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
#675 Triple Play Day: The Eucharist, Fatima, And Saint John Paul II: With John Preiss, director of the Fatima Family Apostolate
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A feast day, a friend, and a fight worth entering. We set the stage with Saint John Paul II, the Eucharist, and Our Lady of Fatima, then welcome John Preiss, a Catholic convert and director of the Fatima Family Apostolate, to share how a quiet hour before the Blessed Sacrament can upend a life, launch a mission, and heal a home. John’s story moves from Lutheran roots and cassette-tape apologetics to a providential friendship with Fr. Robert J. Fox, the beloved author and youth leader who formed generations through Fatima. A double “bell” moment in adoration confirmed John’s call to serve and eventually steward Fr. Fox’s legacy through a museum, a family-focused apostolate, and a renewed edition of a rich book on the Eucharist.
Together we trace the thread: why Jesus’ words “This is my body” demand a response; how adoration calms anxiety and clarifies decisions; and why the final battle over marriage and the family calls for fathers present at home, mothers rooted in hope, and children formed by truth.
If your heart feels restless, if your home feels thin, or if you’re searching for clarity in a loud world, this conversation offers a simple path: sit before Jesus, ask boldly, listen deeply, and act faithfully.
Find the Fatima Family Apostolate at fatimafamily.org, and get Fr. Fox’s book, Eucharist, Heaven and Earth Meet via Sophia Institute Press
If this moved you, subscribe, share it with a friend, and leave a review to help others find their way back to the Eucharistic heart of the Church.
Here are the links to Jack's latest Substack : The Plan of Life and the Christian Vocation: To Love as God Loves and Sergeant Columban Meets Padre Pio
Big day today. Very big day today. This is a triple play day. Not only are we recording on the feast day of John Paul II, as I said on relevant radio this morning in honor of John Paul II, he's my friend and mentor. So very excited to be talking on his feast day about the Eucharist, number two. And number three, we have a guest with us. John Priest is the director of the Fatima Family Apostolate. So we're going to be talking about our Blessed Mother. So we got John Paul II, we got Jesus in the Eucharist, we've got our Blessed Mother. So this is Triple Play Day.
SPEAKER_00:I appreciate being here. And I this is the triple play for sure, and hopefully the message will get out to the listeners and help them in their spiritual journey.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I'm sure it will. Well, you're an accomplished Catholic author dedicated to promoting the devotion of Our Lady of Fatima, deepening the faith of families worldwide. As a convert to the Catholic Church, you bring a passionate and personal perspective to this ministry. Your wife and you, Teresa, reside in Hansville, Alabama. You have ten children. So congratulations on that. So we've got a lot to talk about, John. So once again, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you, Jack. Yeah, it's uh I'm blessed to be here. I live in Hansville. I'm actually one mile from the shrine of the most blessed sacrament. My house is exactly one mile, so a lot of blessings come from that, you know, for our family. So yeah, we're we're here. Yeah, so we're here, and I hope hopefully uh the listeners can come visit sometime. You know, it's a beautiful place. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:All you gotta do is invite me. Winter's coming here in Chicago. I'm outside of Chicago, John, so I'm sure you're a little warmer in the wintertime than we are, right?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's a little bit better here.
SPEAKER_01:But now with 10 kids, you probably don't have much room, so I gotta get a hotel, huh? Well, I got a guest house, so you're lucky.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, you do? Uh huh. Yeah, I got a house of the holy angels we have here on the road. So if any of the listeners want to check that out too, House of the Holy Angels, we we're it's one mile from the shrine, also. It's a three-bedroom, three-bath house.
SPEAKER_01:Oh beautiful. So tell us a little bit about yourself. So I I you know I've had so many questions to talk to you about the Eucharist and and all those types of things and and your relationship with Father Robert Fox, who wrote this book, got you involved, I think, with Our Lady of Fatima too. But but before that, let's back up just a little bit. You say in your Bible says that you're a convert. You've got 10 kids. I mean, this is this is we could spend the whole day on your uh just talking about you, I'm sure, but was there a catalyst for that conversion?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I was fortunate, you know, when I growing up and I I actually was in the Lutheran church and Missouri Synod Lutherans, which is more conservative. I don't know if anybody knows much about that. So it's similar, you know, the uh the service.
SPEAKER_01:If you believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, I mean that we could go into another show uh just on on that, but yes, they do yeah, they are more conservative.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and so I met a friend that he had a family that had eight children, right? And he came from eight children, he was one of the eight, and we started just hanging out together, doing things, and he started talking to me about the Catholic Church, and I really never thought about it before. But really, what struck me was how much it made sense, and he would feed me with the tape, his family would hand out tapes after Mass. Ken Hensley, Scott Hahn, Tim Staples. I got those tapes in my possession, I wore them out, I got them, I gave them out to people, and I wasn't even Catholic, I was giving them out. So is it really a big deal for me to hear the truth, hear things that made sense? And I think that's what we have to do as Catholics. Sometimes people want to know about our faith, but they just don't we can't explain it well, you know. And if we can't, we have to get the information to them. Don't just leave them hanging, you know, because you know, we we uh we do the watering, right? And uh the Holy Spirit does the rest. So that's kind of where I'm at. I I came into the church in the year 2000.
unknown:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:It's just been uphill since then, you know, and just really uh it's been a great thing for me. It's really changed my life, and I'm glad to be a part of it.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's beautiful. Were you married already when you came into the church?
SPEAKER_00:No, I wasn't married yet. And uh the same person, his cousin is who I married, so it's just uh this guy I owe a lot to, you know.
SPEAKER_01:But yeah, isn't that beautiful?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I met her and I was taking when I met her, I was taking the it's called OCA now, I guess, but it was RCIA back then and had a conversion and went through the process and and then uh here we are.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, how beautiful that now now how about is the director of the the Fatima uh family apostolate? Is that a full-time gig, John, or is that something that you you do on the side? Tell us a little bit about that.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so in uh 2003 I met Father Fox, who wrote the book that we're gonna be talking about on the Eucharist. Father Link.
SPEAKER_01:Let me hold let me hold that up for a little bit. You know, this is really a special book. I'll just say this. I I'll I'll actually put this up behind me as we're speaking later on because I think it's that important. But anyways, go ahead, uh John. I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so uh so shortly after my conversion in 2000, in 2003, the same guy asked me to go help him because I'm in construction real estate. So he asked me to go help him do this remodel. Well, we went to Father Fox's house, moved to Alabama, he was from South Dakota, moved to Alabama, wanted to be close to the shrine and Mother Angelica and Edo TN. And so I went over there and we were remodeling, and I met Father, and I was intrigued by his just the way he was, his reverence, his uh somebody that writes that many books. He wrote close to 50 books. I was intrigued by that, you know. I was like, wow, this guy has a lot of stuff I want to know about. And so I started talking to him gradually, and then we became friends. I started visiting him, and he would come to the house for dinner and things like that, and just it was a friendship first. And as he got older and then he got sick, I started helping him more, just taking care of him. And I always would ask him, How is the apostolate doing? And uh he would tell me, and then through the Eucharist through Eucharistic adoration, I became involved in the apostolate. So that's kind of a neat story to tie in with what we'll be talking about. I seen that father was really stressed out, the apostolate was in Minnesota, father was living in Alabama, and I just seen that something it was bothering him, you know, and things weren't working out the way he wanted to. And I went to Eucharistic adoration, I knelt down in the church, I asked our Lord, and I asked the blessed mother, if you want me to help Father Fox, I need a sign because I want to be bold about it, right? This is a big deal. And uh I heard these most beautiful bells that you could ever hear. I sat there for a minute and I was like, you know, I don't believe it. And I asked again. I said.
SPEAKER_01:So just for our our we have these young guys, I I I mentioned uh to you, John, hold on to that thought because we have these young guys. The sword behind me is a big claymore sword. Their apostolate is called Claymore for Gen Z men a little older than them that are that are looking for something more. So I'm just an explain most of our audience knows what adoration is, but adoration is when you're when you're quiet, you know, in front of the Eucharist, there's monstrance, everyone that's holding up the Eucharist, you're you're sitting in silence, and John, so John, when you hear these bells, this is not normal. This is not something that's coming out in the church, right? You uh or are you hearing some type of a of a bell for benediction at that time?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so this wasn't something normal. And then I you know, at first your thing is the cell phone, you know, we just started having cell phones then, and but I I knew the people that was in the church was the good thing. The people other two people that were in there, I knew them, and I even asked them later. I didn't tell them what I heard because you know that you know how that gets around sometimes. But the the good point is is that I asked the same question. Yeah, we you know, I I didn't believe that, the bells. I didn't believe it. So probably a minute later I said, Blessed Mother Jesus, if you want me to help Father Fox and the Fatima Family Apostle, I need a sign. And I heard the bells again. So that's when I knew that.
SPEAKER_01:So you heard you heard the bells for the second time, John?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So that's when I knew that I was called to I was called to do that. Uh it was difficult. You know, I had babies, I had little babies, and uh my wife was, I think she's probably pregnant with another one. We're just getting our I'm in construction, so when you asked about the apostolate, it's not a full-time job. Kind of is, but it isn't. I don't get paid to work at the apostolate. My real job is in real estate and construction, and uh, I do that. My boys work for me too. But uh yeah, it's just uh once that happened, it changed my life. You know, it was a life-changing situation there that happened, but it was because of just telling the listeners if you have an issue in your life that you're dealing with, if you're going through something that's difficult, go to the blessed sacrament, sit there in front of the tabernacle in adoration, spill your heart out, whatever it is, you'll get your answer. But sometimes I've been there before and it's been a no. I've been there before, it's been a no. And uh I think we've all been there that's really into the Eucharistic adoration is that hey, it wasn't what God wanted for me. It wasn't it wasn't the right timing, or things like that happen. So, or it wasn't totally for me at all. It might have been for someone else. So just for the young guys too that are listening, and for the people that listen to the program, if you got something that's heavy on your heart, that's where you need to be.
SPEAKER_01:So, John, when you do that, and when you say that to these young guys, and thank you for that, I agree, of course, a hundred percent. Can you let them know, say they're kneeling in adoration? You know, uh Matthew 7 7, right? Ask, seek, and knock. Jesus wants us to ask when we're seeking and knock, right? That's correct. The door is the door handle, you're in construction, the door handle's on my side. You know, Jesus isn't gonna open up from his side. We have to open up the door because we have free will, and God respects that free will. But he's gonna come in. So, so after you ask, and when you heard those bells, are you sitting back? Give us just a little uh again, pretend like you just came back into the church uh for the first time, and just take uh 30 seconds and just say, okay, this is what I do then. Do I do I sit there and listen then? Do I sit back? You know, what what give these guys a little gift, will you, John?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think what happens is that you do sit back and you do listen and you and you reflect and you're thankful and you're grateful. You know, I think that's one thing that we forget about is that even in good situations, we don't give God the credit like we should. Uh but even in the bad times, you know, that uh w when we're dealing with something, we're not really you know, it's God is we gotta be there even in the good times and the bad times. We gotta be there in front of him and his presence. Now the the unique thing that happened with me that day was that I remember just I kind of was dazed a little bit about it, and I forgot about it for a couple probably a week or two. And then I was upstairs in a house that I was working on, and I was in the bathroom putting up a mirror above the vanity. You know, you had the sink and a mirror there, and I was putting that mirror in, I get a phone call.
SPEAKER_01:We're gonna ask you to join us by helping us get the word out. So if you can make sure you subscribe and then hit like, no matter uh which platform you're on. Remember that the Become Who You Are podcast is on uh audio on any music or podcast app. We're up on Rumble, YouTube, you can find us on X. When you do, subscribe, hit the like button. A couple a couple things to share with people. I love Ed. I love Ed, it's just such an important uh apostolate. So it's in within our apostolate, the John Paul II Renewal Center. This helps parents give the talk to their children. Uh we're trying to push back on all these gender ideologies and the porn culture and give the give children the uh the truth and do it through their parents, and we help them do that. The other one is really taken off too. It's uh Claymore, Militants Christie. Soldiers for Christ. That's when you see the sword behind me. That's the big sword. That's our logo for Claymore, that's a Claymore sword, and this is for young people, especially young men, Gen Z, high school, all the way through, let's call it till they're till they're uh 30 years old or so. They're starting to really understand that something nefarious, very toxic, is going on in the culture. And so uh they're stepping into the church and we're discipling them. So we want to help get those the word out about those things. And lastly, consider uh financially supporting us. Everything's in the show notes. Hey, God bless you. Thanks again.
SPEAKER_00:Now look down and it's like during the day, and it's like Father Fox, he usually didn't call me during the day unless it was something important. So he calls me and he says, Hey, do you have a few minutes? I'd like to talk to you about something. I said, Yes, Father, I got a few minutes. I'm not gonna tell him no, of course, you know. So I so I said, Yeah, Father, I got a few minutes. So he started talking and he said, I would like you to be the executor of my will and the vice president of the Fatima Family Apostolate. And I didn't tell him about the bills. Unbelievable. So that's why I continue to do what I do, even in a difficult time. Yes, I would like to be compensated financially. I'd like I'd love to do this full time. I'd love to do rode radio shows with you all day, you know, if I could. If it paid my bills, you know, I'd love to that that's what I love this part. I love it, you know, and I love that people are being touched. You know, we have a museum here in Hansville, the Father Robert J. Fox, our Lady F. Adam Museum. We have people from all over the world that will stop in and visit. It doesn't do that well, but it does well enough to where when you speak to somebody and they leave and they're like, I never heard of that before, or they were touched. That's when you know that you just do it. You know, you just do it and God will provide in some way. And that's that's just what I've been doing, you know, with the apostles for the last since Father passed away, since 2009.
SPEAKER_01:Wow, and and you're right. He will compensate you in other ways sometimes, you know. Maybe you'll get an extra contract or two, you know, uh through your through your the work that you are doing. Maybe you'll get sick less often. You know, I found that in my own life, John, that you know, again with the John Paul II Renewal Center, you know, we're always scratching for dollars and things too. You know, we're up against Satan with his billionaires, and uh, and we're always but but somehow it it works. And somehow uh he lets me drive my car a little longer, he lets, you know, whatever. And he does compensate. You know, it's it's amazing. So thank you for sharing that. And I'm gonna get down there. You got me intrigued now. So did you move the the center, did you say, for Minnesota? Did you move it down to Alabama now?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so what happened after that is um we decided to move it. I told Father it'd be better if I was close by. You know, Minnesota doesn't do me very well, and we didn't have financially it would have been a a strain, a big strain to fly back and forth and check things out. So I said, Father, I can build a building. Let's go find some land downtown. And and so I did. I built a center, a Fatima family center downtown. But we're like at the time we're like four and a half percent Catholic here. Now we're about six percent, six and a half, so it really wasn't something that worked out well there. So we use the building now. I have an office there, and we rent it sometimes. We'll use it for like events for homeschoolers and and things like that, and dances and stuff like that. And we'll also rent it sometimes for quincinetas for the Spanish people, and then but we have this museum here that we kind of coordinate and meet people and do things here too more. So, but I I hoped it I was hoping it would work, and it it still could be something there that could work if I really could put the effort in that I need to put into it, but it's still there, and like I said, I have an office there and well send me, you know, send me that the links, will you make sure we we get your contact information?
SPEAKER_01:You send me the links to there so people can check that out and uh and and and maybe financially help you too. So that would be awesome to do. Let let let's let's move into to Father Fox. You told us how you became involved now with him. You know, so what's what's the mission, first of all, with your with your Fatima family apostolate? You know, families are getting wrecked. You know, when you think about Sister Lucia, she wrote that Cardinal Kafara and John Paul II. And I'm sure you've heard this, John. The last great battle between our Lord and Satan is gonna be over marriage and the family. There's nothing we can do that's gonna serve our Lord more than build up marriage in the family in today's times.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, Jack, I mean, you can see it if you look around, it's very obvious of what uh what the family and what's what what's taking place here. You know, the structure in the family is evident everywhere you look through abortion, through transgender, through those types of things. It's just like total attack on the family. And Sister Lucia was right in that prediction. And so our apostolate, there's a lot of Fatima apostolates. Uh, you have American East Fatima, you have the World Apostolate of Fatima, you have Fatima, you know, there's a lot of them. And they're all good, there's a lot of them are good. They're, you know, they're good apostolates. But ours, the difference is Fatima family apostolate. And what we try to do is through the writings of Father Fox, because he dealt with youth, he would bring a hundred, I don't know if you knew this, but he would bring 150 youth to Fatima every year. He did that for 20 years. Wow. 200 of those that are either priests, religious sisters, or religious brothers. So it's a good tree line there, you know, it's a good outreach. But we I can't do that anymore. I'm not a priest and I can't travel to Fatima every year. But we can get them the information. We can get families the information. Father wrote a lot on family life, he wrote on like audios, he even had audios, teenagers in the Ten Commandments, things like that. Storytime for children. The 90 lives of the Saints for the children. So our whole apostle is geared towards family information. We have some lives.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's exciting. Very exciting, and that's exactly where you need to be. Just take it where it is, John, and and just keep plugging along because look at the battles are so intense right now with families. You already mentioned you know, the two pillars, of course, uh abortion, and then the this redefinition of marriage to mean everything, and then of course it's meaningless, it means nothing then. And we're seeing the destruction really with young people. We we have a high school apostolate that goes out and does high school retreats and things like that. And those kids are so many of them are so lost, so searching, and we have to be there for them. Nobody else, it seems like it is, but my point is this we can't expect this to be easy, John. We find this with the John Paul II Renewal Center, we find this with with uh everybody, any anybody, just like Sister Lucia said, anybody that's working for marriage or the family is going to be under attack. Uh she said, Don't worry, because our lady has already uh crushed his head, but expect it. And so we're gonna just take it where it lies, John. Uh it's you know, it's sometimes uh we get frustrated because we're not as big or or getting bigger or more people aren't hearing the message. We've been up against that since we started this in 2007. And uh it's because you think there's something you're doing, it's the culture is just pressing in and pressing in and pressing in. And we just have to keep those seeds alive. We we listen and we do the best we can, and and like you said, let the Holy Spirit work through us and and do what he will.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, that's right. I mean, and really with the family, the big part and the big issue is the parents, the father not being present is the life number one thing that we're dealing with today, with the ones that I'm the people that I encounter, and the you know, and then you know the other problem is like finding like my children uh especially too are getting to that age of finding a good spouse or somebody that you know has moral, you know, it's just a it's just a sad state right now that we're in. So it makes the mission stronger because like father wrote a book on masculinity. We need to get that, you know, that needs to be out there more. Femininity, we need to preach that more. We need to it's just we've lost something there that the disconnect. And so you see the children today, and it's good families. You know, I've I've seen families that they have eight, ten children, and there's a disconnect in there, and it's just sad because you think they, you know, they're going to m they would go to mass every you know every day almost and make holy hours, there just became a disconnect. And it's just because the father you have to do you can go and do everything inside the church and that's great, but the father has to be there in the home, regardless of what his work schedule is. The the mother definitely has to be present. So it's the parents a lot of this falls back on them. And so I think that's what we have to really work on today.
SPEAKER_01:You know what you're you're a hundred percent right. You know, forty-three percent of every all the children born in 43% of the children born in the United States today are born out of wedlock. I I think it's it's the lar it's it's the biggest percent in in the Western world is here in the United States. We see this attack. We see this attack, you know, if you kill children in the womb, but if if they get out the door, uh you know, these these gender ideologies are after them. We have this pornographic culture, getting back to what you said, you can't even find a good spouse. My heart goes out to these young people, but but we can't give up and we have to have faith. And that's why we ask, that's why I wanted you to talk about adoration a little bit when these people are searching for a spouse, when they're searching for answers, to go to Christ Himself and listen, right? Speak to Him, tell Him everything that's on your heart and then listen. And that's what we do when we read scripture, right? So I you're right on a hundred percent. And but we know this is gonna be a battle, John. All I can say to you is don't give up, brother, because uh we need each other and and Christ is gonna work with us. He's not gonna leave us, but we're we're having problems in the church all the way up into the Vatican, confusing signals coming on. But John Paul II and Vatican II called up the universal call to holiness of the laity. This is the time for the laity to rise up and make sure you know your faith, and we're sharing our faith with other people, and that's what you're doing, John. So we'll keep you in our purse. Let's talk a little bit about part of this triple play on the Eucharist. You know, when you came into the Catholic Church, and and they in, you know, we have the Eucharist, and hopefully you found a reverent mass, huh, that that appreciates the Eucharist. But this is powerful. I it when I came back into the church, it was through the death of one of my brothers that brought me back into the church on his deathbed, and it was in the Mass the next day or a couple days later as a memorial mass. This presence just blew my heart apart. I've been away from the church at that time for 20 years. So I know the reality of the Eucharist, John. So let's talk a little bit about Father Fox and and and what you learned through the Eucharist and why is it so difficult uh for people to grasp, right? I'm gonna throw a lot at you, John, but talk us to us a little bit about your experience about the book, about Father Fox, and what the Eucharist means.
SPEAKER_00:Well, to me, I remember, you know, when you you come into the church, this kind of like something that you really think about is they talk about the Eucharist, the Eucharist, and Jesus is in the church. I remember one time I had this encounter, I was starting to go into a Catholic adult group before I became Catholic. And uh, I started going there, and this older gentleman, he was probably at the time in his 80s, and I was talking to him about some stuff, and he's telling me, you just got to go into church, Jesus is in there, Jesus is in there. And you know, as a Protestant, I'm thinking, well, you know, Jesus is everywhere, right? And so, but then I started reading about the Eucharist and I started trying to understand what it meant. And those tapes, you know, Scott Hahn, Ken Hensley, Tim Staples, really helped me out a lot. And really, the the the wording, you know, do this in memory of me or do this in remembrance of me. This is my body. He didn't say, I think this is my body, and I'm I I think you need to you remember this, you know. But he said, This is my body, this is my blood. So that stuck with me. And I'm thinking, you know, he said that. He said, This is my body, this is my blood. So this is if Jesus said it, it's true. Why can't other people get this? You know, it's so simple. And so then I started sitting there, and then I started going to adoration. And one thing that was unique with me in the adoration was that it got to the point to where I had a struggle with leaving my church that I was with because my parents, uh, one thing, my dad was really a staunch Lutheran. He was a grade school, went to the Lutheran high school, and he was from Ohio. Well, he he lived in Ohio during his schooling years. So, and he would tell me all the the Catholics, they kissed the Blessed Mother statue and all this strange stuff, and you know, kind of stuff like that. So I was getting all this, and I'm here and then here I'm gonna have to tell them, hey, I'm gonna convert to the Catholic Church. So I started going and making visits to the church, and then I worked for a company that was close by the church in town where I worked, and it got to the point where I couldn't drive by that church without stopping. That's how the impact it made on my life is like that's where I was getting my comfort, that's where I was getting my answers, that's where I was feeling at peace. Oh, and because I had my family, you know, if your family is your comfort, right? You feel like your family is your comfort, but when you start going against what they're they were teaching, you feel alone. And so, where do you go when you feel alone? You go to Jesus, and where is Jesus? He's in the church, he's in the tabernacle, he's in the monstrance, he's at mass. So that's what I've started doing. It was like, you know, that it was like that tabernacle in there was like this big magnet, and I was a piece of metal, and it's just drawing me. I mean, it's just it was like that for a long time. And then, you know, as I converted and came through, it kind of dies a little bit, and you gotta rekindle that. You gotta that's one thing that I think as Catholics, as we move on in our journey, is okay, I've done all that, and I go to Mass on Sunday, and I've that's okay. No, you have to rekindle your faith on a daily basis and grow in your spiritual journey. You can't just expect Jesus to throw something at you, and you just and if he does throw something, it's usually not a he allows something that's not great to happen that brings you back. So I would rather keep going and and keep in tune with him and keep in touch with him, and that's where I feel at peace with him. I even had an encounter with a a person that said uh they had an issue with their father. They had a a problem with their father that is hard to forgive, and they felt like their whole life was a lie and all this stuff, but they're good Catholic people. And she started going to to adoration two years making visits. It could be 10 minutes or 20 minutes or 30 minutes or an hour for two years, and after that two years, she was pretty much healed of that feeling of total forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01:You know what? Go ahead, John.
SPEAKER_00:No, I'm just saying, so that's I mean, that's just that's the power of the Eucharist. That's the power right now.
SPEAKER_01:When I when we see so many people, you know, seventy percent of Americans today are on some kind of prescription drug, opioids and uh anxiety medicine being uh two and three on that list. There is so much mental illness going on with young people we're seeing. If they would spend time in adoration, like you said. If they would spend time in prayer. If they because there's nothing that's going to you know, when you have an anxious heart, I speak to so many people that are anxious today. And I say, you know, I think you're anxious and that's a good thing because you're not going to mass, you're not praying, you're you're living in a secular world, and your heart is telling you something. You know, I am anxious because, like Saint Augustine said, you know, our hearts are restless, Lord, until they rest in you. What you're describing, John, is an intimacy with our Lord that we think is too good to be true. It can't be true, right? And so we we don't give Christ any time, just like a man who gets involved, so involved in work, he doesn't spend any time with his wife in a relationship. Both of them crumble because this is all about intimacy. This is all about a relationship, you know. And when Christ gives himself into the Eucharist, this is the bridegroom on the cross, this is the bridegroom pouring himself out to his bride, and we are the bride. We kneel with our blessed mother at the bottom of that cross and we open ourselves up, uh, our fiat. Yeah, let it be done to me according to your word. I take that, and then I walk into my house, and now I got something to give, right, John? I mean, we're trying to give something to our wife, our friends, our kids, and we don't have it. We're dried up, we're like the vine separated from from from the branch from the vine. And we we expect everything to go okay. Catholic families, you mentioned this, they're getting beat up today because they're not continuing to grow in their faith, or or they get disengaged. Or, yeah, sometimes we go to mass, sometimes we don't. Satan loves that, John. Satan loves that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I think that's a big deal today. I mean, with and I'm I'm a big I love sports. I love sports, and but this travel ball and all this stuff that's taking you away from your extracurricular activities are more important than your spiritual activities, and that's that's a big problem. And one thing, you know, we're talking about the book, and what I love about the book for me also is that it gave me a better understanding. See, I wrote I read the book probably when Father first wrote it around 2006, 2007, I guess. So, yeah, talk about that a little bit because this is like a a bringing it out again, isn't it? Yeah. And so it's a reprint, re-edit type deal. But back then, you know, as you grow in your faith, and this is good for anybody, I think, because for me, especially, because when you're younger and you feel like, I mean, I can remember even in the apostolate, I was like, you kind of get a little pride. Well, Father, I'm the president of the Father Fox's apostolate here, and they're calling me to do a radio interview, and I'm like, okay, I got this. And then when you get to the radio interview and you don't know any questions, and you be humbled, then you realize, you know what, I gotta be, you know, I gotta take a different approach on this. So when I first read the book, it didn't mean what it means today to me, because I understand it better. But what I love about the book is Father kind of goes through a chronological order of first starting out with the biblical roots of the mass, you know, the uh the bread from heaven, the manna from heaven, the uh feeding of five thousand, the wedding feast of Canaan, so many scriptural attributes in here, just on that first chapter. The church flows from the Eucharist, the chapter two, you know, this is the essence of our faith, right? So all these chapters kind of go in an order to where we're building up to today in our life. And also the book is great for like study guide format or or uh uh family format or even reference. You know, there's so much in here that you can get a highlighter. I told somebody on an interview, I think it was Doug Keck when I was doing the bookmark, I said, you know what? This one you can read probably five times and still miss some stuff because yeah, there's just so much information in here that I was kind of leery on some interviews because if somebody asked me the wrong question, I might not know it. You know, it's just so much stuff.
SPEAKER_01:There is so I I'll tell you what, you you're exactly right. It starts with the biblical roots for all it especially for my uh Protestant and evangelical friends, who I have many, many of them. In fact, many of them I'm closer to than I am uh with some Catholics that are talk about, you know, uh not taking their faith seriously. Where I know some evangelicals, I would love to have them, you know, understand the Eucharist just because they're on fire. These people understand what we're talking about here. You know, uh they're pro-life, they're pro-marriage in the family, they're pro-patriots, they're pro-country. And so I can do more with them, John, than I can do with some, you know, some half-sleeping, apathetic Catholic in a pew behind me. And I don't mean to be flippant or anything.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean, basically you need some Charlie Kurt Catholics, you know? Charlie Kurt Catholics. If we can get some young people that knew the faith, like he knew his faith and what was going on, we wouldn't even have a discussion today, probably. Because it would infiltrate so so quickly that you know there because the fire, it's just a fire, too. That if you could tell when someone really loves their faith or into it, that it's attractive.
SPEAKER_01:It's attractive. 100%. And I was gonna mention to you about Charlie Kirk, thank you for bringing him up because he's a true martyr. He's a true martyr for uh the Christian faith. And and I I noticed the last couple months, I suppose, of his life, he really started to talk about the Blessed Mother. Did you notice that at all with him?
SPEAKER_00:I noticed that. And uh she was bringing him up. Well, I understand he was pretty close to his conversion, and he would have been a martyr recognized by the church, probably, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:If he would have recognized him anyways, uh, we're gonna recognize him as a Christian martyr anyway. We sure will. We sure will. And and he was honoring our blessed mother uh in his own way and saying, hey, we have to take her uh more seriously in Protestant and evangelical circles. And and I I don't think that was by accident, do you, John?
SPEAKER_00:No, I don't think so. I think it's just uh it was just uh, you know, all this was allowed to happen for a renewal. But as Catholics, we had to step in and and bring our part in, which is the Eucharist, right? That's what they don't have that they need. If they had that fire that they have and had the Eucharist, it would be unstoppable. You know, the world would be a different place. One thing, uh one thing I want to share with real quick is about Fatima in the Eucharist. You know, Father brings that up too. And father actually was friends with the priest in Fatima that was the nephew of Sister Lucia. Wow, and so one of the things that Father asked the priest to ask Sister Lucia, he asked her, What was the most important part of Fatima for you? And she said, she said, when the angel gave us the Holy Eucharist, that was the most important part because that's when we saw things differently, we saw the world differently, we saw ourselves differently, and it it gave us the grace to, and it was purposely done because of what was going to happen in 1917 when the angel, when the Our Lady appeared. But the neat thing about when that, if you see all the pictures, and Lucia describe this, is that the reverence for the Eucharist, they're all kneeling down, bowing with their heads to the ground, even the angel was bowing. And so that's one part of the book that really struck me was when Father talked about, and I didn't realize this as a Protestant, too, you know, because I just you just don't think about these things, but the attendance at Mass. So if you're at Mass, at every Mass, the angels and the saints are there, and so and you're like, wow, this is big, you know, the big celebration, the sacrifice, the holy sacrifice. And I didn't really realize that until I read the book and just really thought about it. You know, I probably knew about it, but I didn't think about it.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, that's so beautiful. Hey, John, we're we're gonna wind up, but we got to wind up here. I I so many questions and so many more things we could talk about. I would just say that second part of that book, the second chapter, I mean, you know, I you could spend, like you said, weeks on it. The church flows from the Eucharist. It puts everything that we're talking about together in that one chapter. You could spend a lot of time meditating on that. It's so beautiful. John, we got to get you back on again. We uh we're gonna I'm gonna reach out to you uh hopefully, you know, soon, and we get you back on for part two of this. Uh, give us uh your contact information if you don't mind. What how they can learn more about the the uh Fatima Family Apostolate. Where can they reach out to you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you can uh they can go to uh fatimafamily.org. And then also for the book, you can get it at Sophia Institute Press, and you can get at EW10RC.com. So very good.
SPEAKER_01:Great, and I'll get those in the show notes, everybody, so you'll have everything in the show notes. We gotta run them coming up against the time thing. John, God bless you. We're gonna keep you in our prayers, keep you in our and and and keep us in your prayers too, will you?
SPEAKER_00:Oh, we will.
SPEAKER_01:We'll put you in our rosary, family rosary, okay. Hey, thank you so much.