. And yeah. And that sense of the whole Christendom backing me up there is, it’s not something that I think you can just read in a book. No, I think that’s the thing is that people can kind of look at people, what people will do is they’ll look at like, not just like old traditions, but like these books, right? And they say, well, I’ve got enough access to this to continue what was written down in this book or carved here. And I’m like, yeah, well, you have something, but you don’t have the same thing that, let’s say, those people have. So like a good example might be like, oh, I don’t know, like, Norse paganism or something like that. You actually have guys who are trying to, like, let’s say, revive it, but it’s not the same thing, you know? And even if you’ve got all the writing in the world, there’s stuff that we just don’t write down. That’s just part of the practice, that when the practice is gone, you don’t get back. I mean, you can make it even a simpler argument and not even appeal to a kind of religious tradition and just come down to something, which is actually you see in physics and chemistry, which is that, and this is something they’re only noticing now because they’re, you know, it’s science and science is late to the party and everything. They’re realizing these hands-on skills, these chemists, these hands-on skills that chemists have for being in the laboratory, all of these kind of heuristics that they have, which, let’s say, can be written down somewhere, but that’s not, they’re losing them. And that further generations of chemists coming in don’t actually have these skills. And it’s actually producing problems for experiments in chemistry because it’s… So what you’re telling me is that in order for chemistry to continue to thrive, they need to reinvent apprenticeships and masters? Yes, basically. Because that’s, yeah, well, it’s another thing. There’s something else to that, which is that there’s, generally, when you have people who are saying, well, I just read the book and I revive it, like it’s a case of, yeah, but have you ever just sat back and been taught something by somebody who’s just showing you how to do it and then you have to do it, which is kind of a master-apprentice relationship with them? And that was actually what the chemist was recommending in that instance, right? You’re saying you need to have this kind of apprenticeship. You have to… He wasn’t even saying that. He was saying the students have to be willing to just shut up and learn and like kind of shut up and just do stuff effectively. This is, you know, this is kind of reading between the lines, but he was like, he was just having problems. The first day of your mentorship should just be sitting down and watching Karate Kid. Yeah, yes. Wax on, wax off, wax on, wax off. You’ll understand later. Yeah, well, certainly for chemistry, that’s the only way that’s going to be repaired. Like these guys, these guys need that Mr. Miyagi. It’s better to have Mr. Miyagi than not have him at all. I would say for me, at least, it’s better to have the whole Latin Christian tradition. But that’s fine. The chemists can come around to that later on. Yeah, well, chemistry is useful enough that they’ll probably figure out how to reinvent this. Yeah, yeah, but there’s enough desire for that, I’m sure. Yeah, but it’s hard when you lose it because it’s like these skills don’t come back easily. And a good example of kind of an analogous example for the kind of North Paganism and stuff would be like a kind of collapse of writing and the kind of you have the old chemistry text, but you don’t know what they’re talking about, right? We forgot what, I don’t know, something like saltpeter is. What it would be just called in the chemistry text, right? The chemistry text saltpeter, I think, is potassium, potassium hydroxide or something like that. And you know, you have to know what that’s referring to. So it’s like a canticle for Lebowitz. You ever read that one? Oh, yeah, you mentioned that a couple of times before. I’ve never read it. I should get it because that’s about the monks and post kind of nuclear disaster, right? Yeah, monks in a post nuclear disaster. And this order is specifically founded to preserve knowledge. And so they have all the texts. They copy all of the texts. So they’re like they’re copying electrical schematics. They don’t understand what they mean. Until they have like the right genius come in and interpret it for them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, a canticle for Lebowitz. You can read the book probably and understand it, appreciate it. But if you know a little Latin, it really and the Psalms, it really opens up for you, especially part one, because, you know, you’ve got the young monk, the young novice, the young novice doing his Lenten fast out in the desert. And he’s got the Psalms going through his head. Yeah, so. Cool. Yeah. Put it on your reading list. I will. I will. I’m building up a reading list. I’m building up old movies. So they’re there. I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but I’m trying to gather a list of older movies and classic movies, even they don’t have to be old. They just have to be kind of popular. Even when I was around and like I just didn’t see them. And yeah, you know, if anyone’s if anyone’s got any ideas, post them in the chat. I’ll try and try and collect them up. But, you know, to give you an example of how kind of culturally poor I am, you know, I never I don’t think I watched The Princess Bride until like two years ago. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen some of the other ones. I think I’ve never seen The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. What else was there? Never seen. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. They’re coming in hot. Get your patent paper and they’re coming in hot. Oh, are they? OK. I’ve never seen The Godfather actually all the way through. I haven’t gotten to The Godfather yet. Maybe we should have a watch party. That’d be cool. Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Great Escape. Like these are all, you see, I know bits and pieces of them. I know clips of them, but I’ve never actually seen the movies all the way through. And it’s very. Yeah, this one. This one doesn’t quite rank up with The Godfather and all of that. But North by Northwest is just a fun Hitchcock film. Yeah, it’s got a lot of Soviet era intrigue going on. OK, nice, exciting conclusion. It’s a it’s a lot of a lot of fun. I’ve heard good things about Seven Wives for Seven Brothers. OK, the mission. If you want to see what real Jesuits look like. The mission’s a good one. Got it. I’m not familiar with either of these, but. Yeah, let’s see. Yeah, OK. All right. And even William Branch coming in. The mission is the best Catholic movie since in the shoes of the fishermen. So, OK, yeah. Interesting. And it’s not just the classic stuff. It’s like you mean you can include the stuff from like 10, 20 years ago. 30 years ago. You had mentioned recently that you’d seen Tropic Thunder. Yeah, like that. But that might have actually been the peak of, you know, turn of the century comedy right there. Yeah, yeah. I don’t think anything that’s come after that. There’s been some good stuff, you know, like, but yeah. So anyway, it’s always hard talking about comedy as a priest because it’s like you want it to actually be funny, but if it’s actually funny, it’s always really on the line. Yeah, it’s the priest. Should the priest be recommending that? Well, that’s the thing. So part of me looking at these classic movies is it’s not just me looking for new ones. It’s me going over the old ones and kind of realizing like some of them are comedies. Some of them aren’t right. But it’s like some of these just aren’t funny anymore. Some of these have aged very poorly. Some of them have aged OK. I don’t mind. Some of them are actually still pretty good. But yeah, it’s kind of I realized that most of the funny part, I guess, was just like not even funny obscenity. It was just I was just looking at it like this isn’t funny anymore. This is not. And it’s not even like it’s kind of, oh, I’m a prude. It’s like, no, I just like I can still I still laugh a lot. And it’s generally like with friends and stuff. But yeah, this this it’s just it’s just not very not very stimulating. It’s like, OK, you know, there’s only so many times you can repeat the same joke in different ways. You know, I wonder how many people just sit down with a DVD of the Rocky Horror Picture Show and watch it on their own. Yeah, they got like I I think the reason people like it is because they have the whole liturgy that goes along with it. Oh, it’s an evil liturgy. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, it’s a whole liturgy around it. So I didn’t even know about that. I’ve heard about it. This is another one. Like this is this is one that I class as like one that I haven’t seen, but like loads of other people have either seen or heard of, you know. So yeah, sure. So like you could probably it was like a 1970s flick, very, very countercultural. Yeah, a lot of homosexual, transsexual. It’s a very fringe kind of movie. Yes. And this whole culture built up around it of, you know, when they’re when they’re watching the film, there’s like all of these audience participation bits in it where you like have props and like you you call things out into the into the film. And it’s something that you do over and over again. Right. Oh, no. Until you until you until you’ve learned, you know, like how to do it, you know, you’ve got the people who are really skilled at it know all the responses, understand all of it. And then you got like the people who are being so it’s like it’s like the explorer. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. And it’s like it’s it’s a liturgy for people who want to rebel. That’s horrible. So anyway, let’s talk about something nice. The Agony and the Ecstasy is a must see Catholic movie. Yeah. Here’s one that I that this is a comedy actually that that’s still pretty good is planes, trains and automobiles. I like that one. I really like that one, actually. Well, the amazing thing is that Steve Martin has always looked old. That’s right. Yeah, that’s like that’s still in what the like he just like went white and when he was like 30. Yeah, yeah. And planes, trains and automobiles definitely the late 80s or something. Yeah, yeah. Because John Candy was in it. Yes. Yeah, right. That’s an interesting one. By the way, there are people who are my age who don’t know, have no idea who John Candy is very. Yeah, yeah, I know. I know. I thought I thought, oh, this is this is kind of this man’s a kind of cultural touchstone. I’ve seen him in different things. Uncle Bulk and stuff like that. No, you know, maybe it was maybe maybe it was just a specific case. But like, you know, John Candy, no Black Adder, you know, and it was like, well, yeah, that was kind of it. But yeah, there are a couple of other ones as well, which planes, trains and automobiles. I like that. I mean, that’s that’s a perfect because that’s a that’s a Christmas. Well, it’s a Thanksgiving movie, isn’t it? Yeah, yeah. Kind of vibes. Shape spear. You can watch all the Kenneth Branagh versions of it. It’s all right there for you. Yeah, I did Hamlet in school. I think we saw clips from the Kenneth Branagh Hamlet. Yeah, and Kenneth Branagh for their Hamlet, they didn’t cut anything. They did all of it. Like we did. We actually did Hamlet in the seminary, which we had no business. It had no business being as good as it was. And we we cut the script about half just because like American audiences, there’s going to be a lot of like families coming to see, you know, what can we handle with our cast? So like, like the entirety of the B plots in the C plots going to cut. It was like only the main the main show. There wasn’t anything about the political intrigue with the King of Norway. It’s like we had to cut all of that just to just make things happen. Yeah. OK. But I did play Polodius. I was killed in Gertrude’s closet. Hamlet killed me. Brevity is the soul of wit. In tediousness its limbs and output flourishes, therefore I will be belief. Your noble son is mad. Mad I call it for to define true madness. What is it to be nothing but bad? I love it. I love it. I really like I think I reread Hamlet when I was over in California and I was very impressed with it again. Like I mean, I didn’t appreciate it when I when I read it and I read it when I was about 16 or 17 for school. But when I read it again, I’m like, oh, this is I really like this. I really like I really like the character of Hamlet. I’m sort of reaching back from all the essays that I did on Hamlet when I was in school. I’m like, this guy doesn’t know anything about this stuff. Let me write it. I’ll write it for you now. Yeah, I have to imagine being like a high school literature teacher at a public school. If you really love literature, it’s just got to be like a pure act of faith. Yeah, like someday these children will get it. You know, even like Kale’s elder, that’s what he does. And like he’s got like kind of upper crust Americans, you know, he’s had a private school, got a bunch of high achieving kids from good families, all of them. He’s like, sometimes it’s just hard. But it’s like, you have to you kind of have to give people things before they’re ready for it. In the hopes that someday they’ll be ready for it. Yeah. So don’t be too harsh on your 17 year old self. No. Yeah. Well, I think actually, to be honest, and this is another aspect to it, right? How do I how do I actually understand? I mean, how do I basically read kind of what I’ve read thus far now of the Bible, which is actually not very much, right? I basically have like I read the book of Genesis, I read the Gospels, bits and pieces of St. Paul’s letters, Proverbs, Psalms, not all of Psalms, all of Proverbs, all of the most of the wisdom literature that wasn’t kind of, you know, Sam like, or like, I think Job is part of wisdom literature. I have read Job, but that’s kind of anyways, if I’d read all of that, and then I’d come to Hamlet, I actually would have understood a lot more because they was basically quoting from not the King James, but like, some equivalent of that at the time. And there’s kind of there’s a lot of it’s kind of you’re kind of you’re kind of required to understand something about Christianity and Scripture, and to actually engage with Hamlet, because of course, it was written for a Christian audience, essentially. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Is Hamlet a hero? Is Hamlet a hero? Um, oh, yeah, well, see, I don’t remember. So he Hamlet gets up to some suspicious stuff, right? He kind of he has that thing with what’s her name? You know, the woman. Ophelia? Ophelia, right. And he feigns the madness, right? So is he a hero? I think in the end, the vengeance kind of got got the better of him. And I think in that sense, and I think this is what I this is what I understood later, but when I read it in California, it’s like, and it is part of it is part of the church teachings, like vengeance is the Lord’s. And in some sense, you kind of he was so hell bent on it that, you know, it killed him. And it also killed by by by proxy Ophelia, because she was kind of she was. And it’s it’s it’s contrasted because early on they I think they have quite a bit of affection towards one another. So ostensibly, you have this potential husband and wife who are then, you know, torn apart, because not even because of the circumstances, but because of the potential future husbands pursuit of vengeance for his father. Yeah, he’s a tragic hero. Yeah, tragic hero, hero with a tragic flaw. Yeah, because 100 percent. My take on Hamlet is if he had whacked his uncle while he was praying, everything would have worked out brilliantly. Right. Yeah, I forgot about that. This is where he gets rotten, right? Because look, his old man came back from I’m just going to say purgatory. His old man came back from purgatory to give him orders to do this vengeance. Right. Oh, yes. Yeah. Yeah. It’s really going to have this like very Christian world is like, OK, how did he come back from? I haven’t seen anybody from purgatory. Right. I don’t have the GPS coordinates. I can’t buy tickets there. It is by divine ordinance. Yes. He was allowed to come back and reveal this to his to his nephew. Right. Yeah. And so if he killed him during the prayer, yeah, that like because because after that, then it’s just kind of he goes. Why didn’t Hamlet kill him during the prayer? I think because Claudius was kind of like trying to repent, right? Like he was he was kind of saying I’ve done wrong. And so Hamlet literally says, you know, if I kill him now, he’ll go to heaven. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, he did. Yeah. Oh, no. My take is my interpretation, right? Is that Hamlet actually had a divine mandate to carry out justice, to carry out vengeance with his own hand. But because he wouldn’t do it according to. The divine way of doing things. Yeah, he wanted to take vengeance. Yeah. Right. So his old man, when he comes back, he’s like, you do it right away and you leave your mother out of it. Mm hmm. Right. And he didn’t do either of those things. And that’s how everything went to hell. That’s yeah. Yeah. Really bad. Yeah. Right. Because if he had just like, oh, there’s a perfect opportunity. It’s like there’s actually another point where it says, oh, yeah, Hamlet’s super popular with all the people. Right. Mm hmm. He would he would have been king immediately. He might have been able to handle all that stuff with the King of Norway way better. Yeah. Ophelia wouldn’t have gone mad and drowned herself. Yeah. That her brother wouldn’t have gone and like wanted to murder him. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. So it’s 100 percent. It’s some of these stories don’t make any sense unless you give them their theological interpretation. That’s right. No. And I remember I remember actually because what you said about killing him in prayer reminded me, I think in school, because because I only remember the kind of repentance aspect, but it’s like, um, yeah, some of the people like, yeah, but he’s sorry for what he did. And maybe Hamlet, it’s like, no, no, no. But if you think about it in this in this context of how it’s all playing out, yeah, there’s a complete absence of kind of actually seeing what divine mandate actually has to do during all of that, even though that would be at the front of, I think, most people’s minds at the time when they’re when they’re seeing the play. Yeah, exactly. He’s he’s had he’s been given his opportunity. He’s even taking part in in the divine vengeance in the sense that up until the point where he’s like, OK, you could you could kill him while he’s praying. And yeah, he refuses because, oh, then he’d go to heaven. And that’s when he’s taking the position of judge, jury and executioner. And it’s like, that’s not your place, dude. Yeah, because he’s taking he’s taking the divine place. Yeah. Right. Mm hmm. Yeah. He’s he’s usurping God at that stage. And then, well, in the end, that’s it doesn’t work out for it. It doesn’t work out. It’s a horrible, horrible tragedy that that befalls because of that. The whole country of Denmark. Yeah, it’s taken the sea plots. Yeah. Yeah. Stink a genius. Holy man. Yeah, I love it. I love it. And it’s it’s even it’s so so much greater because it’s like he’s got those aspects and then he’s also got the characters in that which are like all taken from Plutarch’s parallel lives. And these are like great. They’re historical figures, but they’re character portraits. So they’re all kind of they’ve got depth to them. And so a lot of the depth is coming from Shakespeare’s characters isn’t just from Plutarch’s lives is coming from Shakespeare and his and his kind of literary genius. But part of that is actually having an information coming from from other sources. And then Plutarch’s really good on that sort of stuff. He’s lives of Alexander, Julius Caesar, and he’s talking not just about the historical events, he’s talking about them as men. So, yeah, I have I have a whole book of Shakespeare’s stuff, but I’ve only I only did Hamlet and I think the Merchant of Venice in in school. I’m not sure. I’m not sure whether the Merchant of Venice is going to fly anywhere anymore. Like it’s just it’s just so like we had to kind of deal with it in school to some degree. But it’s like, yeah, it’s just it’s very much yeah, let’s say it’s like a horrible Jewish stereotype. That’s right. Shylock. Yeah. OK. Well, the tragic part about Shylock is is is he’s he’s kind of so so he’s a merchant and you know, there’s another merchant there and Antonio but Shylock is kind of what sets him over the edge in terms of vengeance beforehand. I think they actually just made a deal right. And it was a silly deal like, well, if you know, because I don’t have this one. OK. OK. So Antonio is basically a merchant in Venice and he needs a loan and only the Jews can do that. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. So that’s where Shylock comes in. He’s a Jewish merchant. But actually, you know, and Shylock says you kind of you treat me badly to Antonio and blah, blah, blah. But I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll I’ll you treat me badly to Antonio and blah, blah, blah. But I’ll I’ll I’ll give you your loan. You know, so it’s kind of put around in the scene as though Shylock kind of he recognizes that he’s not being treated well, but he’s still willing to do business with him. And then like he kind of and it’s kind of put across, I think, is a bit of a joke, right. The terms of the contract because because Antonio’s a really wealthy dude, like he could definitely pay this back. It’s fine. He says, oh, you know, and if you don’t pay it back, I’ll get a pound of your flesh. Let’s sign it down the contract. Yeah. Right. And then, you know, Shylock’s daughter runs away, obscons with some friend of Antonio’s. Right. And I think the daughter takes some money with her as well. And so then Antonio’s ships go wrecked, like are wrecked. So the money doesn’t come back to Shylock. But at the same time that that happens, Shylock’s daughter runs away with this dude, even though he prevented her from doing so, like he explicitly forbade her from doing so. And then it’s just kind of he gets he kind of gets this confusion of like, OK, well, I’ve just lost my daughter, but then I’ve just lost all this money. It was a massive amount of money for him, I think. And but he’s kind of he kind of his greed was not just his greed, like it’s it’s his it’s his resentment, I think, for all the people around him, which then gets transformed into I’ll have my money. And then also the betrayal of his daughter, because he loves his daughter. I think I think it’s put across and then the only person in the world he loves is his daughter. And she ran away from him. She didn’t want to be around him. So there’s that whole there’s that whole kind of play on. So Shylock’s actually an interesting character. But unfortunately, yeah, basically because of, yeah, because of the time that it’s written and because of just kind of yet that the character that it puts across in Shylock and the way people interpret that now, it kind of I don’t think it’ll ever be. I think I was lucky to have actually read it for the time that for the time I was in school. Yeah, I think they won’t be teaching that one anymore. I don’t think so. Like, look at how ignorant and awful these people were. We’re better now. Yeah, I think most people will probably default to Romeo and Juliet. I know a lot of my friends did Romeo and Juliet instead. OK, so you actually had the option of which one you were going to study. Yeah, so that yeah, so some classes did Merchant of Venice, some class, I think they just split it between the two and just kind of cycled it. So but yeah, my class did Merchant of Venice. I actually like that there are some really good lines in it and some really kind of interesting characters and stuff like that. But Hamlet, I like Hamlet. The other one that they did in school was Macbeth. I never did. Oh, I like Macbeth. Yeah, yeah. It’s like, oh, yeah, all of this starts with a bunch of witches around a cauldron, you know. OK, yeah, it’s oh, man, that’s like a proto. I’m going to get myself in trouble here, but I won’t get in trouble with Adam because we’re in agreement on this. The old feminism is evil bit. Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, that’s true. It’s like literally it started off with a bunch of witches around a cauldron and then literally Lady Macbeth being like, you know, unsex myself so that I can be manly and kill somebody. Oh, oh, wow. I see. And it’s like you go to that Carrie Gress stuff, the link between occultism and early feminism. It’s like, oh, yeah, Shakespeare predicted that. Who would have thought? That’s amazing. That is amazing. Now I know I would watch Macbeth. I want to read Macbeth. That’s very interesting. Yeah, you do have something I want to look at in the chat here. I’m going to my first Christmas Mass this year because my sister-in-law is converting. Anything a heretical Protestant should know that I’m not a cause of scandal. Just look around at the people around you. Stand where they stand, sit where they sit. If you’re not Catholic, you can get away with not kneeling in front of the Eucharist, but you’ll be standing out a little bit. And we don’t practice an open table. Yeah, so that’ll be that. And yeah, I guess with all the standing and kneeling and stuff, don’t sweat it. It’s fine. It’s just, yeah, you just copy people around you. It’s not a big deal. And you know, so. Philip, I’m against all forms of witchcraft. Simple as. I love it. I love it. Now, you know, brewers, brewers, brewers wives can help out in the brewing, I suppose. You know, as long as they’re not doing Hamlet stuff with the, or not Hamlet stuff, Macbeth stuff with the brewing. As long as you’re not trying to influence geopolitics with your beer. Yeah, yeah. By invoking supernatural forces. Yeah, OK, go brew the beer. That’s fine. I didn’t think you would. I didn’t think you would, but you asked the question, and I wanted to give you a good question. As a non-Catholic, you can go up for a blessing, but not to receive the Eucharist. Cross your arms to the priest’s nose. That’s an American thing. I don’t know if it happens in Ireland, too. I know it happens in America. The catechumen that goes to my Latin mass church, he approaches for the blessing. So he does that, too. OK, yeah. So, yeah, that’s as simple as it gets. I have an idea of another book that doesn’t make any sense unless you interpret it theologically. Oh, Moby Dick. Really? Oh, yeah. There’s this bit right at the beginning where Ishmael encounters the prophet. Oh, of course. They’re all Old Testament names as well, aren’t they? Yeah, yeah. And the prophet says that it is just this little throwaway line, just a little throwaway line, but I think it actually helps you interpret the whole thing, is that Ahab is a wanted man in Spain because he spit in the chalice, killed the priest, and stole the chalice. Oh, OK. All right. And so he’s already attacking the sacramental representation of God on Earth. Yeah. Yeah. And then what’s the whale, right? Oh, oh, oh, yeah, yeah. OK. Yeah. The whale. And literally later on, Ahab says, whether it’s the man himself, the mask, I don’t care. I will still attack it. Right. So my take is that he hates God. Yeah, he hates God, but he can’t kill God because how do you kill God? So he just attacks nature itself. Yes. And like Moby Dick is the embodiment of God’s governance over the forces of nature. Yeah. And what we have to remember is that whaling vessels were basically like spaceships in the mind of a mid-19th century American or European. Right. Like that was the most advanced technology that we had. Kind of went into that, like the telegraph, you know. Yeah. And so, yeah, yeah. So Moby Dick is trying to kill God, but he’s going after it. And you can even see that when he meets that other captain that had that encounter with Moby Dick. Right. They have this meeting in the ocean, you know, and they both have like peg legs for the limbs they lost. The other guy’s like, oh, yeah, I’m not doing that again. I’ve learned my lesson. I’m going away. I’m not going to. Yeah. So there you have it with the scandal again. Right. Moby Dick hates God. Captain Ahab hates God. But it’s like, yeah, sometimes nature takes a chunk out of you and you just got to live with it. Yeah. Yeah. And so that guy, that other captain who’s living with it is kind of providing an example of how best to deal with that situation. But Ahab, because of the hatred in his heart, yeah, he just takes that as an occasion to kind of lean into the road to hell, basically. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, I think neither of those are original interpretations to me. I had other people teach me them, but yeah, that and Hamlet, I mean, yeah. OK. But the gift you receive, give as a gift, huh? Absolutely. Because I love this sort of stuff, because it’s all my exposure to literature was all during a time when I was like a convinced atheist and I’d never again, like I three, three and a half years ago, I was the first time I picked up a Bible. So it’s like, you know, the only kind of in that I had would have been basically cultural phrases that have their basis in scripture rather than actually knowing anything about waning and weakening cultural heritage. Yes, right. Exactly. We’re getting down to the dregs here. Really? Yeah. Yeah. So I really appreciate actually having that. You sharing that, Father Eric, because it’s stuff that even if I kind of see, I don’t have I don’t even have the kind of vocabulary to properly describe it in some sense, or maybe even the kind of the intellectual kind of habits to be like, oh, yes, that connects to that with, you know, with the AHAB stuff, right? Like, oh, AHAB hates God. And so this is all playing out quite well. I’m a little bit slow when it comes to that sort of stuff now. You know, it’s the benefit of seminary formation is that the seminary is a bit of a Benedict option kind of community there, right? Very intentional because you’re forming priests. And so even our literature classes, they brought in like this, he was an adjunct professor, he was involved in some kind of homeschool and co-op. And he came in and was like, okay, I’m doing an American literature class. Well, we’re gonna make sure to have Moby Dick because that’s actually, I really enjoy it. Like, yeah, like sitting there reading listening to her with an American talk about Wales for three chapters, I found it enjoyable experience. But I understand if you don’t like Melville’s prose, that’s going to be miserable. Oh, oh, oh, oh, give me a second. All right. Oh, nice profile pic. Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Corey says, guess I need to read Moby Dick now. Most people I say they hate it, but this framework probably helps. It also, you know, I really enjoy Herman Melville’s prose. I could just sit there, listen to a talk the whole time. And I think it’d be great. But like, man, if you don’t enjoy his prose, you’re going to have a rough time with it. So I’m willing to say your mileage may vary on it. You might not enjoy it as much as I do. Yeah. But anyway, so it’s like, it was this professor at the seminary who taught me how to look at Moby Dick that way. Which I don’t think, I think it’s even in, you know, back in the day, that would have been a minority position. But I think it’s a minority position because people’s deeds are wicked and they hate the truth. So. Yeah. Yeah. And then it was it was Father Andrew, who was the director. He was, he was in the seminary with us when he was the director of Hamlet. And like he, he was the one who put Hamlet as he was, he didn’t even go as far as I did. Right. But like, he’s like, yeah, Hamlet’s a tragic hero rather than, you know, so like, let’s emphasize the heroic bit. Rather than. Rather than like that always this tortured psychological soul. Yeah. Yeah. Who seeks vengeance above Divine Monday. Above all else. Yeah. But you know, it was like somebody else had to help me with the theological framing there. So that goes back to what we were talking about with tradition. Yeah. Like sometimes you have to learn these things from somebody else. Yeah. You can do on your own. You can’t just, you can’t just sit down and expect to read a piece of great literature and really be able to fully benefit from it without not just the interpretive framework, but the interpretive community. Yeah. The people, the people aspect to it is very important in the sense that that’s the necessary component for tradition. You need that and you need something to be passed on to you. It can’t, I mean, you can pass on a book, but the book is no substitute for a person. And I guess that’s. Which kind of brings me back to the talk I gave in Arkansas. All right. Yeah. About how, what the Psalms specifically. Yeah. With the whole, the whole, everything that the Lord does for us provides is relevance realization. Because like, I’m sure that when you studied Hamlet, you read the King’s, you know, the ghost, ghost admonition to, you know, take your vengeance quickly and leave your mother out of it. Yeah. I’m sure you read that. Like your eyes went over the, your brain processed it. But if you don’t understand what that means. Yeah. It doesn’t do anything for you. No, no. So it’s just kind of, what’s it extraneous vengeance. It’s just, Oh, vengeance coming in a form of a ghost, maybe this is a hallucination Hamlet is having. That’s the best highest grade interpretation. I’d have at that stage. We’re losing Sandy. Goodbye, Sandy. I’ll see you, Sandy. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, that’s, that’s what’s I think passed on by tradition above all else’s. This is what’s important. This is what you need to focus on. And it’s really hard to actually teach that to people. So you just kind of have to really hammer it in over and over again. Yeah. I think the repeated, repeated participation helps with that. But that’s, and it’s hard because if you have, you know, even when it comes to stuff like dancing and stuff like that, people actually have a lot of these blocks to participation. It was the same with Vespers to some degree. There were some young men and thankfully, thank God. So the guys who did end up kind of starting with Vespers and, and, and, you know, when they were asked, can you sing, you know, or, or when one of them said, Oh, Adam, but I can’t sing. I just said to him, listen, dude, that doesn’t matter. Actually. I mean, for you’re a human, you can sing, right? That, that’s, that ability is actually within you somewhere. Just take part, just, just show up and do it and, and, and try and, you know, and try and sing as best you can, you know, try and match the notes that people are, you know, do what, do what everyone else is doing around you basically. And if you can’t, if you can’t do that, or, or, or, or if you refuse to do that, it’s one thing, if you kind of have reservations, but then kind of gradually open up to it. It’s another thing. If you close yourself off to it, because then you have no tradition. And I mean that I don’t care where you’re pulling it from. You have no tradition because you’re, you’re, you’re actually not willing to submit in some sense to, to a higher authority, but also like, you know, your, your, your brothers and sisters. It’s taught relevance realization. It’s culture is coherence from attention. So if you, if you’re unwilling to submit to, Hey, here’s what everybody else is doing. Come take a part of it. You’ll actually disintegrate. Yes. Like you will fall to pieces because you don’t have, you don’t have the spiritual power within yourself to keep yourself together. It’s like that’s something you receive from somebody else, from lots of somebody else’s and from one big somebody else who’s above all and through all and in all may his name be praised forever. Amen. Amen. Yeah, that’s it. That’s, that’s, that’s the long and short of it. And you know, that’s, that’s why I like participating in, in like Vespers and stuff, even though as, even though I, you know, I, I was still, there are things that I say, which is like, are you, you know, are you fully submitted? Well, maybe, maybe not so much in the sense that, okay, I’d like my Latin right to be a little bit more lower register with the voices and stuff like that, but I don’t care. Like this is, it’s actually, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s beyond me at this stage. It’s like, if that’s, if that would be cool, then maybe that happens, but probably not. And you know what? I’ll just work with it. It’s, it’s stuff like that or, or, or, you know, what, once in a while, I mean, like, I like Eastern Orthodox icons and it’d be nice if there are more of them in churches. Actually, there are, but, you know, it’s stuff like that, but- I pulled up continually the Basilica of St. John Latter-It as like, as our, as our ideal church and that mosaic icon on the apps is like, that should actually be the best. Not St. Peter’s. I love St. Peter’s. St. Peter’s is great. But like, I think St. John Latter-It, that’s the background for those of you who don’t know it. There was like last year, there was like three, three weeks in a row that I brought it up, but we’re going to bring it up again because I just love it so much. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s so, it’s so beautiful. And I think, I think the advantage of, of, I guess, the icons is that it is just that pictorial representation. And to be honest, like our churches do have that. It’s just, you know, if you do end up getting rid of the statuary, you lose that to a large degree, you know, and statuary, I think is kind of, to some degree, the West’s continuation of iconography. Not, you know, we still have icons, but that was how, that was, that was our kind of ordinary form of, of depicting scenes and, and representing stories in the Bible. Here we go. This is nice and big. It’s not big enough. Sorry. I’m just looking for one that’s big enough. Yeah. There we go. I really like that. St. John Lateran and any of the old Gothic churches as well. Remember, remember kids, this is actually the Pope’s cathedral, not, not St. Peter’s. That’s the seat of the Bishop of Rome. This is the seat of the bishop, which means this is the cathedral of the whole world. If anyone says otherwise, anathema sit. Yeah. It’s like, it’s like, it’s just, it’s just perfect. You know, you’ve got Christ up there in the heavens and then the Holy Spirit coming down through the cross, which turns into the streams of the water of life. Oh, dear. That yearns for running streams is drinking its fill there. You’ve got the, you know, the mercy and it’s like, it’s got the symbolism of the right hand and the left hand perfect, you know, which I see a lot of my modern iconography not get correct. And, you know, St. John the Baptist, St. John the evangelist, St. Andrew, who’s a patron of Rome after a plague, St. Gregory the Great brought out the bones of St. Andrew or some relic of St. Andrew or maybe it was just an icon, I don’t know, and walked through the streets and that delivered them from the plague. And then Our Lady and then St. Peter and St. Paul, and then they added later St. Benedict or no, St. Anthony and St. Francis. And then there’s just a little pope, you know, and Mary’s giving a little blessing to the little pope there because in the grand scheme of things, the popes are little people. Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah, really. And the, and the, I know I do like that. I very much like that on the, in St. John Lateran. Yeah, St. the Basilica of St. John on Lateran Hill. Just so we’re all clear there. Yes. There’s no person named St. John Lateran. No. Anyway, just now, and guess what’s not here? Oh, a depiction of God the Father. There’s no depiction of God the Father there, right? Yeah. Because if you want to see the Father, you look at Christ. I’m getting used to that in all my churches. And I kind of, you know, I just, I just kind of, I just focus on Christ and, and, and, depictions of the Holy Spirit because I just, it’s just a, yeah, I don’t know. It’s just there. You know, it’s, I’m 100% in the, in the camp that the East needs the West and the West needs the East. Yeah, I think so. We need both of that, you know, because. Both lungs. Like you want to, you want to have things organized, you got to put the Romans in charge of that. Yeah. But like when we’re getting too organized, the, you know, the Byzantines could be like back off, back off. Yeah. Well, there’s something, there’s something to the extreme West that I don’t, that I’d want to try and understand. The extreme West. What do you mean by that? Well, like, so we know what the extreme East is effectively, which is like, I mean, in some sense, you could say in the Christian sphere, it’s like the Nestorian church or something like that. Right. But it’s, but in the broader kind of cosmic sense, it’s like, okay, well, that might be like Japan or something, right? That’s where all the weird stuff is. It’s kind of, I don’t, I don’t, I don’t know how to describe it exactly, but like a good example is like, you have these familiar structures, but they’re like complete, they’re, they’re, they’re kind of the way you interact with them is completely different. So you think about the Chinese Confucian system, they have a very high respect for family and all of that, and hierarchy within the family, but marriage over there is like a duty and like husbands and wives will hate each other, but they’ll stick together for the sake of like kind of broader societal order. And I mean, even, even earlier on in the West, when, when that was, you know, when, when we had something a lot more approximate to that, I don’t think you’d ever have a Western or frame it in the way that a Chinese person would frame it. I think they would say like, I mean, it would be basically the Catholic conception of it, which is like, this is, this is good for society, but it’s good for the individuals as well. And they need to participate in a way that, that aligns everything open up in that hierarchy. And so you, so, you know, for me, you know, I think for a lot of Westerners, when you, when you broach the kind of Chinese Confucian system is like, that’s familiar and there’s some good parts about it, but it’s just, I don’t know, a little bit weird, right? But it’s kind of, it’s still got the kind of structure we recognize. I don’t know what the equivalent to that is in the, in the extreme West. Maybe it’s just- I think it’s, I think it’s what we’re doing right now. Yeah. Like the equivalent of the extreme West is, you know, actually I’m a lion. Yeah, right. Right. I think that’s, I think that’s the extreme West right there. Cause it’s like, so what do we mean by the West? It was like, like, you know, what’s the West good at? And I think we’re really good at canon law. We’re good at like, you know, we’re good at, and we’re good at systematizing. Like we’ve got this systematizing impulse. We just want to put things in their place. I actually think that’s a good thing. Like I’m not going to sit here and say, Oh, everything has to be apathetic and never say anything ever. Cause, cause that’s bad. Yeah. You need some guide. But if like, if you, if you take that like, like when you’re systematizing, you breaking things up and put it in the back together or at least rearranging them from, it’s just like, let’s take a look at the scripture. The scripture is kind of chaotic. Like things just kind of go where they go. And, and you have to learn how to navigate around it. And that’s fine. But it’s like, you know, that’s not the way say Thomas wrote the summa. Say Thomas wrote the summa like to go in a very particular order. It’s, and so you show, so it’s that breaking things down. I think that’s, that’s kind of the Western. And you know, if you don’t break things down too much, if you still respect a certain amount of integrity, then that it works. You can organize things, things could be, you know, a little bit better. But if you, if you let that breaking things down instinct take over, you start off with nominalism and you end with atomized individuals. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you’re breaking it down so you can rearrange them or even maybe not even rearrange them, but kind of to, to try and understand the structure better. You just break it down all the way down to its component parts, but then you miss the greater whole. Well, it’s not only that you’ve missed the greater whole, but you don’t learn when to stop breaking things. Yeah. Right. And that makes sense. Cause I mean, that’s again, it’s been something I’ve been thinking about and how that plays out. Cause I was in, you know, I was in California for a whole month, right? I was in the extreme. I was in the kind of opposite of Japan, right? It’s the edge of the world in all of Western civilization. Right. May rise in the East, but at least it’s settled in a final location. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I was very, yeah, I was just very curious about, about all of that. And you know, that’s, that’s helpful. I think there’s also, I think an aspect in which there’s kind of a, there’s a testing of the, there’s a kind of a part of maybe part of what you just described there, Father Eric, is a kind of testing of boundaries in the sense of not to kind of destroy them, but to like, see, see where they are and then, and then kind of live within that. Right. But that, that impulse to kind of test the boundaries, the kind of thing that, you know, gets Columbus on a ship to go, you know, to say, sail to the Indies and be like, let’s see how far we could go. Let’s just get on a ship and go. Also, the Chinese, they actually, it was all dependent on the whim of the emperor or the, or was it the Japanese, the whim of the emperor? Japanese, yeah. They did have like explorerships, but yeah, they didn’t make it all the way to North America as far as we could tell. But a good example of the Chinese is that they had the capability of doing that. Right. Actually, I think they did end up trying to send out exploratory fleets, but because of the way, because of the kind of imperial structure, it just, I guess they just never wanted to really go that far. They had everything where they, where, you know, they had where they needed it. Whereas in the Western context, it’s like, okay, well, Constantinople has just fallen, like, or our trade, we need to try and open up new trade routes. And so Christopher Columbus comes along and other explorers, Amerigo Vespucci, you know, and a good example of that is like the discovery of the Americas. But a good example of where that goes wrong is like what Columbus does when he gets there. Right. And he’s just like, we’re just going to make them into slaves and stuff like that, or we’re going to kill the natives. And it’s like, I think that’s, you just, you kind of have to hold them in tension because it’s like, one aspect is, you know, one aspect is you’ve got, you end up with a place like kind of the continental United States and all the kind of structures there and all the kind of growth that there was for excess population in Europe to go. Right. And, but then you also have like that the same impulse, that same impulse, which generated that also generates the kind of, we’ll just break everything down into bits and pieces. We’ll just kind of endless, as it were, not liberation, but like license, maybe, I don’t know. It still has something I can’t fully grasp. And I don’t want to kind of just break down into, you know, the classic European stereotype of, ooh, America bad because, you know, sometimes America bad, but, you know, in the sense of like, just kind of falling into that as a rule rather than just seeing it for what it is, seeing what the extreme West is. And I don’t think even America as a whole is the extreme West because of course there’s California and then there’s the East coast. And it seems to me anyways, the East coast is a lot, a lot more kind of old world. I mean, it’s got older buildings, right? A lot more old worldy. My brother-in-law comes from New Jersey, you know, and he kind of gets on with us pretty well. So a lot of Irish settled in New Jersey. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas the contrast in the East is like, things are just kind of really eternal. Yes. Right. Like they just don’t change very much. And then, you know, when they did change very suddenly, it was an absolute nightmare. Yeah. Think about like Mao’s Great Leap Forward. Yeah. War in the States period in China. Boy, was that, what were the estimates on the death toll of people who starved to death and that? Like just outrageous, tens of millions of people starving to death when they decide that they’re going to. So it’s like, Hey, you know, maybe that conservative impulse in China was a good thing. Yeah. And like, and like going against that and adopting Marxism, which, you know, worked badly enough in the West anywhere it’s been tried. And then, you know, the Japanese modernize and go commit war crimes over in China, you know? Yeah, exactly. Like that conservative impulse there’s probably good for them. No, exactly. Well, this is, this is why like, I’m so interested in these, in considering them these things as they are, because it’s like, there’s something to be gained and understanding. And it’s not just kind of like, it’s not just a kind of exercise in like, looking over here and saying, well, these guys are bad, and these guys are bad. It’s like, well, but there’s a reason why these guys are the way they are that conservative impulse that can, let’s say, let’s say, Confucian impulse in the far furthest East, right, China, Korea, Japan, makes sense for, and it’s not something that’s just kind of, you know, thought open and it’s arbitrary. And I think the same would be the example in the West. And they’re good. There are actually good reasons why that’s the case. And it’s good to actually take part in that pattern in a proper way. I think that’s, you know, it’s interesting to consider, like how Catholicism spread in Japan and that there is actually still even after the two bombs, you know, a Catholic community in Japan. And like, that’s interesting, you know, a less extreme degree in terms of the Far East, right, the kind of, let’s say, East would be the St. Thomas Christians, right, who were in India. So, you know. Yeah, yeah. Just trying to keep it all together, too. Keep it all together, yeah. I just was thinking to myself, what was it? It’s gone. If it’s important, my guardian angel will remind me. Excellent. That’s what I tell myself. And I think that’s, I guess, in terms of why I’m, why that would be brought up in this case is because, you know, the time we are in the year, I guess we’re getting to one of those extreme times in the year where we just passed the solstice, now we’re coming near to Nativity. And it’s a kind of, it’s a reorientation to the center of the world, which is, I’d say, yeah, I think Jerusalem, you know, in that sense, right, or Bethlehem, or how, but kind of that. And then where are we in respect to that? And then where are these other people? And how do we orient ourselves around, around our true center, the center which we should be looking for, which is, which is, you know, our Lord. Jerusalem is the center of the world. Of course it is. Yeah. Of course it is. That’s a Jonathan. Where else could you put it? Right. Like it’s literally perfect. Yeah. Yeah. Like even the geography, it’s like, oh yeah, Africa, Asia, and Europe, all come together right there. Right. Yeah. Oh my gosh. And it’s like, you can’t make this stuff up, man. Like if you put that into a book, everybody’d be like, oh, that’s cute. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It would be, oh, look, he’s, he’s, you know, the way they’ve laid it out, it’s perfect. It’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s all very convenient. It’s like, that makes sense. All right. That makes sense. And I don’t even know, see, this is the funny thing, right? It’s like, I’m a, you know, we’re, we’re kind of Latin Christians, right? We’re part of the Latin West as a whole. But like, that’s the thing. The center of the world is Jerusalem. Like I kind of, at some point I do kind of want to visit the Holy land because I just like, okay, this is where the center of the world is. Like what, you know, and there’s a lot of little shops with Muslims trying to sell you icons. Oh, okay. Well, there we go. But there’s also the church of the holy sepulcher, you know, right. Which is great. And absolutely, you know, let’s pray for the Lord to restore peace to the Holy land. But if you do go, you absolutely have to do the vigil at the church of the holy sepulcher. Okay. Okay. I see, I don’t even know the kind of the layout that they have there. So they do, they do have a vigil. Okay. Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s all night. You don’t sleep. Don’t sleep. It’s, it’s, it’s a vigil, right? So I got to do it right before we flew home. So it was kind of like getting a head start on my jet lag. Okay. Yeah. So it’s like, you, you got to go in there a few days ahead of time. You just put your name on a list. It’s, guess what? It’s the Franciscans. It’s the Latins who take care of these lists, right? Cause, you know, Hey, you know, we’re working this out. And then you show up at seven and they lock the doors at seven. And then they open the doors at four, but you, you can pray in the, I can’t remember what it’s called. One of these days, I’ll actually remember, but you’ve got like the big church structure. And then you’ve got this much smaller structure around the tomb of Jesus. And you can actually get extended prayer time in there. You have to elbow some like Polish women out of the way sometimes. And they’re real jerks. So like, you kind of got to, you got to bring it in there from about 7 PM till about 11 40. You could just, it’s quiet, finally quiet. You don’t have half of Asia packing in there. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Well, that would be the thing. Of course. Yeah. Part of, if I was going to go to the church, the Holy Sepulchre, that’s, that’s the thing. You’re getting a lot of that crowd in there and not. Okay. So the nighttime, the nighttime vigil is just, yeah. Okay. Yeah. And there’s so many other places as well, not just the church of the Holy Sepulchre, but the, and the church and the Nativity in Bethlehem. There are, oh, there’s so many places that I said it’d be, you know, we at the seminary, we were kind of spoiled. We did a three week trip to the Holy Land. So it’s like, instead of having to get everything done in eight days, you know, we had about 20. Oh, that’s excellent. Yeah. So it was a little more, a little more relaxed there, but yes, to answer it, the, the, the latter, the latter. So the church and Holy Sepulchre is not the most edifying story in Christendom because. Yeah. The, there was a lot of fighting between the various Christian factions there. But like in the night, I think it was in the 1950s, they all came together and said, we’re not going to do anything here unless we all, unless we all agree on it. So, yeah. They just don’t touch it basically. And so the ladder is kind of the symbol. It’s like, okay, we put that ladder there. We’re not moving it. Yeah. Cause, cause that, that was the extent of the agreement. Like they, that they didn’t want anything to be touched basically, because it was, cause you know, at one point it’s basically under the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. So then it would probably be, you know, like a more Latin kind of decor or whatever, but you know, you’ve got the Orthodox there, you’ve got all these different jurisdictions, you know, who, who’s, who, who, who makes the decisions with regards to the church. And so as far as I’m aware, it’s just kind of, it was, it was haphazard for a while because of course it was under the Ottoman Sultan. It was constant fighting. Yeah. Right. The people who held the keys to the church. Yeah. That was it. Yeah. So it would have been, it was Muslims. They gave it to the Muslims because they were, they were, they were a trustworthy independent party. Yeah. So, and yeah, I mean, you can imagine that’s the, that’s the difference. Cause at least with the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem or something like that, with effectively with the Christian Caesar, that kind of, that has some resolution. But yeah, because the Muslims kind of had the keys. It was like at that point, yeah, people, I don’t even know, I don’t even know what, what it went on in, in, in that church over the, over those years. But, but there are other major churches there. As I said, the Bethlehem are there, there’s gotta be ones I’m missing. I think there’s one up near the Sea of Galilee. Well, there’s all sorts of, there’s all sorts of little churches in Galilee. Like you’ve got the Mount of Beatitudes. You’ve got Yeah. You’ve got the place where Jesus multiplied, no, no, no. Yeah. One of the places where he multiplied the lobes, you got the place where Jesus had the fire with St. Peter after the resurrection. You’ve got the Peter’s house, which has a really horrible church on it. Oh yeah. You go to Nazareth, you’ve got the church of the Annunciation, which is also kind of horrible. Some of the stuff got built in the sixties. So it’s like, yeah, it’s like, you can see the worst of the West manifesting itself. Yeah. Yeah. I get what they were trying to do with, you know, Peter’s house where it’s like, they built it over Peter’s house and then you’re going down, you know, the roof. So, you know, you’re the one being healed. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s, yeah, yeah. It’s hard. It’s hard being at the center of the world. I guess I don’t know whether the problems we have get amplified too close. I think honestly, probably, yes. Problems probably we have get amplified the closer you get to the center of the world. I don’t know. Or some of them, or they change it around in some way, but that’s why I’d like to go to the Holy Land. But no, it’s a problem of time too, and when things were built. So like in the 1940s and 50s, the Christians were building a lot of churches in the Holy Land. And there was this great Italian architect, Antonio Berluzzi, who was the architect for like most of them. And you go there and they’re just spot on. Like he nailed it, you know. Or even if you’re not a huge fan of what he did, it’s like, oh yeah, that’s a church, you know. And then the stuff that got built up in the 1960s was like, oh, Berluzzi didn’t do this. What did he? They got some modern architect to do it. So like the Church of the Annunciation’s got like brutalist architecture in it. Oh. It’s like all poured concrete. And it’s okay, but it’s like, who in the world gets excited about concrete? I don’t know. I don’t get excited. Like concrete’s what you put underneath the structure because it’s practical as a foundation. Like that’s what concrete’s for. Yeah, it does the job. Like this poured concrete ceiling makes the place kind of look like a parking garage. Yeah. Oh, there’s a Church of the Transfiguration, of course. Yeah, that’s a really nice one. Up on top of the mountain. That’s an ancient church, basically, right? Like it’s… That one I think was redone in the 50s as well. Okay. But like redone very well. You go to Elijah’s Cave. Elijah’s Cave’s pretty cool. You can see the place where they slit the throats of the 400 prophets of Baal. Oh, wow. Okay, cool. Nice. It was raining really bad that day, though, so we didn’t spend as much time. Epte’s best friend with an architecture background loves brutalism. I don’t get it. Yeah, me neither. So anyway, absolutely go to the Holy Land and even the bad architecture won’t ruin that for you. It doesn’t matter. Yeah, at the end of the day. Okay, I’m here. Yeah, yeah, right. So you got any other plans for Christmas, Christmas time? Christmas tide? Yeah, it’s weird not being in a parish because normally I’m like, Christmas is coming, you know, but it’s like, yeah, I’ve got the noon mass tomorrow and then I’ve got the midnight mass with the bishop, but like that’s going to be mostly just regular mass. Okay. So, you know, make sure his hat gets on and gets taken off at the right time and we’re good to go. And then, you know, I’ll be tired on Monday morning because it takes me a while to get to sleep after I’ve been busy and mass is at 10, so it’ll be like, I won’t get to sleep until like three and I’ll be waking up at eight. Just, you know, that’s how I signed up to work holidays, right? Like this isn’t a surprise to me. But then it’s like, Bishop’s going to go to Omaha, see his family on Christmas day and. Oh, that’s nice. The diocesan offices are closed. So it’s like nothing. Nothing. Wow. So, yeah, I’m going to have to figure out productive ways to keep myself busy. One thing I do have to do is get caught up. So I tested out of the first semester of Latin for my canon law degree. So I’m starting with the second semester and I have to make sure that I’m in the place where I can hop into the middle of the class with the rest of my classmates. Oh. So I have the textbook and the syllabus. Yeah. I just have to. But you’re hopping into the middle of a class. Is that how it works with your, like when you go down there for the summer? No, no, no, no, no. This is online classes. Oh, okay. So all the rest of my classmates, or at least most of the rest of my classmates, have been taking online classes since August for their Latin. I tested out of that. But this January, I hop back in. Just got to make sure I’ve got my ablative absolutes all straightened out. Uh oh. Yeah. I don’t, no idea. I know ablative is a case, but I don’t know. Yeah. Ablative is kind of your catch-all case. It does. It does. How do I feel about Nativity Plays before Mass? Just fine. Just fine. Having the children act out the story of Christ means they’re actually likely to remember it. That and Living Stations of the Cross? Fan of both. As long as it’s done with an appropriate amount of decorum and seriousness. Do they do that in Ireland? Maybe they do. I just don’t know. I don’t think it happens in my parish, at least not for the past two years. Yeah. No Nativity Plays. No Passion Plays. I’m sure they’re done somewhere, but I’ve never seen it done. It’s the most natural thing in the world. We’re going to celebrate this big holiday. We’re going to act it out. Make the story kind of a little more alive. Yeah, that makes sense. That makes sense for me. I don’t know how ordinary it is to have it happen in a church though. Surely that’s a… If you have it, what about the parish hall? That’s the main way I’ve seen it done. Okay. Usually they’re not in the sanctuary. They’re kind of in front of it, which seems appropriate to be. It’s like, you got the Holy Place there, and then we’ve got this in-between place. You could do it in that in-between place when the whole rest of the congregation is sitting out there. It’s a way of bringing the story down. Oh yeah, that would make sense. Yeah. So yeah, they shouldn’t be doing it in the sanctuary, if they can avoid it. But it would also be quite fitting to do it in a social hall, gymnasium. Okay. Cool. Yeah. So you got flexibility with it. I’m a fan though. I’m a fan, Mr. Philip Nickerson. Nice. Okay. I want to see one of these now. Yeah. They’re usually like cute things for the kids, and they put on costumes. That’s great. Sally Jo coming in with more fire. There’s a false humility of worshiping the ugly and unrefined that incidentally has to happen if you reject the historical norm of beautiful churches. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s going to happen. Yeah. We still love you despite being a Baptist, Sally. That’s true. Yeah. Well, Adam, any final thoughts? It’s not Christmas yet. All right. No, no Merry Christmases just yet. All right. We’re still in Advent. We’re still in that penitential season. But when you see the appropriate liturgical color for Christmas time, which I think is white, then… That’s it. That’s exactly right. That’s when you bring out the carols. I always feel guilty about doing Christmas carols. I did sing Christmas carols last night because it was Father Cody’s 88th birthday, and he wanted to do it. So I was like, okay, I’ll let my hyper Adventism down. For Father Cody, he’s over 60 years of priestly service. We’ll just do this. Yeah. Yeah. Try and do well, and don’t be scandalized, and don’t be a cause of scandal, and adhere to the tradition of our ancestors and the tradition given to us by the Lord. Don’t go crazy with being a Westerner, and remember that Jerusalem’s the center of the world. All right. I will see you guys during the Christmas season. God bless you all.