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
#645 Looking For A Spiritual Coach and Trainer? Meet St. Philip Neri Whose Enlarged Heart Can Transform Yours!
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Meet Rob Marco! He not only shares his own remarkable journey but introduces us to St. Philip Neri, a 16th-century saint, who combined profound holiness with infectious joy!
It's Philip's unique combination of deep prayer and playful humor that truly sets him apart. As Rob explains, "Philip needed to take himself less seriously. He needed his book of jokes, his book of medicine, to bring him back down to earth after these ecstasies."
Perhaps most remarkable about Saint Philip Neri was his extraordinary mystical experience at age 29. While praying for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, he had a vision of a globe of fire entering through his mouth and settling in his heart. This experience physically enlarged his heart to twice its normal size, even breaking several ribs. For the rest of his life, his heart would beat with such intensity that others could hear and feel it. This physical manifestation represented his overwhelming love for God and humanity.
Find Rob's book "Coached by Philip Neri: Lessons in Joy" from Scepter Publishers or on Amazon, and dive into a refreshing approach to holiness that might be exactly what our troubled world needs today.
Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a production of the John Paul II Renewal Center. I'm Jack Riggert, your host. You know, one of the perks of my job is meeting wonderful, interesting people from all walks of life, and not only do we get a chance to hear their journey and their story, but also learn about the saints who made an impact on their lives. Rob Markle is one of those people, and St Philip Neary is one of those saints. Rob is a married father of three, holds an MA in theology from Villanova University and has appeared on EWTN's the Journey Home, and his writing has been featured at Crisis Magazine, 1 Peter 5, Catholic World Report and other Catholic publications. He's the author of Wisdom and Folly, collected essays on faith, life and everything in between, and his latest book, Coached by Philip Neary. Rob, great to be with you.
Speaker 2:Hey, thanks, great to be here.
Speaker 1:So tell us a little bit about that journey. Now, just tell people I was expecting a beard from you, because I've got a buddy, kevin Wells, who wrote actually the foreword to your book. He's a wonderful guy too, isn't he? Rob? He sure is yep, and so I was expecting it, but you just shaved it off and you did it. You did it just a couple weeks ago, huh you know what it's like.
Speaker 2:It's like those buddhists that do the uh sand mandalas. They spend months on this thing and then they just blow it away to show impermanence, you know what?
Speaker 1:what is your, your, your married father or three? What does your wife think when you're growing a long beard like that?
Speaker 2:she likes a beard because she's five years older than me, so she gets a little self-conscious about me looking too young so now that it's, okay takes about 10 years off my life. So yes, it does I look a lot younger but that's okay.
Speaker 1:I'm the the oldest of five boys, robin and uh and the other guys have beards, uh, and, and you're right and and they're all silver now. You know our beards right there. They lost some of the color we used to have in them and in it, and when they do shave they do look younger, there's no doubt about it, yeah, so tell us a little bit about that. I, and again, I'm gonna. I think I'll link that journey home um article that used that. Uh, I have that link. It's really good. We won't be able to do the whole thing In fact, we could do a whole show just on that but let's hit a couple of highlights on that journey home. Tell us a little bit about that and yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was great. I was on the journey home in 2018, I think right before Marcus Grodi had retired. I talk about my conversion story as like a funnel. You know, like I was raised in a secular, mixed faith environment where my father was Catholic and my mother was Episcopalian, but neither of them really practiced the faith and I grew up not knowing anything about Jesus Christ or, you know, I just knew there was a God, but that was about all I knew. And then I had some powerful conversion experiences in my teens and it was kind of early on where I realized there was a God.
Speaker 2:I went, I was like involved in like these underground hardcore shows that you know like kind of like rock concerts, but they were really fast and kind of mosh pits and things like this, and this was one was in a Christian church, which is surprising because these are usually the punk rockers, they're not really like religious. But the pastor of that church got up and prayed over everyone before you know, the show was ending and I felt the Holy Spirit. Like you know, it was a Protestant pastor, but I still he sent the Holy Spirit. I felt like a rush of wind cut through me and I was convicted of my sin. So I went from going to like believing in not believing in God to believing in God to realizing I was a sinner.
Speaker 2:Then I was on a three-day solo backpacking trip where I was like 16 or 17. I had my father drop me off up near north of Scranton, PA, and just pick me up three days later and during that time I ran out of food, I didn't have enough clothing, I lost my map and I prayed for the first time during that time that the Lord would help me and even though I didn't know who the Lord was so kind of like the Israelites crying out in the desert for a God they didn't know. And I found my map miraculously. I had to retrace my steps for about half a mile and I found a hand on the back of my. It was strange because I found a hand on the back of my back leading me into the bush, and then I put my hand out and there was my map. So I had these kind of conversion.
Speaker 2:And then the rest of becoming catholic was kind of boring actually, because I went to university and I just found a catholic mass and I went there and I asked about learning to become catholic. They told me I was too late for rcia, I'd have to wait till next year. I didn't want to wait. I found a byzantine priest, nothing like that.
Speaker 1:You know the protestants bringing you back in with the spirit, right. They're not afraid to do that. Nothing like a good Catholic pastor that's going to blow you off right, come back in a year. Yeah, come back in a year, right, it's amazing.
Speaker 2:But I mean, god's grace was really working, because I wanted to at least learn more about what it meant to be Catholic. And then I found a Byzantine priest who gave me one-on-one catechism once a week, and then I came into the Byzantine Rite of the church that December. So I was 18 years old.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and just for our audience that may not be familiar with it, you know the Byzantines are Catholic. You know there's a wonderful Catholic pastor here, thomas Loya, who loves theology of the body, and you know we talk here and there and that's a Catholic right. It's really the more you dig into this not that I want to berate the point here, but just to clear that up that you come into the Byzantines and you're Catholic.
Speaker 2:It's a little different. We're all one.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you for that, and again I'm going to link that because I think it's worth reading the whole thing, it's. I think what comes out of that, rob, is that you know, and we can't be afraid and this is what St Philip Neri says, you know, because he was a lay person for a long time you know I didn't realize it until I read your book that he was 36 when he became a priest, and so we can't be afraid to kind of, you know, lay hands in our own little ways and we'll talk about that and to bring that spirit that we're feeling sometimes into the public square. You know, the Holy Spirit wants to work. You know, this is a crazy, crazy time. So what was it about, st Philip Neri, that touched you enough that you say because these saints and again one more point for our audience, rob these saints will journey with us, won't they, if we allow them to?
Speaker 1:You know, God is. You know, he said this in the reading today at Mass. You know, I'm not the God of the dead right, I'm the God of Abraham. He's speaking to Moses at the burning bush, abraham, jacob and Isaac, you know, and Jesus said the same thing. He goes no, no, no, you're wrong. You don't know the scriptures. God is God of the living, huh.
Speaker 2:And so that's what these saints do so again.
Speaker 1:you know what got you going there St Philip, neri and not some other saints.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny because I didn't come to St Philip Neri probably until after I was married. We've been just celebrating our 15-year anniversary, but before that I had discerned religious life for about 10 years. So St Anthony of the Desert was a favorite saint of mine. St John the Baptist all these aesthetics. Desert was a favorite saint of mine. Saint john the baptist all these aesthetics.
Speaker 2:But it wasn't until I met my wife that I realized that having a sense of humor was really on the top of my list in terms of somebody I was looking for in a mate like.
Speaker 2:I didn't really have a formal list of qualities I was looking for, but I realized after the fact that the fact that I could be myself around my wife, um, joke around with her, we can, we have a good of humor that really gets you through a lot of hard times. And then realizing that you know, philip Neary was one of those unique saints in the fact that we don't hear too much about saints that are known for their humor or their. You know their sense, their levity, you know that they have a lightheartedness about them. So we're attracted to. You know his lack of formality, his informal nature, his love of humor and using humor for the benefit of the gospel. Those are things that attracted me and realized like I kind of wanted a spiritual grandfather who I could identify with. And Philip Neary, in that sense, was one that I was attracted to. So the more I learned about him, the more he became attractive to me in the sense of this is a guy I can relate to.
Speaker 1:I think and this is such an important point that you're making here See the sword behind me, rob. That's a big Claymore sword made famous by William Wallace in the movie Braveheart. And this is an apostle that we have for young people, but especially for young men, and it comes out of John Paul II's teaching. It's a symbol really of just picking up that sword and going out and living life full, and I think that's what we're talking about here. He laughed, he had joy about him and the other side, he was just in love with our Lord and Savior right and with God, and he lived that life of virtue. And you made this point in the book. I really liked it a lot. If you're just joy and laughter and joking around without the virtue, without the God part, you become a jokester or a prankster, like a class clown. But when you add virtue, there's this way of joy and laughter and joking around and still upholding that virtue. And that's what he did, didn't he?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's almost like he earned the right. I think I said in the book. He's got the street cred, you know, because he would spend long periods of time in solitude and prayer. He was known to never have committed a mortal sin and so to use humor. It's funny because it's kind of not really well known that you know he used humor for himself as a way of bringing him back down to earth because he would be carried away in these ecstasies.
Speaker 2:When he became a priest later in life he had trouble, like you know not not shaking and convulsing because well, maybe we'll talk about the issue with his heart later but he used this book of jokes to kind of bring him back down to earth and he used humor as a way of relating to people as well. But it wasn't in this kind of buffoon kind of way, except towards himself, because he needed these, towards himself, because he needed these, he needed to take himself less seriously and he needed his book of jokes, his book of medicine, to bring him back down to earth after these ecstasies. Because it was, it was somewhat embarrassing to him. It's kind of like Padre Pio, you know, with the stigmata. It was like he didn't want to bring attention to it.
Speaker 2:It was embarrassing and so, but he was a holy man, so he needed to. It was almost like he became one of us. You know he needed to. It was almost like he became one of us. You know, he was a man. He was a mere mortal, you know, but he was also a saint. He became one of us, kind of like, because we could relate to him through humor.
Speaker 1:And the beauty of that and I know from Padre Pio I love Padre Pio. I have a band on my wrist that I've been wearing forever. You know, pray, hope and don't worry from Padre Pio. But he also was known among his own monks to be a prankster and I think he did it for the same reason. You know you have to have some fun, man, and get some laughter going right, otherwise you know you can drive yourself crazy. Let's talk about it. You do this wonderful story on Secretariat, on the horse that won. That you know was just incredible. That year won the Triple Crown.
Speaker 2:That was actually Kevin in his foreword. Kevin did in the foreword yes, because he was a former sports writer.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, but you make the analogy and this is where I want you to go, if you don't mind to talk about. You know you draw of 29.
Speaker 2:And it's kind of a bizarre scenario where the Holy Spirit, the love of God, had come into his, through his mouth, down to his heart, as a global fire, and it actually enlarged his heart.
Speaker 1:What was he set that up? A little bit, rob Was he praying then, he was praying for?
Speaker 2:Yes, he was praying for the gifts of the Holy Spirit and he was praying specifically for the Holy Spirit to give him the graces that he was asking for. And the response to that was that the Lord enlarged his heart, his physical heart, to twice the size of his regular heart, broke a couple of his ribs in the process and would lead him the rest of his life to be like he could be in the middle of winter and be sweating, you know, or not wearing any coats or anything, and there would be times where people close to him penitents would feel the beating of his heart like it would reverberate so strongly. So it was kind of a physical manifestation of a grace that was just, you know, because we talk about the sacred heart of the Lord, the heart is important to the Lord, our hearts and his heart. But in this sense, with Philip Neri, he took his physical heart and made it twice as big as it was. So I think Kevin used that story of the racehorse Secretariat to draw an analogy which was kind of cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because Secretariat also had that double heart, you know that double-sized heart. When they found out in an autopsy right Later on, I didn't realize that either until Kevin wrote that in the book. But he did a good job, huh, pulling that and allowing your story with Philip Neri's heart to come out. Pulling it and allowing your story with Philip Neri's heart to come out, with this huge heart, he could walk in and to your point. And I think this is great for the laity, great for these young people.
Speaker 1:We always tell them, hey, don't just do this by yourself, disciple one another, and then make sure you go and fill yourself up. You can't give what you don't have. But then when you go out they'll say you know how should I do this? Blah, blah, blah. And we just say, hey, look at you know, pray to the Holy Spirit, you know, read your scripture, get down on your knees. And that's what Philip Neary did. He was quasi loose, right, he didn't have like this, this plan. I always think you know one of the big things you know if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. And at the end of the day Rob, I think that's true Let God put some plans in front of you and try to listen and follow them. And that's really. I got that sense big time from St Philip Neri.
Speaker 2:You know, jack, it's interesting you say that because that's that's a point that when the podcast be who you are, you know St Philip Neary was Cardinal Newman said anything that was was systematic pleased him not and just part of his nature. He was more informal. He wasn't like you know, he was a contemporary of St St Ignatius, but St Ignatius was like a soldier, he was like boom, boom, boom and Philip was more like a friend. You know he would walk on the streets and talk with people. I say he took the organic approach you know to friendships, to relationships, to building up relationships, to bring people to the gospel with the ultimate goal. But it didn't have like a systematic plan.
Speaker 2:So anything that was like formal, even the formation of the oratory which we can maybe talk about later, is it was never, it was never set up as like a monastic order. It was a um, a very. It still has an informal collection of priests and lay people who get together and read the, read the scriptures, sing hymns. You know it's pretty simple in that sense. So I think that that's important to know that Philip, as his nature you know St Thomas talks about like grace perfects nature his nature was not of a formal person. It also wasn't one that was prepared to go on the missions as like he originally thought. And then a Cistercian that had the gift of prophecy came to him and said Rome will be your Indies. You have to stay here and do the work. So it's kind of a bloom where you're planted thing With the laity. I think that's important to know. That, like however God made you is how you're meant to carry out your work for the gospel.
Speaker 1:We all have different temperaments and things like that, and philip neary really utilized his own temperament to the best of his ability ah, and and and, the power again of joining that joy, that laughter again linking it, like you said to to virtue earlier we were talking about, is we need to do the same thing. Whatever talent God gave me, you know. Whatever that is, you know, don't downplay that. You know, whatever you know. Sometimes we think we don't have enough. We don't know enough. You know, I got to study this first and study that first. But Jesus himself, and so did Moses, brought to me. They said hey, you know, this plan isn't like pie in the sky or you got to go over the sea to grab it. It's right around you and you have that in here. I wrote it down somewhere. For behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you. That came from Luke 17. Don't look elsewhere. The kingdom of God is in the midst of you.
Speaker 2:And that's the point you were just making. And God is also looking for a return on his investment.
Speaker 1:He doesn't want you burying it in a savings account, not getting interest, you know, yeah, yeah, take it out right, don't put the light under a bushel basket, and I think that's just so important for all of us. You know, when your heart starts to get on fire, you know, I always think I think it was Jeremiah Rob that I'm pretty sure he kept trying to get away and he goes, and he finally said you duped me, lord, you duped me right, Whatever talent I have yeah, you want me to use it, and I think this is so important because one of the questions I wanted to ask you is if you think if St Philip Neri walked into our world today, he had plenty of problems in his world.
Speaker 1:I don't know if he would have any more than we have. You know, if we look at this thing holistically, it's a beating we're taking out there. A lot of people leave in the church, you know. I think you said for every one that comes in, there are five leaving. So we can't get discouraged, can we? And we just got to do what we can do. You know, god's plan is out there. We fit into it somehow and don't be afraid, right, go out and do it. And I think that's what Philip Neary would kind of tell us. But what do you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's a lot of work to do too. The.
Speaker 2:Lord said, you know that the harvest is great but the workers are few. And if you're considering yourself a worker, it can get lonely sometimes to be out there laboring in the Lord's vineyard, and we need brothers to. And so you know his famous Philip's famous saying well, brothers, when will we begin to do? Good, you know that was. The whole thing is that it doesn't have to be perfect, it doesn't have to be successful necessarily, but we have to do the effort, we have to put the work in, and that work might look different for each person, but the work takes courage Sometimes. It takes effort, it takes courage and it takes the grace of the Holy Spirit, which the Lord is willing to provide, to do the work. We just have to kind of sometimes get out of the way, sometimes just be amenable to receiving that grace. But we have to also, by our will, our free will, be saying yes, lord, send me, I'm here, I'm here, send me.
Speaker 1:What happens is this. You know, and you talk about it in the book. There are some saints that don't want to be with other people, right, they want to just live that monastic life. But he loved the balance. He loved the balance just like our Lord did, right, go out, meet with the people, be with the people, but then take time to pray. And it was so beautiful in there. It reminds me of John Paul's theology of the body, where he follows Jesus into the beginning. And it starts with these three experiences, and the first one is original solitude, and that's what Philip Neri would go off, just like Jesus did, in that solitude. And you said something important in there. It said it's not about I'm just paraphrasing, but it's not to endure solitude or being alone. It's about learning who you are and who the Lord is. So then, when I come together with other people, I can receive this love and then be this love in the world. And you made that point so well. I thought it was beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly, and that comes a lot from Thomas the Compass in the Imitation of Christ, where he says and sometimes, when I've gone out in the company of men, I've come back less a man, and so we need that reset.
Speaker 2:We see it in the Lord, the Lord going off to lonely places to pray, to recharge. So Philip was really one of those contemplative active fusions. You know that like he was active in ministry but it wasn't, you know he knew he needed. He could be for hours praying and he would go into ecstasy sometimes where his limbs would turn numb just from praying for so long. But he also recognized that when people came to his room he said Carl Newman said he would leave Christ for Christ. You know he would leave Christ for Christ. And he said people could chop wood on my back as far as they want, as long as they don't sin, you know. So if people would interrupt him, like you know, if he was praying in his room, he would come right down.
Speaker 2:It was like this charity of himself that he would give of himself to other people so unselfishly. And I think a lot of times that's convicting for us, because we were like I want my quiet time, or, you know, the kids are coming in and bothering me, or you know I don't want to do this parish ministry, we can't get overextended. But to the extent that we need to be charitable with our own self and our time, I think that's something a lot of us can learn from that. There's a lot we can give that we hold back from, you know, from giving just out of selfishness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how many parents I just to bring it right up to speed here, how many parents that I speak to? And you know there's reasons for that. They're tired, they're coming home from work, they're both working whatever. But it's so important. We tell men all the time, rob, it's so important when you walk in that door that is not the time to be selfish. I mean, you know you're going to have to find a time later on to do it, but if those kids run up to you and they want to see you, your wife actually comes the door and says hello. Right, in a lot of cases it's not because she's tired and you're home Now she wants to disappear. Right, if she's been home for a while. And we understand all this. But at the end of the day, if you can just give that boom, give back and just remember hey, this is not about me. You've got to dig deep, rob, for some of that.
Speaker 2:But that makes a big impact. It's also a noble vocation too, because Philip Neary, he wasn't married, I mean, for most of his life he was a layman, then he became a priest. For us married men, our vocations are different, but the domestic church is our home and we build up from the ground up. We build strong families through good fathership and mothership. And then we, you know, we build up these families and then those become witnesses in the public realm of why does this family do what they do? Why do they go to church on Sundays? Why do they pray before their meals? You know. So we serve as that witness. But we need strong families. St John Chrysostom talks about that. When everything is in order, you know, and the children are raised well, everything takes off from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and this is where you're really seeing the cultural breakdown, and I think this is what's making it worse than probably any other time in history. Wars were always there, families were divided up, all kinds of things happen all the time. But here we're just doing it purposely. You know, we we 43% of every child born in the United States today is born out of wedlock. You just can't make this stuff up right. In certain big cities like New York and I'm here in Chicago, outside of Chicago, we're aborting as many children that are being born and you just go, whoa man. And then we, you know, we lost even the meaning of marriage itself. What is marriage? It could be anything, everything. And these poor kids, we meet Rob in high schools and stuff, we do high school retreats and things, and they are confused brother. So, yeah, when you can set those kind of examples in your own little way, it's an important thing to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the thing about Philip Neary was that he was a light. He was a I think Cardinal Newman talks about it like a magnet to iron filaments Like people were drawn to him because of his joy and his personality. We can be that light as well, whether it's as a father to kids who don't have fathers, as a mother to mother people who are, you know, young girls, or even just as a family unit to be a witness to those who don't have that, don't even have any basis for what a healthy family looks like, or a Christian family, you know. So we can be that, and then we have these saints. Philip Neary is just one of them, but for me, he was a great example of ones that you can be. You can draw people to yourself, not through a harsh personality, but somebody who draws people in just because they like being around them.
Speaker 1:I love that. When I was a young guy I was kind of a quasi-hippie of sorts and, like you in your journey home, I was into the Buddha and I was into Eastern. I mean, we're searching right, and this is what I think we're missing today too, because when we don't go into silence, rob, you said about the heart the heart is the core. That's why we talk about Jesus's heart and our hearts so much, because you know the catechism starts out, you know, right in the beginning, section one, chapter one, paragraph one, with the heart. And the heart means the core of who we are, kind of body, soul, conscience, everything, the core of who we are. That heart stops beating physically, but also the soul, right, the heart of the soul stops. So we get that in silence. Huh, we get that. It's so important for us because we're not. We're kind of living getting blown around by the spirit of the age.
Speaker 2:I was going to say I make an analogy a lot that I don't know where I came up with it, but like the church and the religion are. You know, people get down on organized religion, but I like to think of the church and religion as the skeleton that keeps all the organs protected. It holds up the body, it gives us form, it gives us something you know, enables us to walk around. If we were just heart and just skin and organs, we'd be a blob on the floor, you know. So the church is just as important, and you know Philip was.
Speaker 2:You know he would always bring people back to the sacraments, to the mass, to the scriptures, to hymns and to each other. But all of that encompasses the body of the church and that, you know, for better or worse, it's an organized religion. I think it's for better, but a lot of people see it as something that's, um, they don't need. But I think they're suffering because of that, because they don't have any purpose, they don't have any structure or self-discipline or form, or even somebody telling them you shouldn't do that or you should do that.
Speaker 1:There's a reason why we don't do this you know, yeah, and I think that that came out in in your uh, you know in in your story Again, we got the Buddha, we got Confucius, we got all these different things. But at the end, if you sit in silence and this is my earlier point that I probably didn't finish If you sit in silence, you start to understand, you seek the truth. I think, especially as young men the young men that we know, I was like that, you were like that in your story right, we're seeking the truth. And now we don't seek the truth. You know, we're just getting blown around in this world of moral relativism.
Speaker 1:And that's what the church gives us to your point. It gives us the structure. Here's the Ten Commandments, you know, here's these teachings, etc. Etc. It keeps you on these guide rails so that when you're searching for the truth, you're not making a disaster out of your whole life. You know and you don't have that in other even you know Protestant denominations. You know that I can go down the street and hear a pastor say something totally different. Now I can hear a priest do that too in a Catholic church, but I know what he's saying is not the truth. And we know that we have this beauty, don't we Rob, of it just being passed down, and these saints lived this out in different ways. It's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the four marks of the church was really a big part of my conversion. It's one, so it's one, whether you're in Mozambique or Russia or United States. Holy, you know. The church itself is holy, even though the members aren't always apostolic. One holy Catholic. So it's universal and apostolic, which means it's passed down from the apostles. That's really important.
Speaker 1:It's so important. We tried to goof up our kids as much as we could. When we were younger, I married a non-practicing Methodist and I was a non-practicing catholic. When we got married kind of like your in a sense your parents, you know where you said they didn't really have that strong. I think your father had a stronger faith. Right at least was going to church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean my mother and yeah, I mean they would go to church here and there. But he had a catholic background, but he had a very. He didn't have much of a catechesis, um, so he didn't really know much about the faith. It was just so a lot of my catechism later in life was teaching my father things about the faith, um, and hoping to bring him back confession and mass and everything like that.
Speaker 1:So my uh, our oldest daughter was baptized Catholic, and then the next two were baptized Methodist, and and and so, anyways, my son graduates from college and he came home to live for a little while, and my buddies from the local Catholic church. I was going to said, hey, congratulations on your son, jake. And I said he's a smart kid. What do you think he was going to get out of college? He goes no, no, no, he's an RCIA. And he was going to surprise me. He didn't know.
Speaker 1:I knew everybody and I asked him. I said Jake, how come you know he was just out of college. I said how come you decided to do that? And he said Dad, you remember we used to sit there and you told me this story one time. He said you're an old man sitting on a rocking chair and you were starting to get it, but then you look back and you saw how much damage you did to other people because you had no guideline, no rules, no, nothing to live by. And he said I didn't want the next new wave religion. I had enough of that already in college. And he said I wanted something with deep roots.
Speaker 1:And I started to study different religions and I realized the deep roots of Catholicism, reaching all the way into the Old Testament, and he said this isn't going to change, is it, dad? This is holding the truth and I'm just walking into it, but I want to know the truth. How should I live? This is what you're talking about in your book, I think.
Speaker 2:Rob and in our own journeys right.
Speaker 1:Yep exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're on a firm foundation, even though things are swirling all around us and even in the church. You know you can't always count on going to your local Catholic church and hearing. You know you might hear some wacky things from the pulpit, but that's why it's important to educate yourself to read the catechism, to read the scriptures, to pray and find people who are on the same journey as well, because that's how we kind of learn to discern, through grace Is this right in line? I mean, we can put our firm rock on Christ and on his church, but sometimes the ministers leave a little bit to be desired.
Speaker 1:Sometimes yeah, rob, as we start to wind down a little bit, let's talk about the oratory, because I think that's important, because that's really what we talk about with this claim, or Miletus Christi, this apostle that we have for young men, and we tell them get together, right, First, find one or two that you can disciple. We have a whole outline that's very easy to follow. And Claymore, miletus Christi. If you get a chance, rob, take a look at it, because share it with young guys too, because it goes along with a book like yours, because this gives you that structure we were talking about, but it does it in an informal way. It's not like you got to follow A, b, c, d, e, right, it hits everything that we need to know and think about, but it's not going to tell you exactly what to do every moment. Right, that's part of our discipleship journey.
Speaker 1:But that oratory always sounds interesting to me because we're bringing people together and we're sharing these stories. Because our earlier point, this can be very frustrating sometimes to someone that's trying to help change the world, huh, and we realize we can't always do that. I know with the John Paul II Renewal Center, I would have quit a long time ago without my friends, my buddies, the people that supported us and said, no, no, no, jack, this is good work. You know we need this in our families. You're helping me, you're helping this and you realize, okay, well, there's a little bit we're doing and we start to share our stories, rob, just like your story. When I read your story, I go, yes, I want to know Rob, I want to know his journey, I want to know Philip Neary, I want to know these people because, you know, we're all sharing our stories and saying this is real, this is powerful and I love it. How else do you want to live after all that? Huh?
Speaker 2:Exactly, and we can't look like the priests also, because the priests are, you know, no priest no church.
Speaker 2:So the oratories provide a place where priests can live in community as well.
Speaker 2:So that is an advantage, because a lot of parish priests, unfortunately, are isolated, they're on their own, they're overworked, they need community as much as us lay people do even more so sometimes.
Speaker 2:So the oratories that are in existence still in existence today, and even when you go to like a Newman Center on campus, if you're a new college student and you go to Newman Center named after Carl Newman, that provides a safe haven and a place where students of the same faith can get together and you know whether it's a Saturday night and everybody's out drinking, but instead you're at the Newman Center. We used to have something at Penn State called Saturday Night, Alive in Christ, where we pray and have adoration and things like that. So it's a more healthy outlet. But, yeah, the oratories are just. They're not like I said, it's not a monastic order, it's not like the Jesuits or the Benedictines, but it allows that opportunity to be in community with one another and that's really important to living out your vocation as a Catholic, whether as a lay person or as a priest. And they're in existence all over the world.
Speaker 1:So the oratories that are around say, in the United States, are they mostly made up of priests or is it, like you say, a combination? In other words, if I want to join something like that, or at least look into it, do I do it as a lay person, or am I doing it as a priest, or are they separate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, John, I mean I'll plead the fifth on that, because I'm not really sure, I think they were established for.
Speaker 1:You know why, rob? Because what you said I find all the time, part of what I do is go out and meet with priests in their parishes. So many of these priests are stretched way, way, way too thin and they're living by themselves in a rectory made for three or four priests covering two or three parishes. And these people they need, they need to build community, and I always suggest to them, I said, can you, you know, take two or three of your priests from that are covering a fairly wide geography and live in one rectory. You know, like just this is our home. We may not be here every night, because you know I might have to be. I have a parish 20 miles away and I got to get up early, I get it, but at least a place called home where Jack and Rob and this priest and that priest can come together and, you know, make dinner together, talk together. So it's so important, isn't it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's healthy too. It's just healthy community.
Speaker 1:Yes it is.
Speaker 2:I don't presume to tell priests how to live their lives or how to structure their community, but I think it does offer some benefits.
Speaker 1:Well, what's the last word on Philip Neary? And also, where can we buy the book, and do you have any particular website that they can go to if they want to, maybe where you have this journey already?
Speaker 2:linked up. Where can we go for all?
Speaker 1:that Rob.
Speaker 2:If you Google my name, Rob Marco, all my articles will come up. I think the Journey Home episode will come up.
Speaker 1:Is it?
Speaker 2:robmarcocom. No, it's just Google, rob Marco. The book can be purchased on Amazon or on Scepter Press's website. It's co-hosted by Philip Neary, lessons in Joy by Scepter Publishers and you can read reviews. It's gotten a lot of good feedback lately from people who are saying it's accessible, it's not super long and you can pick it up and chip away at it. But it's not. It's very accessible, it's very easy to read, but it's very. It has a lot of meat in in in between the pages. So that's available on Scepter's website or on Amazon. And then my my first book was a collection of essays, is about 400 pages. That's on Amazon as well. It's called Wisdom and Folly Essays on Faith, life and Everything in Between, and that's a collection of all the essays I've written over the past 10 years on manhood, on marriage, on the church, on faith, on prayer, on everything you can think of related to a Catholic life.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. Well, I'll get those show links in there. Hey, thank you so much, rob. Really appreciate your time, and thanks everybody. Thanks for joining us today. We'll talk to you again soon. Bye-bye, thanks, chuck.