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
#632 Your Soul Needs Training Just Like Your Body: Prayer, Virtues, Mass and Confession
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Ever feel like you're giving your all to work, relationships, and personal goals, but treating your spiritual life like an afterthought? Michael Pacer joins Jack to explore the disconnect that's leaving so many men unfulfilled and searching for something more.
Michael, president of 5 Stones and author of "Prayers for Catholic Men," brings his unique gift of making complex spiritual realities accessible to everyone. As a former trial attorney who specialized in breaking down complicated concepts for juries, he now applies that same clarity to the spiritual journey – particularly focusing on confession and the Mass as the "one-two punch" of authentic faith.
The conversation tackles a profound question: Why do we accept that every other area of life requires consistent effort – from weightlifting to career advancement – yet expect our souls to flourish without similar investment?
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I need something quick, right, If I don't know the Catholic faith and I'm looking for something, man, I need a guide like this, this kind of guide me in, and if I want to go deeper and deeper and deeper, there's plenty of opportunity for that. But these guys are stepping in Michael to the story and you're doing exactly what they need.
Speaker 2:It's kind of funny. You go back to what gifts God does give you. So I was a trial attorney. What can I do? I can take difficult concepts and I can break them down and explain them in a very short amount of time, a very short number of words. It takes a lot of time to do that and make something that is perhaps seemingly inaccessible and make inaccessible because that's what I had to do for judges, that's what I had to do for jurors.
Speaker 1:It's important to look back at your life once in a while and see how far God has called you. You know we're still not perfect, but you look back and you go holy moly, what a mess I would have been today. And you know, if you don't clean up that mess, as you get older, all of those traits, those negative traits, they get worse, they're exemplified and man, you can turn into a real beast. Welcome to the become who you are podcast, a production of the john paul to renewal center. I'm jack riggert, your host.
Speaker 1:This is our friday very special edition focused on Claymore Miletus Christi, these young men that we're working with and all the people that love them. So it's a big support group out there, but they're guys that decided there's got to be something more than this toxic culture. They want to be free, they want to become free themselves and then go out and build a culture of life, love and liberty and they're sensing an urgency to that. So I'm glad to have a good friend of mine back on, mike Pacer. He's the president of Five Stones, self-described recovering trial attorney and author. Written many books. His latest book is on prayer. I really think, michael, that this is going to be the handbook of Claymore Miletus Christi. It's a phenomenal book. It's not really big. I can almost carry this just in my back pocket. I might be able to do that. It's awesome the amount of subjects that you've covered in a beautiful way. So great to have you back. Returning guest Michael, good to have you here, yeah.
Speaker 2:I guess I didn't mess up too badly last time.
Speaker 1:No, you're okay, Thank you for this, I really do. You know, the first thing these guys do is they get down on their knees, they open up their hearts and say, let it be done to me according to your word, and then our blessed mother says you know, do as he tells you to do, you know? So we're opening up our hearts. You've got some great morning prayers in there. If they want to add a couple of things to that, the other thing we talk about is a second thing on your knees is temptation is not a sin To open up all these temptations, not to stuff them down, not to indulge them, but to open those up. So we're doing that first thing in the morning. Well, you've got this great section in here on purity. You've got some beautiful prayers right. So we're trying to purify our hearts, to free ourselves. And in this section I'll just mention quickly on fasting too.
Speaker 1:I'm a big fasting fan, not only fasting from food, but alcohol, say, nicotine, pornography, sloth, whatever you're dealing with guys, you can fast from that. It's a big deal. It's a big deal, and these small fasts that you can do really build you up. Today I want to talk a little bit about maybe a couple of those things, but focus on the Mass, michael, and Confession, because this is the center. Huh, this is the center of all of this. If they're not going to Mass, if they're not going to Confession, they kind of miss the boat. So let's start this way. How did you decide, after writing all the books that you did, to write this one?
Speaker 2:finally, michael, Prayers for Catholic Men.
Speaker 1:Ignatius.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I actually wrote that it was actually my first book. A different edition of it was years ago and it just grew out of just my own struggles, my own experiences, my own journey and just having great guides. I mean, I've always had great spiritual directors, since when I was a freshman in high school to my current life and what really made me Not so easy to find anymore either.
Speaker 1:No, no, people ask me today they say where do I find one? I say good luck trying to find a priest for sure, because they're so busy, right?
Speaker 2:But, jack, something and you said this is not just for Claymore and not just for young men, but men that are more advanced in their years and their wisdom and their spiritual lives. We're called to be spiritual mentors. So you know, I work with some young men on a semi-regular basis. I don't call myself a spiritual director, I call myself kind of a spiritual coach. That's what this is. Michael Yep, claymore, miletus Christi, that's that outline, exactly, claymore, miletus Christi.
Speaker 1:That's that outline and it goes perfectly with what you're saying, you know, because it gives you a systematic outline of how to disciple young men and young men. What are they looking for, you know? And in there, of course, gets back to these prayers.
Speaker 1:And sorry to interrupt you again because I want you to get back to how you decided to write this, but what I'm saying is again that this is just fits so well with our Claymore program that it's almost like you wrote it for us. So you wrote this first and this is what just an updated edition is.
Speaker 2:That kind of what happened yeah, but it's a much updated and it's funny because you talk about confession and mass. One of the things that I really bulked up is I addressed the mass and I really addressed confession. So I wrote this many years ago well, many, I don't know probably eight or 10 years ago, a much smaller version of it. So this is a really bulked up on steroids version recognized a lot of areas that needed to be addressed and one of them, you know, the mass and confession were two areas that really needed to be addressed more. So I really went into and again, I didn't go through the mass and explain every single prayer in the mass. What I kept it was a higher level why did we go to mass? What are we trying to get out of mass? How do we go into mass? How do we prepare ourselves for mass? How do we do a good job of praying the mass? What do we do after mass?
Speaker 1:So can you say, with all those things you just said? Can you say, with all those things you just said, can you see why I think it's so important to have this as a especially for these new guys coming in? Because you hit all of those things in a economy of pages and you did it in a way that's a very I was going to say easy read. It's not really an easy read per se, but certainly very readable and understandable, and it's not one of those things I have to spend weeks and weeks and weeks getting deep into a theology lesson. Right, You're really nailing it. And when I'm coming in, I need something quick. Right, If I don't know the Catholic faith and I'm looking for something, man, I need a guide like this, this kind of guide me in. And if I want to go deeper and deeper and deeper, there's plenty of opportunity for that. But these guys are stepping in, Michael, to the story and you're doing exactly what they need. So thank you again.
Speaker 2:It's. You know, you got to recognize what your gifts are. I've read, you know, a bunch of novels and I'm always amazed by great writers of novels. I'm reading another Michael O'Brien novel right now and I mean, this guy is an incredible writer. I can never write like this, but what I can do it's kind of funny. You go back to you know what gifts God does give you. So I was a trial attorney. What can I do? I can take difficult concepts and I can break them down and explain them in a very short amount of time, a very short number of words. It takes a lot of time to do that and make something that is perhaps seemingly inaccessible and make inaccessible, because that's what I had to do for judges, that's what I had to do for jurors.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it makes sense. And before you go to Mass, let's just touch on this. We can come back and go a little deeper. Before you go to Mass, make sure you do what, michael, there's a step in front of the Mass before you receive that Eucharist. Mass before you receive that Eucharist. There's another sacrament that we need to step into and get washed first.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and you know what? It's interesting because some people don't understand. First of all, I want to talk about Mass. When we talk about confession, these are the yin and the yang. This is the one-two punch. Do keep in mind the beauty, because confession, regular confession, is a great thing. I recommend, you know, once a month. That's kind of a general, that's mine. Some people go more often, some people go less often. I think you know, putting it off to once a couple quarter, you know once a year.
Speaker 1:that's a bad idea. It's not enough. We need that grace, but on the other hand, yeah, amen, amen and also look, we're sinners.
Speaker 2:But also the running to speak for yourself, Michael.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well.
Speaker 2:OK. On the other hand, going to confession every three days, four days, you know you can become scrupulous. You've got to be careful of that too. So one thing to keep in mind is the great thing about masses Mass washes clean all those little venial sins. The reception of the Eucharist has that complete curative power, yeah important, and don't ever forget that.
Speaker 2:Now, on the other hand, though, mortal sins, those you need to go to confession for, and I will say, there's sins that are more serious, that aren't quite mortal. You know, maybe they're washed by communion, perhaps you know it's still venial sin. But, you know, probably the best thing I ever heard and I did not come up with this, I did not come up with this, I did not come up with this but the best thing I ever heard about confession was the reason to go to confession is because you need to say two words and you need to hear two words. Hang on that for a second. So there's this concept.
Speaker 2:A lot of our Protestant brothers and sisters have a concept of sorrow for sin and confessing their sins, but they do it very personally and privately and, yes, theologically. Even in the Catholic world, we believe that it is possibly, it is theoretically possible to make a perfect act of contrition and be completely forgiven. That is possible. But let's look at the reality. You know you go up to your room, you know you say I'm sorry, I don't know, are you, are you perfectly, perfectly, perfectly sorry? And do you know that God has completely forgiven you? So what do we need? We need to stand before God. The priest is just in persona Christi, the priest is just there on behalf of God, and you need to say to God those words I'm sorry, sorry, yeah. You have to say to God those words I'm sorry, sorry, yeah. You have to say it, you have to own it, you have to take, you know, ownership of this. You say I'm sorry, and then what do you need to hear? You are forgiven, you're forgiven, yeah.
Speaker 2:And see, there's no doubt. And it doesn't matter, because when we go to confession, whether we're up in our room saying we're sorry or whether we go to confession, you can walk out of a confessional and not feel forgiven. But it doesn't matter, because God already told you I absolve you completely, totally. They're gone, get over. It Doesn't matter what you feel. Just tell yourself those sins are forgiven and move on. You need to say I'm sorry. You need to hear you're forgiven.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you do, and I'll tell you, when I came back into the church I was gone for 20 years when I came back in I was starting to go back to Mass I forgot that one simple thing right that you need to take that nuptial bath of confession first and get clean. You know, here I am trying to, and the desire to unite myself with Christ, and I was full of sin. It's just like some guy cheating on his wife and pretending like nothing's wrong when he goes home. You know, when I went to confession for the first time after 20 years, I got up out of that confessional and by the time I was three or four minutes of driving, three or four minutes away, my heart exploded. I mean, basically, I was looking for a place to turn off and sit there. I knew something happened. So these are powerful movements of the heart.
Speaker 1:You know, and I think sometimes, michael, we take this after if you've been Catholic for a while and been going to confession for a while, you take things for granted. It's important to look back at your life once in a while and see how far God has called you. You know we're still not perfect, but you look back and you go holy moly, what a mess I would have been today. And you know, if you don't clean up that mess, as you get older, all of those traits, those negative traits, they get worse, they're exemplified and, man, you can turn into a real beast.
Speaker 2:Well, it's interesting that we have no doubt any aspect of our lives that we have to put the effort in. So you know if you want to be an athlete.
Speaker 1:That's a great point.
Speaker 2:Let's say you're a nice 16, 17-year-old young man and you want to be a baseball, you want to be a football player, you want to run track? No-transcript athlete, it's your job. Nobody sits there and says, yeah, you don't have to be any better in school, I don't worry about it, maybe study.
Speaker 1:So why the heck do we think that our souls so why the heck do we think that our souls, our very being, is going to get any better when we put no effort into it whatsoever? I mean, how foolish is that? Mid-40s, and he was struggling with his marriage and a big problem with his marriage and finally I just sat there and I went around and around with this guy I'm not a marriage therapist, right and just kept going around in a circle. Nothing I could say was going to make much difference. So I finally just stopped. I said are you praying every day? He says yeah, I kind of pray every day. And I said okay. I said are you going to mass every week? No, are you going to confession at least once a month? No, are you praying the rosary? No, he's the Catholic guy, right. Are you reading scripture 15, 20 minutes a day? No, I fall into your knees, like I asked you last time.
Speaker 1:We met first thing in the morning before you look at that phone, not really, not all the time. You know blah, blah, blah and I said dude. I said dude, you're guaranteed to be a mess and your relationships are guaranteed to be a mess. I said you're living exactly like I would expect you to live if you don't do any of those things. So to your point, mike. I mean it's so important, I mean we think again, you're going to go to your job, like you said, you're going to work out, you're going to do all these things. Then we fail our souls. We're an embodied soul and what do we expect is going to happen in our lives if we don't take care of that soul?
Speaker 2:Right, but it flies in the face of our reality. Why do we think that every single aspect of our lives we have to work at, but not our spiritual life and, sadly, a lot of times not at our marriages or relationships with our parents or our brothers and sisters? Why? Why the heck are those going to go well? Everything else we know we have to put work into, but the most important things in life we somehow feel are going to magically occur with no effort whatsoever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it doesn't happen and we become, in our relationships, in our lives, over time, dysfunctional. You know, you can see it around, you know how dysfunctional. You said in the book, in this place where you have the sacrament of reconciliation, that one of the first things or the first thing that Jesus really talked about when he came into his public ministry was calling us to repent. You know, we all stand at that tree in a sense. You know, and we have to decide. You know, which way do we go right, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Do I go with God or do I turn my back on God? And Jesus comes in and says repent, dude, you're going to have to.
Speaker 1:You know metanoia right, you have to turn away from the sinful past life you had and come into this story with me. And if you're not going to do that, don't waste your time. Don't waste your time because the world is a powerful draw. You're not dealing with, as St Paul said, just with flesh. You're dealing with the powers and the principalities. Don't we see this today, michael? Absolutely. What you're talking about here is the power to fight against a real culture of death that we have out there today.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's interesting, I don't know. This thought kind of came to me about the going back and the changing and the metanoia, thinking back a million years ago, when I was that 14-year-old kid or that 16-year-old kid, and I remember a lot of things happening in school and your social life, especially those really awkward years where you just you do something, you feel like you made a complete fool out of yourself, you feel like an idiot, you feel like the end of school year, you know, you just, oh, nobody likes me, I'm a loser, I'm this, I'm that, all those sorts of things. And what you really always dream of is a new beginning and a second chance. And sometimes, you know, it was kind of cool. Every school year after summer was kind of neat, like whatever.
Speaker 2:I don't know, maybe I was weird, but I'd kind of look at the last year and say, hey, this is a new year, maybe I can do this, maybe I can do that. But how about a God who loves you so much that every single time you fail, he says all you got to do is tell me I'm sorry and I will just completely forgive you? You know, there's the story of the prodigal son and there's, you know, the beautiful painting of it. And there's just most people know this story about the son comes. The son totally messes up. We don't have to go into those stories. The son totally messes up the younger son.
Speaker 1:Yeah, tell a little bit of it because I think it's good for the guys to hear, because they need to hear this. Michael, I'll do a quick one.
Speaker 2:I'll do a quick one. So you've got a father, and he's a wealthy father and he's got two sons. And the youngest son basically says look, father, give me my share in the inheritance. Right now, which basically is like dad, you're dead to me, just give me as if you were dead, give me my share of the inheritance, just give me as if you were dead, give me my share of the inheritance. And the dad does it. The dad is so you know, so prodigal. And prodigal, by the way, does not mean cheap, it means the opposite. So he gives everything to the son.
Speaker 2:The son goes and just blows it, and there's a lot of great things in the Bible, especially little euphemisms and things like that. He squanders it on a life of sin, and debauchery is what he does. I mean wine, women and song. And he's got nothing. And he's bottomed out and he's sitting there feeding the pigs which you know, you can't even be near a pig when you're a Jew and he's sitting there feeding them and he wishes he could eat the corn husks. So he kind of puts this thing together. I'm going to go back. He doesn't really say. He doesn't really say I am so sorry. He doesn't say I am so sorry he goes. You know what? I'm sitting here and my life sucks, and so many other people the slaves living in my father's house are better than mine. So he puts up this. You can even see him work up the. Okay, I'll go back. I'll tell him, father, I have sinned against.
Speaker 2:God and against you, just take me back. I mean he's like, yeah, this is just BS, but still he comes to a sense as he goes back. But here's the cool part of the story and this is what I want to drive home. The father sees him at a distance and goes running out to meet him, which means the story is every day that he's been gone every day. After this son insulted him, trashed him, squandered everything he had given him, the father's out there every day looking for his son, and when the son isn't even there, isn't on his knees, hasn't even said I'm sorry, yet the father is running out to greet him and when the son says his little nothing, sorry, he's embraced, he's put the best robe on him, puts his ring on his finger, he readopts him, puts him back into the position that he was, or the better position, and that's God and that's confession. It's every moment. God is running to us.
Speaker 2:See, prayer. One thing about prayer is we always think prayer is initiated by us. It's not, it's a response. God is always God. Just imagine him leaning. Heaven isn't up there, but let's just imagine Imagine God leaning, staring at you with the greatest amount of love, saying please, please, please just come back to me, please turn your eyes to me for a second and I will shower you with forgiveness, with love, with grace, with everything you need.
Speaker 1:Michael, can you imagine why? You know, you think the humility of God. You know, I mean, here we are in June, pride Month, right, the first of the seven deadly sins, and here's God himself, the actual power, the actual creator of all this, and it's the opposite of that, isn't he? I mean, he has a humble heart. You know, whenever you think of God doing what you just described, you think about the humility. How many times would my own father if I turned away from him? Multiple times. It's not easy taking a guy back after all that and you have to be very humble. When I think about Jesus, you know, wearing a crown of thorns, getting beaten, carrying a cross, the humility that you described is when you really sit back and think about it. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean there's complete, abject humility that the creator of all things became the absolute slave and took upon the taunts, the cheers, the sufferings, the sorrows, everything of all of us, and did so out of the greatest love, and he did it for the absolute least of all of us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, when you think about the anxiety that I talk to these young people about, that they feel the depression. A lot of them say, hey, I have buddies and people in my life that talk about suicide. At least, if they're not going to actually commit it, they sure sound like it. 70% of Americans are on some kind of prescription drug. Numbers two and three are opioids and anxiety medicine.
Speaker 1:And so you say, where did this lack of peace come from, this lack of joy come from? And what we're talking about here is you know, this gift of the Holy Spirit, you know to come back into our hearts and bring this joy and peace. And when you go to confession, you're experiencing this, you understand it, you experience it. And then you go to Mass, and when you go to Mass, you know, with a clean heart, this is a profound privilege that we have. You know, with a clean heart, this is a profound privilege that we have. Right to unite yourself with this person of Jesus Christ, which I'll just finish my little monologue here, michael, by saying I personally experienced this. I know this. You know.
Speaker 1:People ask me well, how do you know Jesus in the Eucharist? Well, for me it's easy, because I actually experienced it and I know it right and I'm not going to get into that story now, I've told it many times but the power of it, and I'm just so humbled this morning, when I was going to Mass this morning, just sitting there knowing you were going to come on and just feeling this humility and this beauty of the privilege of going up and receiving the Eucharist, it was amazing. So let's talk a little bit about the Mass and what it means to you and again described here so well. You did such a good job.
Speaker 2:You know it's funny. You mentioned the Eucharist. You mentioned that. You know we are. You know, praise God.
Speaker 2:There used to be an old kind of feeling that Catholics weren't biblical. I think that's been laid to rest. Catholics are very biblical, but what you don't understand is just how important throughout the Mass you know there's so much scripture and if you're going to Mass you know every day you're going to basically read almost the entire Bible over a three-year period. But let's go to. You know what is the Eucharist. Is this really important? Do we really? Is this his body, his blood?
Speaker 2:The story that's always just gotten me is the story Jesus is working on these miracles and he's got all these people and you can just sense that this was the height of his popularity. He's got all these crowds out there and then he just blows them away and he goes. Unless you eat my body and drink my blood, unless you gnaw on my flesh, gnaw on my flesh, you have no life, for my body is true food and my blood is true drink. Now you're sitting there thinking well, what does this mean? Well, everyone starts grumbling and they're like this is hard, who can take this? And they start leaving. They start leaving and everybody, just about every single person, leads. So the leaders of the people leave. People have been following him. Probably some people have been following him from the very beginning. They've been following around everywhere. They've seen the miracles and they're like wait, a second cannibalism. Wait, I need to eat your flesh Now. They walked away. So no one thought he was doing a metaphor. What they thought he was a lunatic at that moment. And as they walked away, he didn't say wait, wait, wait, wait, come back. It's a metaphor, it's a symbol. Let me explain. He let them leave and when they're basically all gone you know, we know the 12 are still there, maybe there's a few more he looks to them and he says you want to leave too? He doesn't say I'm going to explain it to you now. He says do you want to leave now? And Peter's you know, once again something takes over Peter, the Holy Spirit, and he says to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. So this is the great thing that's important.
Speaker 2:Peter makes an act of faith. He does not understand this at the time. He does not know what the heck it means. He knows that Jesus meant it, but he doesn't know what he meant by it? I'm going to sit there and sink my teeth into your arm now, jesus. And then we have the Last Supper.
Speaker 2:And then, at the Last Supper, what does Jesus say? He holds up what looks like bread, looks like wine. But when he says the words, and it is at that moment, and he says this is my body, this is my blood, take this, eat and drink. And whenever you do this, you do this in remembrance of me. And all of a sudden you can just see the Holy Spirit light bulb come on in Peter's head. So this is how it's going to happen. And two things. Number one his head. So this is how it's going to happen. And two things. Number one yes, I'm going to eat his body and I'm going to drink his blood, but not just me. Everybody, for all time, there's going to be this miraculous giving of himself. But he didn't say look, now I'm explaining to you. See, it's a symbol. No, no, no. He said this is my body, this is.
Speaker 1:It's amazing, right. And then I just remember after that, still so, that was John 6. And then you know, initially right, when the disciples got up and walked away. And then a little bit later on he's telling the disciples you know, it's good that I go to the Father, this is after the resurrection, because I'll send the advocate down to you, the Holy Spirit down. The resurrection because I'll send the advocate down to the Holy Spirit down. And you know, when we're at the mask we enter into and make present that one time eternal sacrifice that Jesus was. You know God goes beyond time and space, right, so we get to enter into that one time, Very, very. You know it takes you a while to be able to relax, you know, and open your mind and your heart enough to enter into that, but it's possible and you get to that point. But then Jesus says it's good that I go to the Father because then he'll send the advocate down.
Speaker 1:At this point Jesus leaves this temporal space and this temporal takes on a glorified body. And now it reminded me of what you just said. Now the Holy Spirit comes over those gifts of the Eucharist, they the altar, and now he pours this out to all of us, because he's beyond time now, you know, he's not limited to a body here on earth. And now, how would he go across the whole world and do this? I'm going to the Father, you know I'm going to have a glorified body, I'm going to transcend this temporal space and any restrictions on my movement, and now I'm going to send the Spirit down.
Speaker 1:And the beauty of this is God says you know, you guys, go out and take what creation is, turn it into bread, turn the grapes and the raw material I gave you, turn that into wine. So you're doing something. And then God says now I'm going to take that and I'm going to do something, and so we meet. That's what every sacrament, you know. We have two dimensions, right, a human dimension and a divine dimension. This is such a beautiful thing. You can't make this stuff up.
Speaker 2:No, and it's interesting. You know we talk about the Mass. You talked about the Holy Spirit. You know I only crack the surface and you can get great books and really read about the depths of the Mass and I highly recommend people look, go and learn more about the Mass. You can spend your whole life meditating on the past, learning about the Mass, and you'll never run out of material.
Speaker 2:But just one point a lot of churches don't ring the bell at this one point early on in the consecration and I think a lot of people feel like, well, we should definitely get rid of that bell, because that bell oh, that's just something symbolic, that's just some silly little thing. The smells and the bells and that's the old Latin mass or whatever. Blah, blah, blah. There's a reason. The bell is rung Now. Practical reason is wake up.
Speaker 1:I mean, I love it because a lot of times my mind is drifting.
Speaker 2:It's a wake up and that's called the epiclesis, because the moment that bells ring it's when the priest is calling down the holy spirit. At that moment it's a very, very important moment. The reason I brought this up, jack, is because you just talked about the Holy Spirit coming into the Mass and then the Spirit of God is what's going to make that transubstantiation happen. You know that the bread will become Jesus's body, blood, soul and divinity, and the same for the wine.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's amazing, right, you know, if you stretch this a little bit further, you could see that our bodies are of the earth too, right? I mean, you know, taken from the earth. You know Genesis 2, verse 7,. You know, god takes the clay, the biology, the same stuff, basically, that everything's made out of, and then he blows, he blows into it. This is the spirit coming into us. This is what's happening here. We're offering our gifts, and here's my body of the clay. Well, what makes me different than the rest of creation? It's the spirit. It's this blowing in. I become this embodied soul. This is what I'm making visible, my soul, who I am inside. Well, god has to blow this into me, god has to give this to me, god has to feed me in order for me to be able to lift up. You know, St Irenaeus, right, you know, the glory of God is man fully alive. This is where he wants these young men that we're speaking to and, again, all the people that love them.
Speaker 2:Michael isn't it and let's talk to your audience right now. You know we kind of got very high in theological and you're being a great Catholic there, throwing out your Bible verses and this and that, but God comes to us exactly where we're at all. Right, you don't?
Speaker 1:have to fully understand the Eucharist. You do not have to have a master's or a doctorate in theology.
Speaker 2:You do not have to fully understand the acres. You do not have to have a master's or a doctorate in theology. You do not have to have the Bible memorized. You don't even have to feel anything. None of that changes the reality of what happens. One of my favorite lines actually I will say my favorite line in the catechism of the Catholic church is faith is not a feeling, it's a decision. The Catholic Church is faith is not a feeling, it's a decision. If we had the true feeling, we always felt everything. That's actually the opposite of faith. I don't need to have faith that I've been married to my wife for 36 years as of today. I don't have to have faith of that Is today your anniversary.
Speaker 1:Today is our anniversary. Congratulations.
Speaker 2:I don't have to have faith on that. I know that to be true. I don't have to have faith Congratulations. I don't have to have faith on that. I know that to be true. I don't have to have faith, jack, that you exist, I know, but sometimes I don't feel God's presence in the Eucharist. I don't feel like the angelic choir singing. Oh, my heart is so full with the presence. No, I don't feel it most of the time, but it doesn't change the reality. And the best. My favorite prayer, probably one of my favorite prayers of all times, is Lord, I believe, help my unbelief. I say that prayer a million times, you know, on any given year, honestly, throughout the prayer, throughout my life, throughout the times that I'm suffering, the times when I'm doubting, when the times that I have anxiety and depression, the time that you know something terrible is happening in my life, the times that I'm praying, I really want to feel something and I don't feel it. I believe. Help my unbelief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, think about what again I'm going to just stretch this for these young people is that this is a big problem. Today, love has been reduced down to a feeling, down to an emotion, and then further reduced down to sex to a sexual activity.
Speaker 2:You know it. What is love? What's the definition of love?
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, love is desiring and willing the good of another person, amen. And that doesn't always feel good, does it?
Speaker 2:That's it.
Speaker 1:In fact, this is the point I was going to try to make and you're exactly right on. You know, when I came back into the church, it was because I got on my knees, because my marriage was really suffering. And when I came back into the church I said, okay, I'm getting it. I went to confession, I'm receiving the sacraments, I started to pray. I didn't understand to your earlier point, which is a great point I didn't understand what was going, but I knew something was changing in me. That's what I understood.
Speaker 1:But when I went home, my wife didn't like me or the Catholic church, and so I went back to the chaplain I go, I don't feel this. I said I feel you, but I don't feel this relationship. I said so what are you going to do about her? And it was so clear, mike, he said I'm not going to. You're going to do it. You're going to bring the father, you're going to bring the life into there. Because life into there, because you know you have to be the person of God right now, you have to be the lover.
Speaker 1:That, and I started to complain and I said I know what you want me to do. You want me to love someone that doesn't love me back right. And I looked up at the crucifix and I go, ooh, that's what he did for me. So again to your point, why would I walk into that mass, that sacrifice? I should be feeling the passion sometimes and like, oh, and looking back at my life, and so sometimes that's what I feel and I just say thank you, god, you know, for getting me out of that mess that I was trying to create for my own life and for pulling me up, and I think it's good to remember these things, mike, you know, yeah, it's not a kumbaya, you know, dancing around all the time, but there are moments of that too. Sure, this is like a real live relationship, that's what it's like.
Speaker 2:Let's bring it back to the practical. Let's use some examples, especially since you know to some extent you're also in this podcast, trying to reach out to young men. So let's just, I don't care what sport it is, let's just take it really simple. Let's just take weightlifting. Every moment you walk in the gym, you don't have gains. It just doesn't happen.
Speaker 1:And you don't feel like being there either, do you?
Speaker 2:And you don't feel like being there. But then you do have those moments where you know you do get a PR and all of a sudden you feel phenomenal, but it's few and far between but. And you feel phenomenal, but it's few and far between. But the only way you're going to get those is if you just keep pushing through those days that you don't feel a darn thing. And it's the same way if you want to study.
Speaker 1:Great point, another great point Good in your school.
Speaker 2:You don't sit there. You go home every moment and read that one assignment and now, boom, you got it all. No, it's the whole semester. The teacher's got an idea. We're going to slowly build you and hopefully you're going to ace the final exam because you're going to learn along a complete plan and maybe you're going to get a couple of A's on a test or whatever. Your grades are a little bit better, a little worse, whatever, but you're working to an end. And same way with work. We don't walk in every day to work and feel like now I nailed it. No, we have days that we fail miserably at work. I feel like everything went bad, I did nothing, or else I just couldn't get anything done. I was distracted. That's okay. I can't just. Well, today I'm just going to go home. No, I'm going to hang in it. I'm going to work through the day.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go home and I'm going to give God my failures that day rather than my successes. Yeah, this is like real life, isn't it? Those are great analogies, mike. So thank you for that. You know, it's a real relationship, but the difference is when things get really tough. You know you're yoked to Christ and you are filled with the Holy Spirit and you'll be able to do more than you think If those tough times come and you stay with it, like you said, and don't walk away.
Speaker 1:You know, because it's too many times it becomes just apathetic. You know it's too hard. You know GK Chesterton would say that. You know Christianity wasn't tried and found failing. It was found difficult and left untried. And if people only knew that. If you stayed with it, you know, just like your weight lifter, that the gains will come. And there'll be days where you go, thank goodness. You look back at your life and say, god, I was that skinny little guy out of shape, whatever. And look at this. You know, look at me today, five years later, and thank goodness that I stuck with the program. And you're going to find out. Your life is like that. You know it doesn't make it easy. You know my brother was a world-class power lifter and it didn't make it easy. He still had to push all the time. But you look back and you go, wow, there's some big gains here. And I think that's what we happen in our spiritual life.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about that too. And this is, you know, sometimes we hit this discipline and sometimes it can really be oh, that's just a guy thing or that's just a practice. It's for guys, it's for women, it's for everyone. And yes, you know, we are, we're very different a lot of ways. But let's just talk about discipline and let's talk about about, about just the regular nothing moments of our life.
Speaker 2:One of the great statements I thought that Cardinal Bernadine made when and it's interesting two cardinals in Chicago in a row died very slow, painful deaths of cancer he and Cardinal George. But Bernadine made a great comment in his book and he said pray when you're healthy, because it's really hard to pray when you're sick. We all have this kind of concept that when life is great, I don't need God, I don't need that. But when I'm on my deathbed, when I'm suffering, then I'm going to offer this up to God and then I'm going to be heroic. You know what it stinks suffering. I've had chronic pain, I've dealt with it. It's not fun, it's horrible. And one of the first things it attacks. It doesn't make you more spiritual, honestly, it attacks your spirituality. It makes you not want to pray, it makes you what you want to say is God, take this away from me and then I'll love you and I'll be really and I'll pray. So get in the habit when you're in control of your life, get in the habit of praying and needing God, and that has nothing to do with male or female or young or old. Get in that habit of the understanding of the need for God and need to be in relationship with God, and you know what. I'll give you an example. I love analogies Husband and wives.
Speaker 2:If you don't work at your relationship when things are going well, how do you think things are going to go? When there's some tragedy in your life or there's some serious problem, it things are going to go. When there's some tragedy in your life, there's some serious problem, it's only going to go downhill. So you better work on it. When things are going great, when everything is fun, when you're carefree, those very early days of your marriage when you've got maybe no kids, no responsibilities, you're both working. Hey, those are the times to really start working at your marriage.
Speaker 1:You know, there's a song I was thinking. Willie Nelson has a song I'm Too Sick to Pray, and it's this. I don't even know if that's the name of it or not, but to your point, that's exactly what it was. You know, he just got to the point now. He's just too sick to pray, you know. And he's asking for God, you know, and yeah, it's a beautiful thing, but you're exactly right.
Speaker 1:And the other thing is look at Esme, do you want to really wait until you're an old guy and you don't have anything left to give and then finally give yourself to Christ? You know? I mean, do it while you can Do it, while you really got a choice to your point. Do it when you're healthy enough that you're actually making a sacrifice, and you know what you're going to find. You're going to look behind you when you're an old man and see a lot less devastation, a lot less dysfunction, a lot less people that you hurt over time than if you would have just been selfish up until the end. You know you'll be accepted, like you said. You know the prodigal son, the father's going to come out to you and he's going to bring you in. But the prodigal son, the father's going to come out to you and he's going to bring you in, but then he's going to have you look backwards just for a second and say look at all the pain and suffering this caused.
Speaker 2:If you're to be honest yourself, everyone loves this concept of the deathbed confession and we love reading some of the stories of some saints and especially wealthy nobles and kings and stuff. I no, no, I don't want to actually be baptized until the moment before I'm dying. So I know I'm going in.
Speaker 2:Good luck catching that one here's the question why do you think that you're going to live your life one way, your whole life, and at the last minute you're going to pivot? I mean, give me the example of that in your life anywhere and I'll tell you. You know, being a little bit older maybe than you know some of your listeners, and having a father who's, you know, you know 90 years old right now, and watching my mother, you know, die a couple of years ago at 92, and watching some other family members, it gets much harder to change significantly the older you get, because you become more and more entrenched in your ways. You're not as agile, you're not as supple, your mind's not working. You know as quickly as you can and you just even misery, you know even things that really make you miserable. You just get used to that misery, you just kind of accept it. So you know, don't play for that last-minute pivot. The odds are real slim.
Speaker 1:It's sad and that's if I escape dementia and Alzheimer's, right, and just forget about it, right, no, no, this is the time to do it. You know, whenever you turn back, you know God's calling you. Like you said, mike, you know God's always calling us. How long are you going to ignore him? I remember I was 38 when I came back into the church and I remember so distinctly that God asking me to die with him. Right, st Paul, right, you know, to die with Christ and then rise with Christ. And I remember it got really painful for a second.
Speaker 1:I remember getting off the fence. You know men don't want to get off the fence. You know we don't want to be really bad boys, right, but we don't really want to be too good either. And you know we play this game, you know. And finally, christ asked you to get off the get off the fence, and I remember it got really painful.
Speaker 1:Right, you start to stretch out and I remember thinking I got to walk away. Who am I If I don't lust after the girl down the street or what I mean myself? A man, whatever? All these crazy thoughts go through your mind, right? And so I was walking away. And then I remember the words so distinctly. Are you going to do that again? Are you going to walk away again? How many times in your life are you going to do this?
Speaker 1:And I remember falling back then, and there was a time where I rose soon after that and I felt free. It was the first time I felt free since I was a young boy and you don't realize the baggage that we carry with us. And when you start to dump some of that baggage, man alive, it's amazing and to your point, though, I didn't even know I was carrying this much garbage with me. And then Christ starts to peel that back. And that's why, when you said it's so important, when you said you don't have to understand all this, when you first come back in, I certainly didn't, but over time those layers start to peel off and you start to see wow, god really is working in my life. You know it's really a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting that everyone would. If I were to say the following, I would say this is pretty sad. Let's say I'm 16 years old. What do you want to do? I didn't put myself 14. I'm going to high school. Well, I want to be a really mediocre basketball player, and then I want to do pretty average, through poor, through average on my grades. I'd like to go to not a very good school. I like to get a job that's not a great job, and then I'm really struggling to even barely do passable work.
Speaker 1:I'd love to have an average marriage. I want to have a marriage that's okay, that doesn't completely stink, not great.
Speaker 2:Nobody is ever going to say that. So why would we say that about our faith? Yeah, I want to have an okay relationship with god. I don't want to really be like a churchy kind of guy. I don't want to really be one of those holy roller dudes, you know, and then I'd like to kind of, you know, sneak into heaven, hopefully at the end maybe I'll say I'm sorry at the very end and I'm gonna do some time in purgatory, and then maybe I'll yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, it sounds okay, I mean, so you know that sounds awful, what you just described for a man.
Speaker 1:That sounds awful. What young man listening to what you just said right now says yep, that's me, that's what I want? There's no way, mike, there's no way. They want more. They want more. That's what they're sensing. That's what they're sensing. That's what they're sensing right now because they were living that life. Here's what you got to realize, and I know you do. The guys, the young men, were living that mediocre life, but they've been lied to. They didn't know they could reach for the stars, and now what we're telling them is no, there's more. That's something more that you're feeling in your heart. It's possible to do, and here's how you'd get there, and that's what we're talking about today. It's amazing when you realize that there actually is a pathway for you into something more than this life offers.
Speaker 2:With what you just said and what you were talking earlier about the anxiety, the depression, the suicide. Hopefully all of your listeners have heard this before. But they talk about the God-shaped hole in your heart. And St Augustine said we've been made for you and our hearts are restless until they rest in you. So nothing's going to fill it. You've got something that you can shove all of the sports, the drugs, the alcohol, the sex, the music. You can shove every single thing in there and it's never going to satisfy you, because your heart was made for God. It was made by God to be with God, for God, for all eternity. So the only thing that's going to satisfy it is God.
Speaker 1:And the other thing I want to say about the not settling for the mediocre.
Speaker 2:Now, as you start struggling, I'm going to get ahead Maybe some of you people are already here and some people aren't but on the other hand, we also have to live humbly and have to realize that. You know what I'm not. I'm gonna talk about golf right now, because it's about the only sport that I can still do. I'm not a great golfer, and you know what it's okay, and so for me, the best thing is not that I don't try every time I swing. I try to do the best I can, but then when I shank it out of bounds, it it's not, it's it's lack of humility to say I should be better, or I'm going to kick the ball back in bounds and not tell my partner no, hey, there's humility, I failed, it's okay, I am what God made me, and it's the same way in the spiritual life too. Look, desire to be a saint, but don't get bummed out.
Speaker 2:I'm reading a book about Catherine of Siena to get bummed out. I'm reading a book about Catherine of Siena and once again, I'm seeing a person whose life is I can't say she's a billion times more holy than I will ever be, because that would be such a, I mean, there's not a number. You know her holiness, her sanctity, but God gave Catherine the grace to be that holy and God has not given me that same grace. God does not expect it, and God does not love me any less than he loved Catherine of Siena. I'm the perfect me, with all my fails, my failings, my struggles, my imperfection. God just wants me to do with what I can, to always struggle, but then to also accept that I'm a sinner and I can't. And here, guys, I'm going to speak from my heart. I am always trying to earn heaven and I can't. And here, guys, I'm going to speak from my heart. I am always trying to earn heaven and I can't. And so I'm always beating myself up because I fall so short, I stink, I'm horrible.
Speaker 2:How could God ever love somebody like me? He does love me. He loves you exactly. You can't earn God's love. He gives it to you, and when you say you're sorry, god is so happy. When you come to confession, he's so happy you're at confession. But that was never a condition for his love. He would have loved you had you not gone to confession. But he loves the fact you went to confession, not because you did something for him, but because you let him do something for you.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful and that's a great way to go out. I think right now Our time is up, man what? And that's a great way to go out. I think right now Our time is up, man. What a pleasure you are, mike, thank you so much, and again I'll have this book in the show notes. I'm going to encourage everyone that's part of Claymore and also just listening today to pick up that book. Again, I'll have it in there.
Speaker 2:Ignatius Press puts it out and I'll put a link in there. And you can get it anywhere. You can get it from stores and this and that, obviously, I love Ignatius Press. They're such a phenomenal Catholic publisher so I got to promote their website that's Ignatiuscom.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, michael, your pleasure. Thanks everyone for joining us Talk to you again soon, bye-bye.