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
#626 Your Personal Trainer! "Coached By The Cure" Lessons in Shepherding With St. John Vianney
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What happens when we drop a 19th-century saint into our smartphone-saturated world? Kevin Wells, author of Coached by the Cure, Lessons in Shepherding with St. John Vianney joins Jack to explore this provocative question—and the answers might shake your perception of modern spirituality.
Wells begins with a startling comparison: the smartphones we casually place in our children's hands are functioning as "miniature Ouija boards," disconnecting them from authentic spiritual experience. "I don't care about the Ouija board, that's 1970s," Wells argues. "I care about the Ouija board—that millions upon millions of kids' carry in their pockets."
The conversation draws fascinating parallels between our current spiritual climate and post-Revolutionary France, where St. John Vianney arrived to find a spiritually dead farming community...and practical lessons for today!!
This episode offers both the challenge and the pathway forward. Share your thoughts and experiences with us, and consider how you might implement these timeless principles in your own family and community.
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Jack's Latest Blog: Marriage as a Sacrament: The Primordial Sign of Love!
Don't ever touch a Ouija board because you never know what's going to happen. I don't care about the Ouija board, that's 1970s. I care about the Ouija board, the millions upon millions in kids' pockets that parents allow. So this Ouija board will saturate them, as you know, in sense, phenomena, emotions, all the stuff that we know. So, all of a sudden, god in prayer, that's boring. I don't hear anything there. It's boring. I don't hear anything there. It's dead.
Speaker 2:My brothers and I left the church early when you saw exactly that, this tamp down, this watered down Jesus being preached. They would no longer preach about the beauty of our human sexuality, about the beauty of chastity, about this burning desire we have to love and be loved, and they started to water it down. We saw them bring the culture into the church and my brothers and I honest to goodness, I mean without maybe realizing exactly what it was we said if they're going to bring the culture into the church and we're living in the culture already why do we need the church?
Speaker 1:That it resonates. So back to what happened to you and your brothers. That's what happened in in early 18th century france. The prophetic voice went dark. It was contracepted by silly, tinny proclamations on love for france. The devil used to pull him out of bed. He set his bed on fire. He used to um, he used to throw like excrement and mud on his portraits um, he used to throw excrement and mud on his portraits. There was a sound of galloping horses going up his stairwell.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Riegert, your host. I'm here with a good friend of mine, kevin Wells. Kevin Wells is, you know. I don't even know where to start, kevin, you know you have such a beautiful bio. But I'll just say this Besides being an author and a speaker and going around the country talking to different people and different audiences, you're not just a writer.
Speaker 2:You live this. You've grown. Every time you write something, every book that you do, you're getting deeper and deeper into your faith. I could see it. I could see it in the way you write. When I speak to you, it's about your heart. You've gone through all this. You've done your own trials.
Speaker 2:Brother, nobody gets out of this world without a battle, and I'm just so excited about your latest book. But I'm not having you on just to talk about your latest book. I'm here to talk about these people that we're meeting, that are looking for something more, and your book addresses that so well that I get goosebumps when I'm talking about it. These young people. Their innocence has been stolen from them, their moral imaginations have been obliterated, and it's not fear, it's not fear to them and they're looking for something more, and you speak to them so well. So, anyway, say, with all of that said, and all the people that love these young people, all these people that aren't going to look the other way, and they're going to invite them into the greatest story ever told, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Hey, jack, thanks so much. You're the vanguard, you're on the front line for these youth and you just said something that really struck me and thank you for saying it. It's just not fair. It's not fair, and I often think the same. So thanks for bringing that to the front there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, everybody knows that these young people are looking for shepherds, and so we're walking with them. You wrote a book and I want to talk to you about this, and I want to also ask you your opinion on this new pope. In case you haven't heard, kevin, we have a new pope and I'm very excited about him, and we can talk about that later, but I'm going to hold this up because this is very, very important. The coach by the cure. You know where did you get this coach by the cure? You know you pulled the patron saint of parish priests out of the tomb, kevin, why did you do that? What were you thinking and I know you're thinking about Jack and the John Paul II Renewal Center when you wrote this book? As I could tell, as I'm reading, I go he's thinking about us. He's thinking about these people that we're working with and these beautiful spirits that are coming into the church and waking up.
Speaker 1:Well, I really, jack, I do believe sincerely there is a linear symmetry between what you're doing and what this book is about and it's directly analogous. So, john Vianney for your viewer who's not aware, in 1929, pope Pius XI said this man is the patron saint of all parish priests how he lived his life sacrificially, ascetically. He just died to himself every day as a white martyr. And every priest should live this way. And echoing what Pius XI said is John Paul II wrote a long letter about Vianney. Then Benedict doubled down and said yeah, because there was a lot of blowback when John Paul II said he is the what was the word he used Exemplar. He is the model of the parish priest. And they said, ah, he's too much. John Vianney's too much, that's from another generation.
Speaker 1:Well, benedict, after John Paul passed, said no, no, no, I'm doubling down. And he wrote a letter on Vianney and got this imagination and I think, like you, Jack, like what's the next? So when, when the one book ends, what's the next one? And then you look around and say, well, what needs to be addressed? And my thought with a teenager in the home and the teenagers I encounter, boys and girls, was they're lacking shepherds. So I said well, I'm going to pull out the shepherd of all shepherds. So John Vianney looked around in 2025, and he saw a dystopian novel of morality.
Speaker 2:So what he did— so let's pause there, just so people are following this properly. You went into the mind, basically, and you're writing this from the first person, and so beautifully done when you say that you know he's looking at this in 2025. When was John Vianney born? Do you remember the— 1786. Okay, so now we brought him up to speed here and this is very interesting and I'll get back to this later.
Speaker 2:But we have a new pope, pope Leo XIV, and he's, you know, he's doing the same thing hopefully bringing all this teaching up right from the Pope Leo XIII, bringing this Three Necessary Societies back in, building up, basically, marriage and the family, christ and the church, and then going out and changing the culture. These young people and when we say young people, I mean this is going up into the 30s you know they're looking for something more. So what you did is you go into the eyes of St John Vianney and says okay, this is 2025. What are we going to say? What are we going to do? And would John Vianney, would he be canceled today, kevin, for doing this?
Speaker 1:100% He'd be a canceled priest today. Yeah, how come? How come? Here's why he'd be canceled Because when he stepped into Mars, france, to become pastor of this spiritually dead farming town, he understood that the 280 or so folks that live there who were not practicing the sacraments, there was only seven or eight people that were still attending Mass. He understood that. And, jack, I just want to give some context to your view. After the French Revolution—.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let's build this up now, and I'll try not to interrupt you until you build out the story, because I want people to have a force, a sense of the story going forward now.
Speaker 1:Thank you, kev. It's important, jack, and here's why it's important. And the reason I chose Vianney for 2025 is because what parents are dealing with today, in 2025, is what John Vianney dealt with in 1818. And that is a spiritual lethargy, a lukewarmness, a boredom, a I'm checked out of God. So, in the way it's analogous is this Robespierre was the king of France and he essentially said if you do not sign the oath to me, then you will be guillotined. So the guillotine was actually invented by Robespierre. So if you do not sign the oath to me, then you will be guillotined. So the guillotine was actually invented by Robespierre. So if you were a faithful priest and you would not sign the oath, well, you were going to lose your head. The sadness is this, not only of the tens of thousands of Catholic laity and priests that were guillotined, but maybe even a greater sadness to God was this of the hundreds of priests that signed the oath. So, all of a sudden, priests were no longer preaching on Holy Mother of God, mary, but Holy Mother France. Or they were no longer preaching on prayer, but they're preaching on service to France. So what happens when this? So this is why it's analogous to 2025.
Speaker 1:Is why it's analogous to 2025. What happens when the spiritual voice from behind the ambo or the pulpit goes into something very social? Without prayer, without sacrifice? Well, the people get bored and they fall away. So when John Vianney went into ours, this had been going on for 20, 25 years with Robespierre. So Catholics, millions of Catholics in France had left the faith. France was dead, for the most part in 1818. So what does John Vianney do? He says I must preach to souls because I believe that this farming community will be going to hell. So I need to preach truth, I need to love them, I need to sacrifice and die for them. And within 20 years, not only has ours changed, but all of France was changed. They had to build a new train line to Lyon just so people could pilgrimage 50 miles down the road to see this obscure priest named John Vianney who, they were told, could read their soul.
Speaker 2:Isn't that amazing, huh? And isn't this the reason—I'll tell you what my brothers and I left the church early when you saw exactly that this tamped down, this watered down Jesus being preached. They would no longer preach about the beauty of our human sexuality, about the beauty of chastity, about this burning desire we have to love and be loved, and they started to water it down. We saw them bring the culture into the church and my brothers and I honest to goodness, I mean without maybe realizing exactly what it was we said if they're going to bring the culture into the church and we're living in the culture already why do we need the church? So we got apathetic, bored, just like you said, and walked away.
Speaker 2:Now the people that we're meeting, now you know what they're saying, kevin, give us the truth. What is the truth? We live in this watered down, sick, toxic culture. Not only watered down, I mean, we've been sitting with this proverbial frog for so long. Nobody even knows the story anymore. So we have to capture people like this, don't we, kevin, like these beautiful saints, like St John Vianney that says speak to the truth to us. Will you and our human hearts know it? This is the difference, you know. John Paul would say that objective reality of our faith, first go into the subjective experiences of your own heart and listen, listen, listen. And if you hear that spark, know that that spark connects to that objective reality Our subjective experience reaches for is made for exactly what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're right, jack. We have this sensus fide in us, this realization in our gut. When we hear truth, maybe that we've never heard before spoken, that it resonates. So back to what happened to you and your brothers. That's what happened in early 18th century France. The prophetic voice went dark. It was contraceptive by silly, tinny proclamations on love for France. So France died and John Vianney knew that he was a priest of God's.
Speaker 1:He preached to souls, as you just mentioned. He preached to the inside of people's hearts and people understood. Initially, you know, they hated the man. They said why does this man condemn us to hell? Why does this man continue to not eat food? Why is he always talking about the devil?
Speaker 1:But when they understood that, he combined and this is beautiful, jack, I want to, and you'll understand this in your line of work when John Vianney got behind the pulpit, when he preached about morality and sin, and so the problem back then in ours was they had this cabaret and had these three taverns, and John Vianney knew that after the bar closed and the cabaret closed, there was a lot of stuff going out in the fields that was of mortal sin. So when he preached about eternal souls, he combined his proclamations with tears. John Vianney always cried because he loved them so much. So they began to see that he didn't hate them but he mourned for them. And that's what began to turn them. They said you know, we don't like what he's saying about our sinfulness, but he's weeping. There's something strange about that and that's how he turned it all around.
Speaker 1:So until Jack, society speaks with candor, with frankness to our youth or 30-year-olds, whatever it is about truth, beauty and goodness, and they see, it's almost like when I, when I speak to my, to my daughter, 17 years old, about something indelicate and hard, it's like I have to take my hand and stick it through my rib cage and pull out my heart and hand it and just put it in front of her face and said Shannon, I know this is a hard conversation, but I love you too much, not to say a hard thing to you. And when she sees my eyes get a little watery and my heart in my hand, then she's like, as you said a few minutes ago, she knows it's raw and real and I care for her soul, in the way that John Vianney's early laity saw the same.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful, and so when we bring the word of God out, you know we have to have been already filled with that word. You know, people sense that People sense when somebody's speaking the truth. So talk to us and make that connection, kevin. But you know, as St John Vianney became more like Christ, so that he can bring out Christ, he had to actually go into the heart of Christ. He actually had to take those sacrifices on. And this is no different than what a man, a father right, a mother too, of course. But, as you and I are here, that's no different than us taking on those sacrifices and being a hero in our own life and turning into these self-sacrificial people. Well, how do you do that? Well, you have to be filled with that person hanging on the cross first.
Speaker 2:This is the beauty of a real priesthood, isn't it? And I'm talking about a priest like St Gian Vieni, but you make that clear in the book that we're all called to this, aren't we? Every lay person is called to this. The one major theme out of Vatican II universal call to holiness. And they weren't playing around.
Speaker 1:No, I mean Mother Teresa said it love without sacrifice isn't love. So she also said Lord, remove all, just give me souls. So when you make that sort of demand upon yourself, what do you need to do? As you said, jack, you need to fall into the arms of Christ in Vianney's own way, and I'll recommend this to the reader. He understood that because Ars was truly spiritually dead, that he had a lot of work to do. He didn't know what to do. He's a young priest, so every single night he would begin to read from a book called the Lives of the Saints. Because Vianney knew, even as a young priest, that ours didn't need a good parish priest, ours needed a saint. So he read the Lives of the Saints so he could in fact become a saint, which 100 years later, he did.
Speaker 1:So what did John Vianney learn from reading the Lives of the Saints? I must die to myself. Every single day, john Vianney heard 14 hours of confession every day. I must live an ascetical life. John Vianney ate only a few potatoes every week. I must give all to my flock. They must see me as magnanimous. He would join the fallen away farmers out in the fields and plow fields with them to earn their respect. Everything the saints did, he did. So what happens when people in ours or in our own day in 2025, see that the man standing across from them is actually seems to have a glow, or not a halo, but just there's something about them? Well, that person is naturally drawn to that person. So yeah, john Vianney just did what the saints did, or what Christ compelled him to do as a priest.
Speaker 2:When you're going through this book, you're speaking through the eyes of St John Vianney. When he's speaking, you're speaking to all of us, right? He's speaking to all of us and he's challenging us. You know, when we talk about these things, these sacrificial things, kevin, sometimes people go. Why should I do that? You know, john Paul said so often, especially to young people, but this is for all of us, young people, you know that your life has meaning to the extent that it's given away as a gift to others.
Speaker 2:When you start to give, your life has meaning to the extent that it's given away as a gift to others. When you start to give your life as a gift to others, you find joy, you find peace. So this arduous journey that we're on in this temporal life, you actually find yourself in giving yourself away. If I get a little down, I go out and you know I'm. You learn this the hard way, but I go out and try to bring some joy into somebody else's life. I, you know I and you will. God will give you that person, and a lot of times you have to love people that that don't love you back, and when you get a little down, you go Ooh, that's what? That's what he did, hanging on the cross. He loved me, even when I didn't love him back. Now you go out and do that. This is what St John Vianney was doing, and this is where he saw this just flourishing, but it didn't come right away, did it? He fought his battles, didn't he?
Speaker 1:Yeah. But just to circle back what you said, jack, about the self-offering, the self-donorative act, I always think that the greatest act of love, of self-offering in the history of the world was Jesus Christ, spread out on a cross, who poured himself out in its entirety. He didn't do it out of anything other than love. So, as you're a father, a grandfather, as I'm a father, if the centerpiece of my identity as far as how to love my children is from a glance at the crucifix, then I'm on the right track, because if I'm not pouring myself out or reminding myself to pour myself out when I slip or when I get lazy, then I'm not in the game. So I just want to say that.
Speaker 1:But as far as, as far as john vianney, he understood just because he came out. He came out of the birth canal with a desire to die for God. He had given his life to sort of to marry at an early age, and when he became a priest he was just explosive. But so he had already kind of coached himself up through prayer, through sacrifice, through fasting, to become a priest after souls. And I'll just say this I don't know if your viewer would be aware of this, but John Vianney heard more confessions than any priest in the history of the world, because for 45 years he heard 12 to 14 hours of confessions. He only slept four or five hours, really four hours a day, because he wanted souls, souls, souls. So today, jack I know this is a PG podcast- souls.
Speaker 2:So today, jack, I know this is a PG podcast. Well, it's not a PG-13, my friend, the audience has seen hardcore porn. They've seen all of the toxic mess out there. So, if you feel free, my friend, it's.
Speaker 1:PG-13 in a different dimension. I'm not going down that road, although we could. So John Vianney, folks like John Vianney, priests like John Vianney, they've been locked away, padlocked away in rectory, unused rectory doors, Like don't let Vianney out of that closet, Bishops will say. Priests will say many of them will say do not let Vianney out of that closet because there's a beast in there. There's a beast of asceticism, sacrifice, love, fasting, work, 14 hours of confession. This guy was a martyr from behind the pulpit when he preached prophetically. He was a martyr of the confessional. Keep them padlocked away. You let the ante out, then we're stuck because they might bring John Paul's letter back out, Benedict's letter back out. Don't let that letter burn up that letter. The problem, the problem the past 60 years in the Catholic church, is they've locked Vianney behind a closet door and they won't let him out. So, father's out there Again I'm not speaking to clergy, Father's out there.
Speaker 1:I encourage you to learn more about folks like John Vianney. Obviously, I just mentioned Jesus Christ on the cross, spread out, pouring out every drop of his blood. Well, that's the way we love our kids and grandkids. That's it. There's no other way. The blueprint is one line we die to ourselves and we sacrifice to try and do whatever we can to bring peace of soul to our children and grandkids and get them to heaven. So Vianney is sort of this figure that is hidden away that I'm trying to bring out. Why? Because millions upon millions, upon millions of Catholic youth are checked out. They're bored, they don't understand what a figure like John Vianney actually does to bring them into the fold. They'd be very drawn to John Vianney if they saw more John Vianneys out there.
Speaker 2:Why is this needed today? Right? So I'm speaking to a parent. Somebody called me up it was a father, actually the dad. He calls me up and said, jack, my son goes to youth ministry, 17 years old, goes to youth ministry at this big church not too far from me. And he said he met this girl there in youth ministry and he just found out they're having sex together. And so here's this young guy going to youth ministry, right, having sex with this girl that's going to youth ministry, and then afterwards they go have sex with this girl that's going to youth ministry, and then afterwards they go have sex. Talk about a watered-down, whatever kumbaya story. They're telling these kids that they've made that disconnection right.
Speaker 2:I will talk to other young men that understand what you're saying. When I say self-sacrificial, I'm sacrificing myself for that beautiful girl that I'm dating. I'm 18 years old, 19, 20, 21. And now I'm practicing chastity. Well, why should I practice chastity, right? Why should I not be having sex with this young girl? Right, because I'm learning to give myself away and I'm seeing in her the beauty, the beauty of the person, and I know that I am not going to use her as an object, and so it's better for me to step away.
Speaker 2:Now. This is not a Puritan thing, kevin, is it? This is a beautiful thing when I become self-sacrificial, because now these two young people start to get to know one another, right? This is all biblical, right from the very beginning, where Adam knew Eve. You get to know them. You look into a woman's eyes and see into her heart, and you get to know them, not as an object to use, but as a person, as a woman. This beauty to love, right? This is what God gave us.
Speaker 2:This is what you're talking about, kevin. It's not about Puritanism. It's about opening the human heart, let it be purified so that I can become a person of love, I can become the lover that I'm supposed to be. And that's going to take a sword. That's why I got the sword back there, because that's the battlefield of a man's heart. That's what you're talking about the battle between love and lust, about self-giving. Right, that you're talking about, for St John Vianney, total pouring himself out at somebody that's grasping. And so I want you to talk about what this means to this ministerial priesthood you're talking about, but in the book you're talking about the domestic priesthood. You're talking about each one of us stepping up to the plate now. Why is that important? And this is the time of our age, right now, kevin, this is what you did so well in the book.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, jack, two things I want to answer and respond to with what you said. So, as I'm sure you mention, all the time a young man discovers what it is to be a true man when he governs his passions and emotions for the girl that he loves. What a noble, valiant and almost like a knight would do for the girl that he really respects by saying I'm going to check myself when I'm in your presence, because I find you beautiful, but I find your soul and your eyes and your intellect and your wisdom and your humor even more beautiful, so I'm going to check myself. That's number one. Now, number two for those domestic dads, those domestic priests in their homes.
Speaker 2:Right now I'm going to give it a little jack, if you don't mind. And when you say domestic, we're talking about the domestic church. Not that you're a domestic in your house, but this is the domestic church. This is your kingdom Kevin's talking about.
Speaker 1:This is the priest in the home and I'm going to open the door to the Wells household right now with a little inside baseball. Okay, this is some rubber. Meets the road in the trench inside baseball.
Speaker 2:And Kevin was a baseball author, right Sports writer. So just I'll give you that little thing and then go into the story. So you're well versed in this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's another podcast. But there's a young man named Patrick who I might let watch this podcast when it's over, who's taken a liking to my 17-year-old daughter, Shannon. And Patrick, he really is. He's a nice kid, he's 18 years old, he plays baseball, goes to Mount St Joseph's, but I don't know Patrick that well. So here's what's going on in my domestic home right now.
Speaker 1:As I'm the priest of the home is Patrick Shannon and I have been reading for the past two months a book on John Paul II's Theology of the Body and the way it's done. This particular book it was written by Jason Everett, so the way this book is on one page or three or four pages, is some pretty intensive speaking about sexuality. That the boy reads and then the next four pages are the girl who reads it. So they are reading it aloud in front of me so I can then ask questions afterwards to understand, Jack, exactly what you do in your ministry. It's not just hey, guys, read this book, It'll be great, You're going to learn all about theology of the body. And then, a month later because no one follows up they're having sex.
Speaker 1:No, Priest in home can't do that. Priest in home needs to take it to a deeper layer, a deeper level, and say, hey, Patrick, if you have a fondness for my daughter, then there's a gauntlet, there's something you got to go through. Are you willing to read this book? Well, Mr Wells, you know Patrick, are you willing? Yes, Mr Wells, so I get to know Patrick and Shannon gets to know Patrick, and Patrick gets to know Shannon through this reading of the book together.
Speaker 2:Now, how did your daughter react to dad? You know the domestic priest in the home saying honey, you're going to have to. I mean, how did she take that? I could almost see the guy Patrick agreeing faster than your daughter. Right, because she's I'm going to be embarrassed by my dad. What is he going to say? You know they're thinking all these emotional things where a man is usually step back and say you know they're thinking all these emotional things where a man is usually step back and say, well, hopefully this is a rational conversation. She's thinking, hope he doesn't embarrass me. Or blah, blah, blah, you know what I mean. Or reveal something about me that I don't want revealed. So yeah, tell us about her for a second.
Speaker 1:Well, she knows dad number one. She knows dad pretty well, but so her reaction was I love this.
Speaker 1:Her reaction was essentially this. But so her reaction was essentially this, and I don't blame her for this. She said well, if that's what it will take for Patrick and I to stay friends, and maybe court, then yeah, dad, I agree to do it because you want to get to Patrick. Or do you actually want to understand what John Paul II said about theology, body, and understand what the act actually is and the self-governance of our emotions and our will? Well, yeah, dad, you know, I guess we'll learn along the way. So yeah, of course the first session was harder than hell for both of them, but now that we've kind of gotten into it, it's a very beautiful thing and, jack, you know this, it's a very beautiful thing Once that wall is broken, where certain terms are used, words are used about the sexual act.
Speaker 1:there's a greater comfort level and, as the dad and Jack I'm sure you do this at your parish missions you can ask the questions in a delicate way that get them to speaking. So no, I think Shannon was okay and she's definitely okay with it now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you know what they're doing in the schools, just for people that don't know. They're doing the opposite. They're using those terms very in vulgar language, getting kids to talk about all these sexual acts and these lewd things out loud, because they also know, kevin, the other way, that if you confess with your lips and you do it in a derogatory way, this will also fill up your mind and your heart. So what you're doing is you're unwinding, right. You're giving them the vaccine of love against this crazy toxic culture. So that's a very beautiful thing that you're talking about here. John Vianney is trying to bring this to his congregation and the 2025 eyes. So give us a couple other things that are on your mind that you're thinking about, how John Vianney is speaking to us, because you did it one thing after another.
Speaker 2:I underlined so much of your book, kevin. It looks like I should just stop underlining because the whole thing is in yellow now. But you talk about this one thing and I really see this when you take the soul out of people, we become zombie-like. And you said thereafter in slow motion, people become zombie-like figures, driven to whatever their flesh desires. That really stuck with me, because when you look out in the culture. I remember one time being in Seattle Washington and I was there on business and I was having a cup of coffee between appointments and I was looking down on the street and these kids just had their phones and they looked like zombies walking. I felt like I was in an alien movie, with nobody even talking to each other. It was a very cold, weird feeling and it reminded me of zombies a body without a soul. If anybody's got this book right now and they want to look at it, it's on page 78. It stopped me in my tracks there. I meditated on that for a while.
Speaker 1:Well, without the umbilical cord of prayer to God in heaven, we are zombies, because the cord is cut and we're not being nourished by God. And the great sadness and the great challenge that we have now, jack and again I'll go back to what you said at the start of the podcast is it's unfair because we've allowed children to carry these demons in their front pockets. It's a demon.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1:It's a little miniature Ouija board and nobody says it. Like everyone says, don't ever touch a Ouija board because you never know what's going to happen. I don't care about the Ouija board, that's 1970s. I care about the Ouija board, the millions upon millions in kids' pockets that parents allow. So this Ouija board will saturate them, as you know, in sense, phenomena, emotions, all the stuff that we know. So, all of a sudden, god in prayer, in sense, phenomena, emotions, all the stuff that we know. So, all of a sudden, god in prayer, that's boring. I don't hear anything there. It's dead because God gives me nothing. That's passe, his time is done. I need to get back to my Ouija board in my pocket. So, anyway, for the domestic.
Speaker 1:So that's the book John Vianney teaches or coaches moms and dads, instructs them. Here's what we must do now. As you're suffering, you're struggling, raising your children in the faith, here are things, but it's all got to start with prayer. It must start with prayer because if you're not in prayer, you won't be infused with the Holy Spirit, you won't be divinized with how to sort of take on the challenges in modern day life of teenage kids, college age kids, kids that have left the faith. So, mom and dad, you must pray.
Speaker 1:Now there's many other chapters and characteristics of John Vianney that he proposes to parents, but that's it. You are a zombie, I'm a zombie and, jack, I'm sure you've felt this in life. Some days you don't get the weekday mass or you have a bad prayer day. This is not silly talk, this is not hyperbolic, but my day always feels hollowed out when it's not being fed sacramentally or I had a poor prayer day. It's that important because my heart needs to beat and God makes it beat, and I know that prayer is the thing that really keeps me connected to God.
Speaker 2:You don't know it until you try it. You made a point in here why embodying St John Vianney's saintly characteristics will change the lives of our children and families. And here's where the rubber hits the road. When you start to pray, you don't realize it right away, right, you know we're living on the surface, getting blown around by the spirit of the age to your point.
Speaker 2:When you pray, you sink below this just for a little while. Give yourself a break, give yourself a break from the anxiety, from all of this garbage, and you sink down below. I'm a diver, right, you sink down below the waves and you enter into that heart, and there's only two people there down below. I'm a diver, right, you sink down below the waves and you enter into that heart, and there's only two people there down below, just you and God. Of course I bring all of my problems and my family, of course, with me. God brings all of these saints with him, like St John Vianney and everybody else, but still only me and God are actually speaking there, right? And when we're speaking there, we realize over a period of time that as we practice these things, kevin and I want you to talk about this a little bit it will change the lives of our family and our children.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we're filled with the light of Christ, we're being infused with the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit, when we beg for the Holy Spirit to come in, he's going to be weaned. So that goes away. But the other edge of the sword is just as important, if not more. It enables me to be like Joan of Arc. I got a sword and I'm going to go. I'm going to do whatever I can for my neighbor, for my wife, krista, for my kids. It doesn't matter, because my sword now is wielded, it's ready to go, it's ready to thrust, it's ready to thrust.
Speaker 1:That's what prayer does. It gets rid of the dross in my life. That's just no good. It's got to go. But it also strengthens me to take things on, because it's not me, it's all the infusion of the Holy Spirit that's enabling me to be the man that God wills me to become. That's enabling me to be the man that God wills me to become. So I don't know, outside of prayer, how I have a heartbeat chance of being a good dad or being a good husband, I don't know. Prayer's got to be a necessity in my life.
Speaker 2:I remember when I came back into the church and I started to go back to mass confessional course and starting to get into a deeper prayer life. For me it was basically meditating on Scripture was my favorite thing initially. Now it's expanded to other things too. But I remember a month or two months after coming back into the church and really meditating and doing exactly what you're saying prayer I didn't really know what changed so much, right? I didn't really know what changed so much, right?
Speaker 2:I walk into my living room I have three teenagers sitting there watching some show on TV. It was just some popular show on television and I sat there with them just to sit down, talk to them a little bit, and I'm watching the show and the same show that I had seen two months before. I sat there with them then. This time I sat there and I realized how vulgar this thing was. I had never seen it like that. I had never seen with this new lens that I had been given. Now I couldn't just get up from there and just tell all the kids all right, we're turning this TV off. I mean, they're teenagers now. Right, I go from watching it with them two months before to now just turning off the TV.
Speaker 2:So here's what I did. I just was moved by this Holy Spirit and I asked. I prayed, I said what should I say? What should I do? This is vulgar, I didn't even know. Right, you see it through everything through a different lens, don't you? So I just said this.
Speaker 2:I said you know what, guys, this is like toxic stew to me. I said I can't watch this anymore, I'm sorry, and I just got up, I apologized to them I can't watch this kind of stuff anymore and walked out of the room. Well, a little while later, my son followed me out of the room and he just sat down where I was sitting and he started to talk to me. And pretty soon, the girls came out and started talking to me. You know, I didn't have to make a big deal out of it, but then, all of a sudden, they started to say you know what? That might be right? This is not right. But until that prayer came in, until I saw it, until I could lead them out, and in a good way, the Holy Spirit works with you. And it was amazing no fighting, no yelling, no screaming, and it was really a beautiful thing.
Speaker 1:You know the scales fall when we pray. You know sin makes us stupid. It just makes us stupid. So we watch television.
Speaker 2:I laugh, but not only stupid. You can get yourself in a lot of stupid trouble with sin, can't you? I mean, that's how stupid we become.
Speaker 1:And the sinfulness gets eliminated when we stay tethered as close as we can to Christ. And sometimes I think Jack and I'll just shut it down with this I think that we're intimidated by the silence of prayer. But I always tell my kids all it is at the end of the day, guys, it's just a friendship. I used to say you know what, guys? You know, when we get home from vacation and we haven't seen the dog in a week and his tail starts wagging, it's, it's, it's it's got, he's going to fall off his body. Well, that's, that's, god. When you speak to him in prayer, like when you, when you have that friendship, like he's so happy that you've come to him and it's just so, so just, it's just that conversational talk with God. God, I need you now. Hey, god, I'm not sure how this is going to go on this test, god, this friend is acting strangely to me. Just go to God. And I think it's an easy way for a teenage kid, a college age kid, to understand how God can help them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you don't know until you try it. And the other thing that I really found with young people is that everybody tells me Jack, forget it. You can't get these kids to be quiet, to meditate, to go to adoration because of what you said, because silence is awkward for them at first. But I tell them ahead of time. I said you want to do something really awkward. I said you guys are all talking about anxiety. You're all talking about this depression. Everybody feels. You're talking about your friends that are talking about suicide. I said you want to go down to? And I tell them that diving story. You go down to the heart. I said you want to really do this. It's going to be the most awkward thing you guys will ever do. We're going to go find some silence. Nobody ever says no, kevin, they want to experience this. And so what I do initially is I say, okay, just 30 seconds, who can last for 30 seconds? Seconds, who can last for 30 seconds? So I said and we show them just how to go from their head to their heart right, 30 seconds, all right. Then we start talking. Right, we're in the chapel. We start talking a little bit. You know, a little more subdued, right, a little quieter. We've got the Eucharist there in the chapel and then I said, hey, you want to try it again. So you want to try it for a minute? Yeah, it's amazing, kevin and I'm talking about co-ed boys, girls, a whole sophomore class when I'm thinking about right now, when I'm telling you this and they all sunk down and that was the biggest change.
Speaker 2:We did four sessions that day, but that walk to the chapel, which was totally not planned, we walked to the chapel, we spent the whole session in that chapel and that was a big deal. That last session we did in the afternoon, the final session of the day. We were on a different wavelength, them and I. We were just and I have a team with me, but we were just talking. It was amazing and how they came up to us and shook our hand on the way out. Nothing, kevin, we let the Holy Spirit actually do the work, and so these are powerful things, you know, and when you start to speak about prayer, I just don't want people to slide by. You're going to make this, is going to make some changes. Give us some last point. What was St John Vianney say to us today about you know taking that time to prayer. Why was he so big in the sacraments, kevin? What does confession do for us? St John Vianney was there. He knew what he did for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's so much that John Vianney would say to the folks at your missions, at your teenage retreats, etc. But just a few things that I'll throw out. That are practical thoughts that I think he would crawling into. I'm just arrogant enough to crawl into his brain. But yeah, he would say, become like mary, and and that teenager might be like well, you know, mary, she's just a porcelain doll. You know manger scene and christmas time she has a little snow on her. We gotta be careful. And john means would say no, no, no, mary followed her son up the blood trail, up golgotha and, um, she was the one who knelt, uh, in the, in the mud at the cross and said, yes, this plan had to be. Son, I'm sorry you're suffering, but this had to be. Son, I'm sorry you're suffering, but this had to be.
Speaker 1:Mary was the one who was furious at Pentecost because the apostles went back to their former ways of life. They went fishing, saying it's about time, and the Holy Spirit came. I joke often that the apostles went all over the world because they were afraid of Mary, because they were just sitting around even after Jesus rose from the dead. So Vianney would tell moms and dads hey, you need to have Marian ferocity. She understood the burden of her identity as Jesus's mother and she never left his side. Just as you cannot lead your children's side, you need to walk the blood trail. You need to do the hard things before prom, after prom, you know, monitoring the cell phone, loving her, taking walks, taking them to, trying to take her to adoration, him to adoration, whatever it is, you be like a Siamese twin to your children, because that's what Mary was to Jesus.
Speaker 1:So Mary was demanding. She was, she's, a demanding queen. And, and John Vandy would say and I'm demanding too, mom and dad, your kids need you. Too many kids are lost, sheep lost in the meadows all over the world now, but you're their shepherds and you got to bring them back. And just one other thing I'll drop on you is John Vaney is known for his rigorous life of mortification and I think your viewer will find this interesting. They're probably. Well, I'll say John Vaney might be the most attacked priest by Satan in the history of the church.
Speaker 1:Even more than Peel, I think just as much Peale, I think just as much. His rectory was filled, and this was not just one night, this was years.
Speaker 2:I remember reading this in your book but go ahead, it's powerful.
Speaker 1:It was a hundred. Helps. There was screams, screeches. The devil used to pull him out of bed. He set his bed on fire. He used to throw excrement and mud on his portraits. There was a sound of galloping horses going up his stairwell Ooh.
Speaker 2:I get this. It was a haunted house.
Speaker 1:So two men I'll just say this, two men, and I'll get to the point Two strong men of ours said we're going to find out, we're going to see who this devil is. So in the middle of the night they left horrified. They never went back. They said the devil lives in there. So why did the devil relentlessly attack Vianney? Well, it's easy because Vianney died every day for souls. Vianney was stealing the real estate, the population of hell from Satan. So Satan wanted to.
Speaker 1:Matter of fact, I'll say this the last time the devil spoke to Vianney, he actually spoke to him through the voice of a possessed woman and he screeched. Or she screeched woman and he screeched, or she screeched Vianney, if there was two or three more like you, my kingdom would be empty. So what does that mean? What does that mean for moms and dads? What does it mean for me?
Speaker 1:What does it mean for clergy, for bishops? Unless you die to yourself, for the souls in front of you and give all, remember Jesus Christ spread out on the cross for the souls in front of you and give all. Remember Jesus Christ spread out on the cross, unless you pour yourself out, or at least try to, the best you can in our concupiscence, in our sinfulness, we're not going to do it great. But unless we're in the game and trying to, then that's soft, it's just soft.
Speaker 1:So Vianney was never soft, not a minute of his life was he soft. So he saved countless hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of souls because of 14 hours in the box, his intense fast, his mortifications and there were some pretty, I encourage your reader to understand what his mortifications entailed. So really, jack, I'll just say this he was all in for God, he was all in for souls and he brought all of France, within 25, 30 years, back to the faith because little by little, from ours to Lyon, to Bordeaux, to Marseille, people began to understand. There was one priest who was changing the countryside and they wanted in.
Speaker 2:Isn't that beautiful? Well, as we wind down here, why does somebody want to read a book like this? And I'll tell you what. You're speaking right to the culture today. You know sin has been normalized and what happens is these poor guys you know so many people I meet. Their brains have been just rewired into this normalization of sin when I sit down and read and this is a very readable book, kevin. So thank you for that speaking to us today but it rewired into this normalization of sin when I sit down and read and this is a very readable book, kevin. So thank you for that speaking to us today but it rewires your brain the right way again, when I sit down with a book, just like St John Vianney sat down with the lives of the saints, you take a book like this. It's very readable, and I sit down with that and don't go too fast. I took a couple of days to read that. I usually will try to read a book like that in one day or so, because I know you're coming on. Whatever, I took my time because we scheduled it you and I talked a couple of weeks ago, so I had time. I just enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:And what it does is. It puts you into this place, this peaceful place, and I'm reading about a saint that's speaking to me today and it's rewiring my brain, it's bringing me into peace, and so these are things we need to do. If we had any dad, mom sitting out there wondering, you know, what can I do? I'll never. No, you start reading the lives of the saints, you start praying with the lives of the saints and you will change. You know you'll be trying to do this to change somebody else. The only person you can really change is yourself. But when you do change yourself, then you can change others, because you're bringing the spirit that's within you out there and just bringing them in for other people, and then they're going to go into prayer and then the spirit's going to change them and you're going to see some crazy stuff happen. Kevin, thank you for writing that book. We really appreciate it. Hey, thanks everyone. Thanks for joining us today. Kevin, you're such a treasure. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. All right, bye-bye everyone.