https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=5y4o0oKxvCY
Hello. Happy second Sunday of Lent, Xander. Hey, thank you, Father Eric. I’m good. My Lent is going quite well so far. I’ve kept up with my Rosary walks, which has been sort of my key focus of my Lenten journey. There’s other things I’m doing, but that was sort of like the big one because I did it for when I was preparing for the Easter vigil as a catechumen. I did the Rosary walks each day, so I wanted to at least a year into my Catholicism, I wanted it at least to be as zealous as I was last year. It’d be good. Very good. Meet the bar. Glad to hear it. Glad to hear it. Yeah. I went to my second Latin Mass on Saturday of my life, and I brought my youngest son with me because Mom likes me taking the baby to Mass because it gives her some free time for a while. So he went to Latin Mass for the first time. Okay. Very good. Start of young. That’s what I say. Yeah, he gets a lot of comments of like, you know, oh, he’s so quiet and he’s a good baby. Which I don’t know how much is just people being polite and is the actual case. Usually the screamers leave an impression. You know, yeah. Maybe it’s just the fact that he’s not a screamer is enough to be called a good baby because babies generally start with a lot in the plus column, right? Yeah, yeah. People are generally well disposed to babies, which is the only way that civilization can work. Yeah, absolutely. And they’ve got to give the kid a chance. You know, it’s like a small and useless right now, but we can get somewhere. The kids got potential. Yeah. Go in places. Yeah, so that’s yeah. So things have been been going well. I actually when I I wanted to talk to you especially about this about your talk with Mark for a couple of weeks now, I think since I first saw the video posted because it’s a big passion of mine, right? Is the is like, what do we do to save the Catholic Church? And I needed to get into a better spiritual place and I think Lent has helped me do that. I just have like, you know, the Jordan Peterson spheres of having things sorted out. So I’m I’m much more sorted at that point. I was like in no position to actually handle the conversation and get there. But I’m with with Lent sort of centering things. I’m much more sorted at this point. It sounds like you’ve been thinking about it for a while. And I’m happy to go there. But Grim Grizz is hoping to derail our conversation with some questions. OK, and so if you will, if you’ll touch. Yeah, yeah. Let him in here. I think we can go ahead and do that. I see you on the comments on one stream, but not the other. But I’m watching. I’m watching you. You throw those comments at me. There it is. What’s Anna Chino and is Father Eric going to performing signs and wonders there? So if I’m understanding things correctly, Anna Chino is the next for Vickie Vanderclay Peugeot gathering in Chino, California. And, you know, if the Lord so wills it, I will perform science or performing with signs and wonders. Yes, that’s your that’s your dream theater cover band, isn’t it? I’m not good enough at at guitar to be a part of your cover band. So I will I will sing backup vocals if required with the signs and wonders. That’s question number one. We’ll see if question number two comes in. So, yeah, I am planning on going to that that one in California. I’ve got my tickets yet. But I do not. Yeah. Oh, we got question number two. If you God command returned to the first works, how would you interpret it? Yeah, it’s an interesting one. That’s from the letters to the churches in the Book of Revelation. I mean, since we’re going to do a little bit of a Bible study, let’s get the whole thing in context. That’s right. I would bring up because I don’t I don’t know the Book of Revelation that well. So let’s let’s look at that. So Revelations two. Yeah, we’re going to. Oh, yeah, I got it. I got it. Here we go. We add that to the stream. We’ll zoom in a little bit. And most importantly, we’ll get a proper translation revised standard version Catholic edition. There we go. Yeah. So this is a message to the church in Ephesus. So I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance and how you cannot bear evil men, but have tested those who call themselves apostles, but are not and found them to be false. I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake and you have not grown weary. But I have this against you that you have abandoned the love you had at first. Remember then from what you have fallen repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place unless you repent. Yeah, you have this that this you have you hate the work of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate. He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches to him who conquers. I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. So here’s what I’m thinking about when you’re when you’re asking that question and thinking about how at the beginning of a movement of the spirit, the whole thing that God wants there is planted in seed form. Everything that God wants to do, he’s got it all planted there in seed form, but then it can very often it’ll it’ll grow and it’ll it’ll find its place. And sometimes mission creep gets in there where what God was doing at the beginning gets lost. It’s no longer the focus at the center. You need to get back to what God had actually planted there at the very beginning rather than distract the distractions that can come up along the way. So with the letters to the churches, whose perspective are they? So this is so revelations was written by John, right? And it was like it was sort of it was it was prophetic. So this is Jesus speaking to the angel of the church in Ephesus, right? This to the angel of church, right? This. OK. Yeah. So return to the first works, you go back to the source where God had begun his work, his work, and then. Yeah. So that’s my quick answer for you. What that would mean personally is a matter for me and my spiritual director. So, yeah, but it’s interesting, though, to like sort of like we’re talking about. It’s apropos, I guess, or because we’re talking about how the Catholic Church can do a better job. And so Revelations two, where we’re where basically Jesus is giving his diagnosis to several troubled churches of how like so how how how parishes are doing. And so it’s interesting to note how parishes or church communities can go wrong. It’s sort of like it’s a good place to start. And it goes in order of good boys to bad boys at the Book of Revelation. So, you know, the worst thing that Jesus has to say about the church in Ephesus is that, you know, it’s just not quite as fervent as it was in the beginning. But you can get back to that. So, okay. Yeah. Oh, someone else is joining too. Andrew Andrews here. Andrews, a friend of the show. Hi, Andrew. Good evening. Good to be here. Yeah, it’s good to have you too. Happy Second Sunday. Yeah, it’s good to have you too. Happy Second Sunday. I hope everybody is suffering well this land. Yeah, yeah, it always. And it’s just a little more, a little more penance. Yeah. So you wanted to talk about themes that Mark and I have brought up in our discussion. Yeah, I posted that in the chat if you guys want to go back to the chat. I have three pages of notes. And the first page was like, written in, it was written on the first five minutes basically of the conversation. I was like, Oh, I better, I better slow this down a bit. But I really, I didn’t have to that much. It’s just like, you were in, you did a good job of introducing the themes that you talked about throughout. So, yeah, so I was framing it that this is something that I’m going to be talking about in the next few days. Throughout. So, yeah, so I was framing it that this is something like I’ve struggled with, right, because I come very much from I guess what Mark described as the meaning crisis community because he really talked about the crisis of faith community and the crisis, the meaning crisis community. And I’m a sort of a new recruit or a new Catholic and I have quite the journey. I was actually a very devout, new atheist at that moment. And it becomes a, you know, I don’t want to go into my whole personal story, but I, you know, I started out, my parents eloped because my father was from the Protestant church in the United States. And my mother was Catholic and there was, between my grandparents, there was a bit of scandal with them marrying outside of the faith on both sides. So, and they were both biologists, so they had a very sort of, I was raised in this very secularized environment. I did have mythology though and I did like, I did like develop like what Mark was talking about the ability to see myself inside of stories so I don’t think I was far gone as, as, as people can get as people can get. But I, you know, I have basically seen the wave of woke and I go really what caused my crisis of faith was what we now describe as as woke. My crisis of faith in atheism. Just how quickly it overtook and decimated the the atheist community right we were all so rational and so skeptical. And, you know, but in a matter of months it was just like completely buckled and it was just way back in 2010 2011 and the movement has been was completely co-opted right it wasn’t related. It was new atheist plus right that was. Yeah, that was atheism plus came in right now and that was the that was the the woke revival or the woke, woke rebounding of of atheism and actually that was, you know, that sort of gets to a point of how that that whole force operates is it separates the identity from the essence. Right. So that’s what disrupts being it just separates the identity from the essence, and then it can use the the identity as as a mask as a skin suit, right as the wolf in in grandma’s house right to continue to perpetuate. These, these identities are are they’re associated with naming and that’s associated with left left hemisphere thinking. And if you’re familiar with in the Gilchrist’s master and his emissary right brains the master left brain supposed to be the emissary the left brain isn’t actually in contact with reality. It’s in contact with what it’s given by the right brain. Yeah. And, and so it creates these virtual worlds basically this is the way McGill Chris talks about it, which is actually super helpful to have. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah the church ladies over copy they never want to get into the theological leads. All right, so we’re talking about the meaning crisis and the like he talked about the meaning crisis and compared it to the the faith crisis. But really, it’s I think that’s something that is not under not emphasized when we talk it when Burvaki talks about the meaning crisis that it comes also with a being crisis, or an identity crisis. And I like the term being crisis better than identity crisis, because it’s identity crisis sort of doesn’t give the other half of being which I think is the essence, right, you were sort of talking about the stuff right now that or the connection to authenticity, or what Mark like where Mark comes at this, he comes out of a couple different places, but he talks about the intimacy crisis, right, or he talked about in your conversation. He talked about caring, right. Right. And that’s why it’s a being crisis, because the crisis, the identity crisis is you have this multiplicity of identities, but the entities aren’t connected to anything real, they aren’t. They’re, they’re, they’re not connected to the essence of what the thing is. Right. And I think, yeah, an important part of an essence is actually, it’s T los, it’s end its finality, what this thing is for. Yes, right. And you know, we break up Aristotle’s four causes, we break that up into different parts. But ultimately, it’s all describing the one essence of the thing. And then once you’re missing efficient cause, material cause, formal cause, or final cause, you no longer have the complete essence right there. And yeah, the way we first get at the essence of the thing, the thing we discover first is what it’s for. Yes. Right. And we can get to the other, get to the other causes later, basically. Okay. So I’m agreeing with you, man. Yeah. Yeah. So actually, what, what, and where I’m going to take it is this is actually then, like, so our, our essence, like our, our essence, so what we’re meant for to get really catholically is, is, is worship, right, is to, is, is worship of God, worship of Christ. And to make that then more vervechian or that way is, is the way you can describe that is, is the connection of essence, of essence with identity, right? To resolve, resolve essence, identity, and get connected to being because God is the alpha and omega of, of being, right? So. And so essence and identity are linked in this way, right? So an essence is essentially, essentially, I’m defining a word with its own words, an essence limits being. Right. It limits you into a particular mode of operation and a particular finality, right? Now, when you have your identity tied into an essence, right? A real essence, real limitations, you actually have a possibility of, of, of reaching that finality. But it’s once you, you try and have your identity just be infinite. I can be whatever I want. Yeah. I’m running into serious problems there. Yeah. It runs into serious problems, but this is actually, I’d actually sort of frame essence differently because essence is more, it, essence I think is connected to, or is more a description of the, of the elemental or of the primordial chaos, you could say, or, or the father, which is, which is discernible, but it, but it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not particularized, right? It’s, it’s sort of this, it’s an unknown potential. It’s often like symbolically it’s water. It’s escaping me. But Jordan Peterson, he, in his Exodus series, had a beautiful phase of phrase for what water represents of like some sort of like of the unrealized chaos, unrealized potential or chaos. But it’s, it’s that, that, that, that’s what the, the father is. Like that’s the, the alpha of it, right? And identity is like, identities are not real unless they’re connected to, or connected to the essence, right? Essence is that merger of the, of an identity, but identities are very particular, right? Identity is the named thing, right? So it’s, it’s, so you can have lots of named things that are fake and not real, like are imaginary, but it’s only when a named thing is connected to the, is, is, has, has an essence that it, that it actually then becomes real, right? It’s the naming of the thing with the, with the actually connecting to a discernible, a discernible part of the unnamed, right? Right. So then it, so then that, that, that is what makes, makes the real, right? So an understanding, so yeah, you get into both sides. Yeah. So, so it seems like you’re trying to use a Trinitarian model here. Well, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So that you’re looking at, you’re looking at the son proceeding by way of knowing, right? The father reflects on his own essence, he reflects on his own identity, and he has a perfect understanding, a perfect reflection of his own identity, and that gets expressed in the son. Yes. And that, the son, the logos, the word, that is the perfect expression of who the father is. Yes. But in you seeing that, you see that as a point where actually we now have a proper identity. Yeah. So, so, so to, to, to, the father describes, when he describes himself when he confronts Moses, as I am, right? Right. But then when he, when he’s, when, when, so when he’s particularized into the body, into the person of Jesus Christ, he has an identity, he has a story, he has a native, a narrative, right? So he becomes, he becomes realized because of, of, you know, he’s, Jesus Christ is the realized perfection of, the son is the realized perfection of the father. Yeah. So Jesus Christ has an identity, but, but the father is, is the essence, right? Well, it would be the case that I think the father would only, we would only be able to come to know the father through knowing the son and the son’s relationship to the father. And it’s like, it’s at that point, logically, we could actually establish an identity for the father and the son because they have that relationship and the Holy Spirit, actually. That’s exactly how Thomas Aquinas says, and other theologians, but I know Thomas Aquinas, that’s why he gets cited. That’s all, that’s all the persons are, are relationships of identity against, yeah, not against, but. So, so yeah, I think that I have some differences to Tom, to Thomas Aquinas. I haven’t read. You’re off the stream. Yeah, but I like in that, just, just subtle though, right? Because I, but I think that the Holy Spirit is, is the relationship or the, the, between the father and the son, right? You could say the product or the, the manifestation of the relationship between the father and son creates the Holy Spirit, right? And that’s sort of like, in a lot of early Christian iconography, you see like the father and son to have this relationship or conversation, and emerging from that is the Holy Spirit represented by a dove emanating down toward us, right? And it’s, and, and, yeah, and, and that, and then I, but I also connect then to the Holy, like the, the Trinity to the theological virtues, right? With the, with the father being, being hope and Christ, the son being faith and the Holy Spirit being charity, the spirit of love. And that’s what, and it’s, it’s the, and the representation of the, that, that, that, that’s the relationship between the father and the son become the model for the relationship between us and actually all our relationships, which is why I think, which I think is what you and, and Mark were stumbling around, but didn’t quite get right in your conversation of what the church needs to do. And like, so one way you could describe what the church needs to do is, is reconnect with the, the Holy Spirit and, and help teach, that teach the practical way, right? The embodied way of, of teaching people how to connect to the Holy Spirit, right? So that’s, I think what the, the, the charismatics and I mean, the, the companions of the cross have, right? So I thought like, I don’t know, have you read Bob Bedard’s book yet? I have not, I have not. I, some of the companions of the cross, they went to seminary with me in Detroit. And I all thought they were all fine gentlemen. So I would, I would think that, is that their founder then? Yes, Bob Bedard is their founder. And he was the, he was the parish priest in St. Mary’s parish in Ottawa. And he was something he actually resisted all of his life. He wanted to be, I don’t know all the priests, but he tried to stay on the education side of it. And he never wanted to be a parish priest. And he actually became very good at finding excuses to, to tell his bishop to why he couldn’t or to manipulate his bishop into not allowing him to be a parish priest. But he ultimately ultimately put him in charge of this troubled parish. And he completely turned it around and sort of made into a corner store of an exemplar of Christianity, of Catholicism within Canada. And I think also into it’s spreading into the United States as well. And so he has in the book has a lot of very practical things about like how to revive a parish community, how to build a parish community. So I think, I think it’s an excellent read. I, as a priest, I got, as a layman, even though the book’s written for priests, as a layman, I got a lot out of it. And it’s, but, but, but if I could sum it up in a very short, it’s sort of in two phrases, it’s giving Jesus permission and connecting the Holy Spirit and getting out of the way is basically the message there, right? It’s like, don’t overthink it. The, the, like, if you, you know, you give Jesus permission to act within your community, right? And you connect to the Holy Spirit, then emergently you’ll see the opportunities within your parish and you just have to follow, follow God’s lead and people come to you, right? Sure. Yeah. Yeah. But, but, but that gets to what I think connects in a way to Mark’s message, right? Of, like, of works and building community as being sort of things that the, that the church needs to do to reconnect because people have been separated. And actually, we’ll go back to the theology because this is actually important. So I was talking about the Holy Spirit and that, and so, so we need to have that connection to God. And, and what evil does, like if I could define evil, basically it’s, it disrupts that discernment of that, that, that, that connection of, of that process of connection of identity and essence, right? Is, there’s, there’s forces out there. There is the malevolent forces are those that intentionally disrupt that connection. So disrupt our discernment and, and discrimination of Christ. Yeah. Yeah. And that actually matches the names, what the word, what the word demons means or the what the word demons means or the diabolical, because what it literally means is throwing things apart or tearing or tearing them apart. And so the diabolical absolutely would want to strip away the identity from its underlying essence because that would end up weakening both at the same time. Yeah. And, but also it becomes, it, it, it provides an opportunity for two things. One multiplicity of, of essences, right? That are unresolved because as long as this, the, the process is disrupted, all the, the false identities can persist, right? Because there’s no discernment. Discernment ultimately means that when discernment occurs, when Christ, Christ says that, then, then, you know, Christ reveals himself to the, the crucifixion, resurrection, then all the, all the false shadows, all the, all the things are burned in the light, burned away in the lake of fire, right? The dead wood is burned away. And so those false identities don’t, don’t want that to occur. So they, they, so I think that that’s, I think this connects to Pagio’s work, right? Is that really is what demons are, are manifestations of false identities, right? So they’re identities that don’t have, actually have essence behind them or they’re, they’re aberrant and they may, they may have, they have many aspects of essence, but they’ve grown beyond their essence. Well, this is, this is the way that I think Dionysius and Aquinas and, and especially modern exorcists talk about it, is that every one of the angels was given its task and its purpose in helping or assisting God order his creation. And that they were some of the angels who rebelled against that, but they still, so it’s like they were supposed to be submitted underneath the highest to do his bidding, but they rebelled and they would not submit. They are trying to fight against it. And what the exorcists say is that the demons that are involved in this sort of temptation or this sort of, this sort of diabolical influence, it actually corresponds with what they were supposed to be doing. One, they were originally, yeah. So. And that’s, and that’s the, that aberration is, is evil, right? Yeah. And you see that with the seven deadly sins, right? All the, all the seven deadly sins are aberrant forms of, I wouldn’t say necessarily virtues, but of, of ordinary human passions and desires of, yeah, of healthy, of right-ordered passions and desires, right? So for example, like gluttony is like, you need to eat, right? Wrath, that there, you need righteous, like there is righteous anger, right? Right, right. Right. Even pride, you know, you do have excellence that is worthwhile, a good. Yes. Yeah, exactly. You know, we have pride is, is very important, right? Because you need like the even like humility, the virtue of humility is, is really, it’s, it’s a sort of pride in the sense that it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s the humility is really right. Acknowledgements of one’s accomplishments, right? It’s sort of a correct sense of self, right? Is sort of, I think we would. And interestingly enough, Thomas Aquinas locates that underneath temperance, you’re not taking excessive pleasure in your own excellence. Yeah. Which is just like, oh, that’s perfect. That’s perfect. And just to make this conversation and even a little bit more fun, we got Ted coming on in. All right. I got you on a roll, Xander, were you going somewhere? Yeah, I mean, I, I can, I can, I have pages, right? But I mean, the, the, the fundamentally, the, the, the, so Companions of the Cross is sort of the practical side of it, right? Is, is the connection to the Holy Spirit. Practically, what, what we can do is, is, is building parish communities. I, I, I mean, where I disagree if there’s something with Mark in that, I don’t think you have to hide the Christianity, right? You don’t have to sort of say this is outside of the church in order to do that. What we, what you really need is to actually emphasize the results, be the, the exemplars is what I would actually say. Right? So if your parish community isn’t, once you’re, when, when people, when people see the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, then they’re, they’re undeniable. They are, they are attractive. People are drawn to that. I don’t, like, I mean, I would recommend if you watch some of the masses at St. Mary’s Parish in Ottawa, and even, because they’re all recorded on YouTube, but like even through that, you can see the, the passion and exuberance, the, the, the correctly ordered joy of the people in the parish, and that, you know, that instantly, people who are in a being crisis or in a, or a needing crisis, they exactly, they see that that, you know, that, that is the bomb that they’re seeking. Right? Like it’s naturally attractive to them. Well, and he’s saying there’s a possibility of inspiring horror instead of awe. Oh, yeah. I mean, you don’t, yes. Okay. And I think what Mark was right about is like the going, like, you don’t want, you don’t want to be too preachy in the sense of too propositional. And I think that’s a problem that, that Protestants have too is that, and not like, and what he said, I don’t know, I don’t know if that’s what we’re talking about when we’re talking about horror though. I mean, we’re talking about with horror and awe, right? Is your, your, your encountering a being that you have to say, that’s above me. Yeah. I am not, I am not in charge of that. That is in charge of me. And, and that line, I mean, Viveki talks about this in awakening from the meeting crisis, that line between horror and awe is awfully thin, right? Because, you know, if you’ve, if you’ve got the right relationship to whatever it is that you’re seeing, right? And people experience awe inside of nature, right? Yeah. So they might, they might see massive waves coming in off the Pacific and smashing into the rocks, right? Yeah. And if you’re safely above that, it could be awe inspiring, but if it’s coming right at your face, and it’s actually a, an experience of horror to experience that. So the, Jesus has to constantly say, be not afraid. The angels have to constantly say, be not afraid. Yeah. So, you know, it’s, and it really, I think Mark’s solution, now that I’ve, I’ve had some time to ruminate on it, Mark’s solution is specifically for people who don’t know how to cooperate well and don’t know how to participate in a story that they aren’t telling themselves. Yes. So, so like that right there, if you, you know, take your, your video game addicts, never had a good relationship with anybody kind of person, and just plop them into companions of the cross charismatic worship. Yeah, yeah. They’re gonna real, they’re gonna panic. Yeah, they’ll, yeah, I’m not hard to see that just being an awe response, right? Yeah. Whereas you take somebody in, let’s say the Bush of Africa, who’s worshipping in a community, some kind of animist religion, they’ve already got this strong sense of the supernatural, and you just, you bring in the Christian missionaries, you tell them the Christian story, and you start worshipping with them, they’re just gonna slide right into it. Ah, there’s one God in heaven, instead of all these different gods. Okay, that actually really works, you know, and the things just start happening, and that’s why Christianity is growing like crazy in Africa, because they already have this participation in stories, and we just give them a better story. So maybe, maybe that, you know, so, so hopefully this was clear in the video that we made, is that this church condescending, and just going out and building community around something other than the cross, as hopefully a way to invite people into the church. Yeah. Ah, that’s giving them kind of baby steps into participating in a community, and submitting themselves to a higher thing. That’s not for everybody. Yeah. That’s for people who, and there’s probably a frightening number of people like that around, who don’t have this ability to participate in a community, and understand themselves as a part of a story. Okay, so what I fear about that, though, I think that you make some valid points, especially about like turning people off, but what I fear about that is, I think that there’s two things. The church has been too timid, and this is actually forced our, like, it’s not just bringing people on, but we’ve had a lot of people leave the church, right? Like, like 30% in the last 10 years, and a part of that is because of the understatement of the value of faith, right? Like, that there’s a lot of unhealthy parishes there, and I think that there needs to be that rekindling of the Holy Spirit at that point right now. Like, you don’t, as much as you want to appeal to these people who are, have no sense of the supernatural, and that you need to do a better job of building community in the existing parishes now, so you have the retention, and just the, and the building there. So there’s that aspect of it, and I think that that’s, I’ll leave it there, because I think we’ll let other people talk, but that’s the thing, is I think that the first step is also to build there, and maybe, I guess, the other place I just want to say is, is you need to understand the enemy more. We can talk about the evil one a little bit later in the conversation, but let’s give everyone else a chance to throw some stuff in there. All righty, yeah, no, I think that’s really interesting, Sandra, that you would say that. I was expecting a little bit of that response. Yeah, I’m just, I’m glad that you’re chewing on it, you’re thinking about it. I guess the one thing I would say is that we could do more than one thing at one time. Yeah, somebody, somebody. Well, something I’m pitching to the Knights of the Columbus, and this is actually directly from Thunder Bay, is that we got to, if we want to bring people in, we got to build some sheds, right? We’ve got to actually go out there, and men are attracted to projects, right? Right, right, and they end a lot of the time, they lack the skills to build homes, and sort of those manly skills. So if we actually go out, you know, and fix some sinks, build some sheds, and hang out as men doing that, that’s the kind of thing that will bring people in, much more so than having another breakfast, or, you know, another charity raffle or something. Yeah, yeah. And we should, right on line with Mark, sorry, go ahead, Ted. Oh, yeah, sorry, so no, I just, I mean, I jumped in about watching YouTube as part of Lent, and so I literally just jumped into the stream yard. So I didn’t know, you know, the first point is the conversation. I’m just trying to, I’m trying to pick it up as we’re going. And, but I think you can tell me if I’m, if I’m, if I’m catching the drift, but so one of my friends and someone who is instrumental in bringing me into the church is a, he teaches butchery, like that’s his, like, he’s made a profession of that. And he’s, he’s a really solid, wonderful guy. And so he hosts these classes where people come in, he keeps them real small, it’s like eight people come in, they’ll butcher two pigs over the course of three days, you know, they’re on the hoof, all the way to eating them the last day. And one of the things that we’ve discussed a lot is that he, you know, he’s a traditional Catholic, he’s got eight kids, but they get everyone. I mean, they get every, like, as woke as you can get, you know, people worshiping the nature goddess, people who, you know, blue collar. Yeah, well, I’m sorry, Mark. It’s like, under the age of five, I’m going to give him a pass. But I think, I think Ted’s, Ted’s feeding into it, right? Like he gets these, he’s got, he’s got the gist of it. So, so the, they end up with these people. And then you’ve got, you know, blue collar folks who are just like, hey, I’ve been raising cattle all my life, and I want to know how to like, put one in the fridge. So to, and then Catholic homesteaders and Mormon, you know, Mormon doomsday preppers and everyone. And I was, I was kind of just noodling over why is it that you can get these people across the entire spectrum of North American culture as it stands right now, and they have a wonderful time with each other for three days. And part of what Father Eric was talking about, about the, you know, video game, you know, no narrative unless they’re telling it to themselves. I think, I mean, people, everyone knows that’s isolating, unless you’re like fundamentally neurologically disabled, everyone realizes that that’s a second best to possibly negotiating with actual reality. And I think what happens is when you put this pig on a table in front of people, here’s a half of a pig. And we say, we all know what the purpose of this is, which is to eat well. And we all know what it is, because it’s there in front of us. And you can, you know, you can poke it, and you can pull the leaf lard out with your hand. And, you know, you can quarter it with a knife and on and on and on. All of a sudden, you go from this profound separation because of the abstracted filters of reality to you start to operate in this immediate sense, because the pig provides a frame of reference for everyone to share. So I think about a dead pig is that it resists you. Yeah, you have to have the right approach to it. You can’t do it any old way. So it actually, in order to butcher a pig, it actually forces you to be more perfected, to become a more perfect human being in order to cut it up. It’s very real. And actually, something I, you know, this may get me into some trouble, but just to make this point, but I think it is actually an important one. That it’s not just that you said that it brings lots of people in, but I think that you one thing that would sort of that would be noticeable, the demographic it’s bringing people in who have these different relationships, but I think that it would be overwhelmingly a masculine audience, overwhelmingly men. What’s interesting is you would think that, but it isn’t because the beauty of butchering is that it is a deeply domestic activity. Actually, it’s a very modern thing to say, oh, that’s something that men go off and do. Generally, men kill animals, but, you know, there’s only two bullets to put in heads on that day. But that, I mean, because the end, the final cause of it is to feed people, particularly to feed families. It is actually, it is in that transition, it’s that handing off of a live animal to food is actually properly a profound degree of engagement between the male and the female in the house. Yeah, engagements, right? Because it’s really hard to get a quarter of a cow up on a hook. Everybody’s strength is going to help. Yeah. Yeah. So it affords that, you know, sort of take on the verbatim language, like the participation is you no longer, it sidesteps all the question about what’s relevant and like you all just get to participate and no one’s consciously thinking, hey, I have a shared frame of reference to these people now. It’s just like, we’re all here to cut up a pig and I don’t have to, we, a lot of that fringe sort of disappears and you get to just engage in this thing. And so, I mean, I think, and then Father Eric, what you’re saying too, it, you don’t get to really interpret the pig in some sense. You know, it is what it is. It has so many ribs, it has so many legs, the bones are of a certain, you know, tensile strength, you know, and on and on and on and on. And you, you know, and I think there’s a strong argument that sort of the fundamental moral question is, are you going to submit to reality or are you going to try to change it to match yourself? And I mean, you could, you can say that in more sophisticated ways, but essentially, when you get to engage with a pig, all of a sudden it’s like, I’m submitting to reality. And when everyone is making that same moral decision together, it’s cool. So, Ted has sold me on pig butchery, Catholic evangelism, 100%. Well, it’s, and that’s the thing, right? You know, lots of things can be evangelism, lots of things can be evangelization, right? So like this is, this is what I was taught in my scripture classes. So we’ll see if it, if it holds up to water, but people, what we said that St. Paul’s common mode of operation was that he would set up shop as a tent maker and he’d be like making people belts and little straps and little pouches and those sorts of things. Because apparently tent makers work with leather a lot. And he would just engage with people at times in the shop and like see if there was anything going out to it. So anyway, that’s like biblical scholar stuff is not actually in the Bible, but St. Paul does talk about him working to sustain himself and not living off the largesse of the church. So yeah, he was he was doing something. But he was using, he was using leather strips and whatever, whatever else went into the craft of tent making. He was using that as an avenue, you know? So like there’s all sorts of things that work for all sorts of different kinds of people. The women’s Bible study really works well for people, for women who want to go to the women’s Bible study, right? But, but we need to, we need to like, and, and I really appreciate what you said earlier, Xander, about, you know, getting out of the way of the Holy Spirit and just trying stuff. Yeah. Right. And I think we have to be attentive to the fact that we’ve created a world with all of these extremely powerful technologies that allow you, and we’ll get back to the something earlier, that allow you to project an identity that has nothing to do with your essence. Yes, 100%. Because that’s what this digital technology does. I can create a character in the chat, the VR chat, you know? Yeah. And I can be Pepe Le Pew and I can be a skunk that chases women around. It gives a whole, where’s black and white? Oh, this is getting a little, yeah. The push of, of meta, right? Like they’re really trying to push meta and the VR stuff. It sort of shows like, you know, they’re really trying to create this sort of, that enhance the simulacra that are separated from the, the essence of things. And it connects to what Ted was saying too, like the pig is very real and it’s, it’s, it’s this very, very, very authentic shared experience, right? Very close to the essence, very close to the metal of reality. And so we need, we need to get- The technology pulls us away from that. The church needs to be Walmart, right? What do I mean? What can you buy at Walmart? Almost anything, right? It’s got a photo studio, it’s got a pharmacy, it’s got a little bank there, it’s got a restaurant, it’s got a barbershop, right? It’s like, oh, what, what does the church do? We have something for absolutely stinking everybody, you know? So you’re saying the Catholic church has to be Catholic. Yes. And universal. Yes. And I’m using the analogy of Walmart. Yeah. That’s what I’m doing. So I remember, I remember at the seminary, this was in St. Paul, there was this guy who would show up to mass every once in a while, like once a month or so. And he, you know, he looked a touch scruffy and he like wear a leather jacket and his hair was kind of messed up. He’s a real nice guy to talk to. And he had this van that was painted like every sort of hippie color, right? And like this guy would just go around and talk to homeless people about Jesus and pray with him. I don’t know, maybe he had a job too, I’m not sure. That guy had a place in the church, right? Okay. If I was driving that van around and looking scruffy, you know, like I don’t know if I would. But that’s like, that’s not my place in the church. I’m a center kind of figure, you know? I hold on to the tradition. I organize things in the center of things. That’s what I’m for. But you know, we’ve got got something for everybody. So I wouldn’t want to say that we need to implement Mark’s solution as the only solution. Okay. But I have it as a part of our toolbox of going out to church condescending to just building community, but not necessarily around the church, but we make sure the church is in the background so that they know who’s doing it. That’s Mark’s proposition as far as I can tell. And having that as a part of our toolbox, I think is something we have to do. So I’m just going to use that as a good opportunity to introduce the idea of charity and caregiving. So I actually think that it’s a better translation, that the older translation is a better translation of the theological virtue. It’s complete, put as love now, but charity is a better translation because it’s actually closer to the masculine form of love. And I think that one of the ways the church has gone sideways, and I think this is an intentional point of the evil one, is that we’ve turned it into, well, one is we’ve stopped looking at love as a relationship and more as an emotion, which is trouble in and of itself. But we’ve equated it too close to mercy and sort of this feminine, more feminine conception of love that’s unconditional and exuberantly merciful. And I think that It’s all right-handed, no left-handed. All right-handed, no left-handed. And this may be, I’ve tried this one for one audience before, but I think it’s right. And maybe you can convince me otherwise. But I think one of the best examples of the charity and love of God is in the story of Jacob, where he wrestles with God or wrestles with an angel. And that is what’s meant by charity. So I’ll take it to Jordan Peterson, to compare what I’m talking about, this form of love. So Jordan Peterson loves his rats as much as his lobsters. I don’t know if you even know his rat story, but he talks about how rats require play. And one of the things when he talks about competence hierarchies is that he’ll talk about when two rats first encounter each other, they will wrestle and engage with play. And whoever wins will become the dominant rat. Because the rats are rarely actually equal. But when they engage in play beyond that, the subordinate rat will engage in the play, but the dominant rat will actually let the subordinate rat win at least 40% of the time. And they’ve done studies to find that if the dominant rat doesn’t let the subordinate rat win at least 40% of the time, then the play is not rewarding for this warden rat and the play falls apart. And then both rats lose out on the play. So the dominant rat has to be charitable. Now, how does this connect back to the story of Jacob? We’re talking about God’s perfect love. And of course, God wrestling a mere mortal could win at an instant at any time. But he’s meeting Jacob at where he’s at. And the point of the wrestling with Jacob is actually to elevate Jacob, to strengthen him, allow him to achieve his potential. He wrestles with him all night. And Jacob becomes stronger for that. His wrestling with God enhances who he is, and he goes on to Egypt and his further adventures because of that. So I think that is the charity or the love of God. It wills the good of the other. And the enhancement of the other, and that’s the charitable spirit. So even though I could dominate you, I choose not to. I choose instead to enhance you and through that enhance my own goodness. So there’s a different asymmetrical relationship with God, but we have our own asymmetrical relationship to it. It makes us better and closer to imitating God by helping those who are in other ways less fortunate or need a hand up from us. But it has to have that relationship question where I actually am seeing the person and doing what is best for them and challenging them. So I may give them the material means to get better, but I also have to give them the opportunity to wrestle, to actually elevate themselves. And to connect it to the government or other large institutions, bureaucracies can’t do that by definition. The scruffy guy in the van is in the opportune position for charity. Or within a parish community, the genius, the divine, the divinely inspired structure of the church, right? The parish is in the best position, the parish community is in the best position to provide charity for the parishioners. Right? Because whatever form that charity that person needs, which includes just learning how to cooperate with somebody butchering a pig. Yeah, 100%. And which is learning, right? It’s not just giving them, not just giving the fish, but teaching them to fish or teaching the next thing they need to become that a little bit closer to God, right? That the best version of themselves. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no, that’s good. So it’s really funny. As you were talking, I was thinking about Thomas Aquinas, as often happens, and his teachings on mercy, right? So the Latin word for mercy is misericordia, right? So you’ve got miser, that’s pain or suffering, and cor, that’s heart. So the way the the Latins named this passion that arises when you see somebody in a pitiable state is you have this pain of the heart that moves you to to go do something. So he looks at that and he actually distinguishes the passion from the essence. And the passion is that feeling, but it’s like, okay, how could we say that God is merciful? Well, God is merciful because he sees us in a pitiable state or he sees an imperfection, a lacking in us, and he moves to remedy it without the movements of the passions. Yeah. Which means that when God was wrestling Jacob to build up his spirit, it was an expression of the mercy of God. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was building that up, right? So, you know, you can have this concept of a somewhat sterner mercy, but it still fits that essential definition of filling in the need. We could talk about maybe more masculine and more feminine expressions of mercy, that might be worthwhile, even though I think both men and women would have the capacity to engage in either, although they might, they’re probably going to be better at one or the other. So I think that there’s two manifestations of the Holy Spirit that are embodied in two saints. So the first is the Holy Mother, right, who embodies mercy, which is one side of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit ultimately is charity, right? So in order for God to wrestle, he has to be merciful, right? So because he has to meet you where you’re at and give you what you need. But then the other side of the Holy Spirit is what I was talking about when I’m talking about, like, that energy that you see in the St. Mary’s Parish, right, that’s intoxicating. And that’s the zeal. And the saint that is connected to Mary is sort of the mirror that we see that who represents zeal is St. John the Baptist, right? So John the Baptist, and you read the Bible, in the Bible stories that John the Baptist and Mary are intimately connected, right? They’re both announced or have this relationship to the Archangel Gabriel, right? So Zechariah is visited and told about John the Baptist, and Mary is also visited by Gabriel. And then there’s the connection, there’s the meeting of Mary and Gabriel, sorry, Mary and Elizabeth, right, where’s the first meeting of Jesus and John the Baptist, right? And John the Baptist responds to the presence of the Lord and Mary, right? Even though he’s in the womb. And so you see that representation of the two sides of the Holy Spirit, right? That’s sort of the two parts of charity, right? One is the movement, I think mercy is the movement from faith to hope, right? That you’re actually, you’re going from the particular to the abstracts. Well, there’s a possibility that there’s hope, there’s this person is a sinner, or this person isn’t somehow flawed or failed, but I feel the good in them, right? Like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, I sense the good in you, right? That sort of thing. It’s like, so I’m going to be charitable, even though, yeah, let’s just go on the start, keep the Star Wars thing going. Even though there’s every reason for Luke Skywalker to absolutely despise Darth Vader, and even though he’s a spot, like, you know, that reprehensible human being in all regards, it’s like, I sense the good in you, this is that hope there, right? And that’s that movement towards mercy. And then the reverse, though, is the zeal, right? Is the movement from hope to faith is the actualization of the practice, right? To the particular. So I’m actually, you know, I’m going to realize this thing in the world, I’m going to get stuff done. I’m going to actually, I’m going to commit, actualize my Lenten commitment and do my Rosary walk each day and fast on Fridays, right? This is, that’s the faith and the particularization of the abstract of the potential, right? Which is the zeal. And you see it with John the Baptist, right? John the Baptist, right there. This is St. John Latterin, the cathedral for the whole world. Not St. Peter’s Basilica, but St. John Latterin. This is like a ninth century mosaic. And it’s one of my favorites, which is why you get treated to it every time we have a live stream. This is the one in the background here. So I love it. Yeah, so it’s like Eastern churches and the iconostasis, you usually have Christ and then the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. John the Forerunner, which is another title for St. John the Baptist on either side. Like it’s always there. It’s Christ with each one on either side of him. So it’s a, yeah, in the East and West, it’s very common to have both of them right there looking at him. Yeah, yeah. So anyway, that whole bit with the Trinity and the, oh, these, well, sure it’s important. That whole bit with the Trinity and the theological virtues is new. Never heard anything like that before. And as a good Roman, I’m suspicious of new things. As you should be. Yeah. Listen, if it doesn’t come up in the last 2000 years, you know, you should always take a careful look at it. Yeah. Not to say that I think it’s bad, but you know, this is just YouTube, right? St. The pulpit. We got a little more flexibility here on YouTube. A place for conjecture. Good platform for just playing around. So I’m just trying to key in on what you’re talking about. And I mean, there’s some interesting stuff in terms of just like as an active charity to the world participating in the, you know, the cohesion of society. But, and so in terms of that sort of what you’re talking about is sort of non-doctrinal or ecclesiastical community, do you think there’s another side in terms of just like the role of just like upholding appropriate narrative, like real narrative? I just, I think about that too. You know, I mean, I’ve been really reading a fair bit of like 20th century American literature and I keep coming back like Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy, who are both, you know, Catholic and not doctrinally Catholic in their writing and they’re, you know, highly acclaimed as 20th century fiction writers. I just, that’s, that’s really interesting to me. That idea of sort of. So when you’re talking about holding good, you know, good narrative, are you talking about like going out and telling good stories or are you talking about calling out bad stories? Both. I mean, more, I think there’s probably more value for telling good stories than there are for calling out bad stories. Yeah. And, and you know, and ones that are, you know, just, you know, the standard sort of, it doesn’t, I don’t know, you don’t need a lot of the normal qualities of good stories, like, you know, honesty and humility to be something that’s pretty exceptional these days. And, and, you know, I think like Flannery O’Connor in particular, you know, it’s like honesty and humility. And then all of a sudden she’s like shocking and controversial. The sick little woman from the South was shocking people, you know? Yeah. It continues to, my wife continues to be shocked by her. I continue to be shocked by her. So yeah, it’s, it’s, I mean, that’s an interesting one, I think, you know, and sort of in a, if you’re talking about trying to help, because, because it seems like the, and maybe, am I getting, let me know if I’m getting this right. The idea is essentially, where is that engagement between the church and people who are, say, so far out of the ability for maybe the common grace of human community? Like, what do you start doing with those people? Not so much that they’re like freaked out by Trinitarian theology or Marian veneration or something like that, but like, they don’t even know how to, how to engage in some common thing with other people. Is that, is that basically? Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s, so, so I see this especially linked with technology. Mark has his own opinions. Mark, for various reasons, he spends hours on Discord talking to people. And he, you know, you may look at that and say, why would you do that? There’s probably a good answer behind that. But one of the, one of the things that he has access to is people who spend hours on Discord. Like that is a market right there. And, and we’ve got, I mean, I was just reading this article about catastrophic drop in labor force participation, especially for, you know, like men age 20 to 40, something like that. I can pull up the article here. And you’ve got the sense that people are just getting, you know, sucked into a sugar cocoon. And everything around them is sweets and easy and smooth. And, and it turns out, you know, the sugar cocoon is going to kill you. So he’s got, he’s just got, I guess, the time to, to, to know, to meet these people. And, and they’re by definition, the sort of people that you’re not going to run into when you’re out doing stuff. They’re hidden. I mean, it’s, it’s the VR problem. It’s like when half of the world is, you know, spending all the time in VR, how would you ever know on the street? Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s because the drive through at McDonald’s is backed up. That’s the only way you know. And it’s, it’s, you know, the evil one loves it, right? Because it’s exactly what I was talking about, about the separations from essence and identity, because these people are in a perpetual state of virtue, these virtual identities and separated from the essence of who they are. So they stay in this meaning, being this meaning being crisis, right? This is the meaning. And that’s why, like, I, you know, I’ve, I’ve, when I made a video, I criticized John Ravacki, because it’s the meaning crisis, the other flip side of it, he sees the meaning crisis, probably because he is, but it’s also a being crisis, right? Because if you don’t understand what you are to do, like what is meaningful, you also in a very real sense as a multiple faceted being, as a multiple faceted potent, you have this, all this sort of, as human beings, we can do all sorts of different things at different times, right? So I don’t have any meaningful signal of what I should be doing now. The flip side of that is I don’t know what I am, right? I don’t know who I am. I have no connection to my essence. And that’s that, and that is separation from God, right? That is, you are, you are in essence in a hell state, right? You’re getting a taste of hell on, on earth, on the very real, you know, as much as we can feel hell on earth, that’s, that’s what you’re feeling. And that’s the people, you know, that I think that, that Mark is, is partially describing, right? Is those people who have no sense of community, that they, they feel disconnected because they are, they, they’re fundamentally, they’re, they, they have no connection to their essence, right? They have this sort of identity. They have this, this, they have a sense that they have an essence. They have a sense of, of what, what they’re supposed to be, but, you know, it’s, it’s disconnected and disruptive and that’s where the evil one wants us. Because part of what it means to be a human being is to live in community. It is impossible, impossible for a human being to exist outside of community, to come into existence, right? At least you need a mother and a father. Yeah, you know, Father Eric, oh, there’s someone I brought up, I think the first time I was on, I couldn’t remember his name. It’s Eugene Rosenstock Hesse, and he talks about the, the I thou and the we, the we it relationship. And I just remember snippets of it, but one of his points is you come into the world as a thou, not an I, right? I mean, just to your point, you, I mean, all of these things, right? Like language acquisition, it’s, it’s given, you know, all those things. And, you know, Walker, speaking of Walker Percy makes an interesting distinction between basic, the, the universe and the world, right? And so the universe is the sort of the, you know, useful for what it is, but the world is something you inherit from people, right? The world is taught to you. Your world is taught to you. And you can, yeah, you can go on to abandon that, but that’s something that’s the world is nothing that’s inhabited communally. Yeah. And I think that’s actually, I mean, I’ll have to dig into that more, but I like, I like where you’re going with that. And it’s sort of, I think that world is more what’s described, is more of what the, the word, world that’s often described in the Bible is, right? When they taught, when, when Jesus is making those comparisons between, you know, be, be outside the, oh, I can’t paraphrase it now, but the, like the beat, the, when he’s making those dichotomies between, you know, you think of the next life as opposed to being of the world, right? I think that’s more along those, that, that social world that he’s describing of, I think, yeah, no, it’s just as sparse as some of my definition. He’s talking about the distinction between the physical interaction as being sort of the universe versus the world being what is perceived by conscious beings, you know, as, and so, so it’s not, there’s not any necessarily like moral aspect when one way or the other, you could be more or less right about the world and you can, you know, it can draw you closer or further from the truth. But, but we’re social beings. So there’s the social side of that as well, right? Absolutely. And Jesus often warns us about the thing about being, of being overly concerned about what other people think about ourselves and not aimed at heaven and, and, and at worship, right? No doubt. There’s, so there’s, yeah. And I think that like, at most times in history, there’s, that’s been sufficient, but like, we’ve actually had to, we’ve gotten to the point where it’s something along the lines of, we have to remember that, like, we actually need other people to think, not just that we shouldn’t care what people, some people think of us, but like that we need other people to think that we need other people to be saying, I mean, Paul Vanderclea was talking about this for a while. You know, how do I know that I’m not hallucinating? It’s like, well, I check it against other people’s experiences. It’s that kind of thing. And so it’s that it, you know, yes, absolutely. You know, and you can sort of see these hallucinations on different levels too, in terms of what’s, you know, moral hallucinations, you know, which is a way of talking about, say, disordered higher value hierarchies that are instantiated in society. And so, yes, be aware of that. But on the other hand, how are you not, you know, I mean, this is all well-trodden territory, but how do you know you’re not just, you know, how do you, what is your, what’s your point of reference to any of this in status that you’re getting? It’s other people. Fundamentally, it’s other people. And saying, hey, man, are you, do you see that thing that I see too? Do you see the pig on the table? You know, was I mean to you? Was that person trying to trick me? You know, did I understand this book the right way? Those kinds of things. That’s the sense of like, that’s what I think that’s what father’s trying to get at. Yeah. That was part of it. And, and, you know, if you’re trying to construct a virtual identity outside of the constraints that other people will put on to you, uh, that’s not actually going to make you happy. Like that’s not actually going to bring you to rest and fulfillment because that’s not what you’re designed for. You know, like I could say that I’m a cat and I could pretend that I’m a cat, but I’m not a cat. But things that make a cat happy, they’re not actually going to make me happy. And you’ll actually end up, um, you know, if you have those synthetic identities that are not connected to your essence, uh, it, you’ll, you can end up in this place where you’re, you’re playing games with them, right? That are games for the sake of games and trying to deliver some sort of, some pleasure or deceptive pleasure out of those that are, that hasn’t really connected to anything authentic, right? And that’s where you become sort of mischievous, um, and become sort of an essence vampire, right? Cause if you’re not connected to your own authenticity, then you’ll, you’ll sort of, um, you’ll feed off of that, of other people’s reality, right? Which is what demons do. Right. It’s like, it’s like, we had this trouble in the public schools, uh, in, in the town I was in previously, it’s these kids were saying, we’re cats. We need to have a litter box, you know? And it’s like, uh, uh, a sensible society would, you know, give those kids like detention or make them run laps or beat them or something and say, you’re not a cat and we’re not doing this. And this is unacceptable behavior, right? But you know, because of the educational establishment that we were dealing with here, it was like, oh gosh, I guess we have to, uh, we have to accommodate the, uh, the needs of our trans human students, you know? Yes. Um, that’s where we’re going next, right? Right. It’s not, it’s not stopping at transgender species is, is right on the way. And, and that’s ultimately just, you can’t educate under circumstances like that. Yeah. So actually you can’t educate under circumstances like that. Cause the kids, like one of the kids might actually be kind of, you know, actually believe it, but the other kids just a troll and he’s doing it for lulz. And it’s like this complete freaked out in order. Well, that’s the catch is though, because of the lack of essence, there’s no real distinction between the two, right? They’re both, the motivations become irrelevant, like the, cause it, cause it, cause it’s, it’s, and, and they’ll become inter interplays. You’ll, the person who’s doing it because they sometimes, sometimes believe it will only derive any pleasure out of becoming a troll or a manipulator themselves. I don’t have the thing, but are you familiar with at all with the, I’m forgetting the name of the, the nuclear advisor who has been stealing, was stealing women’s clothes and, and wearing them. I’ve seen the pictures. It’s yeah. Yeah. But, but the, that’s that, that lack separation from entity and entity, sorry, identity and essence, right. Creates this, this, this room for this, this devious place. So, you know, because this, this is non-binary identity that’s separated from a form of essence. The only pleasure he has is, is comes from manipulating people, right? It’s destroying things. Why would you take somebody else’s luggage? Yeah. And then just ruining people’s days. And then where, and then wearing the clothes to show people what you’ve done. I think part of it is the search for God, right? Is because you, he went to these very public places and showed the clothes. He was looking for some sort of, some sense of consequence, right? To show that the father was actually, you know, there’d be a punishment there. Actually, I just want to share this with you. It didn’t the chat. Are you aware of John Henry Newman at all? Yes. Yes. Saint John Henry. Saint John Henry Newman, right? So one of the books he wrote is the idea of a university. And one of the main themes of that book is the, the, the necessity of, of theology as a framework before. So any sense of, of meaning or, or learning can occur. So it, it, it, he said that a theology is a necessity of a university, because he was talking about universities. Because without it, and because it provides the framework for, for the learning, all the other, all the other learning is dependent on the theology. And this is sort of connected to what I think Mark was talking was, because we have people who have grown up without theologies. And what, what Saint Newman warned us about was that the nature abhors the vacuum in this sense. And that without, if, if, if there is an, if there is not a well-defined theology overriding the university or providing the framework for knowledge, then the other, other disciplines, the lesser disciplines will out of necessity try and fill that void. Right? So you will have, and they’ll do it badly, right? So you’ll have psychology and politics and, and, and all these other fields try and fill into the theological void and social sciences, and they’ll do so badly. And then you’ll, you’ll have a very warped and skewed system. And I think that’s, you know, that’s prophetic of where we have ended up, is that we have these, these, these, these poor substitutes for trying to fill the void that, that, that, that the, that the necessary theology has, as, as, that they’ve lacked. And that’s actually what’s caused, I think, in a sense, what Mark was talking about, like these, these, these people trapped in this, these propositional thinking frameworks and so forth, is because they can’t, there’s no underlying theology, there’s no way for them to go deeper and connect to the spiritual. There’s a, actually, you know, and I’m stealing this from James Lindsay, just so you know, I’ll put in a link to the, he did a very long and detailed. You know, he’s right more than twice a day, I think. Yeah. You know, say the broken clocks right twice a day. He’s right. He’s right more than twice a day. Oh yeah. I think he’s, I think we’re, I think we’re going to eventually get him into Catholicism. Get him back. I thought he was raised Catholic, wasn’t he? Yeah, he was. Yeah. His dad was Catholic, but he wasn’t really raised Catholic. Okay. He’s just baptized and nothing else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. But I think he, I think he’s on his way. Yeah. Yeah. He’s, because he’s, he quotes a lot of Catholic authors. And, you know, when you’re entirely just formed in opposition to something bad, I mean, Mark makes this point about Sam Harris, right? Is that Sam Harris, he could look at suffering and he could say that’s bad and he could move away from it, but that’s actually not enough data to be good. Yeah. Like you could just move into another bad and not towards the good if the good’s all the way over here. Well, that’s because it’s a negative versus positive description of things, right? If you’re moving away from something and you’re just, this is another way of putting, describing it, like you’re, it, or if you’re describing a category negatively, like it’s not this, it’s not this, it’s not this, that can only get you so far, right? It’s much more productive to actually have a positive description of a thing, right? It’s, it is this thing that I’m looking for, you know, this, this, this, and this, and this, right? So that, that can aim you at the good. And actually that’s, that’s how I describe my own journey, right? Like how I ended up in Catholic, like I didn’t start out looking for Jesus. That wasn’t what I was looking for. I found myself in hell and I was just like, I’m going to get myself out of hell. So I was running away from hell. And eventually, like I sort of like, I got myself like out of hell into sort of this equilibrium. And then I was like, well, I might as well keep on climbing the mountain. And I found myself instead of running away from, at some point in my journey, I transitioned from running away from something to running towards Christ, right? Running towards something. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But that had to be that movement of grace where, where, where God was starting to open your eyes a little bit, starting to turn your head away, but he also used the, the hell as you describe it as a, as what? As a mercy, right? As a mercy. Andrew, you’ve been quiet. I have. We’ve got a lot of very talkative people in the chat tonight. So, uh, I don’t have much work to do. You don’t have much work to do? Yeah. And you just get to be along for the ride. That’s great. Are you a cat, Andrew? Am I a cat? Yeah. What species do you identify as? Oh, um, human? There we go. There we go. Andrew, I got another question for you. Is being good. Is being good? Being, being itself, is it good? Yeah. Is being good, good? Is being good, good? Okay. So, can I get, can I give you one of my, my being pitches? Like, cause there’s a lot of ideas I have that I don’t actually get to flush out. So, so being, um, so, so Jordan Peterson is, is famous for saying that, um, why is not necessarily famous for this, but he does say, or he has said on many occasions that God is being, right? Um, and when I was talking to Ver, Veriki in Thunder Bay, you know, he would describe God as the, the, the, the ground of being, but he wouldn’t, wouldn’t go to, to the other side of that, I think is the, that God is also the supreme being. Oh, cause he’s only emanation and there’s no emergence there. Yeah. This is only the ground of being, but it’s also not the same being. Yeah. And that’s, and this is, and this is, and I think that’s part of his trauma. He won’t go for the supreme being thing. And he was like, he was very adamant about that. And that’s why I think he sees the meaning problem, but not the being problem, right? Because you have, you have all of these beings bubbling up and they have nothing to point at. Yes. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Right. So, um, so how does this connect to God being being? I actually, I like an analogy that I play with that I use is, is I don’t know what you know about tesseracts and hypercubes. Um, that was, uh, oh, those are like fourth dimensional objects, aren’t they? Yes. So the tesseract is the fourth dimensional hypercube means an N dimensional. It’s, it’s a larger description, but it’s basically, um, cubes that are, that, that extend further dimensions. So you, you can actually draw or conceive of these things besides just abstract mathematical, but you can cat, they do cast a shadow, right? So that the tesseract is often drawn, which when you see drawings of the tesseract, I will just pull one up. Okay. If we’re not talking about Marvel here. Yeah. Although they do the tesseract is a tesseract in, in the, or a silo or shadow of the tesseract. That’s it. We need to have, uh, animated GIF animated GIF. Eat some educational supplements. Alrighty. And share screen and voila. There’s the tesseract right there. That’s the shadow of the tesseract. Yeah. So it’s, it’s a fourth dimensional object and this is the casting of this shadow. Like if, if you, if, uh, like you think Peter Pan had his shadow on the wall, right? Was this sort of the two dimensional version of the casting of, of Peter Pan? This is the tesseract is, is, is the two dimensional casting of the four dimensional. Well, that’s a three dimensional object. Sorry. Three dimensional casting of the fourth, fourth dimensional object. It’s actually two dimensional cause it’s on a screen. Andrew, you know what I meant? It’s a two dimensional shadow of a three dimensional shadow. Yeah. Anyhow. As if it wasn’t complicated enough. So the point is that there’s something there and this is the only way we can discern the, this is, this is, this is analogous to how we discern the father. Um, we can’t, it is, I described this as the, the, uh, the infinite that is, um, the, the infinite that is finite, right? That, so there’s, there’s, and what I mean by that is that there’s, there’s elements of the father that we can see like as a projection of the shadow, right? We can sort of see this, we can discern it. We, we, the father is incomprehensible, but we can, uh, by our, our mortal minds, but we can, we can look at the sun. We can, we, we can get these, these impressions of them, right? So, uh, so we get, we can get, see the silhouette of the father. So we have proof that he’s there and we have, we can say some things about him because we can see his shadow, but we can’t really comprehend or understand the thing that, that he is, right? So you’re, you’re kind of getting into like knowledge of God territory. Yeah. And you, um, you, you don’t want to just do apophatic theology, just saying God is not this, God is not that, God is not this, God is not that, right? Yeah. So maybe some helpful tools for you would be, uh, the analogy, the way that we use analogy and talking about God. Um, so we could talk about, um, God being, uh, wise about God being wise. And what we actually have is we observe instances of wisdom all throughout the universe. Yes. We see that it’s good, and we know that God has created it. And so we would say that all goodness exists in God, even though he’s not limited to any one of them. And we ascribe the, the, the sum, this, this, this concept of wisdom to God. Uh, but our concept of wisdom is fundamentally a finite concept that we are attributing to an infinite God. Yeah. So the, the funny thing about this is that it’s implied, it’s implied that, uh, there’s a greater dissimilarity in what we’re saying about God than there is a similarity. Yeah. But, but to, to take the analogy of the shadow a little farther, right? Is that we can see that there’s wise things and unwise things, and that becomes the edge of the shadow that we can sort of, or the, maybe it might be a fuzzy edge, but it’s a fuzzy edge of the shadow. So we can sort of start to see the silhouette of God, right? Cause we know God is the wise and we can see these things are unwise. So we can sort of see this is part of God or part of God’s plan, and this is not part of the plans. And then we can see it in our world, this manifestation. So we have some discernment of God, but it’s very limited. But we don’t have that fourth dimensional. We don’t have that fourth dimensional discernment of God, right? And we have, we have can’t operate fourth dimensionally. We have to operate three-dimensionally. Yeah. And I would actually argue that God’s more of an N dimensional type thing, but yeah, but we’re using, you’re using your analogy, using your analogy, everything that yeah, that’s right. Right. So you can look at that shadow and think, Oh, I understand Tesseract, but you really don’t. Yeah. That’s an extremely simple fourth dimensional object. Exactly. Like an organic fourth dimensional object. You want to talk about inspiring horror. Yeah. We could encounter an organic fourth dimensional object. It would just shatter our categories. And if you want to learn more about that, read the works of HB Lovecraft. Yeah. So this is why, and so, and that’s what I think that the, the alpha and mega omega is describing, right? Is the ground of being and the supreme being, right? So Rovecki will embrace the ground of being or the father type, distinguishable or elemental chaos, right? That, but he won’t embrace Christ, the supreme being, right? Or the, the other side of the manifestation, but the, the casting of, of, of God into this discernible universe, of the Trinity into the discernible universe provides us both. Right? So it’s, those both are part of, of what we can discern of God. We can discern Christ, which is the supreme, which is, you know, Christ at Ascaton is like the supreme being. And we can also discern the father, which is the ground of being, which, you know, you could understand as the law, right? As sort of like, yeah. So I think we got to talk a little bit, you know, it’s time Xander as a, as a baby Catholic that we have to talk about the Trinity and appropriation. Okay. Anybody ever talk to you about Trinitarian appropriation? No, no one talks to Booney about anything. I really need some, some sort of like some pastoral fences put on me about where I can go. So this is, this is basically a doctrine of the church is that the relationships within the Trinity, those exists inside the Trinity, right? Okay. But once God begins to relate to his creation, all three persons are relating at the same time, and that they might have subtle, extremely subtle distinctions in the exact role that they’re playing in creation, but it’s always all three together at once. Okay. All right. So there’s, there’s like a little doctrinal, doctrinal grounding there for you. And you may look at scripture and the way- So what was the, what was the, what was the Googleable word that you gave me when you’re talking about this? Appropriation, appropriation in the Trinity. Okay. Okay. Appropriation in the Trinity. What we do, what we see in scripture is that we see language about the different, different works of God in creation being appropriated to the Holy Spirit, being appropriated to the son, being appropriated to the father. So we appropriate the notion of creation to the father very commonly. We appropriate the notion of salvation to the son, and we would appropriate the notion of sanctification to the Holy Spirit, even though we would say, dogmatically, that all three were involved in all three. Yes. Right. So why do we do this appropriation? Well, it actually gives us an insight into the central mystery of the Christian faith, of the Trinity. And when we use this appropriation, well, we are getting an insight into the internal relationships between the father, son, and Holy Spirit. Yeah. Okay. So let me, with that in mind- So as long as you’re understanding, yeah, this is an appropriation sort of thing. I think the model is workable. Yeah. We just don’t want to introduce division where there can’t be. I think I was a little sloppy with my language there in a way that I, like with that in mind, that I don’t necessarily have to be. I would describe as sort of dispending on our perspective of where we are, where we’re at, where our dynamism at, like that God manifests more to us as the supreme being or the floor of being, depending on the questions you’re asking or where your perspective is. But really, it’s all God, right? And it’s all our limited understanding of God, right? So we don’t, like, yeah. So yeah. So like, yeah, I don’t disagree with that. I’m not going to turn you into the Inquisition on this. Yeah. But I see where what I said before, I was running a little afoul of that, and it was unnecessary because what it’s really trying to say is the Elfin, the Elfin, the mega is connected also to what you were talking about when you’re talking to Mark about this whole need for a goal and what Jordan Peterson talks about as the positive aspirational system, right? We need both, right? We need the place that we’re starting from and where we’re aiming at, right? And it’s sort of like the nativity and the eschaton. We need to, we need both sides of it, and that gives us that positive reinforcement. But yeah, but I think that a good description, to go back, the good description is God manifests as the alpha, the ground of being, but also the mega, the supreme being. And I don’t think a Trinitarian mapping on that is bad. I just wanted to get the appropriation thing in there. Yeah, no, it’s as good as you did. I love any time a priest corrects me, I engage it very hungrily because I want that feedback from the church. And that was another thing that just generally the Catholic church, I think we need more doctrinal strictness and correction there, because often I feel I’m trying to deal with a marshmallow that doesn’t give me any sort of feedback. Not everybody paid attention to their classes as closely as I did in seminary. But yeah, so one reason I don’t, so ultimately what I’ve talked about is, what I’m talking about is I don’t like, Jordan Peterson has the capital B being, and I just sort of say hyper being, like hyper cube, to describe that because it’s sort of like, okay, yeah, so then you know that when I say God is a hyper being. It’s beyond the order of being, the classification of individual beings. Sure, yeah, that’s what you mean by hyper being. Exactly, it’s the ground of beings, plural. And the goal of beings. The goal of beings, the supreme being, the ideal being, it’s both at the same time. And it’s like that because it’s like a tesseract, right? That’s what I mean by it. Yeah, a few months ago, JP Marceau and John Breveke had a conversation, and I had this image of God simultaneously pushing the universe up through emergence, and winnowing it down through emanation, right? And creating perfect beings in that way. Yeah, and that’s actually, and that’s why, you know, I talk about the, or that you need both processes, right? Governed by charity, you need the theory or the expansion of hope, but also the widowing down of faith, and the intersection of those, right? Where the purest hope meets the perfect test of faith is Christ at the resurrection, right? So Christ is what survives the trip to hell, which is the test of faith, and rises to the surface, and proves itself to be the most real thing, right? Because all the other identities, the false identities, when tested, they have no essence, and they reveal the shadows, but, but, and they’re burnt, and the dead word is burned away, but Christ survives the test. Christ is what survives the test, right? And he’s resurrected. He’s the only one who could go down and bring everybody back up. Yeah, yeah, and to get into the more Peugeot side of it, right? That’s why he walks on water, too, because Peugeot connects the idea of the water in the ocean to the underworld, right? And so, or the elemental chaos, and Christ is what can walk on top of that, and go underneath it when he was baptized, and go underneath when he’s baptized, and come back up, right? Yeah, right, so he’s, because he’s, and, you know, in the Noah flood, right, the water level goes up and down, and the false identities and the sinful are washed away, but Christ just stays on the surface, right? He comes back, right? Yeah, yeah, Christ survives the flood. And then, by the power of your baptism, Christ is now in you. Here, here, here, here, here, and Andrew, are you, I know, I know everyone in this stream isn’t always Catholic, but I, this is, this is wondering what Andrew? That’s a great question. Yes. Yes. Okay, cool. All right, cool. It was, was it Ted, was the other one who was here? He’s also Catholic. Yeah, he was, it was obviously, you know, he said several things that, that outed him, but I thought, yeah, he was. Yeah, Andrew and Ted are both regulars. Yeah, it’s good to have him, good to have him here, Andrew. Okay. Yeah, yeah, you’re a revert, right, Andrew? You were like, kind of came into it when you were early on in college. Yeah, like a few years ago. Yeah, I’m like a revert. Not that I ever really became atheist or Protestant or anything, but I was, wasn’t really in it. So yeah, that was like 2020 when I actually went back to practicing. You know, that’s a, that’s, that’s a flood right there. That’s a, 2020 is a flood story. It’s the end of a world and it had that windowing effect. Well, I actually went back at the beginning of 2020 before everything happened. Well, you stayed anyway. God got you into the arc just in time. Yeah. Yeah. Just in time for the doors of the arc to be shut. Oh, I went for like a couple months and then it’s like, all right, everybody go home. And it’s like, oh, well, okay. I guess I’ll wait a while. Yeah. So, so I guess like the final point I wanted to make, or the final thing that’s in my notes, I sort of wanted to discuss was the, was, was what we’re up against, because that’s actually one of the things like that I thought was missing your conversation with Mark was the, was, was this, like this, this, this, this, the current challenges of the church is because of like a, of a, of a new attack. Right. And it’s not, it’s not just technology. It’s not that there’s, there’s a coordinated attack against the church, right. By, by a competing, I call it an anti-theology, but you say, you can say by a competing religion, right. What do you, what do you think of this idea that wokeness is actually several cults. It’s not one thing. It’s well, the cults are always multiple multiplicities, because it, because it’s like, it gets to what you’re talking about. Deities, you’ve got different deities. Well, the demonic, like there’s the Holy Spirit and then the demonic is a multiplicity, right. So, so the, the cults are always a plethora of things because it’s, it’s the false identities that aren’t connected to the essence, right. And that’s the distinction. So yeah, so it’s definitely, Marxism is a cult and it’s like the hermetic, the meaning of a hermetic and agnostic cult. But yeah, where I go farther than James Lindsay is I talk about that, like I see there’s, there’s a difference between theology and anti-theology. And that’s, I think what he’s fundamentally missing. It gets down to that discernment and, and discernment and discrimination, right. Is that, that what theologies do. And I think that there are other theology, theological religions besides Christianity or besides Catholicism. But I, I just, I was at Catholic’s, local Catholic dad’s night on Friday. And I thought, and someone introduced me to a great idea that like what Catholicism has is that like there are other religions where it’s man reaching for God, but Catholicism is the religion where God is, is reaching back. I would, I would give the Protestants and the Orthodox maybe a little more credit than that. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We can do that. I mean, I will do too. Like I would add some, there’s some nice parts in, in Vatican too, which I think are really good where it talks about God doesn’t just abandon people if they’re not Christian, but does actually, it says explicitly that, that he does, and we don’t know to what degree and how often, but those give them grace even if they don’t know Christ. So, so in that I was throwing, this might be more controversial, but I think it’s, it’s in line with Vatican too, than that I was throwing this little far, little broader. So I was actually even talking about Judaism and, and Islam and even like Buddhism and Taoism in the sense of like trying to form that conception of God and getting some things right and some things wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because I do distract, just distinguishing that in the cults who are, I think are anti-theological and that gets back to that whole idea of disrupting the discernment of Christ, right? That, that, that their theological religions try and enhance their, your ability to connect to the transcendent, to use the more neutral, Brevehian, like our Peter Sonian language, right? And, but anti-theological religions intentionally try to disrupt that. And I would put the Gnostic and Hermetic cults in those anti-theological religions. Right. Because, I mean, so we got this problem with the word Gnosticism, as it means like five or six different things. Well, that’s what aspects do. It’s like they play the word games. What aspect of Gnosticism don’t we like right now? What we don’t like is, is the rejection of, of, of God, the creator, or the characterization as the demiurge. Yeah. Okay. Right. As, as the malevolent system that is trying to corrupt us, right? And, and that’s, that’s, that’s the first, when we talk about the Gnostic cults, it’s the, what characterizes them and what they’re the lower levels. Their hermetics are the higher levels of the system. Right. So I say that the, the, the, the Gnostics are trying to escape God, escape responsibility. They, they don’t like, they, they want to stay in the primordial chaos. They want to be anything. And they don’t, they, they reject God because God, God puts on them a cross to bear. Right. So the responsibility of, of, of the world and an identity. Right. They want to be able to choose their own identity. They don’t want one foisted on them by their essence. They don’t want to be a man or a woman. They want to be a cat. That’s what we get. Be a cat. Be a fan sexual, you know, cis, you know, what is it? Transgendered cat, right? Like, or poly, poly gender, polysexual, whatever. So, and, and, but that’s the invitation is this, the escape of the escape from reality. That’s, that’s where the Gnostics come in. So Gnostics are really trying to get away from God. Right. And they’re, they’re the ones who, and the, and, and, and often you’ll see in the Marxism that they’ll, they’ll project this, they’ll put this mask on God of, of the system. Right. They’ll say that the, the cis heteronormative system where they’ll talk about whiteness or patriarchy or something. These are just, what that actually is ultimately is, is, is a euphemism. So they, so people don’t see the theological game, but what they’re talking about is, is the, the crown of thorns, right? They’re putting their sin onto Christ’s head because they say, well, you’re, you know, they’re the Supreme, you’re the system, you’re the one in charge. All this sin is your, your, your fault. So we’re taking our sin and putting it on your head. Right. That’s cause the crown of thorns. Good. So sometimes people use Gnosticism to mean like, uh, material, bad spiritual good. People use Gnosticism that way too. Yeah. There’s probably two or three. So I just like to know which aspect of the Gnostics we don’t like right now. Well, that’s, that’s a bit of a distinction without a difference, right? It’s sort of like how you’re defining the, uh, the big bad of God, but really, cause are you, you’re talking that, and then you’re saying, well, the, it just means the creation is bad, but not the creator. But then we’re not really taught, but when you push those Gnostics, the push comes to show with those Gnostics, they’re just playing, um, uh, a one step game, right? Uh, I, I don’t have it up right now, but they’ll always add another God, another emanation. Yeah. So, so what is it? Is it the Cathari? You’re gonna look it up, but there’s this, the 12th to 14th century, the Alba Jeptsians or the Cathari. The Cathari. Yeah. Yeah. So the Cathari, so the Cathari are often described as, uh, Catharism, as, as a, uh, as a Christian cult, right? All right. So they, but they, so they start out as like, oh, we, you know, we follow the Bible, you know, we, well, first off, they had a lot more discipline than the, yeah, clergy of their day, uh, cause the corruption was already starting to get pretty good in Europe there. Um, and the Gregorian reforms had kind of petered out at that point. Yeah. So, so that was their first, like, that’s how they sold themselves. You know, they sell themselves. Yeah. So they sell themselves to the Christians who are seeing the flawed human nature of the church, right? They’re seeing the corruption in the church. So they sell them as things. So there’s, but they start out, it’s okay. We’re, we’re Christian and there’s going to be these pure ones and these not pure ones. And, uh, you know, and, but we’re going to have, we’re going to have bishops and we’re going to have priests and we’re going to have mass and it’s, it’s still, it’s still Christianity. Yay. And, but then it’s, it’s not long before then they, they take it to the next step and they say, well, okay. Yeah. So it’s the material bad, um, uh, spiritual, spiritual good, but also we’re going to say that along with that, that, uh, uh, Jesus Christ was, uh, just in, I’m going to go, I, I, I, I don’t know. I don’t have the whole story out of my head. So I’m just going to skip to the end, but it’s sort of, but eventually it gets to the point where you’re not allowed to get married and have babies. You know, I love to have married get babies. Yeah. That’s a step in between. But then it’s like, we’re Christians, but we don’t believe, uh, we believe that Christ was an angel and the crew, the crucifixion was an illusion caused by the devil. Right. And sort of like, okay, so if you don’t believe in the crucifixion and you believe Christ was simply an angel, like, like we’re not, you’re not Christ, a Christian sect anymore. Right. But that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s a few steps in to the door. Right. So like, once they have you in the beginning, they, they, they, they just pull you along. So this whole thing of like, there’s different kinds of Gnostics that the Gnostics are always playing these word games. They’re always, um, so I think the multiplicity to, to, to confuse. Sure. Sure. It’s just, I don’t think it, I just, sometimes I don’t know the way people use the word Gnosticism. It’s slippery. So I want to know what we’re pointing at. Oh yeah. And I, and I, and that’s a fair, and I’m pointing out and, and, and I think my cynicism is very good. Yeah. My, my cynicism is that it, that that’s exactly what Gnostics do. They’re always going to be, they’re always slippery and they always use the multiple identity to confuse the game. Right. That’s, that’s so of course that’s what they have. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, but where it, so what, where are we going? Um, yeah. So Marxism is sort of like that, that, that newer form of that. And they have this whole con, concientialization where you move from Gnosticism into the Hermeticism. And it’s, people say it’s different. It’s because they’ll say like, oh, the Gnostics are, or, you know, and they’re trying to get away then they’re, they’re trying to liberate themselves and the Hermetics, when they, because they’ll play the pedantic games. Right. So, so they’ll say, well, Hermetics think that Christ is just another one of their, one of their, their, their saints, like the Buddhas, their gurus. Right. But it’s like, yeah, but he actually says, you know, there’s a logical bridge there. And I sort of talking about like Christ is one of the angels type thing, but really distinguishes the, the, the Hermetics from the, the Gnostics is their Hermetics, instead of running from God, they want to be God. They see themselves as God. And that’s the, the Gnostic Hermetic shift. The Gnostics just want to get away from the responsibility and, and, and the limits put it on them from, from, by God. The Hermetics say, hey, wait a minute. No, I want to replace God. I want to be my own God. Right. Now in the Hermetic types that you’ve encountered, do you see a strain of perennialism? Like, oh, all religions really lead to God and all religions are, are, you know, and then maybe they’ll rule out some, obviously, you know, obviously false cults, but, but do you see that as a strain? Cause what that, that has a, you know, it sounds just so, so pious and so wise. But what that ends up actually meaning is that, and I have the ability to discern what’s good and each and every single one of them with my ultra wise power. Yes, that’s part of it. And then it’s also that I’m God, you’re God. Because that’s the, that’s the Hermetic stuff. Step is that you have to embrace your own Godly nature. Which you didn’t know. Do you receive the Godly nature or is it, are you just the God? Do you have it by participation or nature? By nature. Okay. That’s, that’s the, that’s the bridge from the Gnostic to the, to, to the Hermetic, right? Cause I told the room full of people today that they are Jesus by participation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, that’s different. Yeah. No, that’s definitely different. Cause, cause what they’re saying is, cause, cause the Gnostic thing is like, we’re going to, your Jesus is, is trapping you or the like more likely that like the father is the church, the church, the church, the church clerics. Yeah. They’re oppressing the oppressive force. Right. And what, why are they oppressing you? Because they, that’s the Hermetic move is like, Oh, because you’re actually God and they don’t want you to become the God you were destined to be. They want you to release, realize that you already are God. And then, and then, well, and then that’s the beginning of the Hermeticism and the Hermeticism is like, okay, well, what alchemical steps, what manipulations of reality must you do to then become the God that you are, that is your true nature. Yeah. And that, yeah. So that’s where it goes. And that’s, and, but yeah. So the connected back to what the church is currently facing. There’s been a, a, a conservative effort to basically create the inverse of the church. Right. So, so are you familiar with Paulo Fieri? Cause that’s actually like, there’s, there’s George Lucach who really sort of like, but that was the 1920s who sort of realized, okay, well, like these communist revolutions are failing. And they’re failing because there’s this thing that we keep on running into. And it was identified as culture. Well, it wasn’t economic system, but ultimately it was Christianity was what he’s talking about. He’s, he isn’t specifically named Christianity, but he’s, he’s basically saying it’s like these people, they keep on like trying to, we keep on antagonizing them and trying to make them resentful, but then they, they go and like resolve their differences and listen to each other and, you know, connect with, connect to each other on a human level and, and, and, and come to, come to a sensible solutions. It’s like, what’s going on? Well, there’s this cultural problem. So then they, so we have to actually undermine the culture, this, this reactionary force. Right. And that’s where they started. That’s what the beginning of cultural Marxism, which culminates with bad people, but with bad people, sorry, bad people, hat people, you know, we’re not the cat people yet. Cause then that’s the critic from, from cultural markets, Marxism comes a critical Marxism, which is what the postmodernists do, the postmodernists flip on it, which basically adds the whole deconstruction element to, to Marxism. And that leads to Paulo Fieri, which is the, who becomes the revivalist who basically turns, has Marxism completely embrace its cult-like nature. And he’s the beginning of, of woke Marxism. And woke Marxism basically says, there’s a couple of key aspects to it, but it’s, if you read pedagogy of the pressed, he’s actually a, a, a fallen Catholic. And so he uses some very heretical Catholic, he has a whole chapter that’s just theological, that’s overtly, well, I would say anti-theological it’s like chapter nine or 10 of pedagogy of the press. You can read it. But he comes up with this system and saying, like, okay, yeah, we, hey, we can just, if, if what Marxism actually does is we need, we need wretched wicked people and we can and I’m, and this is not how he phrases it. I’m simplifying cause I don’t want to go into all the deals, but so we, we basically, I’ll come, we basically have this process that we’re going to use in schools that is the opposite of Christian formation, right? That’s the opposite of, of Christian conscious formation, Christian faith formation, where we’re going to take people and we’re going to hyper-focus them on the things that they should be resentful about. And they can blame the world about, and then we will, and we will connect them, connect that to them, take to this, this Gnostic bridge. So they see that it’s, that they blame the system. Right? So they show them that there’s, there’s things that they, they should be resentful about and angry about. And we’ll, we’ll find those things they’re angry about, make them resentful about them and then point them, show them, show them that these things that they’re resentful about are, are the cause of the system. Right. Which is a euphemism or a placeholder for, for God for them. Right. So that’s why you, they take people, that’s the, that’s they take. Cause it’s above you, right? It’s above you. It’s the system’s fault. Right. And then, and you don’t have to take responsibility. This was done to you. The world is wrong because of the system. And we need that. We, what we ultimately need is the perfect system, which is, I think was a theme of what Mark was talking about. Right. And previously he was sort of saying, it’s like how these people that seem to blame the system for everything and they want, they want the system, they want to make a more perfected system that will solve their problems. How did he phrase it? I, that’s not that important, but I mean, but it’s, but, but that’s, that’s, that’s how they phrase it. And that, that creates that resentment at, at God, which is fundamental to their anti-theological moment. Once they get you there, they don’t need, once they get their, their disciples or people there, they don’t need them to be, yeah, you just rebel or protest. There’s cooperation and negotiation is impossible. Exactly what Mark is talking about because the way you, you, you resolve it is, is, is what, what Paulo Fieri calls denunciation. Right. You, by denouncing the world, by denouncing God or denouncing the system, you make way for the annunciation. So denunciation is annunciation in Paulo Fieri. That’s part of what he describes in the text. So you’re announcing the creation of the synthetic God by denouncing what is. Right. And that’s denouncing God, denouncing Christ, denouncing creation. You denounce creation. You have to keep on going, right? It’s like Chesterton says, um, yeah, a man who starts off by, uh, attacking Christ will soon, uh, oh gosh, I’ve got it. It was there. It was there. Basically you end up, you end up destroying the world just to get at Christ. Yeah. Well, that’s, but that, but that’s one of the, the woke element. That’s one of the things distinguishing characteristics of woke Mark is Mark, Marxism that, that Fieri added is he embraces that completely. He says, yes, the point of this is to keep on denouncing, denouncing not only what is, but anything that becomes right until it’s impossible, presumably until it’s pronounced, it’s, it’s, it’s impossible to denounce anymore. And that’s, but that’s the, the, the magical unicorn rainbow and where it’s like, we’re, we’re presenting that we’re not actually summoning Satan and doing annihilate, you know, the annihilation of all that is, he puts an actually, but, but he embraces, yes, it’s like, if, if anything comp sprouts or comes out, comes forth from your denunciation, you have to start denouncing that too. Right. So if it, as soon as we get, and you see this in the woke movement, as soon as we, we get drag queen story hours, as soon as we get trans, trans kids in school, we have to start with the trans speciesism. Right. There’s no end to this. You know, the, and, and you’re seeing that like this, a couple of steps back, you see like the JK Rowling, J.Cole Rowling was extremely left wing and woke just like a decade ago. Right. She’s a, she was a radical feminist. Yeah. She was, yeah, she wasn’t going on to the whole, but now she’s a turf. Now she’s a reactionary cause she’s, cause she’s, she’s, and she’s being openly denounced cause that’s the woke Marxism keeps you keep on denouncing anything that, that sprouts any success is, is, is a potential fascist thing. Cause that, cause that’s, that’s what is, and we have to keep on denouncing what is. So anytime something comes up, they just, they’re even though it’s the thing they were arguing, you have to become an enemy of being. Yeah. Yeah. Fundamentally you have to, you have to stay an enemy of being. So there’s, there’s no, the only, there’s no wind kind of criteria. You have to perpetually be an enemy being. So even though it’s the thing you were arguing for 15 minutes ago, that thing is now the worst thing ever because it’s what is right. Strange game. The only winning move is not to play. Yeah. Or to call it out or to call it out. Yeah. And that’s the, yeah. But the problem is that it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s in, it’s in the church in that too. So we have to be able to see it and identify it and discern it away. It’s like, no, this is, this is a bad thing. This is not part of the message of Christ. Yep. And I’m just, you know, I read news stories, I’ve heard news stories about Bishop so-and-so and Cardinal so-and-so and this conference and that conference and all of that. And I just think I’ve been put in charge of, I’m not even in charge. I’m the parochial vicar at Holy Cross Church. That is my responsibility. Exactly. And my responsibilities will continue tomorrow morning. And in order to prepare myself for them, I need to go to bed. So Xander, it was good to have you on the stream. Yeah, thank you. Andrew, it was good to have you back there as the, as the, the hidden, the hidden presence, the hidden presence of the youth. Keeping things in order over here. Yeah. So God bless you all. God bless you all.