Become Who You Are
What’s the meaning and purpose of my life? What is my true identity? Why were we created male and female? How do I find happiness, joy and peace? How do I find love that lasts, forever? These are the timeless questions of the human heart. Join Jack Rigert and his guests for lively insights, reading the signs of our times through the lens of Catholic Teaching and the insights of Saint John Paul ll to guide us.
Saint Catherine of Siena said "Become who you are and you would set the world on fire".
Become Who You Are
#625 Secular Humanism: A Religion? And Mexico’s Child Martyr Who Inspired Bravery and Faith!
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The extraordinary story of a 13-year-old martyr provides a powerful lens through which we examine modern faith challenges. Writer and Catholic convert Avery Lane joins us to share the remarkable testimony of José Luis Sánchez del Río—"Joselito"—who was tortured and killed during Mexico's Cristero War for refusing to renounce his faith.
Avery's own journey from secular humanism to Catholicism frames our exploration of Joselito's story. We trace how this child became a flag bearer for Catholic resistance fighters when the Mexican government implemented anti-Catholic laws in the 1920s. During battle, Joselito demonstrated incredible selflessness by offering his horse to his general, sacrificing his own escape and leading to his capture by government forces.
What follows is an account of extraordinary courage. Joselito refused to deny Christ and his final words—"Viva Cristo Rey! Viva Santa Maria de Guadalupe!"—echo through history as a testament to unwavering faith.
Read The Full Story Here! And read Avery's other inspiring work at the "Catholic Exchange"
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Welcome and I'm sure you are a great addition to the Catholic Church, avery, we need beautiful people that came in for a reason and because they listened to their heart and I think, I think that's the bridge, these young people that we're meeting. Avery, you know the man's heart, men and women. Man's heart was made for the truth. Avery Lane is a writer, catholic convert. He's part of the Anglophone edition of Hosanna, a social prayer network that lets Catholics create or join online prayer communities. Their mission is to unite Catholics in prayer around the world through the internet. Avery, welcome, great to have you.
Speaker 2:It's great to be here. Thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1:Yes, you're welcome. You wrote an article in the Catholic Exchange that caught my eye. Mexico's child martyr inspires bravery and faith and because of our work here at the John Paul II Renewal Center and our work specifically with young people, especially young men, coming into the faith or at least looking at the faith and growing up in perhaps the most toxic culture in our history, in many ways, and despite all those odds, there's something in the human heart that gives a man and a woman too, of course this hope for something more than they could find in the world. In fact, the Claymore sword is behind me here. The Claymore sword was made famous by William Wallace and Braveheart. It was the Scots had brought it in and, anyways, claymore is our logo for Claymore Miletus Christi, which means soldiers for Christ. It's our apostolate to journey with young men as they seek the truth.
Speaker 1:So your story and we're excited to hear more about Joselito, the child martyr of the Cristeros War, and this young martyr was declared venerable by St John Paul II, beatified by Pope Benedict XVI and canonized by Pope Francis. So, avery, tell us a little bit about yourself. What prompted you to write this story? I want to hear a little bit about that background you have going there and, of course, the story itself, brother. So, hey, thank you so much. We really appreciate you coming on.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for having me and giving me this opportunity to talk about a saint that I really have connected to ever since, or actually before, I became a Catholic, and when I hear you talking about that toxic culture and that thing that's within us, that is hungering and knowing that there's something else, that there's something better, you know, I was a good lapsed Methodist and a card-carrying member of the secular left and I knew that something was wrong, something was missing. I was existing in an echo chamber of negativity and just a culture of death, as St John Paul II called it.
Speaker 1:Yes, you were? How old were you? Approximately? This is probably over a period of time, but approximately.
Speaker 2:Sure, I would say that I was in my 40s when I really began to feel that I was missing something. I had been introduced to a lot of great Catholic writers when I was younger Flannery O'Connor, graham Greene, you know all those the literary ones and I had felt a kind of pull to Catholicism was always sort of like no, I'm not going to go there. That's very strange. I grew up in the Appalachian Mountains. There aren't a lot of Catholics. Certainly when I was growing up there weren't. Historically there were not, and so it took me a long time to really begin to realize that those things that I were missing were in the church. And I was spending a lot of time in Mexico. I loved Mexico, reminded the bells are ringing and there are, you know, altars up and along the streets there, all these opportunities to be engaged, that you're not just in a world that's sort of here and now, but there's an infinite world of the kingdom of God that's out there that you're constantly being drawn to.
Speaker 2:And I was in a church in a beach town and I saw a picture of a young saint. I didn't know it was a saint. I was like it looks kind of like maybe a youth group advertisement, or maybe it's a. He looked like he could be alive today. He was wearing jeans, a button down, white shirt, and I saw him in a church. I saw him in another church A couple of years later. I saw him in another church. In the meantime I had gone. These were Catholic churches, catholic churches, and there'd be a picture, a poster, on the wall. In the meantime I'd gone to the Basilica of Our Virgin of Guadalupe and I had gone. As a secular humanist, I had gone to pick up some plastic souvenirs to take back, kind of ironically, to my friends.
Speaker 1:And we have a little picture of her behind me. Indeed, indeed, yes.
Speaker 2:She's right behind me here too. Beautiful Glory to God.
Speaker 2:I went and I was. I didn't know anything. I got there like on December 11th, so it was a madhouse and I got on the moving sidewalk and I went through. And I went through once and I'm like huh, that's fake. And I went through a second time. I don't know why I went through the second time and I heard a voice in my head so clearly and so powerfully what if that's not a fake? What if it's real? And that floored me because I couldn't prove it was a fake. That's my own arrogance, my own sort of sense that human beings are the only thing that matter, that were telling me that it was a fake. And so I began to do research, to question, and during COVID I realized that I needed something and I needed it now. And the church embraced me with open arms and I've been came in for a reason and because they listened to their heart.
Speaker 1:And I think that's the bridge, these young people that we're meeting. Avery, you know the man's heart, men and women, man's heart was made for the truth and we have so much noise when I say the toxic culture these young people are growing up in, so much of it is noise, right with the phones and social media, that we very seldom get a chance to listen to our hearts. And as I read your story, I thought, wow, you know, this inspiration comes down to us, doesn't it? These stories, and so this picture. In fact, I'll definitely link your article in the show notes, and in there there's a link to this picture, and it's really something to see, it's really a powerful story and this picture then is in many of the Catholic churches then, right in Mexico, definitely.
Speaker 2:And when I converted, I began to look at it more closely. I still didn't know who this person was, but I noticed that he had a palm frond, a symbol of martyrdom, and he had a rosary. And then I noticed that he was barefoot. He was standing on his bare feet and there was blood around his feet and there was broken glass on the. I went from being like what's this sort of like charming picture of a young teenager, you know, leading their youth group to victory? What's really there, when you see that here's a kid, 13 year old, who's a martyr in a culture that we think is so intertwined with Catholicism, and as I began to find out who he was and what the Cristeros War was about, the madness that descended on Mexico, and I really began to think about, you know, it's happening in Nicaragua right now and it's happening all over the world, and it can happen in places that we think that it won't happen. And if it could happen in places that we think it won't happen, it can most definitely happen here.
Speaker 1:Before you get into the story, that's a great setup because we see it in the UK, avery. We see it in Western civilization, western Europe. It's amazing that they're putting people in jail now for tweets and for praying across from abortion clinics. You can't make this up, the way they're clamping down. I think, avery, we would have saw this in the United States if we didn't get a new administration in and we still may, because the undercurrents of this are all over. So you're exactly right. So let's talk about this. If you could take us into this story, knowing that this story, just like you said, can be any of our stories very quickly.
Speaker 1:There are more martyrs in the 20th and 21st century than there have been throughout history. It's a lot of Christian martyrs today. So, yeah, let's talk to the young Now. When I say the young people, listening, these are young adults for most cases. And, again, all the people that love them their parents, their grandparents this is a big community out cases. And, again, all the people that love them, their parents, their grandparents this is a big community out here, and this story will go not only across the nation, but it will go into many countries that this podcast goes into, but I want you to address those young people too, because they're feeling inspired, and this is exactly what Joselito was feeling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. It was a really traumatic time in Mexico, a violent time in sort of the early years of the 20th century. There was a revolution to overthrow the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship. Overthrow the Porfirio Diaz dictatorship. Like so many revolutions and wars, allies come together who don't share the same philosophies and the same thoughts, other than that they are opposed to the same enemy. And so there were liberals and conservatives, there were Catholics and atheists, all working for independence. When independence finally came, there was a civil war, because there was a war about what Mexico would be, what the country would be. And this is a country with a long bloody history. We look back to the pre-conquest days and just the history of war and violence. So when the revolution turned into a civil war, ultimately the secular to take to seize church property, to forbid mass from being said. It depended from state to state how severely they were imposed, but they were absolutely determined to prevent and to stop the influence of the Catholic Church in that most wonderful Catholic country.
Speaker 1:Ultimately— I was going to just say it's—is this—I don't want to break into your story too much, but is this just these governments? Is this, you know, more of an evil, or is it more—are these people just seeking power, or both? You know they're atheists, obviously, and you know in their minds. Do you think that they—what's behind this? And we see this so often? It's a spiritual warfare, of course, but is that the way they were looking at it, you think, or is it just for control somehow?
Speaker 2:I think it's control, I think it's power and, ultimately, I think it's fear, because the gospel of Jesus Christ is radical. It is truly, truly radical, and it calls the world to operate in a completely different way than we want to operate, than we really want to run governments. And so the moral authority of the church is a threat to power, it's a threat to comfort, it's a threat to security, and I think that's why the state places itself as God and it can't tolerate another God, it can't tolerate a higher power that calls it to its better self.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so in Mexico it happened very quickly then, didn't it, you know, relatively quickly. And so we're being taken over by the secularists. They're really persecuting the church, I mean reminder of, like the French Revolution, you know. I mean it's just bloody right, brutal yeah. And then something happens, huh, some you know this group, the Cristeros, start to stand up. It's amazing. I'm going to be quiet and let you tell your story, because it's really beautiful.
Speaker 2:They are absolutely remarkable. The Cristeros, they're a group of Catholics who are like we won't take this any longer. This is not our country, this is something that we think is evil and has to be stopped. And so they began to fight back and a war broke out. And it broke out mainly in those states that are like Michoacán and I'm going to mispronounce some of these states terribly Jalisco, sort of on the northwestern, central, western side.
Speaker 2:And there was in michoacan a young man named luis sanchez del rio, jose sanchez del rio, who was just a kid. His older brothers joined the cristeros. They went to fight and he said to his mom hey, mom, I want to go, I want to go with my brothers, I want to fight. And she said no way. And he said, okay, well, I'm going to go and I'm going to ask the general here in our town you know the one who's in charge here in our town and the guy said no, no, you're too young, you can't do it. And he said I believe so strongly, I don't care if I'm too young, I want to be part of this. So he went to a neighboring town and he met the general and the general said you're too young but he was so impressed by Jose Jose Lito is sort of a nickname, right, little Jose Jose Lito's incredible commitment and his deep faith that he said you know what? You can be the flag bearer. You can be the flag bearer of our troop. And so Jose Lito embraced that. He was a wonderful sort of emblem and a flag bearer for the troop.
Speaker 2:In a battle that broke out, which was quite severe, the government forces were winning. They shot the horse of the general and Jose Lito saw that the general was in enormous danger and so he got off his own horse and offered it to the general, and the general was able to escape to fight. Another day Jose was captured along with several other of the Cristero soldiers. He was taken to prison and he was tortured. They thought that it would be an enormous, an enormous boon to their cause if they could get Jose Lito to reject Christ, to reject his faith and to stand in absolute opposition to the church. Jose Lito would have none of it. He was so determined. He prayed the rosary constantly. He was encouraging of those who were in prison with him. He wrote to his mother and said I think I'm going to die at this moment, but that does not matter. Mother, resign yourself to the will of God. I am dying very happy because I'm dying on the line next to our God.
Speaker 1:Man. There's something that happens, avery, isn't it? I think, as men, don't we all put ourselves in a situation like that and wonder if we would have the courage for that, don't we Completely? Yeah, and I think if I was going to have the courage, and we may, but it's going to come from Christ. I mean, you know that what they did to him was brutal, and you see this all the time when they're torturing martyrs. It's really a brutality, really a demonic brutality that comes out. You can hardly believe that men could do this to other men, let alone to a young boy.
Speaker 2:It shows, I think, the depravity of our fallen state. Amen, brother, amen. The absolute sin that we are capable of thinking that we are doing good. And it is so troubling to me. You know, I'm really fascinated by those periods in different countries where the church is forbidden. You know, I see that sword behind you and know that Scotland had secret seminaries because mass was forbidden for so many years the church was outlawed. So that's true in so many countries.
Speaker 2:And just the thought that what would I do in that situation? Would I go to the secret mass? Would I try to protect myself and would I renounce? I think if someone started to cut my feet off, I'd be like, you know, whatever I'll say, whatever you want to say, but I hope that in that moment that my will would be subverted to God's will and that I would have the courage to stand like he did. You know, they forced him to watch the execution of one of his friends and he stood and they thought that this was going to crack him. You know, a 13-year-old kid forced to watch someone die. And Jose Lito, you know, shouted I'll see you on the other side. And that rallying cry of the Cristeros. Viva Cristo Rey, viva Santa Maria de Guadalupe. He shouted that as an encouragement.
Speaker 1:I got goosebumps yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's the idea of what this young man was put through. I think what I was doing when I was 13, and this guy's on the line with Christ, you know, as he says in the letter to his mother. They moved him back to his hometown and the prison there was, ironically, the church that he had worshiped in as a child.
Speaker 2:It had been taken over by the government. It was filled with animals, it was filled with prisoners. It was a torture chamber and the contempt that the government had for the faith is so clear in the way that they desecrated that church and that they tortured this boy within it. There were a lot of efforts to try to free him. Ultimately, they weren't successful. Eventually he had his feet flayed as a final ditch to get him to break. He wouldn't do it. As a final ditch to get him to break.
Speaker 1:He wouldn't do it For people that don't know what you mean by feet flayed. If there's anybody wondering, I mean they would use something, and probably machetes in this case. I think in your article it mentions machetes in some context. Is this what they were?
Speaker 2:using you think I think they used machetes.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. So you're cutting not only the skin, you're probably getting some tendons and they made him walk across town.
Speaker 2:I've never been to the state of Mexico, but I've been to a lot of small towns in Mexico and so I know those cobblestone streets must have been agony. Walk across town at gunpoint took him to a cemetery. There was an open grave. There Again, they said will you renounce Christ? And he said no. And he said viva Cristo Rey, viva Santa Maria de Guadalupe. They pulled a gun, they put it to his head and they killed him and they thought they had won.
Speaker 2:But that's what you know as we sit here and we listen to this terrible story. That's the you know, as we sit here and we listen to this terrible story. That's the gift we have, because we know the Mexican government didn't win. We know that those soldiers didn't win, that the real victor that day is San Jose. You know that is the victory in that martyrdom to be a testament of faith, to stand as a model for young men all over the world young women of course as well all over the world. To stand as a role model in our moments of weakness, in our moments of fear, to think of him, to pray and ask him for his help for his intercession that we might have even an ounce of his courage.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you, you know, I'm wondering. We're looking at a couple of patron saints For the girls. It would be, I think we're settling on a saint of Philomena and probably a peer, giorgio Frassati, and I think I'm going to add Joselita, you know, as the patron saints of this apostolic movement for young people, because I think you're exactly right, you know it's the seed of martyrdom and it did change, right? I mean, ultimately, the Cristeros. Did you know? I don't know history, you know the Cristeros history as well as I mean. Ultimately, the Cristeros did you know? I don't know history? Is you know the Cristeros history as well as I should? But they won out, didn't they? Or at least they got their rights to worship. Am I right or am I wrong?
Speaker 2:They did 433, the president repealed the Calais laws, and it was a slow process. But certainly, you know, I was just in following the conclave I didn't realize how late it was that the Vatican had restored diplomatic relations with Mexico, but it's one of the cardinals who was responsible for that, you know. So I'm like wow, that's within my lifetime. But that, I think, is also important too to remember that this story, while it's not within my lifetime, it was in the lifetime of my grandmother, it was in the lifetime of people that I knew that it happened in the near past and it's happening right now. I think that's what was so terrifying to me is it's happening in so many insidious ways all over the world and it's happening in such brutal and awful ways in Nicaragua, right now it is.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, you know. Here's what happens. You know you hear this all the way from Exodus, where in the Passover we hear the Passover story and in there it's so beautiful that the fathers were to pass this story on to their children. And this is what we stopped doing here in the United States and Western civilization as a whole the baby boomers which I'm part of, you know, we stopped passing the story down to our children and we just thought through osmosis, we got apathetic. All kinds of reasons, right, the sexual revolution.
Speaker 1:You know we talk about those things on our show all the time, but at the end of the day, you know, pope Benedict said this so well. He said at first, when you take God out of your own heart, out of your family, out of the culture, out of education and out of the country, everything seems like it's going around okay for a little while. And then he said and then it ain't, you know, and then it isn't. And that's true. At first, you know it takes a little while, but man, the evil, starts to come in and fill those voids.
Speaker 1:We're really in a spiritual battle. I mean, sometimes I don't think we realize it until this last and I think if there's any favor that the COVID exposed and all these things exposed for young people, as toxic as it was, as many anxiety, depression, all kinds of things they felt, I think it got so bad for them. You know, the oppression that they gave them an opportunity to say something's got to be better than this. Opportunity to say something's got to be better than this. And if there's any gift in there, avery, I'd like to get your take on that that I think many of us are starting to really wake up to the reality of the intensity of the spiritual battle that we're in right now that your story brought out so well, and thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was talking to my nephew just this past weekend. He's getting his master's in Denmark, in Denmark, yeah.
Speaker 1:I'm Danish, by the way. Oh, are you really? But I think they lost their faith too, didn't they? Scandinavia, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2:And my mother asked him you know, are there lots of churches? And he said you know, no one's religious here. You know maybe some old people, but the young people aren't. And I said, maybe controversially in a family conversation. I said, oh no, they're religious. They belong to one of the most fundamental intolerant religions, philosophies, orthodoxies in the world. It's called secular humanism.
Speaker 1:What a wonderful way to put that. Say that again for our audience. It wasn't overly complicated and that's why I like it, but the way you phrased that, can you remember what you just said?
Speaker 2:Sure, secular humanism is a religion, it's an orthodoxy. It's intolerant, it's a fundamentalist. It's intolerant, it's fundamentalist and there's enormous punishment if you sin within it. You know, if you stand against it, there's enormous punishment. Conversation that can take me to sort of the pillars of contemporary secular humanism gender and abortion and that sort of idea that we control life, that we control creation, that we control who we are, and it's a real religion that these people hold on to it is and people don't realize that.
Speaker 1:That's why I like the way you phrased that so well, because we're this little tiny dot on the surface of a gas-fired planet that's revolving around a nuclear fireball 93 million miles away. The whole thing's exploding out, the whole universe is exploding and we think we got this handled. I mean it's amazing, and you're exactly right. Just try to pray outside an abortion clinic in a secular, humanistic environment and you're going to find out just how violent it can become. Stand up against a trans ideology, which is the most insane, unscientific thing you can imagine and impossible right from a biological, scientific level. You would think that if they they understood anything. But jordan peterson said if you swallow that camel, avery, there are no other camels that are going to be hard to swallow that a man can become a woman just because he wishes it in his mind. But that's their dogma and you better not cross that line.
Speaker 2:And I think in 20 years, podcasts like this will be having people on talking about the fact that they were made victims of child abuse and medical malpractice.
Speaker 1:Yes, sir, yes sir, In fact, avery, you know, talk about it in general. Right, this sexualization of our culture and everything that Joselito, whether he understood it or not, was seeking the truth, right? What is reality? What is the truth? And you're right, secular humanism at the end, it doesn't really care about reality, or the truth does it? And so many of our young people, and that's why I get excited about the ones that are standing up, because 90% there's a study not too long ago that 90% of high school and college age people, young people, subscribe to moral relativism. 90%. So there is no truth, only my truth or your truth. Right, you hear this all the time, but it just creates chaos, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It really does, and ultimately it's sort of hypocritical too, because there is a truth right, there's no truth. But then when you push someone on the secular left or the secular humanist side, there is a truth right, their truth and yours is not tolerated.
Speaker 1:DEI, and you know that. You know, diversity to me is diversity of morality. There is no morality, right, it's anything that you say. Equity again, there's all kinds of ways to describe that, but the socialism and the state taking over is what they're really for. And this inclusion, this tolerance and inclusion, long as you go along with the dogma, you're included. But, man, are you thrown out quickly? You know, christianity, as you see, all over the world as it's being attacked, is the most tolerant. I mean, you know when I'm speaking of true Christianity, right, the true Catholic faith, you know we embrace other people that come in and even live around us, and if we don't agree, you know you don't take a machete to them. And, man, you know, you see the violence, don't you? The violence and the vitriol.
Speaker 2:My social justice is based on love your neighbor.
Speaker 1:My social justice is based on what a thought huh yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that Jesus was really clear that whatever we do for the least of these, we do to him. When you get much more complicated than that, you begin to move away from love and you begin to move away from the power of love to make good in the world.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm jealous in some ways that you have this wonderful ministry for young men and young women, because I wish that I had been hit on the head a lot, a lot sooner in my life. I wish that I had missed about 20 years of this madness, because I was in it, you know, and so so so, but we've got about five, six, seven minutes left.
Speaker 1:Tell us about that. You were in it, you know where. Where did that come from? Was that just growing up? And the other thing before you go, I got to hear about that back room you have going. You have quite a bit going on back there and all of those things are part of Avery's personality, who you are, and so we want to get to know you a little bit more.
Speaker 2:So those two things, if you got a couple minutes for each one of them, sure, I'll say that you couldn't find a secular, humanist point of view that I didn't support, you know, and vehemently support.
Speaker 1:You didn't get that grown up in Appalachia. No, no, no, no Although you must have moved out to get that indoctrination Right.
Speaker 2:I mean, I grew up in a, in a, in a college town, but I did I went to college in Chicago and Connecticut and I worked in not-for-profits.
Speaker 2:We're from Chicago, but that's why I say that. Oh yeah, I went to Nepal for a year. Funny, I went to a Catholic school for a year, but I didn't have anything to do with any Catholics. I had a Vincentian priest for my creative writing class and I have been terrified of Vincentians ever since. I now go to a Vincenian church, but I still get a little frightened when they come near me. Jeez, I feel that way about the Jesuits, you know. Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure I was in it. I believed in the sexual revolution and I believed in all of that and I hurt myself and I hurt other people and I, I, I preached things that now that I wish I hadn't preached.
Speaker 1:We didn't know. You know, we didn't know, uh, avery, you know, uh, when I speak to people and I know this, I I'm the oldest of five boys we all fell for the lie for a while. You know, and and and, and you know, the church was changing too. You know, after Vatican II, when I was a kid I was born in the late 50s when I was a kid, it was the Latin mass and then it all changed. And a few months later, a rock band came in and it really rocked my soul and I and I'll tell you why Because we had the sexual revolution and all these cultural changes.
Speaker 1:And then, at least, if the church would have stayed the same, that would have gave me a certain foundational feel, even if I walked away. I said, well, okay, well, I can compare, but what I thought, avery, I said if the church can even change, maybe she doesn't have the truth, you know. And so the church went through this period too, not the church itself, not the beauty of the deposit of faith that comes down to us, that never changes, but there were a lot of cultural influences that came into the church, unfortunately. I love Vatican II, actually, and I love the documents and I love what they were trying to do, but there was a hijacking there that took place at the same time, so our boats were rocked, avery. Don't be too hard on yourself, brother, but you're right, we saw the carnage that we created in our lives didn't we?
Speaker 2:Thank you. The joy and the other side of that is a place of you know. It's not going to mean that every day is going to be rosy, but you're always going to know that you're not alone. You're not alone and you're going to be part of something that on the earth, and that's earthly manifestation, is there for you all the time and, in its heavenly manifestation, is, of course, overwhelmingly with you and for you always.
Speaker 1:And Avery, and I know you feel this because I can sense it in your heart when you say you're not alone. It's not just what's coming or the truths, but there's an actual encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. I mean, this is what's different, and when you meet him and you take him in your heart, you meet this whole world of saints, of people that you see around you, like Joselita. I mean, we get to know those people and you think, well, how can you know them? They're not even here anymore. But I'm sorry, my friends, they're closer than we think and they will help you. John Paul II and our my friends, they're closer than we think and they will help you. John Paul II and our Blessed Mother, of course we mentioned already, they're there for us, aren't they?
Speaker 2:That's right, that's exactly right and I feel, when I talk to my Protestant friends, I always feel like I'm sorry that your heaven is distant and far away, because mine is right here. Yes, it's very true, I talked to Oscar Romero and I talked to Jose Lito and I talked to St Francis, and I have these friends now who guide me and lead me.
Speaker 1:Are any of those friends behind you there?
Speaker 2:Behind me we have St Michael the Archangel back there and we have the Sacred Heart and there's all sorts of saints on this wall, prayer cards and such and I have Jose Lito right here with me Beautiful. I head into Mexico for a month in the fall. I'm going to be learning more about San Rafael Guizar Valencia, who's a bishop from Jalapa in Veracruz, so those saints are always around. And I don't know. When I was an atheist, prayer cards seemed so silly to me, and now they're like family photographs.
Speaker 1:Yes, they are. And let's go out with this thought that I don't know why I'm bringing this up in the midst of your story. I could just sense it in you. I think you know when you're looking for eternity and earth to meet. This is the mass, this is the mass, this is the whole mass. You know, when you go to mass and young people are coming back into the church, they're going to Mass, maybe sometimes for the first time, and on that altar, heaven and earth, kiss Avery. Did you sense that when you came into the church, or did you find that, at least at some point.
Speaker 2:Absolutely the first time I went to Mass from every time, you know, and I love going to Mass. I love traveling and going to Mass. I love Mass in languages I don't understand, you know. I love being at Mass and adoration, which was such an absolute shock to me. You know, I went to the church I don't remember why and someone said, oh, it's adoration. I'm like I have no idea what that is, but I'll go in why? And someone said oh, it's adoration. I'm like I have no idea what that is, but I'll go in and to spend time so close to Jesus, to spend that time is a gift that I can't. There's nothing I could do to ever repay for that gift.
Speaker 1:For young people that haven't been to adoration Avery, and this is how we'll go out. Speak to them a little bit about that and also about the beauty of silence, if you don't mind, because I think that's one thing that they're finding that when they get off those contraptions just for a little while. And it's a little weird at first for these young people because they're not used to silence, but what we try to do is we try to get them just to do a couple of minutes at a time and it's amazing how quickly some of them take to it.
Speaker 2:It is extraordinary. Just this past fall I was in Puebla and I was in the cathedral and there were a lot of tourists about and it was very noisy. You know it echoes and I had gone into the little side adoration channel. That moment of going there and kneeling, all of that noise, all of that bustle just disappeared. It was just. You could hear the breathing of the people there with you and you could hear your own heart beating and you could feast your eyes on the presence of our Lord this is, on the presence of our Lord and to be that connected and to be removed from all the things that separate us from God, that draw us away from placing our focus, draw us away from that unceasing prayer that Paul calls for. You know, all of those things just go away and you're there in an immediate moment, that is. There's no Facebook messages to distract you, there are no New York Times alerts to pull you away. There's just you and what actually matters.
Speaker 1:How beautiful. Hey, avery, you're a pleasure. Thank you so much. Thanks for joining us today. We're going to link your article. Any other articles I know you. I poked around a little bit at the Catholic Exchange. I also write for them and for some other outlets too. Any other articles I should post of yours? Or should they just look through the Catholic Exchange and see what you wrote, because you've got a few things there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, I think the article about Blessed Sebastian de Aparecio, who was a Franciscan friar who died back in the early days of the conquest, and his body is incorruptible and you can see it in blah blah. His story is extraordinary, okay, and it's such a great story about how you can change in your life. Okay, life is a journey. It's not a static thing, but you're always on a pilgrimage. You're a pilgrim, yes, you are.
Speaker 1:We're on a journey. That's the core thing of a man's heart. Right, that life is going to be a journey, that it's going to be a battle. Here's the sword, and finally we find out. It's for beauty. It's for beauty, especially the beauty of love. One last thing I think I remember Oscar Romero too.
Speaker 2:You had an article on Oscar Romero.
Speaker 1:That's another. That's got to be a great story to read too, for young people too. It's got to be beautiful.
Speaker 2:Definitely, and there's a. I think there's an upcoming one, probably next week, on Flannery O'Connor and why you, son of a gun.
Speaker 1:I'm glad I met you. Hey, I'm going to sign off. Thanks everybody. Thanks for joining us today. We'll talk to you again soon. Bye-bye.