Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: New year, new you. Let's jump in and find out exactly how to make lasting change in the year ahead.
And we got a different angle for this, guys.
Talking to a great priest who's heard all your sins and is going to share them with me.
I'm kidding. You can't ever share your sins. But he's gotten so many insights about human nature by hearing how people start and fail at different things.
And these insights are going to give you a lot of helpful tips, but also a lot of hope. Thanks for being with us on the Chris Stefanik Show.
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Let's jump in.
Father Peter Musset, one of my very.
I'm a little upset right now that you haven't been on my show 15 times already. Oh.
Because I just love you so much. You're one of my favorite people in the world.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: I just love you. This is such a joy to be here and to be with you.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: I'm gonna make excuses to interview you about various things.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Dude, I got a lot into.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: You got a lot, man.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: I just gotta unlock the heart and just let it just flow out.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: I want to talk about how to change. People make New Year's resolutions and they get frustrated with themselves. And then like, I was actually having a conversation the other day with somebody who's like, you know, I was telling my kid to stop doing X and they keep doing it. And reflecting after that conversation. I'm thinking, how many things have I confessed? Literally a thousand times.
And the changes are so slow and incremental.
It's like, the Lord's so patient with us, but it's just really hard to change. And like, people come into the new year, it's like, I'm going to change this about myself or have this dream about myself.
You have insights into this. Most people don't. Because you hear people's sins, I mean, straight up, and you hear them again and again, and you probably hear repeat currents. And you see what differentiates people who actually kick it from people who are just there to maybe, I don't know, feel better for the day or maybe.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: They'Re not even intending to kick it.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Yeah, I heard, like, Padre Pio would sometimes read a soul and kick people out of confession and be like, you don't want to not. You don't want to keep. You know, you don't want to leave this sin. You want to keep it going. So why am I. Why are we here? What are we doing? Buddy? You haven't done that yet, have you?
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Well, you're not supposed to like, one part, but I really wanted the gift of being able to read souls.
So when I was like, brand new.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Ordained, could you fake it and like, you write half the time?
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Well, this is the thing is I was like, you just kind of have to lean out at a certain point and be like, can I read a soul and can I do this?
Are the things that are moving inside of me? Is this, like, of the Lord? And so I leaned out and got it terribly wrong.
I was like, I really sense this happening.
This is. I'm picking this up. Is this real?
[00:03:44] Speaker A: No, no, Father, you do not have that gift.
[00:03:47] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
It's funny because the Lord wants that gift for certain people. It's not for the priest.
He wants that sometimes. What he wants to do, and this is the hardest thing, is to take seriously what's inside of yourself.
I was thinking about that in preparing to talk to you today as I was like, how do you take seriously what you are really responding to inside?
I learned it when I was a photographer.
I would walk around and I'd gotten a camera as a senior in high school for a graduation present from my dad. Because I was always stealing my dad's camera.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: It was a present to himself.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Exactly. There's a little bit in there.
I was really lonely when I was in college, and so I would just walk around with my camera and my tape recorder that I was supposed to record lectures with or whatever, and I'd just play music over the speaker and I'd walk around. And I learned in those times that you pay attention to the things that move inside of yourself and that those matter.
So that same mechanism of learning your real interior life, I think is how the spirit moves somebody who has the gift of reading souls. Because honestly, most priests I talk to, you can phrase it in a bunch of different ways. And if you phrase it right, most priests are gonna be like, oh, yeah, of course.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: Right, yeah.
[00:05:18] Speaker B: They're gonna have this experience because it's not for the priest, it's for the penitent. It's for the person. And every once in a while, if you have that interior movement, you can speak a word into somebody's life that.
That has extraordinary knowledge that's not yours.
[00:05:36] Speaker A: So you've had bursts of that.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: That's cool.
[00:05:40] Speaker B: But again, it's not a regular thing.
I don't know. I mean, do you know when you speak a word and somebody, like, receives it deeply, it's like this.
It's like we have this moment of being able to speak to a lot of people, and the moment that this comes into their life is totally in accord with the providence of God.
Most of the time, when you get something extraordinary, somebody feels like they've been in mass and there's a spotlight on them. And the homily is just literally directed individually for that particular person.
[00:06:17] Speaker A: It's awesome.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Cause you've had that.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:06:20] Speaker B: And you're there. And I think it's the same spirit. It's just the multitude of gifts.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Isn't that beautiful?
[00:06:27] Speaker B: It's.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: It's a. That's the cool thing about ministry. It's like it's a front row seat to grace.
Right.
It's like I'm. I'm just setting a stage. I get chills saying that I'm setting a stage and then I get to see Jesus do things. Yes. Because I know I'm just. I'm literally.
I'm just making sounds. You know, I can't reach into someone's soul, but like, if something happens deep inside, it's just because there was a direct action of God while I was doing that.
Not that this part doesn't matter, but it just sets the stage.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Absolutely. And that's the cool part about being a confessor, is that 90% of the really extraordinary stuff that happens is taking place within the confessional.
[00:07:13] Speaker A: Really?
[00:07:13] Speaker B: Yeah. So you just are walking around with the miracles of God sitting inside your soul that you and God alone get to hang out with.
[00:07:20] Speaker A: Some people fear confession. Is that like your. Is that your favorite experience as a priest in sacrament or what?
[00:07:26] Speaker B: Sometimes I fear confession because they're like three and a half hours long. And you're sitting there and you're like, okay, imagine for one second. The most attentive you listen to your wife, your children, your family, your friends. The most attentive you've ever listened to them. And do that for three hours every Saturday morning.
[00:07:47] Speaker A: Are you ADD like me?
[00:07:49] Speaker B: Very.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: It's gotta be excruciating.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: Well, it's one after another. So it's a whole nother story. So you got a whole. It's wildly various.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: It's just like you're sitting there and. No, I love it. And this prompt in the midst of this is how do people change?
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Yeah, how do they change? And I love both our brains. When you started going over here, I thought two ADD guys. But we know the roadmap. It's going to come back.
Stay with us. Stay with us. It's going to come back to where we were.
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Speaking of favorite sacraments, you're the only person I know who stole the sacrament of confirmation.
And this is, trust me, worth the tangent. Oh, goodness. Tell the story. Don't try this at home, but go ahead because it's awesome. I'm sorry.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: So I was raised what I call religiously homeschooled.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:10] Speaker B: So my father, he was watching my cousins and different folks that he knew they were going to religious ed in the 90s and there was a lot of, what color is your tree?
Let's paint our feelings. It was just kind of like the psychological, theistic.
What is it?
[00:10:28] Speaker A: Moralistic, therapeutic deism.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: It makes you feel good.
There's a distant God.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: And so he was. So he was watching this just like the people that he knew and that we knew lose their faith. So he's like, we're not gonna do that. And so religiously homeschooled. So every Sunday, we had Catholic lessons, which were absolutely painful. It was very hard to do as a boy.
[00:10:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Like, we would sit there and, like. But my dad would teach us out of, like, Fulton Sheen, and we would, like, he would. He would use college textbooks in the Ratzinger report. And he was just like.
And I'm like, 11:12. And I'm like, this is hard.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: A little above me, dad.
[00:11:12] Speaker B: Yeah. But he didn't care. He's like, no, this is what matters. He's like, we have to think of the things that are above.
And so one day you come to Catholic lessons, and my dad's like, hey, you're getting confirmed in two weeks. And I'm like, this is amazing. I'm psyched, man.
You have to know, though, is that I was. As soon as I received my first communion, I wanted to be the first to receive communion. So I would sit in the very front spot in the very front pew, while my family would sit in the back. So I'm like 8, and I was going to mass at the front, and my parents were like, have fun at the front. That's cool. Cause I wanted to be like. I wanted to be up and so you're into this? Yeah, but this is the thing is, I was into it, but I still had a hard time with Catholic lessons.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: Right.
Yeah. I mean, it was the opposite extreme of Philip Banners.
There's something in between felt banners and the Ratzinger report for an 11 year old.
[00:12:11] Speaker B: There is.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: It's actually pretty broad area between those two things.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Eddie brought it down, but so it's two weeks before, and so I'm like, I'm psyched. So we go. And we're a little bit late to the cathedral.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: And so my dad. We go sit down, and I was like, dad, why am I sitting with the other kids? And he was like.
[00:12:39] Speaker A: I was like, oh, he didn't even tell you you were stealing the sack?
[00:12:42] Speaker B: No, of course he didn't. He just was. He just found the date. So now I'm sitting in the back, and I'm like, oh, no.
Is this real. So we get to the confirmation part. My dad's like, okay, go.
And I'm like, oh, okay.
I mean, at this point, I think I probably was like 14 or whatever.
So I hustled down and I'm at the back, and he's like. And it was Stafford at the time. And he was like, what name have you taken? And I was like, thomas. And he was like, thomas, be seated. With the gift of the Holy Spirit and peace be with you. And with you. And also with you.
It was old school. It was pre 20s.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I miss those also with you days.
[00:13:25] Speaker B: Oh, I mean, hey.
So it was so funny. Cause I get into seminary and they're about to like. I'm like, on the eve of my diacon ordination, so they're gathering all my certificates.
So my father had a priest friend who was Vincentian, and. And he had him forge a confirmation certificate. And so that was what I had. So I gave it.
And they were like, yeah, we can't find your baptismal certificate. We can't find. You have a forged confirmation certificate.
[00:13:58] Speaker A: We're like, are you sure you were baptized?
[00:13:59] Speaker B: Yeah. They were like, yeah, I am.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: Okay, good. That would be a problem.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
And I remember in my sacraments class, I remember they were like, yeah, they were talking about scenarios. And I was like, yeah, sister, what if there's a kid? Maybe he's in mortalson, maybe he's not in mortalson. Maybe he has snuck into the confirmation line unbeknownst.
I was like, is he validly confirmed? And she's like, yes, you are validly confirmed.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: I know a guy who.
[00:14:35] Speaker B: That was. I was like, I got a friend. And she spotted it. It made me so happy that she totally called it out immediately.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Well, it all worked out okay.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: It did.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: Here we are.
[00:14:47] Speaker B: And the power, honestly, the power of God settled on me.
I was just telling a story just a little bit ago about I was in a punk band. And what had happened is that it was the 90s, so I would fake a page. Cause we would practice on Sunday afternoons. But I wanted to get to mass. So I'd be like, oh, you guys, this my girlfriend.
I'm like, dude, you guys know she's really needy.
I was like, I just gotta go. I'll be right back. Just give me a little bit. And I would like zoom over to Holy Ghost downtown in Denver. And I would like. And you could go in and wait in the confession line while going to mass. So I would get confession. Father Roland Freeman. Oh, he was so kind. He Was like, the nicest. He'd always give you one. Our Father, the guy next to him always give you a rosary.
[00:15:33] Speaker A: You know what line you're going, oh, yeah, 100%.
[00:15:35] Speaker B: And like, dude, that dude saved my soul. And then I would, like, zoom back and I'd be like, she's cool. And they're like, wow, she's really needy, like, every week. And I was like, yeah, but every.
[00:15:43] Speaker A: Saturday at, like, 3:00'.
[00:15:44] Speaker B: Clock. Yeah. I'm like. I'm like, what's the deal? What I've realized, though, is you start telling the church, you start calling the church your girlfriend, and you end up with one of these on.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Yeah, buddy. Punch it right there. Yeah. All right. So, like, what have you. What do you learn about human nature? Like, there's, you know, dude, I get to see so much beauty and humanity in the church as a preacher of the gospel.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: But I'm also spoiled with one of the easiest, most joyous jobs in the church in some ways, you know what I mean? I'm an itinerant preacher. I talk about the best news mankind has ever received. I watch the lights go on in people's faces, and then I leave.
It's like, high five. Yeah, okay. Your pastor will deal with the rest.
You have this long walk with people, and you see sides of people that most of us never see.
Like, I don't even know what. I won't. I won't know what the closest people to me are saying in confession. And I like it that way. You know, I could guess, you know?
[00:16:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:40] Speaker A: Nothing overly dramatic coming from my wife, but I'm not there. You know, like, you receive that part of people week after week, and as people are trying to change and grow, you know, what. What have you learned about humanity that you kind of didn't. Didn't know before experiencing that side of people?
[00:17:00] Speaker B: I started watching in a very intense way the opening scenes of movies.
[00:17:08] Speaker A: Really?
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Because in an opening scene of a movie, you get the full story arc that's about to happen because you set up the kind of need within the main character immediately. It's a very American thing.
It's universal, of course, it's very Hollywood. But in storytelling and it's a little bit like that in literature, but movies are very intentional that way. If you watch and you say, what is ruining this person's life?
And once you can hear what's ruining somebody's life, you know, the transformation that's going to take place, somebody.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: It's just so. It's so funny because you have to listen.
Somebody comes in and they're saying they're wildly selfish. So all of a sudden, they just. My mom told me this. This is so funny. My mom was driving me to college. She drops me off and she said, son, just remember, people will tell you who they are.
That was it. Bye.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: That's a weird thing to just say. Kind of cool.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: People will just tell you who they are.
And it's so interesting because you're sitting in the confessional and people will just tell you who they are. And because it's a trusted and privileged place that's so sacrosanct, people drop and go to levels of intimacy that are happening with inside of them instantly. So they're gonna go and they're gonna talk about these parts that instantly, that you can immediately have a sense of how the Holy Spirit wants to bring transformation into their life.
And so then as they rattle as they talk through the sins, not rattle off sins. When they rattle off sins, like, sometimes you just get hit by. It's a barrage, and you have a hard time kind of sorting out what's moving. But most of the time, people are actually being attentive to what the Spirit is doing because you don't end up at the confessional unless you've prayed. Yeah.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: You're periodic.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: And so you're saying, how do I change? How do I experience a transformation in my life?
And the first thing you hit is your conscience.
Your conscience is the mechanism by which the Holy Spirit speaks to us in our lives. It's World Youth Day, the vigil. World Youth Day 93. Pope John Paul II.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: Right. Like, young just. When you say World youth day, vigil 93, I'm like, my whole spirit is moved to a profound spot. I could feel the air.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: It's so good.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it was so good.
[00:19:45] Speaker B: You were there.
[00:19:46] Speaker A: I was there, and so was my wife. And I read her journal recently from that night, and she just said, this is. She. She was. It was like, literally, I.
She captured the moment of her conversion as she's writing it. She's like, I, I. I'm hearing his voice, and I can't deny this is truth anymore.
And she's like, it's. It's. I realized I've been wrong.
All my hairs are standing up right now. She's like, and I'm having the courage to say I was wrong. And I am wrong, and I'm falling in love with Jesus.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: It's like.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Dude, the grace was palpable at that preaching of the gospel that night. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead.
[00:20:30] Speaker B: And here is his iconic preaching, right? Like, here's the greatest great. He gets to proclaim as the shepherd of the Universal Church, and he says, do not give in to this widespread false. Do not give in to this widespread false morality. And he, like, says it with his energy and this electricity. And he says, we're used to manipulating science and the worldly things. He says, because of that, we think that we can manipulate conscience. But conscience is the innermost sanctum of the person where the Holy Spirit speaks.
And so to be the person who gets to sit at that nexus of the person and the Holy Spirit and the conscience and in the person of Christ.
Because the reason why confession is sacred and so protected is because it's information for God alone.
And so I just get to be with God with this information. And so you're sitting there and so getting used to watching the first scene of movies, you learn, and your ear can get attentive to how the Spirit is working. And so then people are saying, well, how do I transform?
How do I transform?
How do I experience change? And not just. And like. And this is hard because you're like, I'm an itinerant preacher.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: And so you get to go. And like, it's massive. And God. And I'm so thankful for your work.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: Thanks, brother.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: And so thankful for what you do. And it's like. And it's. It brings the life of Christ, the life of the Spirit. So many places. And so to be here with you and talking about this is the best.
[00:22:16] Speaker A: Oh, man.
[00:22:17] Speaker B: The high things.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:20] Speaker B: So.
But I get the most privileged place in the entirety of the church. It's incredible because I have this fort. I have a fort with these powerful walls that sit.
And literally the inner sanctum of heaven exists. And I get to invite people in and encounter them.
And they come to the fort and. And they bring their friends to this fort. And all of a sudden, this fortification of the Spirit is here. And they say, what do I do? They're like, I heard Chris Stefanik, and he was awesome.
I moved.
How do I keep going?
[00:23:07] Speaker A: That's very much my goal as a preacher is to get people to go to Jesus at the hands of the priest to have that direct encounter.
How cool that you have an awareness of appreciation of the privilege of being that source of encounter, man.
[00:23:26] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:23:26] Speaker A: What a grace.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: Week after week after week.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: I think a lot of guys don't. It gets rote. Just like married life gets rote. Everything. It's like, I get used to it. I have this Amazing. Children, grandkids, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, dude, wake up. You have a wife and kids and grandkids. You have the ability to bless people even if you're not married. You're priest like, dude, stay attentive.
[00:23:46] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:47] Speaker A: Wisdom. Be attentive. It's in the Byzantine liturgy, you know, wake up. What's going on? Even with your add brain, stay attentive to what's happening here.
[00:23:57] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:23:57] Speaker A: Oh, my grace.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: So you're there.
And so my.
It's not entirely systematic that I go through it, but the Our Father is kind of my framework, because the Our Father, it must begin with the Father. It has the telos. What are people after?
What are we going towards? Our Father, we're down for relationship. It is all about relationship.
But we have to start the journey somewhere, and that's deliver us from Evil. It's the latter. I don't know if you've ever heard it, but somebody described it once to me that the Our Father is a ladder. It's a ladder which. Each one of those seven petitions gets you closer to the Father.
[00:24:49] Speaker A: What are the seven petitions? Rattle them off.
[00:24:51] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:24:53] Speaker A: Your test.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Okay, this is my test.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Your dad do the catechism classes, right?
[00:24:56] Speaker B: I know. Okay, so. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
[00:25:16] Speaker A: There's your seven petitions in the Our Father. That's cool. And if you're just listening on the podcast, I'm sorry, you'll have to watch this to see the fingers go up.
[00:25:23] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I still count with my fingers, for sure. And I'm like, oh, what are they? It's okay, man. I had a totally humbling experience the other day. I tried to rattle off the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit from the pulpit as I was preaching, and I just, like, bogged.
[00:25:36] Speaker A: It was just like, wisdom, understanding, counseling, courage, piety. Wait.
Fortitude, fear of the Lord. Okay, yeah, we got this.
[00:25:46] Speaker B: No, I mean, so it's interesting because if you start with deliverance from evil.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Did I say knowledge? Yeah.
[00:25:53] Speaker B: If we start with deliver us from evil, that is the normal place that we all start.
Right? Like, what?
[00:26:01] Speaker A: I don't want to hurt. I don't want to.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: Right?
[00:26:04] Speaker A: Like, take me away from this.
[00:26:05] Speaker B: Lord, I am on fire here.
Please, like, quelch the fire. Like. Like, it's the. Like I will. I'll never do this again if you let me out of this one. Right. This is the jail prayer, right? You're like, deliver me. I will.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: I'll never steal the sacrament of confirmation again.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. It's like, yeah. So you just. You just want out. You're like, I'm in trouble. I need out. Right. That's very normal. From that, you start to make connections. Because if you experiencing in the confessional, right, the deliverance from evil, what happens is that you start to. The spirit is already going to act on your conscience and is going to start to convict you that there are things that you're doing that are no good.
They are temptations. And, you know, you shouldn't be looking at your phone in your bed as you're going to sleep. You know, that's not good. Yeah, you don't sleep, and then you don't wake up.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Right.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: And then you don't do well with your co workers, and you end up, you know, lashing out.
Right. With. With hardened fist. Right. Like, it's just these things. And so. So the. The spirit convicts us immediately. So that's actually where deliver, like, help us set us free from temptation.
It's where we start to have a plan.
[00:27:26] Speaker A: Mm.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: It's. It's like, okay, like, we let the plan of the Lord, like, because this is hard. How do we have a change?
If you press somebody, I really want to change. You're like, well, what's your plan?
[00:27:40] Speaker A: Yeah, what's the plan? Whether it's a big sin or someone just needs to eat better. Right. Which is attached to vices. Yes. Or someone's unfaithful to their spouse or whatever. Across the whole spectrum, there's mechanisms you could put in place so you don't have to repent of the same thing again and again and again. Right. So what's the plan? Is a step.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Cause when you say, what's the plan? You move from just reaction, passion, living, to reason.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: Say that again and define the difference between those two.
[00:28:12] Speaker B: So when you're living in your passions, you're just responding to stimuli.
I'm taking care of two dogs right now, and they get bored, and they're gonna tell me that they're bored. They're gonna start sniff counters in the kitchen. They're gonna start to get into trash. Like, they're just acting out of passion. Dogs have no reason.
So if. If their passions are overwhelmed or if their passions are not being identified, they're just gonna start acting out of them. So if we're just in a reactionary, passionate place. I don't feel okay. How do I make it okay?
You're just gonna do whatever you're like, I'm gonna have. I'm gonna eat a whole cake.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: Why not?
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Cause I wanna feel. Okay.
[00:28:59] Speaker A: Cause it delivers me from a perceived evil.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: Right.
That's it.
[00:29:04] Speaker A: But my own way. Yes.
[00:29:06] Speaker B: Right. And so what happens is you're like, okay, I need a plan. I am not doing. I'm not doing well. Okay, so Atomic Habits. I was talking to my friend, Father Greg.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: I have a bunch of notes here from Atomic Habits. Dude, Same brain habit stacking.
[00:29:23] Speaker B: Habit stacking, Absolutely.
[00:29:25] Speaker A: Go ahead, run with habit stacking. It's the coolest concept, but it's also rooted in, like, it's penance. It's the same thing.
[00:29:31] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:29:31] Speaker A: It's like this is everything old is new again. We're catching up with great grandma.
[00:29:35] Speaker B: Absolutely.
Right. Well, so you're there. And so how do you actually get set free from temptation? You're like, you get a plan.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:29:45] Speaker B: So what are the four steps from Atomic Habits? The four things it's like, make it easy, make it available, attractive, generally amiable.
[00:29:55] Speaker A: I'm only remembering I read it like a year and a half ago, but it came to mind preparing for this. But the habit stacking, basically, take the thing you want to do, the habit you want to form, stack it with something you like doing.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: Conversely, take the thing, the vice that you want to leave behind, stack it with something that's unenjoyable so that you start to associate what you have to do with lighting up the reward center of your brain and the thing you want to stop doing with the pain center of your brain gets lit up.
And there's, there's a. There's a magic in that. It's just, it's making a plan. It's not. Absolutely not just self help. This is like, okay, this is a practical way to change.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: And. And we talk about proximate and remote.
[00:30:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: Because a lot of times I'm like, hey, I have these remote beautiful things that I want. The reality is we have to make them proximate. We have to make them close. And then habit stacking, you're like, I gotta get it close to me.
[00:30:46] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:47] Speaker B: So I gotta make it available.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: That's it. That was something else he hit upon.
We're drawn to immediate rewards and repulsed by immediate pains. But for the long term things, it's like, you know, one cigarette's not gonna hurt me. And it's actually not 10,000 will.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: But that's future Chris's problem. And he's a disciplined guy. And if he's resentful of present Chris for putting this problem on him, he can't punch me in the face because he's like, ten years from now. Right.
But. But to make it right here, approximate. Yeah.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: Then you have like, okay, now the Lord is starting to act in my reason.
Right.
You could use whatever online thinking tool you like. Right. And you can say, give me 10 ideas both exteriorly and 10 ideas interiorly that I can do to be able to get a strategy to move against this beautiful. To move against this temptation.
Now, I think that this is hard because I would say that the interaction between unforgiveness and temptation are very intimately connected.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Tell me more. This is something that if you're not hearing people's sins all the time, you're probably not gonna ever see.
[00:32:06] Speaker B: Right. That's why I think I like atomic habits, because I'm like, this is. This is really great stuff to get strategic about doing something new and take atomic habits and then associate it with, like, Myers Briggs. I like the Myers Briggs personality stuff because.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: Me too.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: It's not necessarily, like, it's not perfect by any means. And personality, people will say that it's not the greatest indicator, but it's a great starting point to look inside of yourself, like what I was saying with photography, and say, like, what do I really respond to?
[00:32:45] Speaker A: Mm, that's cool. Right?
[00:32:46] Speaker B: Like, oh, I can look at the enfp. I'm an enfp. Of course. You know, me too. Yeah. I.
[00:32:52] Speaker A: A squirrel. Yeah. Sorry. What?
[00:32:56] Speaker B: I know. I totally, 100% knew that. There's a lot of people who think they're ENFPs, and they're not.
[00:33:00] Speaker A: No, they're just wannabes.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:02] Speaker B: There's a lot of people who also think they're INFJs and they're not infused.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: Right.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: Right. Like, these are the two. Two most dangerous ones, because I think people really. Those two personality types are very compelling culturally for us right now.
But as an enfp, I could start anything.
You want to give me a strategy to start a new habit? Boy, I started already. I'm, like, two days into my new habit, and I'm already done.
Okay.
[00:33:29] Speaker A: But unforgiveness and temptation married How?
See, I never thought of that.
[00:33:34] Speaker B: Okay, so this is where unforgiveness and temptation.
Okay. If I'm not forgiving.
So the reality of most of us is that we're pretty bad at forgiving.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: We don't necessarily have a method. I think that I'm supposed to just forgive and forget is about the greatest proverb that we have culturally about forgiveness, which does not actually work. No, I really don't forget. And I have a hard time forgiving.
What happens is that unforgiveness when I hold on to it, when I'm still clinging to being a victim.
A cultural touch point for everybody. Everybody is victimized right now.
What's happening is I don't care if you're on the right, you're on the left. If you're in the family, you're not in a family, you're. I don't care where you are politically or where you are religiously. Everybody's trying to find their own victimhood in the midst of all of this. Yeah, but. But this is where. When we release, like when we release identity of victimhood, things change.
Because as. As long as I'm holding on to the unforgiveness in my heart, I have fuel to burn to give me excuse for temptation and evil.
Because I need a little bit. I need that extra cookie.
[00:34:55] Speaker A: I deserve it.
[00:34:56] Speaker B: I deserve it. The truth is, is that I've had to endure all of this.
All of this stuff. Look how much of a victim I am. I get a little extra, don't I?
[00:35:05] Speaker A: I deserve to cheat on my spouse because I'm entitled to the affection she's not giving me. I deserve to whatever it is. Right?
[00:35:12] Speaker B: Right.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: Yeah. Don't lift that one and make it a digital short because it's taken in context.
I don't cheat on my spouse. I'm sorry.
The dangerous things that could happen on social media.
Chris just said he's entitled to cheat. No, but really we go to these extremes. Like I can justify anything.
Dang, that's powerful. I never associate that with non forgiveness and victim status.
[00:35:35] Speaker B: I was reading Josef Pieper and Leisure. Basis of culture. Great book, Great book. And Only the Lover Sings is the abbreviated version for people who don't like reading long books but want the same principles.
And it's artistic, so I love it. But what happened is that he's talking about if we celebrate Sunday, right, we have all the fuel we need to live our week well.
We begin with gathering the fuel for our week. That's why we live the contemplative life.
We go and we take both natural and supernatural contemplation. And from that, what were we talking about? Really actually encountering, seeing what's really there.
When we see what's actually there, then we can hang out with that, we think of the high things, the upper things, the beautiful things.
And out of that, then all of a sudden, our week and our days, they gather context because we have the fuel to burn, because we've been taking the time to encounter the spirit.
Now, let's flip that. Let's put that into media.
Drama is conflict.
So everything from your TikTok to your X to your YouTube to your.
I don't know, those are the ones that I'm particularly disposed to encounter.
All of your news channels, all of them are in the frame of drama.
And drama has an enemy.
And drama at its real core is the conflict of values. So what we're trying. So the best drama is when you have this value coming in. In this value, and they're fighting.
So what we're doing is we're feeding ourselves. Not the contemplative act, not the high things, but the low things. And the longer we get inside of that, then we say, look at how my values are in conflict with all of these other values. And we feel.
I don't know, we got a lot of this stuff inside.
So I feel like I've been working with people to try to get them to forgive. Democrats, forgive Republicans, forgive the Communists, forgive the Nazis, forgive. Literally anybody you perceive, just, like, let them go. Because the longer that you're burning and seething, you're living in passionate, reactionary place, not in a place of reason where you're actually saying, I can be strategic.
[00:38:06] Speaker A: It's powerful, man.
[00:38:07] Speaker B: It's powerful.
[00:38:08] Speaker A: And you can engage a culture war while also forgiving and letting it go.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:38:13] Speaker A: It's actually the only sane way to do it.
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Absolutely. Because my war is not with flesh and blood. It's with principalities and powers.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Boom.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: So are there wars of ideas? Absolutely. And there are really bad ideas.
But those people are my people.
They're all of my people.
Everybody who lives within my parish boundaries.
[00:38:37] Speaker A: That's your people.
[00:38:38] Speaker B: Those are my people. Everybody who's. Who's there, and then the people who are coming. And the truth is that everybody in the diocese, because I'm working with the bishop, and then the truth is that I'm working with the Pope. It's everybody.
Those are my people. I don't want them to get. I don't want them to capsize. I want them to get released.
[00:38:56] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Because the prison of unforgiveness is so mean.
It's so mean inside of us.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: So I'm seeing two things that stop people from change emerging from this conversation right now.
One, people who are feeding the fire, the fuel inside of unforgiveness, and that makes you a victim. So you have to throw things on that fire, and it just gets consumed by it, right? It just grows more and more and more, and the temptations get out of control, right? Because it's the wrong mindset. It's not just, I want to change my behavior, but Jesus says, metanoia, change your mind. That's the call to repentance.
Get the mindset, and then your behaviors will change. And that mindset starts with that liberation of love versus resentment as a paradigm boom.
[00:39:45] Speaker B: Absolutely. And this is. I mean, that's the genius of the 12 steps, right? Is you get into this place and you're working up. You're like, I'm crazy.
Maybe there's God, okay? I think that there is God. I'm gonna give my life over to something that is greater than me. And then all of a sudden, you're gonna make a moral inventory of yourself, and you're gonna realize, okay, I'm gonna claim how I've contributed to this mess, and I'm gonna look how I'm hurt, and I'm gonna claim my part.
So I'm gonna say, okay, I'm hurt, and I'm gonna claim my part. And then I'm gonna go outwardly and I'm gonna make amends, and I'm going to confess it, right? So it's this moment of, like, the fifth step is where you take all of these kind of moral failings and you confess it. And even in the big book of 12 steps of alcoholics Anonymous, it says a priest is a good one to go do this with the one.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: It's like the only one that can't pick up the phone and call a friend and be like, hey, can you believe what Chris just told me?
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: You would get excommunicated for that. That's a big deal.
That's a no, no.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: So it's like this beautiful moment of, like, oh, no, confession leads to getting right with the rest of the world. Because you're saying, okay, here's all the ways that I've been a victim, and the truth is, is that I'm going to claim how I've actually victimized. I'm going to claim where I've done it, and then I'm going to confess it, and then I'm going to make it right. And this is actually where sometimes I think that we fall a little short in the church, is we don't actually go out to make it right for those Things. I think sometimes we stay interior because I have a little bit of an education in the 12 steps, and I thank God for it.
When I had my conversion in college, I looked down and I looked at my belt, and I realized that I had stolen that belt my freshman year of high school from Abercrombie and Fitch.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:41:38] Speaker B: At the Cherry Creek Mall. And I walked in, and it was too big.
And so.
So me and my friends, like, we. I, like, we poked extra holes in this belt. And I realized that in my conversion that I had been wearing that belt for seven years.
[00:41:55] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:41:56] Speaker B: And I realized I was like, my life is built on a lie. So I took the belt and. And my buddy belt on a lie.
[00:42:04] Speaker A: Sorry. So loud.
[00:42:06] Speaker B: Yes.
And I took my buddy Barry Danks. Oh, my gosh. And I was like, barry, I gotta return this belt.
[00:42:14] Speaker A: It's never too late, Right? Right.
[00:42:15] Speaker B: So I went back to Abercrombie and Fish. I took the belt. I said, seven years ago, I stole this belt. It was $44.
Here's $44.
And the belt. I'm sorry that I took it.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: What did they say?
[00:42:26] Speaker B: The dude looked at me and he's like, dude, you got some conscience on you.
And I was like, yeah. I was like, I'm just trying to get right.
And he took my $44, and he said, well, I think you bought this belt. And I said, that really means a lot to me. Thank you. And that belt.
[00:42:43] Speaker A: That's incredible, man.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: Is a phenomenally important object in my life because I bought the belt.
[00:42:49] Speaker A: It's a sign of redemption.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: That's a sign of redemption.
[00:42:51] Speaker A: Oh, that's so cool.
So you got the people who are feeding the flame of resentment, on the other hand, people who don't change, people who don't make a plan and the habit stacking, for instance. Right?
[00:43:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:43:06] Speaker A: One of the big conversions from sin in my life. I got really into the faith, and then as a teenage kid, like most teenage kids do, struggled with tons of sins of lust. Right. Yeah. This is like a phase that I see tragically. A lot of guys never break free from now because I didn't have the added temptation of a phone. You know, like, if you wanted to get your hands on porn. When I was a kid, like, it was a lot of effort.
It was serious. Yeah. Like, there would be a really weird guy occasionally who would go into the video store in the back of room, come up with a bag full, and he looked creepy. And he was like, it's a creepy thing to do. Right. Because it was it was hard to access, but I made a vow to myself. Like, I'm like, I don't want to be a slave to this. Every time I fall into a sin of lust, I'm going to take my shoes off and run barefoot around my block. I don't care what time of year it is. And go face to face a confession. Even if it's an option to go behind it.
Great. Because it's humiliating.
Dude, that was my habit stack.
[00:43:58] Speaker B: That's a great habit stack.
[00:43:59] Speaker A: Yeah, right? It was like I associated with something I hated.
[00:44:03] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:44:04] Speaker A: I haven't fallen into those sins since I was 16 years old. Dude. I'm 50.
And it was like I went to war with that sin. Like, I'm not going to stay a slave to this thing. That's it.
And it worked. But like, I see so many people now. Like, they're just okay there. I want to sympathize with the overwhelming temptation of the phone once that forms. But then it also is like, are you actually serious? Do you have a plan?
Throw the phone away.
Oh, no, you're not gonna do. So you're not actually that serious.
You won't get a dumb phone because you actually don't want to leave it. I think one of the big obstacles to people making a plan, and I want you to speak into this because you. You have more access to people's sins. You know that. That maybe they don't. They just don't want to change. So therefore they don't make a plan. So then it seems like I just want to. I just want to get a back rub and confession and feel better about myself for a day. I don't know, man. What. How would you call that out? Am I being unfair? Like, what's the.
When the plan is lacking, or maybe they're not. Maybe there's not enough self love to make a plan and say, I'm going to spend time with myself and really think through this.
[00:45:16] Speaker B: This is hard because being attentive to what it's really about.
We're talking about a whole universe of things. Because somebody could just be about lust.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: Right?
[00:45:30] Speaker B: Right. But it could have a myriad of sources. And this is what's hard. And this is where the.
But the same person could have a number of different source waters to this thing. So you can pull it away.
You can say, okay, I'm going to pull away the phone, which is good. And there's times when you're like, I promote that entirely. Where you're like, just get done.
But this is hard in A world where we do computing, it was popping back up. So then you're like, okay, this is hard because we have this. This portal in our houses and laptops and phones and these things, and somebody who's really trying to pull away, and they. They do that. It could not just be their phone. It could just be literally any access to anything. A television.
And so. So this is hard because you. Because somebody who's vulnerable. And men are particularly vulnerable. Vulnerable around their sexuality.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:46:32] Speaker B: Most of the time. Men, as we're growing, are not actually equipped. This is another part that I want to talk about, how to change. We're not equipped to deal with our emotional lives.
Dang.
What do we do? We sexualize the emotional.
If I experience somebody defined trauma to me recently this way as being overwhelmed and alone, and I was like, oh.
[00:46:55] Speaker A: That'S a good definition, man.
[00:46:56] Speaker B: I was like, that stuff feels like I hold onto that. And I'm like, yes, you can have severe trauma, but you can have minor traumas. And we throw it around culturally a little too much, maybe.
But this experience of being overwhelmed and alone is something to where you have that. And if you don't have the tools to say, okay, I'm alone. How do I move from being alone into solitude? Okay. I'm a praying person.
I had a terribly lonely moment the other night. I was there, and I was like. And my parochial vicar decided to go and hang out with some other priests. And I was like. And I was at home, and I was like, gosh, I feel alone.
And I felt. And then the loneliness just, like, hit.
And it was a moment where I was like, how do I move from being alone into solitude?
[00:47:50] Speaker A: Those are two radically different things.
[00:47:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And I didn't really hit solitude. I really didn't hit solitude very well.
I just kind of spent the evening really feeling alone.
But I felt it. And this is the thing, and this is the gift that my father gave me and that my great spiritual directors and friends gave me, is that I could just feel alone, and I felt it, and I didn't need to escape it. I didn't need it to stop. I would have liked it.
[00:48:16] Speaker A: Get comfortable with your pain.
[00:48:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
And so how do you actually name most people?
Naming your emotions is a lot like tasting wine. I don't know. Do you like tasting wine?
[00:48:29] Speaker A: I like sake better.
[00:48:31] Speaker B: Sake.
[00:48:32] Speaker A: I'm a big mega sake fan.
[00:48:34] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:48:35] Speaker A: But, yeah, I like tasting everything.
[00:48:37] Speaker B: Okay. I don't know.
[00:48:38] Speaker A: Especially sake.
[00:48:39] Speaker B: I don't know how to taste sake.
[00:48:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
It can be complex. It's more simple, though, than wine.
[00:48:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:48:46] Speaker A: Of course, I'm not the expert, but.
[00:48:48] Speaker B: So somebody taught me.
[00:48:48] Speaker A: It's so clean, beautiful. I just love it.
[00:48:51] Speaker B: I got a buddy who brews sake.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: No way.
[00:48:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. He's an old high school friend.
[00:48:57] Speaker A: Connect me.
[00:48:57] Speaker B: I will. Cause he has a lot of really interesting sakes.
[00:49:01] Speaker A: I want to start organic Stefanik sake company.
[00:49:03] Speaker B: I got a dude to Got a dude you can talk to.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: Side hustle.
[00:49:07] Speaker B: Side hustle. The Colorado sake.
[00:49:09] Speaker A: This is how we fund real life. Catholic.
[00:49:14] Speaker B: But somebody told me that the hardest part about tasting wine or sake or anything about taste is putting language to it.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:49:25] Speaker B: Because I can say that smells like brownies, but when I taste that brownie, I'm like, oh, I like. Tastes like walnut. And I get notes of white sugar and cocoa.
[00:49:37] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:49:38] Speaker B: The cocoa seems to be a little bit more overpowering.
It's hard to use language. Or when you smell wine, you're like, I smell manure and pasture. And like, everybody's like, manure and like somebody.
[00:49:53] Speaker A: My favorite wines are like, manure and, like, you know, hay that a cat urinated on. Right.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: You must like Cote d'.
[00:50:01] Speaker A: Rhones. I don't even know what. I'm not classy enough to know what I like, but when I taste a wine, it's like really expensive and rare and like, there's like the barnyard thing going on.
[00:50:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:50:10] Speaker A: I love that stuff. I don't know why. I just love. Well, I like dark coffee for the same reasons. I like the harsh kind of.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: Right.
[00:50:15] Speaker A: Harsh is even the wrong word. It's not biting, but it's earth.
[00:50:19] Speaker B: Earth.
[00:50:20] Speaker A: I like the romance of like, I'm tasting a part of the world right now. I could taste the farm this came from.
[00:50:27] Speaker B: And I actually think that that's why God gave us those particular drinks, is because it's endless. It's infinite variety.
[00:50:36] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:50:36] Speaker B: One being in different locations in different years with different weathers. And now all of a sudden, the variety that you get from even just one little beautiful fruit.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: That's cool.
[00:50:48] Speaker B: Like with all of these different things and how. Like Napa.
But the point that I'm working at is that it's naming. How do you name what's really happening inside of you?
And how do you get okay with feeling that?
Because this part that you hear consistently when you're in the confessional is patience.
[00:51:13] Speaker A: Patience. Be patient with yourself.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: No, I am not patient. I'm not patient with my kids. I'm not patient with my co workers. I'm not Patient in this confessional line, I'm not patient.
[00:51:23] Speaker A: And I'm also, therefore, not patient with my own sins.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: I'm not patient with my own sins. I'm not patient with anything. And so what I find is that patience comes from the Latin root which means to suffer. We're a patient in a doctor's office because we're suffering.
Right.
The whole reality of unwillingness to suffer anything.
[00:51:47] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:51:48] Speaker B: Because we're already overwhelmed with suffering.
We literally, like you and I, as we're getting ready for this, we're talking about a little bit of our sufferings.
[00:51:59] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, right.
[00:51:59] Speaker B: Somebody told me that a lot of times the older you get, you end up in the organ recital.
My spleen, 16 inches larger than my leg. Oh, my gosh. I got this thing on my nose.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: Neck.
You might want to get that cut off.
[00:52:16] Speaker B: It's like the organ recital.
So I just think it's really interesting. It's like, how do we learn how to suffer again? And the transformation that I oftentimes want is when I want to be with Jesus.
And Jesus is inviting me to be a part of his passion, and he's doing that to all of us and that we can join him there.
[00:52:40] Speaker A: He's like, this is a feature. Don't run from this. Peace.
Yeah, I'm learning to do that right now. More deeply. I work on myself a lot. Like, I'll go through a time where I have personal trainer with health, and then I'll go third round of spiritual direction. And right now, I'm in a round with some counseling. Right. Like, the Lord keeps peeling the onion back. It's like, there's something else to work on, dude. I'm learning right now to ask myself, you know, how are you? What do you need?
And, like, if I ask you a question, I make space for the answer.
[00:53:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:53:10] Speaker A: If I ask myself a question, my computer brain jumps right in and inserts all the answers.
[00:53:15] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:53:16] Speaker A: Based on, like, here's what I should need.
Here's how I'm doing. Here's the answer in the Lord, right away, spiritualizing, Boom, here's the answer. And I'm learning to sit there and say, no, no, Actually thinking, like, let your spirit answer the question.
That's actually really hard.
It's like, what do you really need? How are you?
[00:53:35] Speaker B: Right.
[00:53:36] Speaker A: Sometimes I don't want to. I don't. I don't want the answer. That's why I run to the next thing, you know?
[00:53:41] Speaker B: And there we have. Deliver us from temptation.
Set us free from temptation. Why am I running to this next thing. I'm not paying attention to what's really inside of me.
I'm not like, I'm a little bit scared of it.
I don't really want to be a victim to it, But I kind of am playing with being a victim to it because I kind of do what I want to do, what I want to do.
Cause I think it's gonna make me happy, but I know it's not gonna make me happy. And so then this is complicated stuff. Yeah.
This is why even the framing of the question a little bit of is like, how do we change?
[00:54:17] Speaker A: How do we change? Yeah.
[00:54:20] Speaker B: The mercy of God. I mean, I like the strategy. I like thinking through these things. I like going and saying, okay, what's 10 interior? What's 10 exterior? I like looking at atomic habits. And I like really trying. I like going and working through my feelings, and I like surrendering them. Because this is the secret with feelings. Sorry, add.
[00:54:43] Speaker A: No, please.
[00:54:44] Speaker B: I was litanizing. But this is add. Like, the secret with the feelings is giving Jesus permission for him to do what he wants with them, not what I want to do with them. If I say, Jesus, I give you permission to deal with my loneliness. What do you want to do with this? I open myself. Here I am. Is there anything you'd like to do right now with us?
[00:55:09] Speaker A: I love it.
[00:55:11] Speaker B: And then you can bypass that little computer, the little. Like the interior LLM.
[00:55:18] Speaker A: No, there's stuff we gotta do. And yet it's to oversimplify. Well, frankly, it's the oversimplification of translating metanoia as repent or as the Romans did, penitentiam, which there's a legit aspect of changing your mind that's connected to doing penance. But we hear repent and we think you modify behaviors. Okay, what can I do to chisel and pound this behavior out of me? And the Lord's saying, when he says, change your mind as the call to live the gospel, it's like, buddy, you can't do that alone.
Good luck.
[00:55:55] Speaker B: Right.
[00:55:56] Speaker A: I mean, there's things you gotta work on that your will has to be engaged, but your will is now dancing with something bigger than you. If you want to literally change your mind.
[00:56:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:56:07] Speaker A: You gotta trust the mercy.
That's the. I think it's the most important one to land on.
You know, that's it.
[00:56:16] Speaker B: Right. Because it's repent.
The function of the intellect is different from the function of the will. The function of the intellect, in a simplistic, Thomistic way, is to present Goods to the will to choose.
And what does the Lord want us to really choose? He wants us to choose him.
When it comes down to it, it's about being with him.
And if I.
The only way I'm ever tuning into God and trying to like catch him is by a weird guilty conscience. He's gonna let me keep sinning so that he constantly reminds me that he loves me.
[00:56:57] Speaker A: Okay, so we got habit stacking. We got. If you're having a hard time changing, think through a plan, right?
[00:57:04] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:57:05] Speaker A: And love yourself enough time, love yourself enough to give yourself time to think on that. And bring a friend in with you to think about the plan. Because you matter.
[00:57:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:57:13] Speaker A: So think of a plan. Think about what you may be resenting, what victim status you're taking on. Think about what your heart's need is that's leading you to this sin again and again or the thing you want to change, whether it's a sin or just a bad habit, you know, and then above all, mercy. And I want to drive that one home with.
You're trusting the mercy of God, but you really got to make a decision to be merciful to yourself in imitation of him.
Because we don't just trust them, we're supposed to imitate them. You know, like. And one application of that. When I'm dealing with a sin again and again as I'm parenting, I see this in kids, a lack of mercy. It's almost self abusive when we associate who we are with the thing we're doing, you know. And I know there's probably people watching when I was talking about how like the Lord delivered me and through that battle with vice as a teenager who felt crushed by that thinking.
I can't get out of it, Chris. Right, Right. I am lustful.
And a big starting point is to Change that language 100%. You are a child of God who is dealing with lust. And maybe your battle's gone a lot longer than mine.
But the big victory is when you learn. And maybe the Lord is allowing that to continue so that you learn.
[00:58:32] Speaker B: Right.
[00:58:33] Speaker A: So that you learn that you are his child, not reducible to a sin.
[00:58:38] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:58:39] Speaker A: John Paul II said this. I love this. I don't know. Was this World Youth Day. I forget when this was. We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures. We are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his son.
[00:58:52] Speaker B: Praise God.
[00:58:53] Speaker A: So when my kids look particularly crushed because they keep repeating some behavior that's turning the house upside down or My daughter, beautiful kid. ADD worse than me.
But it gets really explosive. Like, she's doing one thing. I'm like, hey, stop playing the piano. Do your homework.
You just. I had a freight train dad going in that direction, and you just put a wall in front of it, you know?
But then to tell her, like, that is something you're dealing with. That is not you.
And to immediately reframe the language, you know, I am not a. I'm not broken. I'm not. You know, if I get your add, you got a superpower. If you could learn how to harness it. Yes, absolutely. We're not doing too bad, you know?
[00:59:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:59:37] Speaker A: But that starts with the mercy towards self. Right.
[00:59:42] Speaker B: And when somebody brings something like that to me, I have four questions I have to ask.
What is my agenda? What is their agenda? What's Satan's agenda? And what's God's agenda?
[00:59:52] Speaker A: Wow. Because when someone brings a sin, a repeat sin, do you mean like with your daughter?
[00:59:57] Speaker B: And you're like, you gotta do this. And she's like, like, she's. It's offensive. And you're like, this is hard.
And you're like, it's like, when I'm in that place, I have to go and I have to say, what am I trying to prove about myself, about God or the other person to them? What are they trying to prove about themselves, God or me? Right. Like, what is Satan trying to do here? And what is God trying to do here?
[01:00:18] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:00:20] Speaker B: Because if I trace a line through that, I get to choose a story.
[01:00:24] Speaker A: Those are big questions, bro.
[01:00:26] Speaker B: Those are big questions. And you can ask them about the littlest things or the biggest things and they will save your bacon.
Hey, this has saved my bacon.
[01:00:35] Speaker A: Bacon's really important.
[01:00:36] Speaker B: Bacon. There's nothing worse than burnt bacon, man.
[01:00:39] Speaker A: No, no.
[01:00:40] Speaker B: Like burnt, broken, devastated bacon.
[01:00:43] Speaker A: I think when Jesus was making breakfast for the apostles on the beach after his resurrection, there was bacon. It was post resurrection, dude.
For that smell to be new on the shores of Galilee, the apostles just wake up. Just, what is this, dude? Last time I went. One of the fruits of the new covenant.
[01:00:59] Speaker B: Yeah.
Last time I went to the Holy Land, I worshiped God at Joppa just specifically for that. The pigs in the blanket when he was napping. And Peter was there and he said, take and eat. And he's like, I've never eaten in anything unclean. And the Lord's like, you don't know what you're missing.
I want you to have bacon. And he's like, okay.
[01:01:21] Speaker A: And he's like, I've withheld it from my chosen people for a long time.
It's time. It's time. Like, they need receive Jesus, and you get all else thrown in.
[01:01:32] Speaker B: Amen. Yeah, that's the best.
I just love it. But that's the beauty I love. What you're saying is, it's like we have the option to reframe.
We actually can remember. And this is metanoia.
Change the mind. Change the mind. How am I actually going to look at this? If you're struggling, if you're out there and you're struggling with coming back with the same thing over and over again, it just means that God's keeping you on a short leash. The reason why I keep a dog on a leash, God bless them, is that they don't know how to control their passions. And so the Lord, what does he do? He just tugs you back in and he's like, go to confession. And you're like, okay. And you go back.
[01:02:12] Speaker A: Isn't that crazy?
[01:02:13] Speaker B: And why is it he wants you to remember? His very favorite attribute is that he will literally, permanently love you. He does not stop. And he's like. He's like, hey, remember, I love you. And they're like, I'm sorry that I did all the things again. And the Lord's like, I really love you a lot.
[01:02:28] Speaker A: Isn't that crazy?
[01:02:29] Speaker B: And I'll set you free. And there's not a person in the world that walks away from confession. That's not like. That was. That was pretty good. Okay, that's pretty good.
And so those little minute changes. Yes, we can pour all these things out. But I also have to say the other part is friendship.
[01:02:47] Speaker A: It was a number five. We just put number five in there.
[01:02:49] Speaker B: Put number five.
[01:02:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:51] Speaker B: And out of everything is that friendship is literally the key.
Because I led a meeting the other day and I said a boneheaded thing in the meeting. I was trying to be funny, and I was like, one of these things is not like the other. And I didn't think through me being dumb.
And I walked away from that meeting, and I was like, it's okay. The guys were good. It came out well.
But. But I couldn't shake it. I was having mercy on myself. I was doing all the right things. And then I turned to my buddy and I was like, I would. I said that I feel really dumb.
[01:03:31] Speaker A: And he made the guy with the third arm feel really funny.
You didn't realize that that song was his trigger.
Sorry.
[01:03:41] Speaker B: Right?
And he's like. He's like, no, it Came off wonderfully and it lifted.
[01:03:45] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:03:46] Speaker B: He blessed me.
And then he was like. He's like. When I said that, he's like, how'd you think? And I was like, oh, no, not at all. That was great. And I blessed him and it lifted.
[01:03:53] Speaker A: That's one of the graces of confession. There's a sacramental grace, but it's also like, I'm a human talking to another human. Hearing that it's okay to be human.
[01:04:03] Speaker B: Yes.
Right.
[01:04:05] Speaker A: You know?
[01:04:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And even sometimes just talking to a friend when you're just like, I'm just trying to change. And you just make a proclamation, unique declaration.
[01:04:13] Speaker A: Right.
[01:04:14] Speaker B: Like, you renounce the lie and you declare the truth. I mean, this is how we do healing prayer. You just declare the truth. And so you go to your buddy and you renounce a lie and declare the truth again.
And these are simple things that we can do as friends. I don't have to go to a council. I don't even have to go to a priest. I can just ask my mom. I'll call my mom. Mom, am I smart and good looking?
Yes, you are.
[01:04:39] Speaker A: Anyone who thinks you're not.
[01:04:41] Speaker B: Absolutely.
Let's make a declaration.
[01:04:44] Speaker A: I think when James said, confess your sins to one another, he wasn't talking about the sacrament. I think the sacrament's talked about in other places. But that should be a part of Christian life that we're not hiding from each other in shame.
[01:04:55] Speaker B: Right.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: You scratched something that we could probably talk about for an hour that we don't have time to. But I do want to draw attention to this, that the Lord, he doesn't cause us to sin, but he allows certain struggles to continue.
And this is the great cloud of unknowing, man. This doesn't even make sense. This is upside down. This is the good upside down. Right?
That even in that, like, he even uses that to pull his children close to himself.
That's incredible.
That's where the evil one is so frustrated that he's actually serving God and he's smart enough to know it.
When people cling to Jesus despite all their total failures, he's saving them as their bodies burn and everything looks like it's failure.
[01:05:49] Speaker B: You touched on something that moved my heart.
We talk about, okay, we started this whole thing with the gift of reading souls as a priest, Okay. We talk in an idealized way. And it's beautiful that you get to be in Christ especially. You get to give your mouth and your whole body for the words of absolution and consecration.
I absolve you from your sins, as in the first person. From the priest's mouth, from Jesus mouth, using the priest's mouth to forgive you.
[01:06:28] Speaker A: Epic.
[01:06:29] Speaker B: But there's a side effect to that.
If you're close to a fire, you get warm. If you're close to Jesus, you get portions of his heart. And I will tell you so consistently, when you have sinners who just keep coming back and they're on the short leash, the affection and the love that wells up for the.
The humility and integrity and hunger and thirst for righteousness and the poverty and the struggle, the affection of Christ raises up in your heart as a confessor, continuously in love. And it's something that's very, very, very, very special. And so it's not reading souls, but it's getting part of his, and there's nothing better.
[01:07:22] Speaker A: You're reading the heart, you're reading the soul, you're reading the heart of God.
Oh, well, I can think of no better landing for the conversation than that.
[01:07:32] Speaker B: Amen.
[01:07:33] Speaker A: Could you lead us in a prayer for people watching who are getting frustrated with themselves and trying to change with all their resolutions and trying to do their best? Yes.
[01:07:48] Speaker B: Lord, we love you above all things.
And when we don't, we absolutely feel the pain of that.
And so we ask you to turn our minds to high things again, to the beautiful gift of your revelation, to your mercy and your salvation, to the saintly lives that you've inspired over and over and over again.
We ask you to raise our minds to your incarnate love, that you would become man and that you would ask Mary to say yes to that. And how the angels were all just totally freaking out and loving it and rejoicing in that. But then the moment, Lord, that you mentioned that all of heaven rejoices over one repentant sinner, that that party is what we will be welcomed into. We ask you that you would keep us mindful of that and that you'd help us discard low things, earthly things, earthly thinking that even in our sin, that we would be so bold as to somehow let your will be a part of that in our repentant minds and hearts. So we know that you want transformation. And so we say yes, and we say yes right now. And we give ourselves again to you. We give our emotions over to you, our resentments, our fear of suffering, our lack of a plan.
We give it all over to you, and we ask you for a new inspiration. And we give you permission in our lives to do whatever you would like through the most holy name of your Son and Jesus Christ our Lord, who reigns forever and ever. Amen.
[01:09:36] Speaker A: Amen. Thank you, Jesus. I love you so much, man.
[01:09:39] Speaker B: I love you.
[01:09:41] Speaker A: Let's do this again. And again and again. Please, God, I would love it. Yeah, and I love you so much, too. I actually really mean that. That's why I do this. I don't want to become like a. I don't want to be a number one famous, world famous podcast. I'm not here for everybody. I'm here for you. I'm just so honored and blessed that you're watching because you matter that much to God that he would die for you on a cross.
So with that in mind, I'm saying this to say this. Please don't ever lose patience with yourself.
We're all on the journey together.
We're all messy together. The Lord never loses patience with you. So keep at it. God bless you. We'll see you next time.
