The Catholic Stuff Metaverse

Welcome to Catholic Stuff You Should Know, the J-10 initiative. Good afternoon, or morning, or evening, or night. If you're up with your child listening, we're right on 6th Avenue with Catholic Stuff You Should Know. That's right.

We've got a motorcycle coming in on our intro. And it is afternoon, and it's a sleepy one, because we just came from a press bidder meeting. It is a press bidder meeting. What is a press bidder meeting?

All the business for the press bidders. We are 220 priests and dinner, active, something like that. They didn't tell me that at the meetings, I don't know. It's quite there.

We actually have a great chance for you. We complain about meetings, and they try and keep the meetings brief, but it's a lot of... We've got 140 parishes, is that right? 144 parishes.

I think we're 226 priests in Denver. Covering us? It's just a massive amount. So, yeah, in case of the Archbishop listens, we gotta lock it up here a little bit.

I was just playing the song Skyfall, because it was in my head, and we were just debating whether it's the greatest bond. Let the sky fall. It's at the greatest bond entry song ever. We're watching all the bonds right now in my house, because we don't have a life.

It's a good one. I mean, if you ask somebody to name a James Bond intro song, it's gonna be one of the two that they know. By name. I think Livin' Let Die was Paul McCartney in the 70s.

I think that was Roger Moore's first one. That might be... That's pretty cool. I mean, that one, you said it, and I've got it in my head immediately, so that's...

I'm not gonna try and sing it, because I'm messing up. Yeah. Very good. Yeah, I'm back down here in Denver with Father John.

I've been making this track quite a bit between... You have been making... Between the Dices. Between the Dices.

Between... My car went up over 200,000 on my way up to Aspen with Father Joseph LeJois and Ryan Mack. I don't know if I might have told his story on the podcast two weeks ago or whatever. I was excited.

I was gonna get over 200,000 miles. My uncle bought this car brand new. Had some engine problems and stuff, so he gave it to me instead of selling it. We fixed it up.

I've been driving it through seminary. Take it up the mountains with me. I'm gonna go over 200,000 miles. It's gonna be a big moment.

I was excited because I thought it was gonna happen driving it like a Safeway or something and be super anti-climatic. I'm like, no, I'm driving up to Maroon Bells to see the fall colors. 200,000. This is perfect.

This is speaking to my romantic poetic soul. And then I'm talking to Father Joseph LeJois. And so I don't know what we're talking about. We're ranting about something.

I guarantee that. And I tell the guys, guys, 16 miles to 200,000. We got to celebrate. And then we're pulling into the Maroon Bells parking lot for the bus.

And I looked at him like, guys, we missed 200,000 by 24 miles. Oh, man. That's how riveting the conversation was. LeJois was texting me during the meeting.

And he said, what's that line you always tell your seminarians? I was like, what are you talking about? There's a lot of lines they tell. He's like, some about you guys are stupid and you don't mean anything.

And I was like, you're not that important. You don't do that much work. And he's like, yeah, that one. And I was like, I've never said that to a seminarian.

I'm feeling real sorry for myself because I'm just such a hard working, underappreciated, valued, super valued member of the Archdiocese of Denver Catholic Church, writ large, and just so unappreciated by boomers. And that was like a word from the Lord. I was like, you don't actually do that much work. And you're not that important.

And it brought a total piece. Boom. It really did. And I share it with my grace.

And now it's been kind of the running joke of the companions. We have that Lord's Day. Probably not. It was worth it.

But whenever I'm talking, guys are like, well, you're not that important. You don't really do that much work. So this is what you get when you're vulnerable. You share what happens in prayer.

100%. You're controlling where that cuts you down, but really gives you rest. And then the brothers will make fun of you for the next 10. Right.

And this is why the only thing that can reset the dopamine neurotransmitters after such fear-spanter as companions is a cold plunge. 44 degrees, 5.30 this morning. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with it.

I'm that guy. I'm that guy. I always didn't want to be that guy. I don't know.

You might. I'm absolutely at five weeks in. I'm completely 100%. It's ridiculous.

I'm that guy. Crossfitters and cold plungers. You know. They're evangelists.

We take a note from their playbook for the gospel. I watch this little bandy come across the courtyard every day. You know. Looks like you're going to die at any point.

And it's John Cooney. And he's climbing into the cold plunge. But he weighs about 85 pounds. And he's running about 100 miles a week.

So I don't know how his body enters it. But guys are like in the chapel in Harkas because maintenance, there's no heat in this place. You know, this is a 100 year old house. They heard you're the cold plunge house.

They didn't think they needed any more. It's literally cold. We want it. We'll get the cold plunge.

But keep the house at like 88 degrees now. So anyways, they're cold plunge. Another another cell. People are going to be so sick.

You're hearing about it. But I'm still in the honeymoon phase. I just came down yesterday night. My dad got a group of four together to come up and play in our St.

Stephen's golf fundraiser up in Glenwood Springs. And so I was like, hey, you're coming up. You got an extra seat on the way down. So I bummed to ride down.

So I didn't have to drive myself and got down late last night back in this morning. I've got to go visit my niece, my sister's daughter. And my mom was watching her this morning. So I kind of went to spend some time with them.

And she is like, she's like a foot and a half tall. She's tiny. But she's got the greatest like motor skills I've ever seen in like a 14, 15 month old. She's like putting Q tips through the hole of like a, my sister's got like a spice.

She's a shaker. And so it's barely big enough to fit the Q tips through and she's just putting them through no problem. But she's also super smart and one track mind, which I think she gets from my brother-in-law and the one track mind for sure and the smart, the one track mind. Cody Kruger.

And so I was, we were just hanging out and my mom's like, oh, she'll love you forever if you take her outside to pick tomatoes off the plants. And so I do that and take her out and we're picking tomatoes and bring them in to show my mom a muma. But on the way in, my niece, yeah, a muma is Basque for grandma. Ooh, I like that.

So my little niece, Mary Frances, excuse me, pressed the keypad to unlock the back door. And she's now fascinated. And so we go and drop out the tomatoes and then she's like pointing back to the door. I'm like, you want to go back out?

So we go out and I think she wants to pick more tomatoes. But you know, like as soon as I walk past the door, she's like craning back and pointing towards the door handle. She just wants to hit the button, hear the lights come on. So the mind of a not even two-year-old is fun to watch develop.

Now this is going to sound really hard-hearted, but I just have to ask you, this is not about your niece. But baby's just, it's not a thing for me. People are like, you want to hold it? Nope.

Just really great to look at it. But everybody's baby is like super beautiful. And do you ever hear people be like, our baby's kind of ugly looking? Because- I do have one friend.

There's a Seinfeld episode on this one. Yeah, I've got one friend. Their baby is born and they admit it. But the parents.

The parents. And sometimes they age really well. My nephew, Mike, I looked like an 85-year-old man when he was, when he was- I do like the ancient, yeah, the really old men, Benjamin Button style babies. No, I had one friend who they admitted that their baby looked a little alien, but grew up, you know, head filled out.

Everything works out. That's good. Okay, so there are some people out there. They're honest.

They're generally adorable. Yeah. You know, nine out of ten. Nine out of ten.

Okay. I'll grant that. I'm just happy there's some honest people out there who can say they're subjectively ugly babies. Yeah.

You know, they're just some of them are. That's okay. My niece isn't one of them. Of course not.

And I did not. And anyway, I want to accuse that. So anyways. No, it's fun.

I love coming down. It's weird when you get that distance from people that you see all the time you realize, man, I had all this time down in Denver. And it's not that I didn't hang out with family, but now it's like, oh, I got a little window. I'm gonna go see them.

Yeah. So I love this, by the way, when people are like giving a shout out and then they respond as soon as you give them a shout out. They actually listen. Sarah, you're awesome.

Because I think she got a shout out like last week and she was on it. At the career's house talking to Phil Bartlands daughter who's seven. A little Ruth Ann who's just a sweet little nugget. And I was thinking I was like, wow, I'm doing a wedding this weekend of Izzy Watts who I met when she was seven.

I'm doing her wedding on Saturday. I met her in 2007. That's crazy. That's not nuts.

You're old. So I was looking at Ruth and I was like, gosh, that's just gonna go fast. So it's so your niece, you know, before you know it. Yeah, I mean, I'm just thinking like nine months is a long time in life, but that's, you know, the term of caring a child and already, I mean, I'm four or five, five months into being a priest.

I don't even know. But the guys came up for a fall break and it just was like, well, it's a fall break already. Like you just get into the week, the weeks go in and cruise by. So time is a strange thing.

It is. It is. Now this banter is getting long and I'd like to make one point about banter and then we can continue on with the topic. You know why people love banter like normal people?

Because they're saying human beings like connection. Exactly. And they're made for narrative. You know what narrative does?

It activates the prefrontal cortex. I learned this from Anna Lebke, who's the anxious, not the anxious generation, she wrote Dopamine Nation. This is triggered. The prefrontal cortex is triggered as soon as you start talking about story.

Isn't that interesting? Like our brains are hardwired to receive content through story, through narrative. So this idea that I don't, that work these kind of automaton podcast talking heads who just kind of, you can download an mp3 of Catholic content into your brain. You're not a human being, right?

That's the lizard brain or whatever. I don't even think they can talk about that anymore. But I thought that was really interesting. The prefrontal cortex is precisely the thing that is activated that just literally wakes up as soon as, as soon as I say, I start talking about Izzy Watts instead of just talking about the unity and solubility of marriage, which I will enact in a formal, experimental contract this Saturday.

I don't know. It's reduced to the abstract is not how we usually operate. And the narrative, I've seen narrative as kind of the patrimony of culture or not the patrimony but kind of the conduit of culture, that the narrative, the story of where you came from, where your country came from, what we were talking about podcast, history and memory a couple weeks ago, that we actually carry deeper meaning be a narrative. It's not principally like deductive presentation of logical proof that memory is carried in.

It's carried in narrative. And even the fact that the Christian story is principally narrative, that the second person is the word become flesh. The words were always created in who always created that narrative structure is pretty profound. I think we've done a couple of podcasts on that.

I was looking out. This is a transition. If you didn't get it. We're tired this afternoon.

I was looking back at some of our podcast data. Okay. Because I know we have data. We have data.

Data data data. We are coming up on elections. Everybody's burnt out on hot button issues. We've been preaching and teaching and podcasting about stuff.

And I want to pull back and just be a little self-reflective podcast. Pick your brain. You've been doing this for almost 15 years. Yeah, it'll be 15 years in January which is nuts.

It's incredible. It's incredible. It's probably better to do this in January with all the guys. But I was just interested in what our download accounts were.

So I reached out to Mike Kasberg who runs kind of our tech side of the podcast. And he sent me some information. So I think I guess I'll start. We've got two aggregates of data which is unfortunate because we did move our hosting.

So I've got like really good data from 2018 and before. Okay. And then we kind of moved everything over to another one. And then I've got the data from, I guess, 2019 on.

And it's really interesting because even with that. So we're going with data. We're not going with data for this. I'm going with data.

You can go with whatever you want. I think the continuity of language is important for us. You're a data guy? I don't even know what you're thought about.

Data. Data. Data. What do you think?

I mean, I'm just going to ask you if you even remember most of your episodes because I noticed I was reading through the titles. I was like, what was I on that one? What are we at? 670 or something?

It's something crazy like that. But what do you think our most listened to episode ever was? Celebrazio, Celebrazio. That was high.

But that wasn't the top. That's when Global took a line of cocaine and did an imitation of a poor chap from Illinois. Just joking. He did not think cocaine.

But he was on some kind of mood altering drug. He must have been because he pitched into this euphoric state. I'd have to check. The episode stats, I've got creation and evolution, chastity, celibacy, continents, our highest downloads and clicks from before the machine.

Oh, from before? Okay. Because those are like, I mean, I'd be embarrassed to hear those. But here's where I'm wondering if there's a bias of how long, if these are old ones, they've been downloaded for 10 years and then other ones are downloaded shortly.

So how many, apparently we're getting about 40 to 50,000 downloads per episode? Okay. I didn't know that. That's bigger than I thought it was.

Yeah. It's not huge. We're not at the million mark. We don't have our YouTube silver plaque yet.

But... This is like a board meeting. Yeah. People are sitting at the board meeting.

No, the most recent, our highest download count. I thought this was so funny. The announcement episode that we were changing up and people were so interested in what was going to happen in the podcast. Oh.

That was the most downloaded? Since our change. Okay. And I thought that was really interesting because I think I just want to pick your brain on this podcast began 15 years ago as a means for you guys to output some of the input that was at seminary.

Right? And you guys started like seven minute episodes and now we're pushing an hour, sometimes more than an hour. So this is more the interview phase. If we haven't lost you already, this is going to be our lowest download.

How did it change in your mind of what you were doing with the podcast and where it started, what the intention was and then kind of like how it morphed? Well, it started, as you know, and people who have been listening and have heard the story of, I was on a road trip in Banff in 2009, summer of 2009 with my brother and Mike Hombow and John Minto and Mike, who was kind of a techy guy like you, he kind of picked up on this new thing called podcast. And he started listening to stuff, you should know, which was really interesting stuff. But they totally botched the cat and stuff.

Like they did one actually, something that was just like, so freaking lame. I can't even believe what I'm hearing. I was like, we need to do something about this. And then we were like, oh, that's a good idea.

And then rap had at the same time, he was like, we got it, we got to think of some creative way to have an outlet and to be teaching. And he always, he's an idea guy. So he's always got like crazy ideas and stuff. And they kind of came together of like, we should do this and then that was January 2010.

And so it really was kind of a combination of an apologetic desire for formation and also just to be sharing disclosing what it has become is the kind of antithesis of the professional put together business model podcast. Like a lot of people would be like, you only have 50,000 downloads after 15 years. When you were ahead of the game, you should have, we should have built a nonprofit and which we did, but we've never done anything with it because it was just to buy gear and stuff like that. But it was a family business.

It was never Walmart. It was never one of these kind of super changed the culture. And I think what it became was more of a, this is the inner life and the inner conversation of a community of priests called the Companions of Christ. And it's really beautiful and it's also really messy.

That's the narrative thing going back to that prefrontal cortex. That's what's human about it. I think what's interesting about it. Yeah.

I think it's fascinating that right now the fastest growing content is the long form podcast. Which in their defense, I listen to, I love you, I love it, and they're actually, they're a combination of, so it presupposes a naturalistic worldview and it's a science driven, and people love that. So teach me things about being human from a purely scientific perspective. Okay, we live in a Baconian modern world.

So that's how we think about nature. I need to be able to manipulate nature. Tell me how to do that. Atia, human, these guys.

They're Stanford trained. They're awesome. But they're also vulnerable. I've noticed that.

Like they share about their own, especially Peter Tia, his book, Outlive, like he talks about his own struggle. And so it resonates with people. There is, they're not just talking heads. Yeah.

And I think that, what's the name, Joe Rogan, is just a really amazing interviewer, but also like there's just a Ronis and a kind of a, kind of a vulnerability to these people. So not like the really talented ones out there, I think have that combination. They're vulnerable themselves, but then they also ask questions that invite slash force the interviewer to be vulnerable. And then you can tell when somebody gets a question, they're like, I don't know.

And it's an awkward, vulnerable spot to be, I mean, even thinking about 50,000 people downloading an episode and listening, I'm like, I've got a responsibility to teach well when I do teach. But I think there's also just a, there's a bit of a fear of like 50,000 people are going to hear about me. Yeah. In the next week or whatever.

And it's an interesting place to be, I don't know. I've never really thought deeply about it. I don't know. There's something about the kind of the tactile nature of like podcasting with you, it's just hard to imagine even that number.

It's just like, what does this mean? It's a pretty big number. I do like, when I get a email feedback or whatever, I just responded to Thor. What a guy.

Shout out to Thor. I reached out to him too. I was like, I want to go find your, your, your pub by seaway. Yeah.

And your name is Thor. Yeah. Which is fairly, fairly recent convert. Yeah.

And it's just really cool to hear a story he'd shared about how the podcast helped with this conversion. Yeah. Yeah, it was a, it was a companion on that way. And so that was super cool.

The, the, the series said, Hey, thanks. It's great to hear the podcast. Cause when I record these, I'm with you. I'm chatting and then I'm off to the next thing and we throw it off into the ether.

And I really don't look up at this stuff and see who's listening, or what people are commenting. Emails that come through. I'll respond to here and there, but it is that A, whatever's in it, I can remember the exact term, but the relationship is kind of one way. And for listening to unilateral, unilateral.

It's asymmetrical. That's it. Where's like, we share a lot of people know a lot about that. Is that asymmetrical means?

I think so. Okay. Pretty sure, pretty sure I heard that. Somebody just accused me of that.

I said something. Yeah. I'd watched a talk that somebody was giving and then I was describing it to a friend of mine and I said yeah And then what he said to me was and I had to pause and he was like you a symmetrical relationship He wasn't saying it to you. He was saying it to everybody As you got just a talk on YouTube and it was you know he was talking to me talking to me directly he knew That's like a funny story book I made fun of Whitney Lyle not witty prony on her wedding homily because we have a shared love of Gregor on Isaac Cough songs and his song called the universe.

Yeah, but at one point in the song he goes on this kind of kind of It's almost like a diatribe lyrical diatribe where he says everybody says that she's beautiful beautiful beautiful You know the song he goes on and on and she's like I think he's singing about me and I was like I need to tell you this He's singing about the universe So it was fun roasting her a little bit of her wedding day Anyways back to you after that the announcement people were so Interested in what was gonna happen because they were interested in you guys in the life and shared and they enjoyed the podcast They enjoyed the personalities, but people just want to know yeah What's gonna happen because there was a relationship that was built over time and it was a mess and you don't ever all you hear about is Priests either have it all together or they think they have it all together or it's like horrific scandal on a level of like sexual dysfunction That's like basically unthinkable like that was the last 30 years. So I have a bunch of normal guys who Are not getting along and are trying to work it out, but our family. I think that's probably actually very Compelling in a way, but there's no scandal in it. I don't think it was scandalous I think it was it was heartbreaking for people to be like yeah, this is a This isn't working and I was sitting next to global at the press bitter meeting So it's not like yeah, there wasn't like falling out It was just like there was just a re-kind of calibration within our community life And it's so I think that people are drawn to that for that reason probably but that is surprising to hear There's also again one of the more recent ones So this is it has been the bias of time that one has had more time to be downloaded than one from two weeks ago So there are more downloads since this is aggregate not of this week or within the first week, but just total Okay, so the next most popular one though from that time was competition cult competition cult that wasn't on that way I was it was you and goble what it was a January 1st January 2nd 2020 Well, I don't know I have no memory of that and that's the other thing is I've suppressed it We put these out and I just don't remember so I'm assuming you guys are talking How many have we done you got the data or the data over there?

Yeah, I gotta pull this up on our calendar actually We have done Where are we I've got to pull up the Google calendar. I got you 64 64 64. Okay. He's coming out like tomorrow, so This was you're probably in the late 400s at this point with with goble in 2020 Okay, because your 500th episode I do have this was August 12th 21 that was everybody.

Yep. That was a full crew 500 episode as you ollo by the mic in goble In August 12 what 2021? Okay, so that one was Our fifth most listened to from that one and again, I was like those we actually have some bumps when it is kind of all of us Pretty good interest And then of course because I'm vain I had to find where my first one showed up and again I think it's the because of time don't resent the new host is my most listening almost downloaded episode. Okay at 52,000 So that's when I was shocked.

I was like man 52,000 people who've at least downloaded my first episode I have Found it very interesting that certain episodes that I didn't think were crazy amazing other ones I get feedback from and then our tenant episode was like oh 32,000 and there's ones that we've recorded since then that have more than that. It's weird. I don't understand it but like I had me and Father Sean recorded one on Sadness and how to deal with sadness and kind of right to me goals and remedies for sadness and I shared like my own experiences of sadness and that one really resonated with people because we're Telling a narrative I can we learn who we are from other people with this memetic mirror neurons Within our brain chemistry the mirror neurons Kind of reflect the other imitate the other and we kind of learn who we are in engaging with other persons And I think it's kind of similar in the podcast when that intimacy when that vulnerability really shows up Those are the ones people like man I was really impacted by that like when when you shared a down moment and how you got through it That was one of it. That was real.

So I think I don't have a huge huge target for this But I just I want to kind of reflect on the podcast a bit and these relationships and what we're doing in the stories We tell and kind of why we do it because I like to be meta This is a very meta meta podcast topic. I'd say it's not like a super catholic thing but Yeah, I mean, I think that I think that the companions of Christ as a community of priests is making a different kind of Humanity to the priest I believe that we got companion con coming up in August There's a particular niche for that some people are like that some people like that are drawn to the companions other people are not Like you guys are not that impressive and that's fine I think that there's something distinctive that God has been doing with this kerosom that he instilled 17 years ago in Us and 32 years ago up in Minnesota Yeah, and then a few years ago for the guys in Joliet I honestly think that beneath the podcast is the companions of Christ I think that that is a kerosom this operative. We talk to people differently. We relate to things differently We think about things differently and it's a communal conversation Yeah, I mean Friday night We had 21 guys all together two conversations the older members were in a conversation young guys were talking about so we were talking about Sabbath Fascinating conversation about how do you live Sabbath as a priest?

Can you transfer to it quote unquote day off on a Monday and guys were thrown at all kinds of things deep kind of theological ideas And then also just very personal things and also there's some there's some gruff behavior and some some banter But also a little little rub I tell seminarians that I'm like you guys are too nice to each other You gotta kind of rub each other a little bit you should kind of get pissed off at each other once in a while That's part of being in an intimate relationship Yeah, so I think there's a strength to it that's compelling and different and something God's doing Just fight to the break the repair for the rupture repair rupture and a lot of that Yeah, I think there's like the podcast has undoubtedly Had great effect on people's lives and we've talked about this how companions had an impact on Father Sean and myself Separately due to him being at Cabrini and having you guys come through as priests and working in you know when he was in the youth Ministry and whatnot For his vocation to kind of germinate and then I had this kind of friendship with you from high school when we had different like Bible studies going on and met you. Yeah, you're around and my parents kind of knew the companions and we weren't dumbest by listening, right? Mm-hmm, and then yeah, I mean like you guys started your thing You got the house and we have the epiphany parties over there and so you're kind of always around and so for me You were the priest that were friends and so when I would explore the priesthood I'd have the image of the companions as priests Yeah, I had kind of servants of Christ Jesus and the companions of Christ We're in my images of priesthood and in common life though And so very different and yet very similar of seeking to proclaim the gospel in a common life And I think within that I Kind of like most guys who explore a vocation kind of have to do a lot of that work quietly On their own and get to the point where they actually Reveal or disclose even the thought of a vocation because in high school, you know I felt callings during retreats and stuff and I would share it maybe in the moment Like I think maybe I'm supposed to be a priest but it's also because everybody's like yeah, that's awesome Rah-rah or like the vocations call at the student book conference Do you think I might be calling you to be a priest and you know guys stand up and everybody claps and cheers and whatever and it's kind of cool And you're like yeah, I'm in the club and but then there's a time when that's you know I had a real serious true like calling my senior retreat and I didn't tell anybody about that for three four years because It was so real to say it to another person in a narrative was to like acknowledge its reality as long as it was Just in my head I could be like oh was it just me was it really God was it not but there were so many other things that happened I'm not retreating during that prayer experience that like I had to deny the whole retreat experience or accept kind of the call And I didn't want to accept the call yet So I told people about this really cool stuff that happened in prayer and like some revelations of things that were corroborated Just about my life and other kind of callings in my life And so that was super cool But I didn't want to admit that I was being called to be a priest that's so funny because mine could not be more opposite I literally started talking about it the second the grace came and then I didn't reflect on it until like five years after Daying so like 15 years later. I was like whoa, wait a second.

How does that happen? No, it uh, so that's just funny. I love the difference even though of the difference. Yeah, but I think that there is this kind of There's this constellation of that happened like all those years ago knowing your family Yeah, kind of being really should be created a kind of a pretty seamless transition from I was your professor and Formate or whatever vice-director and then all of a sudden it's a circle brothers Yeah, and I love that I love the seamlessness of the the just you guys just brothers and then it's life together And then we're rolling And and you're finding yourself in the midst of this kind of community I was on Cardinal Dolan has a serious xm radio show and I was on it for 10 minutes, which is kind of funny And it's a live show and he's just doing his right cardinal and you know, it's just like Irish Comedy skit skit But I was it was just fun to tell some stories about 14 years and and and just to be like But the reason I bring that up is because Father Dave Dwyer who's the host of the show with Cardinal was like Oh, you're a comedian for us.

He's like, I know about you guys. This is in New York So I was like, oh, sweet. What do you know about it? What do you know about it?

I think he knows Father Brady Wagner So he thinks we're better than we actually are it was put the best out there. Yeah, you listen the podcast You know who we really are in the mess we are, but yeah, hang out with other Brian or but I think that I think that the way you Preach I would presume I've not heard you preach much. I'm trying to get him take my mask to my morning with me Just like here in preach. I'll go to it.

I would presume it's it's it's enveloped in narrative. Right my old professor This is a little bit of a tangent, but there's a connection between form and narrative Narrative is kind of the human form by which you think about things you tell stories content is communicated This is why reading literature is so important I saw Marcy Sockman and her husband Pete found her well-read mom like 12,000 women in the in the country Doing this thing. Yeah, why because ideas are communicated through story They really are transmit. This is why literature is so central and we can't just think about things as abstractions anymore It was the modern air Both is ours big on this.

He really felt like late scholasticism had reduced to the catholic theological tradition to a content So it was like a catechism rules and ideas. Here's everything. Here's all the answers You know, he's gonna read it and he's like you lot we lost the form and that's what a statics has to do So I guess in not just this kind of narrative or story based form But also to really encounter the the deeper kind of figure in the way that things manifest themselves the content the reality The truth of things is through beauty and I hope that some way we can we reflect that in our ministry that we're interested in beauty That that's something that's compelling to us. I have a book coming out January.

It's gonna talk about this So yeah, I think preaching I've had both experiences I mean some are very catcadical in nature where it's more here's here's a teaching to here's questions I'm receiving about why we do this or why we don't do this or how we should do this and so we'll preach on How should we receive communion? How should we you know? Why don't we have the precious blood at every mass and questions like that or? And we preach about it or why does the church why can the church talk about politics at all and talk about?

Okay, I'm gonna teach about formation of conscience and the moral act and it all free acts of man are moral acts That they have a moral Element to them. How dare you bring politics into a podcast. What does that have to do with anything? I'm sorry Especially since I said at the very beginning of this one We're not going to politics but so there's been a couple that have been more catcadical in teaching and some feedback on those It's been good.

Oh, I actually understand it now but I do think the ones I get the most positive feedback on are when I tell a story and I told the story recently about when I was in Rome with the student bill study abroad program And I didn't really want to be at Rome But I wanted to see the pope and then I want to get to a CC That was kind of like the whole shtick of it for me didn't love being in the city I tell the story. I'm in mass the first day. We're in Rome with the students and we get to the our father and Kind of in as I'm praying our father I've got this inner dialogue going on with God and it's basically God asking me like if you could go meet the pope Like how would you feel about that like meet the pope one-on-one? That'd be awesome That'd be like the coolest thing ever and then the next question that kind of popped in my head was this was like Pope Benedict And he's like well, what if what if you could meet the pope but you had to be there in like 20 minutes And we're kind of on the outskirts of Rome So far taking the metro they wouldn't made it I was like man if I had to be there to meet Pope Benedict in person in 20 minutes I'd run out of this church right now.

I'd kick an old lady off her vespa I'd jump on and I'd zip out of this is we're getting you know Run and red lights or whatever and run to get to see Benedict I just want to think and then the next was okay Well, what if what if Pope Benedict said he was gonna meet every single one of your students? But you had to you had to be there in 20 minutes I'm like there would be a stampede in the streets of Steubenville students like sprinting to get to the Vatican So we could meet Pope Benedict and then the prayer turned and Jesus Jesus Holy Spirit however was speaking me in this time of prayer Mass I think it's Jesus because the word that came was you're that excited and you would go that far to go meet my vicar But I'm about to meet every single one of you more intimately than you could imagine and you're not kicking all Ladies off of Espos and sprinting to the streets of Rome to come see me and that's just like I mean That's 2010 that was there 14 years ago And I can recount that story vividly because it was real it was profound taught me a lesson It's like your experience of not being that important and not working that hard So that's gonna stick with you, right? And that was a change of me. He didn't tell me I didn't work that hard He said you don't do that much work.

I really want to qualify that. Sorry. I'm doing what everybody else did I'm just bastardizing your own statement and your own prayer experience. It's okay.

It's okay But I told that's right That was one of the most profound feedbacks I got people were coming up and sharing about that because I told a story Yeah, it shows an encounter with God it proclaims a real faith and you know that type of narrative really does I think affect people It's hard to remember that when we're teaching and preaching though. This is the fatal flaw of creeze We presume people care that they're interested and that they are able to hang with what we're talking about we just presume it I tell guys if I hear you start homily with our gospel today reminds us of Relations and don't talk with the priests also while I reflected on the gospel this morning Yeah, so but that's the like ethos is something that Aristotle talks about. It's the fundamental appeal to a person Like it's the ethical appeal but it doesn't mean like rules and obligations It means ethos like in the sense of worldview or humanity or like culture like you got to grab them Like there's got to be something in the flesh that you can grab that story is so awesome And then that that moves somebody into pathos and into logos into the different kinds of appeals But and we just forget that and I even when I'm teaching high-level theology It's like how do I bring this into their humanity in a way because otherwise it's abstraction when Fulton Sheen would teach a preacher Acclaim like you saw this and he tell stories He he tell jokes and wasn't like the super bad joke that was totally disassociated with the next thing I'm gonna say just to kind of make you chuckle and then we're in but he would kind of tell a joke that led truly into like a Point or a story and he tell the story and then all of a sudden you pull out kind of this moral and we do this with fairy tales We do this with children. It's how we learn And so I think the podcast at its best is when stories are being told Yeah, I think one of the difficulties of I mean even now we weren't hyper-prepared I kind of half-baked this idea to look at our data and it's going a totally different way than I thought it might but for the better Why why do some fall flat and others are impactful?

I think stories a big element of that But I wanted to I'm even just floundering out with my thought but with Sheen He tells a story he draws out a moral and then I now have a framework to remember it rather than thinking back Here's a here's just a factor cataclysm answer And I think that's what I had grown up was a lot of cataclysm answers And then I look back to when I actually had experiences of Christ And I had encounters with priests and had stories to hear and way way back on the podcast was that Year and a half where I was pretty sure I was gonna be going to seminary But kind of fighting it and trying to figure out if I want to go to find a religious order or come to the diocese Whatever it was you were still in Rome. Mm-hmm. Another funny story about that every summer. I'd see you'd be back Okay, we need to get coffee.

We need to do something I think I've told you this before and Father John's like Yeah, we gotta get coffee. We'll set something up. We'll set something up sure enough by the time the summer is over Hadn't gotten coffee in your back in Rome. So I finally decided I'm gonna get coffee with Father John by flying to Rome Yeah, we're gonna get coffee But that was kind of beginning and what you don't know at that time was I was listening to the podcast a lot Like I was actually that was kind of post-college and I was listening to the podcast Because I was trying to figure out who I was and where I was called to be and if I was called to this life And so hearing you guys share stories from Rome stories from the parish although you go will Mike Again humanized the priest form the priesthood for me in story So I could see oh, I could actually see myself in that story and I think others with the feedback we get It's that story of oh, I could see myself as Catholic Oh, these guys aren't just you know strange sacrament dispensers or high-level fact dispensers They're actually men who've met Christ and are trying to share that the challenge is like when I am not encountering Christ or I'm experiencing dryness Sometimes it feel like you have to fabricate some time or and that's sometimes when maybe the homily can become just a very kind of Tried cold element rather than an engagement with the word or teaching or anything that we do because we're doing it every day And I don't have you know 365 days of incredible profound prayer experience I get a lot of them are just kind of dry.

I'm there in the scriptures Well, I got to go have one of those sleepy dry prayer experience I've not been here so I do need to let you go here shortly. I don't know how long we've been going on a super meta topic Was I gonna say man? Oh man running out of information here. I think that we're 45 minutes.

Okay Yeah, well, I appreciate you having coffee with me in Rome because I was probably the beginning of our friendship And I think that I forgot what else I was gonna say so we are We're tired, but just to give you like let's talk about story for a second So like what does the podcast look like so I was teaching all morning? This guy comes down three hours from the From the mountains. We have a long important press better at meeting in the afternoon. My friends are in the hospital with the baby That they're gonna lose and so I'm like I need to go over there So we go over there you go to a coffee shop prep half-baked and then we sit down podcast go pray Then I'm meeting with guys to this evening and you're gonna see family and then we're back at it So these things are not like scripted so to speak and many times they are deeply thought out sometimes They're not and that's part of the kind of the flow.

Oh, here's I was gonna say Role playing in your vocation is a great temptation. Yeah, priest role They role play this is what it means to be a priest. This is what I ought to be and I think we do the parents do this Also, this is what I need to be for my kid is I need to be for my spouse And we have to kind of keep shattering that shattering the kind of role because vocation is about conformity to Christ And and appropriating it in mission. It's not about becoming something externally that I'm not I think that that's the we call it Authenticity call it what you want call a transparency But I'm just struck by that of like when you meet a priest or just a person in general who's just like themselves It's always very compelling.

Yeah, and always very interesting even if they're not even if you don't like them, which is fine We don't like each other. Yeah, right? So anyways, I just want to say that I think that Men like you would not be drawn to the companions It would not be contributing to the life if you didn't see that that these priests were these guys are not role playing as podcast priests Yeah, that's that's that was the point I was gonna make 15 minutes ago that there is life going on and then we kind of jump in and record This one especially half baked so prep is a generous term at coffee shop. I'm very interested to see what you're gonna name this thing Yeah, who knows I'll think on it heavy But I do like I just want to express my gratitude for the work you guys did on the podcast establishing I love that we're not trying to make it this bigger thing than it is because we just want to share our life And if people are finding fruit and that awesome and that needs that's credit to Mike and global So Father Mike grab and find anything go because I am by natural a builder right I grew up playing with these things in the 80s called constructs All right, so I was like destined to an engineering architectural kind of I like dreaming big and creating things and building We have built forts in the green belt all the time like and I was usually we'd steal like concrete and bricks from the other houses And my dad caught us one time building laying bricks in the core I was like eight it's like that is not yours and don't ever do that again, you know Where'd you get all this concrete?

So I love building I would have wanted to set out to build an empire That's what I do. That's how I think and I would have done that in 2010 and it would have been epic But it wouldn't have been God's will because he yoked me with this total surfer dude who is like I'm gonna sabotage every attempt to make This professional because it has to be about relationships and and then global reinforced it and it set the trajectory for 15 years of like This has never been about it and you know what it's allowed It's allowed for us to have an amazing amount of relationships with listeners and to actually think deeply about what they're doing or read what they're offering and And meet them and build up community within the life of the church and it has enriched us so much versus if we were just kind of these You know quote unquote superstar Podcast priest and his king content creator get it out there But I and the content would have been crap also because that's it gets it gets one more superficial as you have to maximize Hunting the attention and so what's the what's the attention? What's the flow? What do we jump into this topic because everybody's talking about right now?

I'm like I don't care about that topic so I can talk about it right now Or I do really care about it now I'm gonna engage it But it's not gonna be because this is the cycle where everybody's talking about it, right? So I appreciate it podcasts done a lot for me I hope from your side listeners now that I've been a helpful edition that you've enjoyed some of the time Absolutely you and Shawn you and I think you guys are catching your strides now and I ask people I ask friends who listen You know like what do you think the new guys we think of the old dogs and I think that it's just gonna continue to kind of Jail more deeply but you've been a natural transition and I again with as much as Chevalier is a punk. What's his name? John Paul John Paul a Chevalier.

You are a punk. You don't listen you gave you were the first one to give me shadow a hard time I respect that about you, but you punk and I just want to say thank you for actually doing it. Yep, my pleasure I'm here. I'm glad I was looking for a shout out I got any I can all right Mystery email girl Lauren.

Thank you for I say Lauren because I know where she's from or anything else But she recommended that I read Alfred Lansing's endurance and it was awesome So thank you. That was a great read She said it should inspire podcast off the kind of half-baked podcast on that at some point But wonderful read on the story the truly epic unbelievable survival story If not the greatest survival story of all time of Ernest Shackleton and the 28 men who lived for over two years in the Antarctic and Traveled the 160 miles by boat to survive their shipwreck unbelievable if you watch the movie watch the years ago Yeah, it was more impactful. Yeah, I find that especially biography. Yeah, I was just talking to really well It really well written I was talking Adam Hermetson and he said he'd seen the Cabrini movie And he really liked it But he's reading the Cabrini biography and it's like blowing his mind Just the scope of the scale and you get into such great detail with biography So reading biographies well worth it we shout it out Thor We're coming to your brewery in DC, and then I would like to give a brief shout out to Alvin in Toronto Who's gonna be soon to be ordained a deacon and he reached out to the podcast and thanks for your kind words brother I'm excited to have you as deacon and God willing a priest here in a few months congrats And then my other shout out is to Ann Hoyle who reached out about going to a Gregory Gregory Allen Icecoff concert by herself And she said at that concert Icecoff kind of stopped and said I just want to thank y'all for coming out Especially those who had to you know work hard to make it happen And I especially want to thank and shout out anybody that has come here alone.

Just enjoyed the music I hope you're having a great night. That sounds like him So she's like he's so authentic and real and just called it out and she was like kind of having my thoughts Like should I go to this alone? And she went where I didn't so yes, and you have Affirmed in me that the next time I see a concert even if I'm going alone I'm going so thanks for the shout out. Thanks for listening very good Catholic stuff podcast at gmail.com father Jacob.

Thank you for another fine recording and a super meta topic We'll see you safe travels back to Glenwood and we'll see you in two weeks