so we are live I'm here with Aidan Aidan Liz Nate how are you doing setup how are you I'm doing well I I just got through doing one interview now I'm happy to be talking to an old friend you've been on a couple times I've still got another one or two of yours in the can that I need to edit at some point but always nice to talk to you and today it's a special pleasure I get to actually see your face for the first time am I not supposed to see yours you can't see me because my broadcasting software dominates my camera and will not share with any other software at least to the best of my understanding so that's climbing with that that's fine I don't need to see you'll see enough for me believe me you'll see enough of me with these if you watch it if you watch your brother Matthew I do i watch Matthew Murdock i watch my brother mm-hmm I just started watching your other video too that you just released gave me the highlights of that one quickly did what it was yeah his brother-in-law his sister's husband is I think a fairly new addition to the family and he's a Catholic so Steven alleged out to me and he said hey I'd like to chat to you about Christianity in general but also about Catholicism in particular because he's new to Catholicism he doesn't know much about it and of course being raised in the Bible Belt Mississippi is in the Bible Belt correct sure yeah I don't know I I don't um I guess it's the mason-dixon line is what they would consider like the cutoff right I don't know you don't know a minute why would you know I'm not alone but anyway so he just grilled me with questions about Mary and the Pope and tradition and this sort of thing and I retorted with my usual where did you get your can and where did you get your Bible and you know many things you believe are based on tradition too bla bla bla bla bla he seemed from what I saw because I got about 20 minutes of it he seemed to actually actively listen to you which was you know really cool to see that because I don't actively listen to people well you put your mirror away that's good I appreciate that for the interview I try but so what sorts of things have been on your mind I always like to sort of dig into the Leslie brothers Minds is it one mind or do you have to separate minds it's funny you say that I would probably be the codependent person that would say we have two minds and he would probably be like yeah he's cool but because I usually call him up when I want advice on something and then it's basically like like having this large room and then I expanded upon the room whenever I call Kieren because he can see things very similarly to how I see them but then you know turn the perspective a little bit and to a different into a different direction that I wouldn't have taken myself naturally but still feels very comfortable for me because it's um there's like that that gap being bridged by by him and us you know sharing a bedroom for 1415 years hmm have you read each other's minds in a way that would impress anyone an objective third party no it just irritates people it's um because it's just like a whole bunch of inside jokes that are obnoxious and and you start exposing your crinkling your oh I'm sorry my cat's toy I don't kiss like plenty of that no it's just all noxious stuff the most that we would ever do is I don't know sit in a restaurant together with a group of people and then everybody around that little nucleus is just mildly irritated that we sat near one another mm-hmm I have two sisters well I have three one of them died at childbirth but my parents adopted a child not really to replace the one who passed away but you know to sort of feel a void and in memory of the one who passed away and and then I have another sister my eldest sister I'm the little baby but I'm very close with my blood sister I'm close with bullit there's a sort of a psychic connection with my blood sister and we spent all three of us spent a lot of time in close proximity growing up and I have read my blood sisters mind at least once and a close friend growing up we've known each other since the age of you know less than one year old and we're very close I have also read his mind on one occasion now that is that controlled or is that just gifted does that just like random where you just all of a sudden you know is that your voice or is it his voice or their voice that you hear in in the case of my sister it was a simultaneous utterance of the exact same phrase word-for-word simultaneously in a very random and unpredictable phrase that came out of both of our mouths in the middle of a conversation which I school which made no connection with anything in any context ever the other one was even more impressive with my best friend growing up when we were teenagers he was at university and I was a dropout and we were hanging out I think we may have lived together I'm not sure but you might have we just did a little psychic game like pick a number you know between 1 and X and I'll try to guess what it is and I don't know why this came up mmm but he picked a number and I just looked at him in his face in his eye one of his eyes got big in my field of vision and within the iris of his eye was the number of 3 and immediately I said 3 he said yeah how did you know and I said it was in your eye so creepy pretty freaky so weird so people do have connections really deep connections especially I think if you are in early childhood you're exposed to this person and maybe you're under some sort of stress there are different stresses that children can undergo because of family situations or financial situations of the parent or whatever we the kids don't know what's going on right but they can already sense the stress and I think this brings out a sort of sensitivity in children so if they're in close proximity I think they can bond in a way that's spiritual and it sounds very flaky but I've experienced it firsthand no it's um there's definitely something there there's definitely so you know I joke that it would be you know it's irritating to other people but I had a dream a couple weeks ago or maybe a month ago and it was Kieran Zak and I and we were in this grocery store but it was like more like a house and we were we were going through these rooms together with a shopping cart and the rooms were made of cinder block and they were grimy but they were completely empty and I had the feeling that I should be scared of these rooms for one reason or another because there was this like leftover almost like evil feeling and but I I didn't I was kind of brazen about it and I woke up from the dream and went him to Mass it was a Sunday and told my dad about it and I realized oh that was um that was like a manifestation of the the interior rooms you know inside of me and the gift that prayer has given me to be able to clean them out of all their junk and obviously they're not by any means I'm completely clear of all that baggage but they're definitely there's there's nothing physically in them anymore and I thought it was also funny that internally I wanted to take Zak and Kieran along with me to see them Zak is your child knows that Zak is my brother well he's my other brother or stepbrother if you will third brother I've kidding about him yeah yeah he's he's a cool dude man I like him yeah he's he's he's the the more gentle of the three and probably more brilliant in a lot of ways then then then Kieran my wife makes fun of me because I had this dream years ago about an unholy trinity it was Dave Dave and Dave there were three of me and I had a whale of a time I had a whale of a time just interacting with the two other twins or triplets and yeah she thinks I'm very narcissistic and self-absorbed and I guess I am but I really enjoyed that dream I mean that's that's what we do though isn't it we make ourselves God so that yeah that makes sense I can say that what you do in the dream or email it can you not discuss it it's more or less just the when you meet a beautiful woman and you're just absorbed by the beauty I'm not saying I'm beautiful but that's sort of the the thing you're just fascinated with this creature like wow what is this person you know and I totally you uh you get very poetic when you talk about your wife I enjoy hearing about that no have you always been able to speak in those terms yeah I mean I'm just a natural romantic I love all people and I love you know obviously romantically interested in women in general I mean I'm attracted by women not to say I don't see the beauty in men like I'm not like one of these macho guys who says oh I can't tell if that guy's good-looking or not I can tell you know I could tell I could tell you I know are good-looking I was gonna say you told me that we are good-looking people and you're not lying with I could end up I could give you a number but I'm not gonna give you a number out of 10 because it would just I'm a hard six let's be real but David you are known for asking the hard-hitting questions so I'm gonna ask you a hard-hitting question sure who's who's better-looking okay all right what was your third brother's name again Zach that's a good way different is axe axe the best-looking where's the three of us yeah I don't have a brother but it would be fun to have that rivalry and that sort of playful roughhousing and all that sort of thing it's not the same with two sisters you know it's just not the same sort of energy but it might also get a little bit tiring might get tiring always sort of keeping up that friendly banter no uh yeah but it also gets physical too you can't get like you can't get too physical with your sisters cuz that just doesn't like fly after a certain certain age you know but Kieran and Zach are by far so they're just like so much stronger than me right and they don't work out at all they're just so like you know I like I'm probably the only one that's intentional with my body but they're just like freak strong and so every time we get together there's always something going on where Kieran has to jump on somebody or Kieran throws something at somebody that he shouldn't like one of them has like the nephew so you know the camaraderie between men is enjoyable and funny until Kieran throws a chunk of ice at an eight year olds head you know so you know you enjoy your sister's because it's probably a much more peaceful Christmas yeah there's a guy there's a guy at work that's always playing with my bun and on my hair and he's always there's another guy at work these are all Italians another guy love us whacking me in the stomach occasionally I don't walk me in the and I don't enjoy being touched by anyone you know anyone ever don't touch I know but they don't say anything I just I just let them do it and I just offered up for the conversion of sinners and the relief of the holy souls in purgatory that's uh that's really big for you man because I don't know if I could if I could take that I just I work with all women I work well there's two there's two dudes that I work with but one's a physician's assistant and the other is a surgeon I know I'm lying there's another surgeon there too so like it's not as low caliber nobody's punching each other in the sack it doesn't it just can't happen in that environment so but you you work with computers right well I'm in an office working on a computer but it's a construction office so it's all Italians and immigrants that are out on the field and then they come in and they clump me on the back or whack me in the good or like with my hair I find a little bit something strange yeah mm-hmm yeah dude so our Italian Kenneth our Italian Catholics are Italian Canadians like Italian Americans are they clarity's I would imagine they're all the same all Italians are yeah good stuff right there man ye mediterraneans you know Mediterraneans whether you're an Arab or Italian Greek they're they're warm-blooded people they're very how should I say a few suit like they express their emotions they touch you and they will get angry and that's why I love them because in my culture in Ontario Canada no one expresses themselves and it just turns into cancer and hatred and self-hatred and hatred of their friends and family and it's not it and nothing gets expressed so I much prefer the Mediterranean temperament where people can get angry and they can express themselves yeah I mean there's tons of stories about Padre Pio yelling at people like small children like he's like a famous saying there's a two-year-old that interrupted him during prayer and he like rebuked him severely and it's like dude it's a it's a small child that's horrible but I guess it's just you know the culture did you enjoy Mother Angelica she's Italian she was Italian or at least partly Italian um I don't think I watched too much she had the EWTN shows right yeah she founded that whole empire that whole network oh I didn't know she founded it um no you know I don't have too many connections to to her I'm really biased against holy women because why there's something like like like especially the Saints so like I don't know I'm trying not to be mean about it but I'm just like I don't know every time Todd if somebody talks about st. Theresa bliss ooh I get so bored I'm like okay like I get it she was she was really cool so I intentionally make myself like evoke her or ask for her assistance with certain stuff because just because I'm naturally deterred by it for some reason or another I don't know sister not sister but that was my piano teacher sister Joan of Arc oh go for Saint Joan of Arc is she real was she ever yeah okay okay learn about her and learn about some of the more manly women who are Saints because that might help you I okay and and who are the more manly ones then well I mean mother Angelica's pretty manly I think I think she's a saint to be a lot of a lot of the women were tough like I mean if I think about Old Testament women they all seem very you know handsome manly women to me that's the way I think of Old Testament women and that's what we look for in a woman is a handsome manly woman that's what I like that's my case to each his own ya know it's um you know the damsel in distress is boring yeah yes so I mean st. Teresa of ávila is somebody that I look up to and I think is really cool but again there's just something I think it's also in the artistic depictions of saints that things get really boring too lost in translation so especially in in depictions of Mother Mary I don't like them because they're so bland and milky and so you listen to anybody's description of her and they're like she was the most beautiful woman that I've ever seen and I have no mental schema for that whatsoever and then you go to an artist depiction of it and they're just they're so they're all so similar and so bland and it's you know it just doesn't do it any justice and the more you see it's just so oversaturated by these certain images and so I think that that treatment is kind of applied to a lot of the the female saints out there especially if you wear a habit and if you don't have any facial hair there's not too many distinguishing facial features that could make you stand out as a woman and so you know I seen I see them and I you know they all just look the same to me except for Saint Mary of Egypt she was but I mean again she was depicted as wrinkled and naked and she did not get a flattering portrayal by any means so someone in the live chat I'll leave it to your imagination to imagine who just said Aidan you're lame yeah that's good clever Karen and then it gave you a hurt so or maybe he was responding his heart to my heart but st. Catherine of Siena she was very tough and assertive and not some sort of shrinking violet she's another one but I agree with you about the porch the portraits or the portrayals of Our Lady often I'm cringing looking at these sculptures or paintings and I know they're not doing her justice and I've seen a couple that are very beautiful paintings in particular the sculptures I've seen a few that are very beautiful yes it's true but the same could be said of Jesus I'm not often impressed by the trails of Jesus in fine art yeah but there are some that are magnificent and you know we I think it stands to reason that we are not given too much of a foretaste of the beauty of Christ and His Saints here below right yeah I mean it makes sense it allows people to meet God where they're at because they can connect things with their childhood and with what they're familiar with so maybe they're familiar with something that I'm not familiar with it's kind of funny and I don't know if Karen deals with this ever I guess in the hesychast tradition you don't use your imagination for for most medit 'iv or prayer practices but when you know I pray the rosary I try to picture Jesus as best as I possibly can but when I was a kid my dad had long hair and he had a big beard and so I have this constant transfer of my dad's face onto Jesus and it's it's like it's it's such an annoying distraction because it's just like that's not Jesus everybody jokingly calls him Jesus but it's one of those things that I love the Shroud of turn images I love the artists renderings that like that drew over them I guess like the you know the still image rotoscope I think those are the coolest some of the coolest depictions of Jesus mmm just because they're like very rugged very manly but you know my dad looked really similar to that back in the day and so it's you know my mind constantly wants to project my father onto Jesus what is the mission Mara because parents asking where's mish Mara I think he's asking about my cat Marcia oh but my cat my cats usually downstairs with me but I don't know I don't know with it what so where do we segue from female saints that mildly annoy you not in their person not in their person but in their portrayal and in their pop culture sort of the way they're misrepresented possibly by some who gush maybe over the wrong parts and the wrong putting emphasis where it's not meant to be placed with respect to st. Therese disease you know for example may be missing some of the harder hitting teachings of that saint and maybe sugarcoating good much the same way that st. Francis of Assisi is misrepresented and saccharine portrayal all of the all the rough edges have been smoothed off over time right right basically Saints are just these walking calluses which is to me just it's so cool they're said they're just really tough human beings and so I don't know the transition sorry this is low caliber content it's like this st. irritates me it's a good job Aidan you're really high quality high quality programming right here no it's good to be honest I know and you know what it's always good because you know you sit there and sometimes you think these things and then other people share these thoughts too and you don't get to talk about it and especially when it comes to something that's you know in the realms of religion it's like am I allowed to say that I don't like this aspect of this or this bothers me or I can stomach this piece and yeah I mean the answer is yes totally because I love st. Theresa simplices approach to this as the soul as being a child and so whenever I approach our Lord I approach as a two or three year old and and I stole that I think that's just the coolest way to approach God as if you know I am little I am nothing and he's Papa he's dad and he's gonna take care of everything and all I have to do is just run to him and and all else will be provided for yeah so another strong woman is st. Faustina divine mercy yeah that's another one that's like painted a difficult color for me because I do like the Divine Mercy chaplet and I've picked up that book a couple times and I'm gonna read like a couple hundred pages of it and her you know her language is like whatever the scenes talk there is this real disconnect and Padre Pio has it too in his letters to his spiritual directors there it's just so far above me that it loses me at a certain point and I feel lost and it's this this very romantic discussion about God that I just I'm not at yet and perhaps I'm envious of so I have a limited attention span towards it yeah I can sympathize I I have difficulty with Saint John of the Cross and frankly with Saint Teresa of ávila I have a little bit of a hard time with her just digesting because a little bit too highbrow for me and I've said before in my podcast st. John Paul the second I have a hard time reading his stuff just cuz I find it a little bit too academic into a contemporary it just doesn't transport me the way some of the older Saints their writings just seem a little bit more romantic and crystallized in a timeless language that resonates with me whereas if I'm reading something that sounds like an academic paper it just turns me off right away that's funny that you say that because you read everything don't you well I mean I try I read a lot I try to read different stuff but I don't enjoy everything equally and this is one of the interesting things about the Saints is that we have misconceptions about the Saints and so like I'm fanatically obsessed with st. Augustine and st. Francis DeSales and Saint John Vianney a couple of they're both such cool dudes man Saint John Vianney I just read actually it's in my bathroom night right now it's the best way to read a book but my dad gave me the cure a DRS or whatever it is like his sayings and you're not supposed to read the book straight through you're supposed to meditate on it and I'm like this dude was brilliant he was so cool and so st. Francis DeSales they're just some some brilliant guys so I have I have some real work to do I have to pick up some of their actual pieces of literature and spend time with it because st. Francis DeSales did the introduction of the devout life right yeah and that's like the that's like a major piece of spiritual literature for laypeople I feel like I should have I should have jumped into that a long time ago yeah there's no rush I mean you'll get to it in this lifetime or if not you'll get to it hopefully in heaven right but I wanted to say something about the misconception of the Saints like the obsessive fan boy mentality that I have with some of the Saints I know that I'm probably mischaracterizing them in my mind like like you said you felt I had short curly red hair before you actually saw a picture of me yeah not that that's like relevant to anything but you do you do form impressions of people and they're usually wrong in significant ways and I just watched I had Netflix for one month and I watched a show called love is blind I've heard part of it and they don't get to see each other they just quote/unquote fall in love the text messages and stuff or no not technically they can hear each other's voices they talk okay well a glass wall and you know I'm sure the picturing each other in their minds and then they meet it's nothing like what they pictured but you can still have that love so I'm hoping that's the way it is with the Saints that even though I I misjudged them I mischaracterized them in many many many ways some of those ways being important ways there's still that true know that kernel of truth that I really and inspired by their love for God and their self-sacrifice so what do you think about that I I agree I don't see there being any real any real issue there just that that honest desire to understand who somebody is all the other stuff will just correct itself but hearing about the last time we spoke or maybe I'm just putting myself on whoever you were speaking to but you were talking about how wrong we often are and I found real freedom in that you're like I we're literally wrong about like 99% of the things that we do in our life and and I'm like oh yeah and that's why silence is so important like shutting my mouth and listening to other human beings for you know a little bit because it gives me a chance to at least not you know reveal how wrong I am about everything and so you know with the Saints who are already experiencing the beatific vision I'm sure that that you know they'll gift us some kernel of the truth and by the time that we get to meet them all the other stuff will be you know rectified fixed and you know won't really make a difference there's that famous expression to know me is to love me I wouldn't apply that to myself well yeah I would apply that to myself too if you the more you know me that more you love me I think it's true of every every one of God's creatures but it doesn't mean you want to follow their example right like Satan is ontologically good and we we love Him because God loves him but we don't want to follow his example as bad example obviously we might want to imitate his pre-fall beauty and you know his intellect and all those sorts of things but to know me is to love me this idea applies to the Saints because they are examples that we should strive to imitate and of course Christ being the saint of saints we are supposed to strive to imitate Christ and to know Christ is to love him and so we strive to get to know him through the scriptures through tradition through the church and as st. Teresa of Calcutta would say through the poor and the suffering and the marginalized right yeah I mean so one of the promises of the rosary is a perfect knowledge of Jesus Christ and so like does that mean experiential knowledge or does that mean like knowledge knowledge you know just you can read it from a book or does that mean like like st. Therese like I guess experiential we fall into st. Theresa's realm of seeing through the poor what do you think about that well what comes to mind is knowledge in the biblical sense right that marital intimacy right the consummation of our love he is our spouse and I've never quite understood as a man as a man in the church a Catholic man I know the priest is a Vicar of Christ and then the church is the Bride of Christ and if you're a female and you take vows religious vows you become the Bride of Christ but as a lay male Catholic mi also dispose of Christ or am I the Vicar of Christ I prefer to be the spouse of Christ even though it sounds you know like some sort of same-sex attraction right but I prefer that role I want to be loved by him I want to give myself to him passively I don't want to be the Vicar of Christ I don't feel up to the challenge but maybe that's just my passive you know psychological impediment what do you say I would say that it's a passive love that's that would embody being a spouse so I would use the word bride - yeah I mean the Bible constantly refers to God as him and so obviously God acts and then we receive or we can react I guess if we're just you know bad at being a human which I am so I react all the time but obviously God is an overarching masculine presence and so whether or not we're male or female when it comes to a relationship with God we have a feminine receptivity towards him and so I would say that's espousal and them in a bridal sense I'm cool with that yeah I've always made this is a public confession I'm not shy to admit it but I've always shunned responsibility and there's a certain manliness about taking responsibility being a leader being the head of the family these sorts of things I've always shied away from that and that's part of the reason probably I don't have children and my wife didn't want any but I didn't insist and I mean can't force that sort of thing anyway but you know there's always been a negative responsibility and a fear I guess of taking responsibility if I have two paths ahead of me one of which is passive and I can avoid responsibility the other one is a struggle and I have to take on responsibilities I'll always go with the passive one that evades responsibilities so just more of a psychological confession here but I wanted to bounce it off you and sort of get your thoughts on that well Kieran said it in the interview that he had with him a couple days ago that we the the Lizzie men are all kind of like in that camp of I guess he didn't actually state it was masculine or feminine but I would say that we have a kind of more feminine way about us and so where we can be passionate and angry but we're also very sensitive human beings and and so you know as a result I I'm probably more like you you know where I would rather not have conflict and I'd rather not like have to step up and do things and there are certain times when I do have to do that and I fail miserably and then there are other times when I just avoid it and fail even harder so life is hard my life sucks at times as soon as you said that you took viewer in that camp I was just thinking you should just buy a gun battle me that'll turn you into a man yeah yeah well I mean I take consolation in the fact that God loves me as I am and it's you know baby steps all the way for me in terms of shouldering of just a little bit more responsibility as time goes on but yeah I certainly don't beat myself up about it but we each have our strengths and weaknesses I guess yeah yeah it's true I mean you it's so cheesy but you know just make the next right choice basically and that's all you can really do I get bummed out my wife is in charge of the banking and I don't know why I've like arbitrarily assigned that is like a masculine trait like it's gotta like you better you better know your finances but my wife's the one that's like you know we don't have money to do that right and I'm like oh okay I gotcha and it's like a maybe you should be more like participatory in this because that's a big deal and then I'm like yeah or I could just avoid the problem and hope that it goes away you know so my testosterone was like soaring through the roof here I feel so manly now talking to you you should you should my friend good I might have facial hair and then wear plaid but I'm terrified child how old are you again 29 okay yeah yeah I'm 49 so I got 20 years of more I should really be a lot further along the path to manhood than I am I consider myself to have become a a man I left adolescence I'm aged 39 so you're well ahead of me we'll see yeah I run from a lot of things we can we dude I get free I get afraid to answer my voicemail I'm like I hear my phone rang and I'm like somebody's dead better ignore my phone it's like Aidan that's a terrible instinct stop and stop that that's like it's fine it's probably just a bill collector so you you told me that you're of English descent do you have any Irish and Scottish in there or no yeah we're super Irish - actually um so my grandmother's dad was from Ireland and so when he married her mom it was scandalous because it was an Irish English English marriage so that was a you know I was a big deal back in the day but he died actually when he was 29 years old so but we have you know a pretty extensive Irish heritage because of her family the reason I'm asking you it well I mean it's nice to know anyway but one of my characteristics is that I'm very very passive and peaceful and avoid confrontation avoid responsibility and everything like that until I'm in confrontation mode and I love fighting I love arguing I love I love rising up and having that sort of indomitable indomina to both spirit however you pronounce that we're the Scottish and Irish pride comes out and I'm able to stand my ground on principle and it's always based on principle when it comes to non principle based confrontations I could care less right I'll just cave cave cave cave cave cave and then when there's a principal on the line then that fiery side comes out and I've been in circumstances where people thought they knew me and I thought I was a doormat and a pushover until a principal was on the line and then suddenly they saw a lot of fire he's that the case with you uh because he have a similar heritage to me it doesn't work in the same manner so like you and I have different things that would probably trigger us yours would be a principal and mine would be like somebody says something personal loyalty so like yeah so like they're like I have like a like I have a tipping point with certain with certain things and being once really overweight I have this natural capacity to look at people and like find a weakness and then just go for the weakness as hard as possible and so because of that you know like look their gait their dad abused them when they were a child like that I have to constantly like reject that that that instinct so it has to be really it has to be massively offensive for me to respond to something now or somebody has to draw a conclusion conclusion illogically and it has to be dangerous so like if somebody like gets from point A to point Z and they do it in a way that that I feel good later on down the road lead to something dangerous then I'm gonna I'm gonna speak up and say something because it's just so irritating it's I don't know why I'm not an overly analytical complex person but like when I see things that don't add up and people are just more than okay with that it really bugs me are you able to give one example a colorful example that won't get you into trouble nope sounds sounds I see no you know no because I'm still like battling things so like when you work in an office there are certain things that are off limits like any kind of confrontation is off limits but right now I'm dealing with so that we have some co-workers that like to use the Lord's name in vain and they're just they're so aggressive and it's so it's such a pervasive issue and that's one of those issues where you don't I don't want to like make I don't want to make somebody feel stupid for using a blasphemy because it just doesn't mean the same thing to them and not only that but I don't I don't think that's what Jesus would do he wouldn't have made somebody feel dumb for doing something perhaps if they were a fair ascetical different story but like I don't want any like get off on making somebody feel bad about themselves but it often makes me wonder why you know our Lord's name is used in vain but no other God has ever taken in vain then we live in such a politically correct nation so like but but you you can hear Jesus all the time in the workplace and nobody would say anything nobody would think twice about it but you don't you would never hear Mohammed you never hear Buddha you would never hear Krishna and you you would just not hear it so I want to know why we're so targeted to me in my mind it there is no there's no good reasoning for that that's still allowed at such a pervade in such a pervasive manager occur yeah it happens at my work too I'm not gonna name any names obviously but I I tend not to get riled up about that I like hearing the name of Jesus in any context as long as the name Jesus is preached whether rightly or wrongly truly or falsely but I pray for the you know I pray for the conversion of those who don't understand who and what Jesus is and obviously it does wound me but it winds me not so much because this person is ignorant but because I am ignorant and I was so ignorant during most of my life and that I have blessed him so much it's sort of like a reminder a mirror mirror back to me of my own blasphemies that are so numerous in the past and even today I don't think I'm revering the name of the Lord as I should or revering the Sabbath as I should or doing anything as I should you know so it's sort of a reminder the the shortcomings of others are a mirror back to me I'm sure you do the same thing I try I try to be as gracious as I possibly can because I've been incredibly blasphemous in the past but my anger doesn't even necessarily rise from the fact that they're using the Lord's name in vain I mean there is there's anger about that but it's just the fact that it's an exclusive thing and so we live in a culture that tells you that certain things are just outright Aust limits and there's no there's no budging on it and certain things that are I don't agree with and so I often wonder I I know the reasons why I just think it's incredibly I just think it's incredibly hypocritical that like everybody's okay you know with one majorly offend of thing that just keeps occurring but then everything else is like whoa whoa we're a little more open-minded here about that pal you can get out you know so yeah it's well I mean it's the same thing with the black mass with a Satanist why why is it a Catholic Mass that they're mocking it's because it's a Catholic Church that's the one true church and Satan knows it I'm wondering if you're culturally familiar with Quebec culture and in particular the last blasphemous cursing and swearing of the Quebec culture do you know some of the curse words in French Quebec French I do not know okay I'll give you the English translation some of the worst swear words in Quebec are tabernacle the whole really the host of course Jesus Christ and the chalice whoa so if you were to come to Quebec and you were you were to say in French the chalice of the host of the tabernacle mm-hmm you turn a lot of heads because that is like the worst most aggressive swearing that you could possibly do but people do you know throw these words around as you and I would like if we stub our toe and we say in the word for excrement they would stub their toe and say the word for the host or the chalice or the tabernacle so do you not have French masses and Quebec then yeah yeah but there was a revolution in Quebec called the quiet revolution where what was viewed as politically corrupt and domineering and rigid conservative Catholic Church was sticking its nose into everyone's business particularly in the bedroom if you know what I mean trend they collectively said screw you to the church and so the churches emptied oh now they're condominiums their gyms if you want to get a really expensive gym membership go to the gym that used to Catholic Church beautiful stained-glass the whole thing but you know there are still a faithful Catholics who do go to Mass every every week or even during the week but the numbers are down to about I would estimate five or ten percent of what the numbers used to be wow that's crazy and how long ago - the that occur it was in you know started in the 50s and late 50s early 60s I had no ideas so is there like a general air of anti-catholicism in Canada yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it's strong it's a very Canada is a very liberal place first of all so when you have when you have liberal politics that pushes for abortion and for sexual liberty and same-sex marriage and legal marijuana and everything that we've that we have up here this all flies in the faith of traditional Western morals right it sounds like America sounds like all the stuff that we have going on I think you're probably a little bit more balanced in terms of having a strong opposition to the left down there we're pretty much dominated by the left up here though the right not that I'm a fan of the right but the right is considered a joke up here a real joke oh yeah I mean I guess it is more balanced here but like if you were to have a dinner conversation and you were to hear the word Trump passed around it's um it's always going to be in some kind of mocking manner it's never it's never like it's not popular to be conservative here so most people look at me and Rachel and they think there were liberal people because we are you know crusty hippies and and but we're a very very conservative people and we both love Donald Trump what up I'll say that I'll say that a lot I don't I don't love him I just vote for him because I just can't in good conscience vote for anybody else but if we were to talk about that if we were to go to work and say I voted for Donald Trump we would almost we would alienate ourselves from everybody there most likely have you got the Hat though I want to see the Red Hat Larry David the Hat oh did he they would think I was doing it ironically look at me like like like there was I would be able to get away with that but no I have not gotten a hat oh I know yeah the reason I love and like Donald Trump is because God made him and Christ died for him but also because he has done more for the pro-life movement than any other president I think and mute my Uncle Mike my excuse me my uncle mark just sent us something regarding that he says that's the sole reason why I would vote for him because of the pro-life pro-life movement and I think that's that's excellent I think that's really good stuff yeah and I've had a lot of prophetic dreams about Trump where did you really yeah where he is very misunderstood which i think is true he is cocooning in bed in all my dreams he's always cocooning in lots of big blankets and he's at a party it's an all-night party everyone's having fun there's chaos there's confusion it's a good party it's a fun party but he's just saving his energy he's cocooning he's protecting himself he knows he's not understood he knows he has a lot of work to do in the morning and he's like a hero for me a very touching touching hero for me in all these prophetic dreams do I put a lot of stock in these dreams no i don't but i think they reveal at the very least that I root for the underdog I root for even a narcissistic egomaniac deluded sexual pervert underdog I will root for the underdog and I think God can use him and I think God is using him he just gobsmacked him that was I would say the same of myself though I would say the same of myself yes yeah I would make a much worse President of the United States than Donald Trump much worse I would say I think heroes those who oppose Donald Trump don't realize that they too would make a much much much much much much worse President of the United States than Donald Trump they don't realize it but I think it's true yeah I mean it goes back to what you were saying about being wrong 99% of the time and it's like oh yeah being in school and getting things wrong all the time oh my goodness it happens it happens so much and the mistakes kill people and so like like going back to that like we are wrong so often we are wrong so often it's like it's good to keep that in mind because um you know and you know exams and simulations I'm responsible for other human beings and when I get something wrong I immediately think oh great what if I did that for real and that's a terrifying concept to me sounds like you're being humbled a lot which is always a good thing school sucks it's Maria it's a really tough it's very humbling this semester is the worst semester of the for for this program and a lot of people failed it already and I you know I was studying before I called in and it's all it's a lot of content that we cover and a lot of very specific information and confusing questions on our exams that don't necessarily test knowledge of content always and it's uh it's a lot it's a lot of stuff when does that all come to an end May 4th or 5th is my final exam for this month yeah or for this this semester that is okay and then how many more semesters I'll be technically I'll be I'll be a nurse once I once I finish in May and then I'll go back and I'll get another degree all getting more advanced degree in nursing but I don't know where I'm going to take that yet we'll see we'll see what I want to do where I end up Matthew Murdock says hi he's in the live chat you want to say hello give a yes yeah hey Matt Murdock answer more of text messages I died text him real real garbage stuff I sent him a meme of Jake Johnson getting his beard rubbed the other day and nothin no response nothing at all he's still processing that one yeah that's exactly what happened he has well how many children 2 3 3 3 yeah he's got him he's got no time for that that's uh that's a quick look and like up and then for the phone away because so a lot a lot of stuff going on I feel like the Matt Murdock David CBS dynamic is a big part of your show now yeah because it'sit's like one of those like episode arcs where there's there's a lot of drama that goes on um you got any any updates any new feelings any any anything else that's that's transpired well since the last conversation Matthew says I didn't know how to respond well the thing with Matthew is he likes to keep it real and we liked I would agree we like to push off each other a little bit I'm I'm quite heard on non-catholic Christians about authority and he's tasted that from me a couple times it's always out of love but I push back pretty hard because I just want to know if you think you have authority outside of the Catholic Church I don't have a problem with that just show me where that church is just show me where the church is fine yeah a false Church just show me where the church is and I'll be uh I'll be happy with that but if you don't have a church why would you try to drag me and not that not saying that anyone's trying to drag me under the Catholic Church but I'm convinced I belong to the church that Christ built so I don't have any problem with someone else coming along and saying well look your church is a false Church here's the true Church come and join us I have no problem with that I'm open to that but I've never ever ever encountered any non Catholic Christian who said yes I can show you where the church is and it's the true church and your church is a false church all they say is well I don't know where the church is but it's not the Catholic Church so and you don't hurt us with that you don't think that's a that's a like a logical line of thinking then like I don't know where the truth is but this doesn't seem right to me like that's like because that it is a gut it's a gut feeling and you know I I get it I get where you're coming from obviously we're sitting in the same boat but like I you know currently I'm in a place where if I have a question about doctrine I just I don't worry about it anymore and I just kind of sit back and I'm like you know what I just need to focus on my prayer life and if I get a good answer for this I'll get a good answer for this and if I don't then God will be good to me in the future and he's gonna let me know that there's an error here and I won't sit in this you know for to give an example of that sounds interesting so like let's I know we're gonna talk about this and I hate talking indulgences but because it's so like it's so boring it's the same reason why I hate Calvinism it's just like a whole bunch of dudes wearing suits where they're just like you know quantifying things about God and it's just like it just takes everything beautiful and mystical about God out of the equation but that being said indulgences and the quantification of grace that's one of those things where I I see it I think I I don't really understand why we would need to assign like some kind of value to a prayer other than this has you know all prayer has value in God's eyes to like you know somehow pare down at judgment that we have accrued against us not that judgment obviously it's a punishment punishment due to sin and because there's no way I like I so for me for that for it to be beneficial I should probably know how much of that I have against me for me to be able to start buying it back with certain things and so that's one of those things where it's like yeah but if this is supposed to help us shouldn't we also have the baseline where we know where we're at like God says okay by the you're here and it takes this many you know acts of reparation to to be back at like a place where you know you're satisfied it's you know that that you know that well I mean I think with the fall and you know original sin we are reaping the punishments for our disobedience in out of in our first parents and part of that is the obscurity of faith the obscurity of faith the faith is good the obscurity is evil right right um we're bearing the evil fruit of our first parents rebellion against God and part of that is we don't know where we're at I don't know where I'm at I don't know I have no clue how close I am to having dealt with all of the temporal punishment due to my past scenes which have been forgiven in the sacrament of reconciliation but right those temporal punishments have I still got mountains and mountains and mountains of indulgences that I need to clear that out and then I can start applying it to my family friends enemies and quaintness and those holy souls in purgatory or am I already you know clear use a phrase from Scientology I'm clear and all the indulgences are going to family friends enemies and acquaintances and the holy souls of purgatory I mean I don't know I have no clue I would guess that I have mountains of temporal punishment due to me still right know that and that's it that's a good way to approach it it doesn't bother me enough to the point where like I I I don't dwell on it and I can't dwell on it because if I do then I get into I get into this non-productive area where I'm just like sitting in this cyclical realm of thought that doesn't it doesn't do me any good spiritually and and so that's probably the best approach is well I don't know if it's helping me or if it's helping those around me but it's gonna help it's gonna help somebody yeah I like to think of it always of relationship as you know well by now and so to use the analogy of your love life here with your wife or me with my wife if you were fighting and you're irritated by her some of our habits annoying habits or vice versa and someone counseled you and said we'll look you know there's this thing called patience there's this virtue called doesn't fault me for like not reading the book of indulgences you know but but I was talking to my pretty stickable weeks ago and he was telling me in the parking lot after Mass that certain legalistic elements of our doctrine have saved the church and preserved the church in certain moments he's like yeah but like I know that certain things seem arbitrary but they have helped us throughout the years and they've preserved the church and kept it where it's at and he's like and sometimes you need those black-and-white this this is like this and and this is like that and that actually that was the first time that anybody had ever said that to me where it's like yeah this is put in place as a protective mechanism for everything else and so with and and applying that to indulgences um obviously Jesus died for everybody but that means that there was obviously a debt that had accrued so even though there was that ultimate act of love if there was still an aspect of it that was payment and you can't just ignore that that that that retribution you know you can just say it's all love because it's both it's both of those things and so when you look at it like that that makes more sense to me but then for me to like have to participate in it it's like you you win five hundred and sixty five days and it's like they don't use days anymore I know I'm stopped that's old school but you know there's a reality TV show called The Biggest Loser have you ever seen it I have it's so unethical don't watch that show okay hey I will continue to watch unethical reality TV because I like it the basic idea is gamifying everything everything is gamified okay and even for your app on your phone you can get everything gamified your health your diet your exercise regimen your spiritual life and you get little rewards and points and like all these achievements and you can do that and it's just baby steps right and right the person that likes that structure and those little rewards and the little rewards and they add up and they add up and it just keeps them going it's like Facebook like why do people like getting these internet points like oh I got how many likes did you get oh I got this many likes Wow you know people write gamifying life and there's you know it's possible to abuse this gamification obviously in every domain but there's also that idea that some people might be at a stage where they need to get little feedbacks like that they would encourage them and keep them from backsliding and then once they're a little bit more mature and a little bit stronger and a little bit more convinced to do a good thing for goodness sake rather than for these fake internet points or whatever it is right then they can stay on their own two feet eventually and start walking and then running and eventually fly to the heights of heaven right well and you know the cool thing about the Catholic faith is that it gives you this so much working room in everything and so there's like there's a lot of yes and which is funny - amazing yes and it there's there's so much stuff there so I love the Orthodox faith when they talk about the church as a hospital for the soul I think that's just such a beautiful way to speak about to speak about the church and I wish we as Catholics would do that and we could and of course we go there and we pay our debts in one sense we we get to participate in the mass but if I've experienced anything in the last couple of years from my faith it is this slow but constant healing this this peace that I that I can't explain that exists outside of all of these other things and you know if we if we spoke about it more often to those terms I think other people would start you know well maybe maybe they would they would start looking towards and saying oh look that that seems to have made him happy that seems to have brought him some kind of peace I wonder I wonder what that's all about yeah for sure for sure I mean this is the goal is to be an inspiration to others around us by being a living example of peace and joy right and Christ another aspect of this that I want to touch on is superstition sort of as a parallel thought experiment when I'm at church there's one church I like to go to and it's mainly East Asians Hindus Sikhs lining up to kiss the feet of this lifeless life-sized statue of Jesus Christ crucified not by the altar and many of these people may not be Catholic god only knows but there is part of me that says okay I can't be superstitious so I need to be be aware and it seems like a mix bag of people that are lining up to kiss this statue and god only knows what weird demonic rights they're invoking when they kiss this statue but then I catch myself and I say look so superstition is forbidden by the church okay check so that that makes me feel better I'm not responsible for the superstition of any other human okay check that's another weight off mine off my mind and I myself am not inclined to be superstitious with this statue I know it's just a representation of my Lord and Savior and it's just a block of material made to remind me of Jesus Christ so check you know all the weight is lifted off me I don't need to worry about anyone elses superstition and I am forbidden to be superstitious and I'm not inclined to be superstitious with this statue when I kiss the feet of this statue so now I know I'm free to just enjoy the proximity that I feel because of this physical act of going up getting in line with all these people and kissing the feet of Jesus and it's very liberating and it's not tinged with any sort of scrupulous attea or any sort of paranoia that I might be doing something superstitious even though if a non-catholic Christian were in the room I'm sure that they would accuse me of superstition so I think it's the same thing with indulgences we need to have that freedom of mind that Mother Church gives us it's forbidden to be superstitious it's forbidden to abuse indulgences so just use them for what they are meant to to to be and liberate yourself and know that religion is very very very simple God is all good and deserving of all your love and we are physical and spiritual creatures and there are physical manifestations of our love for God right yeah see you don't you don't like a piece of you doesn't care that it might be perceived by others as as superstitious well I mean I I'm in a Catholic Church and I'm lining up with a bunch of other people to do what I consider to be a very Catholic devotion mm-hmm and it's not explicitly condemned by the church it's encouraged by the church to have images to Revere images and so no I'm not I'm not someone misunderstanding the Catholic faith if I were worried if that weighed on me then I would be crushed by now because most people do misunderstand what Catholicism is all about so that's that we could crush a man yeah yeah and part of me just needs to be like a man about us just not worry another I I never understood when people would accuse Catholics of worshipping statues that that always confounded me like yeah you worship statues and it's like I don't I mean I mean no I mean kneeling and making the sign of the Cross is definitely not a form of worship so kissing the feet of a statue doesn't bother me either that's something I kiss my cross all the time so do you think it's an act parallel to the indulgences the sort of yeah it's yeah yeah absolutely it's probably better than my my method of just staying away from it you know you look at it as a gift and you look at as an area where you a freedom you know I don't have to worry I'm not treating this like it's an area of superstition or I'm not you know I I'm not using it in an inappropriate manner that is I'm just afraid that I would use it in an inappropriate manner I'm afraid I'd get caught up in it and I would be too you know I would I would basically just janga myself where I would just like line everything up and then one day would just topple down because I you know went too far overboard with it you know what it's kind of yeah okay no I just gonna say it's kind of like giving me access to a cookie jar you know and you're like here you can you can have some cookies and I'm like yeah that that's that's a that's really nice and then I'm 300 pounds you know wow those are some big cookies I mean you know you've just got to be persistent David I I'm the same when it comes to indulging but I want to talk about something really silly some really silly prayers for example I'm not a sports fan but some sports fans say I pray to God that my team wins this Saturday or this Sunday whatever it is football or soccer or whatever they really the other silly prayer is oh I hope I find a parking spot so I personally don't see any problem with those silly childish prayers provided that everything is in its proper perspective meaning that you know Oh God let me find a good parking spot but not my will be done your will be done you know what I mean right absolutely um I'm a little less likely to agree with you on the sports no I think any prayers beautiful I think anytime you talk to God but if that's the only time you're talking to God then there's a real problem there you know but yeah anytime anytime that you want to lift your heart up to the Lord I mean that's excellent I think out all the time when there's a parking space and in our parking garage somebody pulls out and I'm pulling off on my own oh yes oh yeah I think those are great silly I don't even think they're silly I just think they're just the little moments in life when you talk to God and yeah you know I hope that your will aligns with his yeah it's not that her prayer is really not that hard is there a possibility that we Catholics have been brainwashed into thinking that we Catholics are a bunch of superstitious morons and in fact no one prays or their football team to win it's just a propaganda sort of a black legend or do you think there are innocent low IQ people that exclusively pray for sports and parking oh definitely I mean that you're gonna have that anywhere I mean nominal Christians exist in all denominations and they'll pray for for those little things and just hope that God gives them a bicycle and that's about it that's the extent of it do do I I mean that's kind of like the like the Jewish person being afraid to like give it too small of a tip I don't know if that's occurred because I don't I died I don't think I overcompensate like in a superstitious manner I do but you know it's funny feel this live my dad and I talk about this cuz you know you gotta drop a deuce you're gonna read a book right so like it's religious reading material aloud while you're you know dropping a deuce is it is that is that like an okay I don't read I don't read on the toilets I think it's on hygienic like I mean I just want to like keep books uncontaminated even by the general atmosphere of a bathroom you know what I mean I would never put a book in a bathroom no matter what I just I treat books as sacred objects even if it's an Archie comic you know but I can't even fold a page on a book because I just want to keep them nice and pristine but if you're if you're comfortable with having ecoli and fecal matter on your books then go for it I mean there's nothing wrong with there's nothing wrong with mixing you know I pray I pray on the toilet number one number two it doesn't matter I pray and by the way I said to do number one or number two cuz I meet - my wife's weirded out by it she's like why yeah well yeah I mean you can read you know like you can get a lot done here but I do it more just so I don't have to go through that whole thing oh why is the seat up or whatever well the seats never up in my house you know I mean again I'm gonna point out the low caliber content that we have it immediately goes down just just like likes you do you drop a deuce and read religious material but I will also point out steamin you know there's like MRSA on every doorknob ever right it's MRSA it's a suit this type of super infection that like people can get it it sits on your skin but if it gets if it gets into a wound it's just untreatable because it's resistant to antibiotics and yeah I mean it's treatable but it's it's harder to treat than other antibiotics you have to be more aggressive with it and so I think about my nursing shoes all the time what you're sitting in my hallway you know literally just blood poop pee and MRSA that's all I can imagine being being on my shoes the surgeons I work for find pieces of bones in there in there what do you call them the spongy shoes that are really awful looking that everybody wears Crocs I find they find pieces of bone in their Crocs what just laughing because avec Christus Rick said pretty sure there are ways to read without getting fecal matter on the book there are most definitely ways to read on getting fecal matter in the book you just terrible it's you use your foot you got to use your foot with the toilet seat is what you do and then and then you can breathe full access turning a book with one hand or a page with one hand is does not not poss so you you're swiping left swiping right you've got different kinds of swiping going on if your honor yeah basically sure whatever yeah and then you always chance dropping the book into your lap so it's just you know you always have to use the foot to lift the toilet seat up so you can use both hands for the for the reading material my wife says she discovered a joke online that men sit on the toilet and say I'm gonna take a dump you just wait till it happens but women wait till they have to take it up and then they just sit and they just do it is that true no not even close I mean I when I go on ready I I sit I sit longer than I have to because if I'm if I'm reading some kind of compelling piece of materials and I'm gonna I want to see that through to the end of the chapter you know in which case I get my wife's in the next room stuck what are you doing in there and I'm like reading like come on isn't it isn't it obvious like come like for reals interesting so we've hit new Louis on the podcast but it's all good it's all I'm glad to have taken you there yeah it's all some of my best prayers are during a bathroom breaks Axl's find it humbling because I picture myself as a turd you know basically Martin Luther yeah yeah but a turd that will not be covered over with snow a turd that is going to be sanctified truly sanctified this is this is the beauty of the Catholic Way and I mean it's it's silly to think that we are pure and that we're righteous and one of my favorite quotes in the Old Testament is our righteousness is just like filthy rags I often think about that and we all have a long way to go and we're all very very disgusting and dirty I think I'm a hygiene a lot like every time I'm in the shower I shower you know once a day sometimes twice a day just because I stink I get sweaty I you know you know I have to brush my teeth I have to lean my hair I've got to keep everything clean because if I don't keep it clean guess what happens it's a gross stinky mess right sure though it accumulates very quickly and I think this is very humbling for us humans and I can understand I can understand why Satan and his demons mock and ridiculous disgusting smelly creatures I do understand but he completely missed the point that God is humble and God humbles his creatures and we have fallen from grace but he has given us a chance to stand before him purified and clean and yeah I I take exception with Luther's vision of the dunghill covered with snow it really really really aggravates me among many of his many of his heterodox teachings really aggravating that's a