CVS Live Guest - 2021-09-26 - Nikola Krcic
There are 206 episodes in the Guest:Solo series.
My old friend Nikola is back to catch up since we haven't streamed in a few months. We spent the entire stream talking about how lucky we Catholics are to have Christ and His Church.
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Under Construction
These YouTube transcripts are generated automatically and are therefore unformatted and replete with errors.
yeah we're live i'm here with my old friend nick nick krisek how you doing good brother how are you always nice to i should have got a job using my voice but when i hear myself i cringe it's a good late night radio voice oh that's funny so i'm not better with my words or else i probably would have got a job yeah man i'm going through pictures well first things first i um as last time and always uh i'd like to renounce satan and all of his his minions and his powers and his work so um i renounced satan and asked the cleansing and covering of the precious blood of jesus christ on us and on this conversation and and may we say one thing at least that will help someone and um and bring them closer to jesus christ amen amen nice um when you said today's date that reminded me and uh is my best friend's birthday today that passed away last year um yeah and steve lewdry so i just pulled out pictures and here's uh one of like one of them and um and it just wow yeah that stung uh i didn't know today was his birthday but but yep but me may god rest the soul and have mercy on him and man how i look at death now it's so different uh before it's like death while someone's gone you know they're gone and wow wow but goodness are they far from going right um they've just started and and in some weird way i'm like wow a best friend that i grew up with he is has his encounter which we pray that is good he's having his encounter someone i know so close has his encounter with god right now and it's just that's just jaw-dropping and hawing and shocking and scary and beautiful and you know all the above yeah exciting but we don't we don't know i mean this is we live in the obscurity of faith and we see as in a broken mirror darkly knowledge truth but we're we're gonna go to the source one day let's hope we're prepared let's hope we're properly oriented such that we don't displease god and so we can uh even avoid purgatory i mean that's that's my goal even though if you watch me if you watch me day to day you'll say hey david why aren't you striving for your goal practically i mean it's one thing to talk about it why don't you actually strive strive for holiness you know but it's hard it's hard it's hard to be holy it's hard to be good and it's hard to uh it's easy for me it's easy for me to keep my eye on the prize and to give lip service to god but it's hard to actually render service to god that's right that's right and that's been like my my goal to to try to do indeed and and and never forget with love i i can't forget love because christ told me that that's so important paul says that how important it is and it's just like i think a lot of times we could preach at people yeah and and just throw the truth at them launch it at them and and forget that oh shoot i didn't even do none of it in love he thought he didn't hear a word i said you know yeah and that's pretty sad and a waste yeah try to remember to always try to do things in love but by god's grace but yeah yeah sure so you had a little short list i you emailed me a short list what were some of those topics you wanted to cover today yeah i mean whatever because um if i i'm bad with scripting things and right so it's like if i would have scripted it it would have been a big mess or boring because i don't know i don't know how to make things interesting okay um i just know how to tell things as they happen as they are as they as i see them to be right so i'm a bad storyteller you know it's just like i'll just uh because i'm being honest as possible you know and sometimes yeah i don't do a good job telling a story so i just threw you that list to um say whatever one you feel like mentioning and that'll remind me to just freestyle it um you know as honest and as best as i can so that's why i gave you that list so something to talk about to keep the to keep the um conversation going and while you're doing that let me show you when i used to be good looking since i got these pictures unbelievable yeah wow yeah you think she ever come talk to me on the stream yeah she would i think she would yeah i sure do i'm gonna have to set that up um it actually crossed my mind one day i said i might have to set that up one day and see if when she's willing when david is willing yeah yep that'd be nice yeah that would be exciting to talk to at least yes a little boring but easy at least that's good no no the the truth the truth is never boring it's never boring and we want to we want to see authenticity and love and that's what you bring every time so that's the best nice we can have a moment of silence and just to soak you in our viewers could just soak you in nick chris just soak it in no need for words don't be shy don't be do you have any do you have any stories of uh blushing and being embarrassed in public like when you had to give a speech at yeah i'll always get shy when i'm put on the spot right um definitely but uh but the one time yeah my female cousin asked me to say a speech at her wedding and then i was like oh that sounds good yeah yeah i'm ready okay i'm gonna think what am i gonna say and the more i thought about it the more i started getting um nervous about it and totally not knowing what to say then and then started like gosh i hope this i hope it don't happen i hope she forgets about it it came to that and then when he finally she called me to give the speech and then um i mean i guess it went okay but uh my brother said wow you use the word um he uh yeah but it went okay you know yeah i'm just yeah i'm a little shy when i'm put on the spot so not sure why or if that's a bad thing or a good thing uh i do pray for better words clarity of words and trying to cause wow inside of me man i got a lot to say but you know what's weird is sometimes words don't even do justice to you know how i'm feeling what i'm thinking um whatever the words don't even do justice i think that's why and another thing is um so i speak albanian fluently as well right and that language a lot of the words you say it in reverse yeah right so i'll catch myself doing that in english sometimes too you know what i mean so that that kind of confuses uh my words sometimes as well yep that's fun so uh something you said there reminded me of uh a citation by my favorite one of my favorite saints saint augustine he said god is truer in thought than in speech but god is even truer in being than he is in our thoughts so there's a sort of thing where we can talk about god and there's a certain amount of truth to that and we can think about god and there's even more truth about that but the ultimate truth of course is inaccessible to us as it's it resides in the very being of god uh which remains mysterious and incomprehensible so you know we we're acknowledging here we're talking about here the fact that in our minds in our thoughts it's much richer and fuller than it is or that it could possibly be through a verbal expression that's why people have recourse to poetry or dance or the arts or music or painting or sculpture or whatever it might be to try to complete what's lacking in our expression because our thoughts are so much richer and then if you go beyond that like the reality is even even higher than that i mean obviously so uh it's interesting these these layers that we have in our experience and we were talking about your friend that passed away a year ago and how he's now diving into that reality first hand uh either through purgatory and the cleansing he's going through or if he god willing went straight to heaven i mean i doubt it i don't know him but i doubt it just because i think that's extremely rare that's right but let's hope let's hope and pray that it is the case maybe he was uh maybe he's maybe he did his purgatory here below we don't know i don't know anything about him so i don't know anything but um you know that's the best case scenario and don't forget that we can use our suffering at death and our humble acceptance of death as a sort of purgation of purification and the church talks about that and we can use that to go straight to heaven i don't think it's easy or common but it is possible so we have to have that hope for others and for yeah yep i agree yeah you know you know what i try to uh try to make sense of it and i may have a small little grasp on it but i i i doubt it maybe you can give me your thought too but we know how hard it is to to be holy and to be a saint here on earth and to always do the right thing and to pick our the best choice that we can do and yet jesus said he says my yoke is easy right so i'm like i was trying to make sense of that like what do you mean it's easy you know it's the hardest thing ever right like but then i guess as i as i was thinking about it it's just kind of like when you're truly walking with him and and he guides you and and i guess it comes to a point where it's almost easy and then we have the sacraments and when i go to confession and i honestly you know um say my sins and then the priest absolves me and then and then i'm like how wonderful and beautiful and i'm like that was too easy and then that's when i get the glimpse of when jesus says my yoke is easy you know stuff like the the mass and and reconciliation and the eucharist and it's like does it get any easier you know in that sense so well i would say i would say everything i agree with everything that you said but there's something i think missing from what you said which is a constant easiness about our relationship with jesus christ okay the god man our lord and savior jesus christ there's an easiness about it which you haven't hit on which i think is very important to emphasize and that is the same easiness that i have with my wife even if we're fighting even if i did something offensive to her okay and i have to live with that guilt that shame and i have to seek her good graces again even in those dark times there's an easiness of my relationship with her because i love her and if someone were to come up with me if the devil were to come to me and say well hey it's not working out with anna how about you go with this other uh younger skinnier version over here right like uh how about that offer and it's just it's too easy it's like buzz off satan buzz off because it's too easy it's too easy for me so if that is easy imagine how easy it is if satan comes up to you and says hey would you like to abandon jesus christ your lord and savior and become a satanist an atheist or whatever it's too easy so think about that that is a never-ending stream of easy yoke it's easy easy easy easy the choice is easy and you should never forget that so don't think of it in terms of uh your failure to be a good boy don't think of it in terms of that think of it in terms of the choice is clear it's easy and the like you said with the sacraments with the forgiveness everything just comes so easily and naturally even though you're uncomfortable and you're ashamed of your weakness you're ashamed of your sin and your proclivity to sin you're ashamed of that that's a heavy burden but that burden is not jesus christ that burden is nick krisik and david ross that's our burden that we put on ourselves because we we listen from time to time we listen to the evil whisperings of satan right but if we just look at what is the burden of jesus christ it's it's uh effortless that you can't feel it it's just love like you said in the beginning of this episode it's just love it's easy it's too easy i feel for the atheist uh like i was analyzing those 500 arguments nathan i interviewed him he was a christian at one point ostensibly and i feel bad for him that he's taken off the light yoke and he's put on uh the oak of satan now the the pro the problem with satan is that he's going to give you all kinds of pleasure in this world like jesus said uh to the people of his own time you've you've had your reward so there is a reward to be had here from following the ways of the world from following satan you you will have a reward here below for being worldly and for being satanic you will have a reward but jesus warns us that that reward is literally nothing compared to the eternal rewards of being a follower of christ so i i feel bad for the atheists i don't want to single out nathan because i'm doing a lot of uh i'm giving him a lot of air time anyway with my 500 refutations there but um it does it does the reason i'm doing that one of the reasons i'm doing that refutation is because it does really deeply touch me when someone claims to be a christian and then abandons jesus christ i find that shocking and horrifying you know it's it's very disturbing it's very disturbing and troubling because i'm a christian and like i just don't know how to i just don't know how to relate to that lifestyle choice when you say it's too too hard or um it's not working out for me or uh what's in it for me it doesn't seem to be enough in it for me to continue uh uh rendering service to jesus christ i just don't understand the accounting behind it and the the mathematics behind it how do you get to a position where you you've made your notes on paper and you just say no it's not worth it i'm going to abandon jesus christ i just don't understand how you get there yep yep and i yeah and i think answer is like uh twofold it does boil down to the sin we all want to sin without feeling guilty right we all want to sin without looking back at it and enjoy it as much as possible and i think that's one while the other is and this is the sad part the ignorance the the lies he's been fed unknowingly about our lord and savior that were totally wrong and that he didn't even know you know he didn't even know the level of of the goodness of god and the mercy of god and though he just he didn't know and that that breaks my heart when someone just don't know you know um they were never taught it they were never and that's that's one thing when i look at my two daughters and i'm like what a horrible parent i would be if i let them loose in this world without telling them about the love of god and and and and telling them about his church and the it's like what a cruel world this could be you know yeah yeah like so and that's a lot of people i mean myself too i'm not saying i know it all but what i'm saying is a lot of ignorance but goodness the riches of the teachings in the church for us gosh this is wonderful you know never ending and it's great you know we can look in any direction and get all that we need to save a marriage to save your depression to save you just like anything you know but we're dumb humans so we go to a you know let's say a psychiatrist instead of right and i'm not i don't know if i'm totally against psychiatrists or whatever but what i'm saying is if you didn't go to god first you know it's just sad you know it's sad because the answer is there for all of us in in any any direction like like i picked up a pamphlet at the church and it was about marriage and i read it and my heart melted and i'm like geez all all all a husband and a wife had to do was read this and and no they go through you know instead they go through um they pay for years of marriage counseling and this and then i'm like the answer was right here in this little free pamphlet you know what i mean yeah uh it's it's amazing it really is it's it's insane you know i guess it says question of education are you ready for this particular lesson like i mean if you think about a human child how old is your eldest now i'm gonna be four in november and your younger one is what yeah one year and three months okay so is your um four-year-old ready for pre-school or something daycare or something like that yeah we just put her in preschool yep she's okay three-year-old in preschool yup so she'll be going to kindergarten soon like next year or the next year now yeah okay we just started her a few weeks ago yep i mean you could um give her a physics textbook from third year university and she wouldn't know what to do with it right yep right now but um eventually if she decides to go into science when she's 18 19 20 whatever at that point she'll be ready for that textbook and all that it contains and all the truth it contains it also contains lies because it's not uh it's not an infallible book this is natural science textbook right so it does contain errors and i hate to say it but even lies that means that people know it's wrong to put it in there anyway that is the the that's the situation that we're in in this fallen world there are lies in the newspapers on television and on the radio and our textbooks and teachers are telling lies and to say otherwise is just beyond naive at this point because we've seen the devil at work and we know that people are corrupt and they're willing to lie they may not use that word but basically when you teach error on purpose that's a form of lying right and if you have if your reason is well that's just the way we do it here and i'm not going to book the system i don't want to stand out i don't want to get fired i don't want to be a goody goody or whatever it doesn't matter what your reason is if you're complying with evil it's evil so um but in terms of the education of the child notwithstanding all of the evil that permeates this fallen world there are nonetheless grades preschool kindergarten and then one through 12 and then if your child ends up going to university or college whatever there are grades and you're prepared by the previous grade for the current grade and the current grade for the next grade and so on and so forth so it's the same thing i think in the spiritual life and in marriage and in relationships and at work and everything else we have to develop organically and we have to be ready for the message and if we're not ready for that message it's no different from giving a third year uh physics textbook to your four-year-old daughter right it's the same thing it's not ready yep yep yeah that's true we have to respect we have to respect where people are at but the thing is like when i talked about nathan ormond and how he was a christian now he's an atheist it's like okay so had you gone through k through 12 and you'd done your first year of theology and and then you went back to kindergarten or had you not gone through those grades and you just you were sitting in the university uh first year theology course without having done k through 12 right like what it which situation is it and it's the same thing with anyone that uh that falls away from the faith like did you know at one point and you forgot or did you know and then you just you don't care or you hate the truth or or what is it or have you not yet been exposed to the proper organic organic development of of beliefs and knowledge to get you where you need to be and to be well founded in your faith i mean it's very delicate and mysterious when you're talking to someone about their not only their faith but their fall from faith or their lapse away from faith so it's tricky it's complicated it's hard to know it's hard to know like how how do you get inside someone's heart and mind and soul to find out uh how prepared they were in the first place to call themselves a christian how do you do that yeah yeah but the church is a wonderful mother the church is a wonderful mother she gives us all the means of salvation and that includes the means of education and the means to educate our conscience and uh i mean even the natural lie i've spoken with catholics who came to catholicism having fully understood the natural law right so they understood that you know homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered and that adultery is intrinsically disordered masturbation is intrinsically disordered and lying is intrinsically disordered and stealing is intrinsically disordered and so on and so forth so there's sort of that the ten commandments of god are written in their heart before they're written before they're ever written in stone by the finger of god right that's interesting yeah yeah it is we have access to that right so to come to religion after having all that richness of the natural law that's uh i think that's a pretty solid foundation i wonder if uh nathan for example didn't have that or uh it's just very mysterious to me because it's not that hard i think it's not that hard to have a foundation of monotheism natural law and all these sorts of things and then catholicism is just the icing on the cake at that point like to me i've always if you listen to my meta episodes i've always spoken about the fact that really it doesn't matter which form of monotheism you belong to as long as you sincerely believe it i think it's obvious that catholicism is true uh but i mean if you're a sincere uh monotheist of any kind a muslim jew or whatever i mean that's more to me that's more than half the battle as long as you're sincere in your beliefs and you're not shying away from examining your false beliefs because we all hold false beliefs in even us faithful catholics we hold false beliefs many false beliefs just happens to be it just so happens that we have uh the fullness of the needs of salvation at are disposably because of because of the church so the essential saving truths we have no excuse if we don't uh believe those infallible saving truths right the essential saving truths yeah but when it comes to flat earth around earth or whatever i mean that's not an essential saving truth because it's not dogmatically defined when it comes to young earth old earth whatever that's not an essential saving truth because it's not yet dogmatically defiant and there are many other other truths pertaining to religion which may one day be dogmatized and formalized but which for the time being we're free to have an opinion in this way or that way but we could still be wrong i mean the fact that it's a free opinion means that there's a chance that we're wrong and if you and i disagree on one of these free opinions at least one of us is going to be wrong that's just the way it is but but for the essential saving truths you and i have the same source uh and we i mean if if one of us is straying the other one can charitably and promptly correct the other just by pointing to uh either the documents or the other sources of truth that are given to us by the church so we're pretty lucky that way if you're a protestant if you're a protestant it's my holy spirit against your holy spirit and it's just a battle of the wills i'm gonna bully i'm gonna bully you or outsmart you or whatever not not to disparage the protestants but i mean it's a different kettle of fish we i remember having a discussion with a young friend uh catholic friend at pastry school when i went to pastry school years ago and we had a misunderstanding he thought that i meant something that i didn't mean and i thought he meant something that he didn't mean and we went away perplexed and concerned about the other's eternal salvation we came back the next day to pastry school holding in our hands the self-same catechism of the catholic church and the dispute was resolved we both understood we both understood the same teaching but we expressed it in different ways that gave some confusion to the other party you see yeah so i don't without that without the church how do two christians come together and resolve the differences i just don't understand it that's right that's right me neither now and yeah and that journey i went to with dabbling in protestantism and i remember feeling that in his like wow i called my protestant friend the one that was known to be quote unquote saved and following jesus christ the best or whatever i called him i asked him okay okay now so now what do we do about sin though right when we sin what do we do about that he said his answer was this well well we're all we're all gonna sin and that's it that was his answer you know and he had nothing for it and it's just like now you think how scary that thought is man wow you do you remember what luther said about sin yep sin and sin boldly right yeah allegedly you said that i haven't read it in the original text but that's allegedly what he said yup yup in other words like you might as well make it count and give jesus christ something to save you from and and that's where it can go to when you think like that you know uh i don't know it's pretty dangerous stuff yeah it is but even even um how we confess and i understand some protestants won't understand why do we confess to a priest but wow let's let's take away the teaching of the church for a minute let's say and what that what i can say what reconciliation really is let's take that away for a minute and just what does it do to you yourself when you can remember what you've done wrong and then man up you owning it number one number two having the guts to admit that to another man even and admit you were wrong that's total healing and cleansing of the soul you know and conscience it just it's nothing but win-win you know amazing i wish everyone i wish everyone would experience it and uh but god respects our free will that's why it's such a scary scary gift that he gave us our free will is such a frightening and horrifying gift because we can say no not only to the sacrament of reconciliation we could say no to the whole kitten caboodle yeah scary man the power we have the power that god's given us where god almighty cannot force us to go to heaven he cannot he's powerless to he's powerless to get us to heaven unless we say yes unless we say okay lord i'll i'll cooperate with your graces and then you can start that journey and if you take one step towards christ he'll take one million steps towards you that reminds me of a joke my boss told me at work the other day has got nothing to do with this but a little light humor might help here i'm not a good joke teller okay you claim you're not a good storyteller i'm not a good joke teller so i'll just basically tell you what the joke is i'm not going to tell you the joke i'm just going to tell you what the components of the joke are so uh i think it's a jewish joke where the jew says to uh god um so free for you god one day is like a thousand years and uh so probably one dollar is probably like a million dollars to you right and god says yeah yeah yeah it is he says so the jew says to god okay well um can you give me a million dollars he says he says can you give me a dollar and uh and god says sure give me a minute i'll get right on that give me one minute i'll be right on that so he's got to wait a thousand years but yeah anyway i i i'm not very good at telling jokes but you get the idea right you get the idea i think it's kind of silly you know the this is why did they have to make it into a jewish joke like why couldn't it have been a jew christian or a muslim but i think it's because there's that association with the jews and money you know like they like money yeah yeah but the muslims like money the christians like my you like money yup right yeah i like i like money yeah i know i don't know where that originates from but it's been floating around a while i stare it's a stereotype i did interview a rabbi one rabbi and i asked him about that and he said well it's because we were intelligent we have a lot of experience dealing with money and we have we're good at managing money and we take care of our family and our kids and our community and like just practically give a very practical reason why there's a stereotype yeah and uh i mean you know they were they were forbidden to do anything but deal with money at a certain point in history in different parts of europe and so they were kind of forced to uh to get good at that you know yeah and there's so many i mean there's so many uh conspiracy theorists out there and you know i've been looking at crazy stuff on bit shoot and so much hatred of the jews on there and the anti-uh anti-trude anti-semitism and holocaust deniers and this sort of thing it's it's rampant it's just like the hatred is uh palpable and uh it's uh there's no excuse for it it's it's horrible damnable sin uh to the extent that they know what they're doing i mean jesus said forgive them they know not what they're doing but i mean i don't think they're all completely invincibly ignorant of what they're doing right right right i mean i was gonna ask um what's your take on the jews that uh so now and and so what's your take on it and does the do you know if the church has a teaching on this so now those that came to jesus christ and that are in his church are are are we now considered the the true jews whoever comes in or or something like that you know what i'm saying yeah yeah saint paul talks about uh how we are the wild olive branches grafted onto the natural olive tree so the non-jews are wild sort of good for nothing but they are salvaged by god and grafted onto the good tree the good tree of the chosen people the jews okay and we are as jesus said the dogs eating up the scraps of the chosen people the jews under the table of the jews okay so we are second-class citizens we are the younger son and we we all know from the old testament how often the younger son usurps the eldest son right time and time and time and time and time and time again and uh but the eldest son has the right and the privilege the privileges that go with being the eldest son if they meet certain conditions and that's why all those stories in the old testament emphasize that if you you know if you give away those rights or if you lose them for some other reason because of your behavior your attitude toward god then the the father can give those privileges to uh younger son it happens time and time and time again so that's the position we are in as non-jews and that's why we can because we're grafted onto the natural olive tree of of the jews the chosen people we can say in all sincerity i belong to this tree i am a son of abraham even the stones as saint john the baptist said even these very stones here on the banks of the jordan can be made into the sons of abraham so it's no big deal for god he can make any one you can make your pet cat a son of abraham if he wants to yeah so uh it's no big deal for god i mean it's impossible for men but it's not it's not impossible for god because everything's possible for god so we are spiritual jews as saint paul said we are spiritual jews even though paul himself was a jew ethnically speaking and religiously speaking he was a jew i mean he was one of the best jews but we see what the jews of his day were promoting as uh as zealous and god-fearing jews they were killing the christians rounding up and killing the christians so to make that leap from good jew to good catholic on one from one perspective it's a seamless transition it's just a con organic continuity but from another point of view it's a radical shift of radical change and god said i will show you how much this servant of mine saint paul will have to suffer because of the things he did as a good and faithful jew i'm going to show you just how much he has to suffer and if you read the book of acts you'll see how much he suffered it's one of my favorite passages in the new testament it's just the shipwrecks the stonings the imprisonment the cold and the wet and that you know on and on and on it's just unbelievable so uh it does make me wonder a little bit why god's uh not putting me through the ringer a little bit more i mean i was an atheistic satanist but since my conversion i haven't had to suffer so it kind of calls into question my conversion like hey god did you notice i converted like you want you want to torture me a bit what are you waiting for you know and his experience had to have been his that motivation of of no matter what he was going to to be faithful you know his experience you went through uh and you know knocked off the horse and the vision and and blinded and you know that's like and same with the others like they see him they see him dead and gone and then they see him back again and they had to be the biggest motivation for them i mean paul paul is one of my favorite saints uh i sometimes forget that he's one of my favorites because he's so prominent in the bible i just forget like he's so good and so prominent that you just almost forget to pray to him or to think about him or to give him credit but when i read the new testament it's like wow i i'm blown away i'm really blown away and can you imagine if he said at the end of his last epistle if he said but then i did an accounting of all the penances i did all the prayers and all the long nights of prayer and all this and i decided that god hadn't given me enough consolation so i decided to become an atheist can you imagine if saint paul said that it doesn't make any sense it doesn't make any sense it's so foreign it's so alien to the to the teaching and the experience and the character of saint paul it's so foreign i mean you look at you look at uh his prayer when uh he asked for that thorn in his side to be removed three times he prayed and when saint paul prays it's powerful prayer what did god say my grace is sufficient for you don't worry about it don't worry about don't worry about the thorn in your sights don't worry about it right so i mean uh this this is the true faith this is how you walk in the obscurity of faith this is how you do it this is how you do self-sacrifice for the love of god love of neighbor it's amazing and that also separates from just believing to trusting god you can't just believe right as he says even the devil i believe but when you can trust in god that's that's a big deal man to trust him no matter what you know that'll mean when something goes wrong why me why me you know it's you trust them the same way as when everything was good you know yeah well uh some one of my one of my silly prayers that i like to do to god i don't do it often but uh just sort of in thought experiment mode like when i'm talking with someone like you it brings to mind this sort of prayer that i could you know hypothetically i could make to god which is god why why do you treat me so unfairly why why it's not fair god the way you treat me and the punchline is because i deserve so much worse like why are you why do i have all this enjoyment and pleasure and things are going my way and doors are opening and there's no problem and you know the little problems the little problems i do have are negligible it's laughable it's laughing that's right and that's the only way it made sense too it makes sense you know that way it's just like why am i treated so unfair like all the good you have given to me thus far you know yeah like yeah it's like a it's like if i keep sending you money nick i keep sending you money like uh you know you might need it for your baby and i might need it for this or if you're moving or you need your car broke down i just keep sending you money right and you're like david i really appreciate it but holy cow can you slow down because i'm never gonna be able to pay you back for this and i just keep sending you the money sending you the money for this and for that and for your family you just be like uh slow down but it reminds me it reminds me one of my favorite passages in the old testament where uh moses uh what was it was he was he building the uh i forget was it moses in the desert with the tent that they were decorating and they were getting gold and all the things they needed for the tent i think it was i think it was an exodus exodus 31 if i'm not mistaken but at a certain point like they had asked moses and aaron had asked the people to send the gold and the silver and all the the fine jewelry and all the fine linen and all these sorts of things and at a certain point uh they had to do another announcement to the people like stop sending in all your treasures because there's too much like we have more than enough we have more than enough to finish the work that we started okay so this is this is a good antidote to the stereotype of the jews because these the original hebrew people right saying hey give us your money and then saying hey you're giving us too much when does that ever happen when does that ever happen really it only ever happens with the with the chosen people these uh these hebrew people what would be the jews eventually so it's amazing and then imagine some me someone being so selfish that that when you send me so much money or continuously and then the one time you didn't send me money i'm like i don't know about you david i don't know he don't care he could care less if i yeah you know what i'm abandoning this guy yeah why wow that's what happens man wow amazing amazing that's another thing i think about with uh the atheist that doesn't appreciate god the father it's like your very moment-to-moment existence depends on him right you do realize that so the analogy that i like to present them with especially if they're young students at university and daddy's paying for their education and daddy got them the car and daddy got bought them a house and there are people like this in canada in the us in the western world there are rich kids who are spoiled by daddy okay so imagine that you are so rich and spoiled and so high on drugs and alcohol and illicit sex and all these sorts of things that you suddenly are in a fog where you can't even make the logical connection between the money that keeps filling your bank account from daddy and those car payments that keep being made by daddy and all the fines that you that you get from the police that daddy keeps paying and all the hot sticky situations that you keep getting bailed out of by daddy and your tuition that's paid by daddy and on and on and on and on and on and the bills and the house and everything else okay you're so deluded that you have legitimately convinced yourself that this is just your entitled situation and there is no daddy you don't have a daddy you you just you just are you and aren't you pretty aren't you amazing and who's this daddy that you're talking about and i'm talking about in my analogy i'm talking about like a creature of you know a human being with two parents that's in a situation a very mundane situation at university that just happen to be very spoiled and they can't even make the simplest connection between their spoiled lifestyle and their physical parent right it's uh i mean it's it's a wacky and weird exaggerated uh hypothesis but i would put money on it that it has has actually happened where someone is that rich that spoiled not deluded did they just forget about the connection between their lifestyle and the rich parent that's paying for it that rich parent that worked really hard as an immigrant to get all the money they have and to have the ability to send their kids to school like the opportunity that they didn't have as a child in the third world where they grew up before they came to america or whatever the story is like there are plenty of stories like this so i like to use that to wake up uh privileged spoiled complacent uh young adults to the reality that you would not even have existence right now you're being sustained by god the father right yeah yeah so yeah okay now if you were done were you done yeah okay um i didn't want to cut you up but um i was going to say it brings to my analogy on that actually that like i just thought of one day and it stuck really well and i'm like this is exactly how it is it's like it's like it's like um god is like electricity itself and we're a measly light bulb right but as we're shining here a little light bulb oh look at me i have the power i'm lighting up this room you know i'm i'm giving off he see look at me and it's like oh god all i got has to do is cut that electricity and you're nothing right you know so that's kind of how i see it and so fragile uh a light bulb is a great analogy because it's so fragile the thin glass and then that little that little filament i don't know if you've seen those filaments how fine they are yeah but now it's nothing without the electricity it's nothing it you know and that's that's that's what makes it yeah so amazing yeah you're a genius yeah oh you know speaking of analogies and that was one i gave you on the list that it just since we're talking um i i never heard a um really a good analogy for like predestination and free will to work together you know okay do you have any that um you have heard that is are decent or that you could think of or thought of you know only the uh the analogy that i use is someone who's up at a great height for example on a mountain looking down at a train it's about to go off a broken bridge or whatever and he can see that it's going to happen but he does he does not thereby become the cause of what is about to happen got it got it because one that popped in my head probably i don't know a few months back or something and you can tell me and be honest what you think of it or whatever or if it even fits but it's like predestination and and free will to fit together it's like being pushed out of an airplane right and that's like to say when we're born right entered into this world all right so now you have the whole time of uh what you're gonna do while you're falling right you could be scared you could enjoy it and let's say you have a parachute on right as well or whatever but you could be scared you could enjoy it you can try to flap your wings you could go a little to the left a little to the right a little but and then now you're going to eventually come to the ground right and that would be death you know let's say and it's like um yeah so i guess the parachute maybe don't matter or not but regardless yeah you know and then it's like and if god god wants to and i'm sure he does for many it's kind of like he he'll slightly blow us in one direction or the other right while we're falling down right while we're falling down but how much choice we how much choice we have during that fall you know it's kind of like again you could be scared or you can enjoy it you can love it you can hate it you know you can glide find a nice way to glide to the left to glide get better at gliding you know whatever but picture a long fall not such a short excuse me not such a shortfall so and i would say that kind of when you think of it pretty um completely it seems like a decent analogy for predestination and free will you know yeah yeah yeah yeah for sure for sure and it's all about that choice the the fundamental option that choice for or against the will of god like it's my will or his will yeah so that's the fundamental choice and then uh you know it's you know the the end result is the same we're all destined to suffer and die so it's just a question of are you gonna you're gonna make that suffering and death powerfully good or are you gonna let it just be a horrible miserable meaningless meaningless uh waste of a life exactly and it's funny watch the more you think about that analogy and if you just picture it as a really long flight down right a long fall down yeah it all it it you can fit a lot into it where it keeps making more and more sense you know and it's like the moment we hit the ground that's the death but let's just say a little to the left or to the left bullseye is heaven and the right one is hell let's say right and it's just like okay so we're automatically going to die but then where did you land when you died and you're right so it's just like yeah it gets pretty deep and yeah yeah it's pretty nice it brings to mind um saint anselm one of my favorite saints he he's called the second augustine but he uh i think he lived in the 11th or 12th century if i'm not mistaken but he had a nice image for life where you can imagine yourself blindfolded because in this life like we said we walk by faith right we have the obscurity of faith and we don't see clearly our intellects are dim our wills are weak so we're blindfolded and we're shackled also with chains because we're very limited in what we can do we're like kind of powerless right and then we have uh we're up high uh there's like a great abyss but there's a little rope not a rope ladder but a rope bridge you know those bridges that are really shaky and they have like slats of wood like little planks of wood and so you're walking across this blindfolded in shackles and chains and uh you are slowly advancing in the dark and down beneath you you can't even see but down beneath you are all the monsters and you know these represent the demons and the pits of hell that are waiting for you to fall okay and then in the air around you're all these uh birds and buzzards and uh and uh these creature flying creatures that are harassing you and pecking at you and distracting you and uh you know they're for all intents and purposes trying to make you stumble and fall into the pit and not only that but as you walk forward you step from one of these wooden planks to the next the plank that you lift your foot from as you advance forward it disappears so if you look back there's nowhere to step like you just have to keep marching forward this is the march of time and each plane each plank for saint anselm represents a day in this image so each day one day the next day you're getting closer to the end right just like your thing with falling you're going to hit the ground eventually so eventually these planks are disappearing so it heightens the anxiety right so uh you know your your mission as a catholic is to just keep moving forward along this narrow path do not go left do not go right do not jump up and down don't start singing and dancing what saint anselm says is if you can picture this mundane situation with all its dangers with all its impediments with the blindfold with the chains with the animals the beast below the beast in the air the the fragility of this of this uh bridge and the precariousness of having the planks removed as you step forward the uncertainty of the whole situation saint anselm asks in this situation in this mundane situation the hypothetical situation that i've placed you in do you think there's any place whatsoever tell me seriously do you think there's any place whatsoever for revelry and celebration and joy and and indulging in the pleasures and all these sorts of things no that's not that that's not appropriate to this life it's not appropriate to this life what's appropriate to this life is getting to the other side safely that's it so when your friends say well come on let's live a little let's have some fun let's just you know it's uh in my state prostitution's legal let's just do it in my state marijuana is legal let's just do it in my state this is kind of a gray zone let's just do it in my state the cops don't mind they turn a blind eye to this crime let's just do it and you know or mommy and daddy are away hey let's have that party just like the cool kids had their party yeah i know someone died at that party but we'll be more careful and won't happen to us whatever it is whatever the temptation is to have fun to indulge in your pleasure to indulge in your in your base appetites saint anselm says just think about that image that it presented you with and you'll soon realize this is not the time this is not the place for indulging in those in those pleasures period yeah powerful powerful stuff it really is yeah i think about i think about uh often i think about um woody allen in one of his movies i don't know if you're a fan of woody allen or not but in one of his movies he's you know he's always complaining he's a jew he's got jewish guilt and things don't go right for him and it's always he's always neurotic and miserable whatever but he's he's he's having a dream he's having a dream one night where he's he's on this dark and dreary dank miserable train and it's just full of dour people with no sense of humor no beauty they're ugly and they're depressed and no one's talking to each other and it's dark and whatever okay and then suddenly in the dream suddenly he looks out the window he's in he's in the station the train station he's just the train's just leaving he's as this trains slowly he's pulling out he looks across the tracks to the other train that's going the other direction it's brightly lit it's got beautiful women and colorful dresses and men young men dancing singing drinking playing cards carousing making out the music is blaring i mean there's a live band it's like a it's a whale of a time okay and they've got money they've got the they've got the alcohols flowing and everything else and he's just sitting here on this miserable train looking across and as the trains accelerate in opposite direction he's just turning and looking like what the hell why am i on this train and not on that train well for me as a catholic it's intuitive it's not that i submit myself to the church and the church teaches me so i regretfully go along with it begrudgingly go along with it no i intuitively know that the misery is the better place to be in this life it's a better place to be and it even says it even says in the old testament that it's better the house of mourning is better far better than the house of of celebration the house of mirth right i just intuitive i just intuitively know that yeah same here by the grace of god i know that too and it's uh yeah it's definitely um it's like a it's it's that saying we're being uh in the world but not of the world you know yeah and and knowing that knowing that like i know um more money if i do this and do this illegally and then i can have this more and i know that'll be all uh a grand you know a wonderful fun time but nothing compared to the prize you know nothing compared to being with god nothing it's it's nothing it's nothing literally it literally is ontologically nothing it literally is nothing right like this is not this is not just a um a sort of uh uh um how should i say this it's not an exaggeration it's not hyperbole it's not just an offhand statement to be dramatic it is the philosophical fact of the matter that you and i as creatures are nothing and all the pleasures that we can have the worldly godless pleasures of this world are literally nothing ontologically they are nothing nothing and can be even proven when you look into when you when you see the rich people right how fast how fast they get bored of that car in their house how fast how lonely they are with all that money but no true love how you know like it's so obvious as well you know the moment you see it and you and they'll tell you themselves actually a lot of them you know they that glamour life looks all nice but you know if they speak truthfully it's a dark and lonely place yeah yeah yeah satan is selling his wares and he's finding clients he's finding lots and lots of clients and the fact that you and i can sit back and say well we know we know that it's clear that these because i'm well i got 20 minutes left until i get to mass because i'm going to mass so we got 20 minutes left yep and i'm going to be driving so i probably won't look at the camera much but we can continue on for 20 more minutes we can we can uh go to mass with you bring your camera you can do it maybe one day you could be that annoying guy with the cell phone sticking up in the air at mass like for the for the sign of peace you could there was a there was a baptism at my uh parish this morning oh nice my parish is called uh the immaculate conception that's the name of my parish at every baptism there's a minor exorcism at every baptism that's why i love assisting at baptisms or being present at baptisms yeah nice nice that's good yeah it's so funny in the different world of knowing knowing what a baptism is why what it means what oh man the last one i went to and for the first time being at one knowing it all is just the wonderful experience man just to be there yeah yeah yeah you benefit me there you better if we can see what was going on spiritually we would faint we would pass out yeah of the beauty and the power you know yeah yeah i i don't want to i don't want to speak ill of anyone that was at the baptism but i did notice that the parents and the god parents both refrained from taking the eucharist so i think that's good if they know they're not in a state of grace i just wonder why they wouldn't have made the preparation i just wonder why they wouldn't have just gone to confession yup yup i know i think if it's more i don't know is it me mere like i would say probably more catholics are more relaxed than not or more you know not to not to judge them but i'm saying it appears that way you know that either they're ignorant of the teachings let's say or they just don't know or they don't or they go on christmas in eastern that's it and i don't know you know i i i wish i knew what percentage is like that of catholics you know but yeah an idea but even though and i'm not judging them because i was my whole life like that it was just you know recently by the grace of god that he gave me the wanting and the yup all of it so yeah yeah well my whole life i was way worse than that i was really in a much worse situation than that so i think these people are lucky to have all these dormant graces that can revive if and when they do uh repent right like they're they're stalking up all these graces and that they're it's uh it's a teaching of the church that those can revive if they repent of their evil ways like for example people don't think it's a big deal not to meet the minimum requirements of catholicism your holy days of obligation sunday your sunday obligation you know giving your contribution financially to the church support the church financially all these sorts of things they think it's not a big deal yep right but you are you're excluded from full communion if you do that it's a big deal like basically you're you're not on the ark you will perish you will perish unless you get right with god so uh but all the other little things going to church on uh for uh to please men not to please god but to please men for the baptisms the weddings the funerals all these sorts of things uh there may or may not be uh merit to that which will revive when they when they repent like if it's purely a worldly participation then i don't think there's much there but if there is in the back burner or the back of their mind well i'm a lapsed catholic it's kind of weird that i'm here and i come twice a year to church and i go to these these baptisms and i don't even take the eucharist but in the back of their mind if they're thinking well um you know i'm the prodigal son i'm gonna come back to daddy and uh i don't i don't like where i'm at i just i'm being honest with myself this is where i'm at so i'm not going to take communion but there's that little there's that little doubt like hmm one day one day maybe i'll be uh striving to be holy too right like uh especially when they can't even they don't even know when to kneel when to stand when to sit what to say like it's uh in the back of their mind they're probably thinking well maybe one day when i'm done chasing the money or whatever it is that i'm busy with maybe one day i could strive for holiness too so i think that's that's always a really strong possibility for these uh lapsed catholics or weak catholics or whatever they are and i don't want to judge them either i mean it's just it's just an objective fact that i notice and there could be a million and one explanations they may be the most devote catholics we ever met and they just they just are very very sensitive and scrupulous about receiving holy communion i don't know right that's right we never know and we can't we have to remember it and we can't act like we do know and that's why it's so smart better to not judge than it is right them personally and so yeah yeah but satan wants us to judge and he makes it seem like a lot of fun to judge it's a lot of fun to judge because it makes you feel a little better and holier right and it makes you feel like you're you know you're more special and oh yeah yeah and that's i've noticed a lot of the a lot of on fire catholics will act that way as well they'll be really aggressive you know and really judgmental and really and this you're falling you're going again if you're you're kind of falling away when you're acting like that even that you have gone to mass you know and even that you have confessed you know yeah we can't yeah can't forget to have love in in the picture of it all man i'm thinking of doing uh a general confession i've done two in my life since my conversion 11 years ago i've done two general confessions which are from a to z from conception to present day i'm thinking about doing a third one just because my spiritual reading now is encouraging me to find all those little secret hidden sins that i've not yet properly confessed you know what i mean yeah yeah even though even though we're we're supposed to say at the end of every confession and i confess those things i can't remember and blah blah blah blah blah and my past yep yep yeah and i think yeah and of course god is good and he knows that you know that he knows that if you would have remembered this specific sin that you would have confessed it right he knows that but it's only for our benefit if we do remember it let's say you know it only shapes our conscience for towards a better right more holy or whatever but it's like so it's it's good too but again not to fall in the scrupulous now with it and not to what do you think you agree with uh with that like i i i mean what i'm trying to say is we can take anything overboard and then and then and then go wrong with it right yeah yeah well there is that fine middle path between despair on the one hand and presumption on the other hand and that middle way is filial love the love of a son for a good father that's the middle way that's the only way to get to heaven right so to go one way or the other on either side of that middle path that narrow path is to fall into sin and to put yourself in danger of eternal damnation so i mean not to be overly dramatic and uh to scare people that are out there but i mean it's just a fact that uh we have to as you always say just we have to do everything in love the love of a good child for a good uh for a good father and uh it's it's so you know we have to we have to think as catholics we have to think of very natural simplistic terms nothing overly pedantic or academic or philosophical or theological or or or even uh succumb to the mood of the times the spirit of the age or with the peer pressure of your group or what do they say on youtube this week or what's ewtn pushing or what's you know what's uh the church militant saying or what's uh life site news saying or you know what's uh father james martin saying what's he teaching america magazine all these sorts of things we need to uh we need to be little children it's a that's the bottom line we need to be little children it's not that complicated it's not that complicated it's like i always bring it back to relationship and this disposal relationship i like even more than the parent-child relationship because i'm married i love my wife and even though it's difficult to love her sometimes and difficult for me to be lovable loved by her because of my foibles and my weakness but and the way i offend her but this is a great analogy to our relationship with christ and christ's relationship with the church it's a spousal very intimate relationship but when you think about it in those terms it's just it just clarifies everything because the bottom what's the bottom line if you had a big fight with your spouse what's the bottom line do you still love me do you still want to make this work are we in it together are you you know do we forgive each other no matter what do we do do we try to offend each other less and less each day yes right so really really at the end of the day in a married couple a healthy married couple there's no big deal there there is no big deal that's right there is no victim yep yeah easy easy yeah that's right what did your pamphlet yeah and and and and you know why why little children why it'd be us to be like little children because all little children are sincere yep too they are sincere yeah what were you going to say about the panel do you remember the pamphlet some of the key bullet points from that what struck you and what impressed you and the pamphlet are the emails the marriage no no no the marriage thing he read remember oh oh man um let's see if i remember a specific but as a whole of course it was like oh man the best information you can hear right but and it compared us uh like adam and eve of course and then but uh let me remember if uh specific it's just like uh goodness well that moment that moment when you're reading it were you at church or at home um i grabbed it from church and read it at home so at home do you remember just that moment just that moment where you're reading it and you're thinking oh my god this is amazing like what was that moment when you realized i'm reading something special here oh right away though right away within the first page but exactly what it said now to break it down again oh man um of course it would be one of the main ones is stop being so stop being selfish stop being so selfish we're all so selfish we just wanted whatever we want right we want to blame our spouse for everything we want to and we forget to look in the mirror and man a mirror is one of the most powerful things ever if you're meaning you remember we got to look in the mirror daily you know hourly every second if we can what am i doing wrong right how can i improve how can i make this better how can i you know so how many how many selfies have you posted on facebook today i'm just bugging you i'm just bugging you because you're talking about looking in the mirror all day every day i know a lot of people don't know that this has nothing to do with looks by looking in the mirror all right nothing to do with the looks yeah look in the mirror and what you're doing wrong and and because i saw you notice a lot of couples they're just blaming one another and then it's a snowball effect you know only if he would change and only if he were this and you know but yeah she's not doing nothing to better it she's making it worse as well she's adding fuel to the fire she so and it's it can get bad really easy you know but it's the woman's fault huh i'm just joking i said it's the woman's fault well that's funny uh so um i guess so we didn't get to my list at all then but anyone you are you know what the only one then the only one since we have time for one it looks like the one the one that popped in my head i guess the one i wrote first was would be uh when i wrestled with god right and the reason i i word it like that is i was in a dark place and and and and this is before my my conversion when he touched me spiritually and all this stuff and i was in a dark place and in the conspiracy theory you know land and just in this full of fear and full of i don't know where to turn and what all it is and then i was thinking like i'm like oh and then the real the realization of how powerful the devil is let's say all his work what he's doing right and then how he could fall so easy and then all the tricks and then i thought of even let's say my understanding of it at the time the mark of the beast i'm like oh my gosh you mean to tell me i can accidentally get a market a beast and it'll all be over and i'll be doomed forever and right and i was thinking like this okay and then and then and then i i i i full of fear and i was just like god i was just thinking god why like i i i don't want to be deceived and lose you and and then and then i just screamed on the top of my lungs god i choose you i'm like i choose you and with all my might i screamed in like three or four times and i'm bawling crying you know and i'm just like i choose you you know like and that was my moment like where like i just felt like i was wrestling with god and grabbing him you know telling him like it's you that i want it's you that i choose no matter you know no matter what and you know and that uh it's a yeah excuse me sorry but it was only uh you know the whole thing lasted a few minutes only but after that i was kind of like out of breath and exhausted and it didn't hit me at the time but after when i thought of it i was like literally it felt like i just wrestled with god to tell him i love him you know yeah yeah yeah very powerful so did he ever get back to you what his answer was actually yeah he did and you know some of that story i don't think i ever shared it um but when i said a prayer them i said this prayer and he answered and he boy did he answer he didn't answer that day right but he answered i wasn't expecting it and and i was at the same uh darkness right and i was in my car and i was just like full of fear again and where do i turn for truth or who can i trust who can i this and then and i just said this prayer that i had accidentally read literally 10 minutes before on the comment section that comment was there for me right that's what i'm thinking it now but it just said uh no weapons formed against us wi