Ep 204 - You Are Frozen on the Stairwell and It's Time to Move: The Basics of Spiritual Warfare

This is the Manly Catholic. The podcast that calls you out of the shadows and into the fight. Here we forge men into warriors for Christ, husbands, fathers, and leaders who refuse to kneel to the modern world's lies. No more passivity, no more excuses, no more lukewarm faith. This is your battle cry. Your call to arms. The time for weakness is over. It's time to fight. Welcome to the Manly Catholic. Let's get to work. All right, so thank you guys for coming. Thank you guys for coming. Welcome to Forged and Fade. We're going to get the fire going a little bit more. Really, this was always good to have you guys all here. It's good to have Father at Marron with Father at 20. There he is. Father at 20. Father at 20. One of the things that we have as guys is we're kind of in a battle, whether we know it or not. Sometimes we make it about ourselves, but there's more to it than that. It's like a band of brothers, right? So I wanted to just James called well. He is the co-host of the Manly Catholic Pots has podcast with Father on the down over at all sleep. So he's going to be here and want to say thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Let me know if it's getting too close to you. All right. Well, thank you all so much for coming out. This truly is an honor and privilege. Thank you, Zavin for inviting me out. I do want to jab Zavin a little bit though. I will say that he invited my co-host to speak here tonight first. But as we all know, backup sometimes get to shine. So this is my chance to shine. Oh, that's fair to. All right. You know my number. So he says so tonight we'll be talking about a spiritual warfare, spiritual combat, whatever word you want to use. It's something I think is very prominent in our day and age nowadays. Interesting enough. It seems that in our culture, it seems becoming more prominent. We've had exercises on podcasts like the Sean Ryan podcast or Tim pool. I know my good friend, Dr. Dim Schneider has been on shine. Sean Ryan, if you listen to his podcast at all a couple times as well. So definitely a big thing that's going on in our culture nowadays and something I think us as Catholic men willing to hone in on and to kind of wake up a little bit and make sure that we have equipped ourselves properly in order to wage in the battle that we have. But before we dive in, I think it's appropriate that we start with the same Michael prayer. We'll begin in the name of the father of the son and the Holy Spirit amen. Say Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle be our protection against the wickedness and scenarios of the devil. Megadre, Buking, Me, Humbly, Pray and Do Thou Prince of the Heavenly House by the power of God, Castan, Hell, Satan and all evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. And the father of the son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. And before we dive into spiritual warfare, there is a story that I want to begin with because I think it's very appropriate in paramount to kind of what we're going to be talking about with the spiritual warfare. So it's a story I'm sure most of you have seen the movies. It's from saving private Ryan. Those of you who have not basically it's a story about a company of American soldiers that were sent on a mission to find private Ryan some of his brothers had died in combat and they wanted to send him home. And within this company there was a particular individual I want to hone in on and his name was Corporal Upham. I don't know if you guys remember Upham. He was a very young guy. He was you know fresh up the boat so to speak very inexperience. Very smart guy. He was served as a translator in this company. So if they ever had prisoners of wars or anything, they can he would translate to the German soldiers. And so Upham, very likable guy, very personable, very charismatic and he was an integral part of this company. I'd ever like to go along with them. Just no good nice guy you could say. So there comes a part in the movie where they call the battle over Mel it's towards the end of the movie and Upham his job was was very important but very simple so his job if you guys remember to see any of those world or one world or two movies you have the guys that were carrying all the ammo for the big heavy machine guns. And so basically in the battle his company was designated they sent defensive perimeter in the city and because they knew a German army was coming to attack them. So upham as the battle begins you can just tell he is way out of his element right even though he has everything that he needs to engage the enemy he completely is frozen he's terrified. He has no idea what to do and so with his band brothers though they encourage him partly because they need to survive and they need him to you know step it up and do his job also partly because they want him to succeed as well. So finally he gets up he moves around different positions and at one point he gets to a certain position and there's one of his one of his men private melluscious on the second floor of a building. And he gets to the bottom of the stairwell and he begins to climb up the stairs to go to the position and he freezes and he hears his comrade private mellushe he's in hand to hand combat with a German soldier. And what's good about this scene and it's also kind of makes you agonize with it is that it keeps bouncing back from where private melluscious fighting the German soldier and back down to the bottom of the stairwell where corporal upham is. And so it goes back and forth back and forth and you see that the German soldier is is winning so he's overtaken private melluscious and he's about to kill him. And if you're watching this movie you're agonizing with with upham you're basically telling him to just walk up the stairs you have everything you need you have a gun you have a knife you have all the same. Why don't you just help out your fellow brother. So upham doesn't and you see the look on his face he's just completely terrified he's shaking. And so he continues to freeze and he doesn't do anything. So the sword goes private melluscious kill by his German soldier and his agonizing as that scene was as a German soldier comes down the stairs. He sees upham and you think in a battle like this obviously German versus American you think you'd want to you know take out another American soldier. But he realizes this German soldier as he walks down he realizes the upham was there the whole time. He realizes that he probably had heard what was going on and he decided to do nothing he just stood there. And so the look that the German soldier gives upham as he walks down is almost a look of the stain or disgust if you will. It's like you you just allowed one of your brothers to die. And so basically he says you're not a threat to me and he walks right on by and walks out. So why do I tell you the story? Because I think too many of us unfortunately are like upham when it comes to the spiritual, the spiritual realm spiritual warfare. You know we're good guys we're nice guys a lot of us know go to mass every single Sunday. But the reality is that too many of us probably have failed and even in the history of the church. A lot of our leadership even if you want to go into that but love us lay men have refused to step up and to lead our families, leave our parishes. And this is what I want to talk to you guys about tonight is something that I think again I brought up. It's very prominent nowadays the spiritual realm in the pop culture because we see sort of things that are going on and that people are starting to question you know with transgenders or gender transition surgery or some so called same sex marriage. It seems that more people are starting to wake up like oh this is actually bad for our society. And so what that means that there's sort of two extremes that we can take them both are equally dangerous so the first extreme is I think we're kind of getting past this but kind of an apathetic personality towards it. It's almost like okay Jesus didn't actually exercise demons once he was here on earth. It's just a figment of our imagination. We're kind of beyond that reality. And kind of the opposite of the spectrum is you kind of think that there are demons lurking behind every corner that you really don't have the faculties about you every sin that you commit is actually not because of anything you're doing wrong but because the demons are out to get you. Again both of those mindsets are equally dangerous and both we need to avoid. And so what we're going to dive into with the spiritual warfare I have four pillars if you will or what I think is kind of paramount because when you talk about spiritual warfare there's so many avenues you can go down and I think it can be overwhelming but I think these four pillars at least get us all a good start. So the first pillar is authority and so as my co-host Father Dom tells me time and time again on the podcast is that it always goes back to the garden. The garden is now the creation of Adam and Eve. If you go back to Genesis 2 I don't know if you guys remember in Genesis 2 what was the first order that God gave Adam after he created him. in the garden. He told him in Genesis 2, he says that God put Adam in the garden to till and to keep it. Not seems like a pretty basic order. No, he's basically a gardener, right? Well, he actually looked at the original Hebrew, the word till is abad. And abad means to serve, to cultivate, and to work. Interestingly enough, is the same word that is used elsewhere in the Old Testament to describe priestly service at the altar. So the work that God assigned to Adam in the garden was priestly work to serve God as a priest. And the word it translated to keep is Shamar. And that means to guard, to protect, to keep watch, or to stay in Senno. So he was designed to basically patrol the garden, to keep the enemy out. Adam was not just a gardener, but he was a guardian and he was a priest, he. Another, another task that God gave him was to name all the animals. Now, naming is something that is very important, especially most of us here who are probably husbands and fathers, and naming our children. Because names mean something. And words have meaning. And I don't know where a society, you think we can kind of use words whenever we want. It's not that big of a deal. But names mean something. Just go back to the Bible in Scriptures. Abram became Abraham. Simon became Peter. So that you can see the change in names when God enacted it, usually sent a man on a mission. And as we are called to do as man. Now, something that you know might be surprising to you when it comes to authority is that it is very important in the spiritual realm, the authoritative structure. Now, I know kind of authority and patriarchy and like in this toxic masculine, it has these negative connotations when we talk about authority. But especially as men, we have God given authority because that is simply just how God set it up. Now, demons and spiritual realm are very legalistic. You know, they're very black and white. There's no real gray area with them. No, Dr. Dan Schneider, my good friend, he often calls demons as literal lawyers from hell. Okay. What he means by that is that they act in strict accordance to jurisdiction and to authority. So for priests, we're to, I don't know if you guys know this about, with bishops, I'm going to come to exorcisms and things like that that you guys have heard about, but the bishop of each diocese is actually the chief exorcist in their diocese. Unless, of course, they delegate it to somebody else. So Bishop of Kobiaq would be our exorcist unless he has delegated it to another priest. Okay. This matters importantly because, you know, Dr. Dan has talked about two where he's gone into a session with a priest. The priest actually has failed to receive the authority from the bishop. And there's a lot of problems when it comes to the right of exorcism because demons will laugh at the priest and you say, you do not have authority here and they will literally laugh at him. Not only that, but it can become very dangerous because if you try to exercise authority where you do not have God to give an authority, it actually can become dangerous. They can attack you. Not doesn't happen all the time, but it is a possibility. Even though this is more in the Protestant world, but like the deliverance ministry of things like you guys may have heard that where you kind of pray, pray over individuals who might be spiritually afflicted. Now if they were actually, you know, spiritually possessed or things like that, that also could be very dangerous because those people do not have the rightful authority. Now this massed us as husbands as fathers because we do have rightful authority as the head of our house. You guys have often heard that term. We are the head of our house. And that's just simply how God has set it up. Now are we actually exercising our authority as we need to? I'm sure you guys have heard of, I think it was a Pew Research Study done a number of years ago and basically analyzing different religions and men and women and how, basically how much they participated in their specific faith. And the results of the study were pretty fascinating, but they said if the woman or the wife or the mother was involved in the church and she was the primary kind of spiritual leader of the household, so to speak, the man wasn't really involved too much, what would happen is only about 40 to 50% of the time the children would stay in the faith as they grew up. On flip side, if the man was the spiritual leader of the home, frequently in the church and activities and leading his family in prayer, even if the wife wasn't to involve something like 80 to 90% of the time the children would stay in the faith that was raised. It's almost a twofold increase from the man to the woman. Guys what we do on a day to day matters. Our actions speak volumes and our children are watching, especially our young boys. A lot of times women usually are the ones that talk more, but men are the ones who usually pursue action. We are men of action. Jesus gives us the picture of the parable the strong man. He talks about if you want to plunder a strong man's house, you have to first bind the strong man. Think about the garden again and always goes back to the garden. What did Satan? Who did he tempt first? He tempted Eve. And the question always becomes, okay, so where was Adam? Now some translations say that Adam was actually right next to her and he refused to do nothing. Others say he was just away, but either one, Adam abdicated his authority. He either allowed Eve to be tempted by just standing next to her and not doing anything or he was just off doing something else. He was distracted. Either one is equally dangerous because you are that strong man and your authority is your strength. Another story I want to tell is Father Dongmi interviewed Jesse Romero. I don't know if you guys know who Jesse Romero is. He was telling us the story of he was used to be involved in the exercise ministry and his diocese. And he tells us the story. It was a young boy, I think 16, 17, maybe 18 years old and the whole exercise team was there. They were about to start right up exercise. But the exercise wasn't there, which is kind of a problem. So anyways, the the demons started manifesting for whatever reason. The whole team was there and everyone's kind of freaking out. It was like, all right, this is happening in the precess of here. What do we do? So Jesse called the priest and the priest is like, I'm so sorry, I'm stuck in traffic. I'm like 20 minutes away and Jesse is like, well, the demon is manifesting. So what do you want us to do? And so the priest asks Jesse is like, okay, is the father there? And he said, yes, he's here. And so he said, okay, have have the father put his hands on the sun. And Jesse tells the the father only spoke Spanish. So Jesse was translating. The father was just freaking out. He's like, I'm not touching him. I don't want to go near him. And so Jesse basically called me. He said, you are his father. Put your hands on the sun. And so immediately he put his hands on the sun and actually the boy started calm down a little bit. And so then the priest was basically on speaker phone and he was telling Jesse, like, okay, Jesse, I want you to translate these prayers and have the father pray this over his son. And the remarkable thing happened. So he was praying him for about 15, 20 minutes. The boy kept calming down. Calm down pretty soon. He was totally calm. No issues at all. So the priest gets there. They regroup. They start the official session. And I think I think he said like 15, 20 minutes go by. Nothing's happening. There's no manifestation. There's nothing. And the exorcist walks up to the father and he says, congratulations. You just exercise the demon from your son. Now, it seemed like a crazy story because all we hear about is, you know, that exorcism is designed for the priest and the priest of the church. And yes, of course they are. But as fathers, we have natural authority given to us by God over our children. And that father exercised his right through natural law in order to pray with the authority given to him by God over his son. And he was delivered. Because never forget, man, when you exercise your authority as a husband and father, you carry tremendous spiritual power. It's funny. I have two young boys and they're starting to share some of your boys as well or starting to play mass. Right. So I have two boys. So I have the oldest boy, of course, is the lead. He's the head priest and the younger brother is the is the altar server. But I didn't tell them to do any of that. It's just taking them to mass consistently. Obviously every Sunday, sometimes daily mass. And they emulate it. Now, especially the priest that we have, if you just explain to them the role in this life, your man, your boys will naturally start to follow and want to emulate that. And especially you father, Dom, he's a very close friend of our family. If you guys know father, Dom, he's a very, he's a very masculine guy, right. He used to train triathletes and he's an athlete, right. He's someone that you want to emulate, something that you can easily look up to, especially for a young boy, as he's growing up in the church, it's easy to emulate priests like that. And we need more priests like that. And so we talked about authority, but another important structure is actually to know your enemy, know who we are dealing with, right. In every battle that we deal with, whether it's sports, whether in business, there's competition, it's always good to know what the other side is doing in their tactics. And the spiritual realm is no different. So who are demons, right. So demons are fallen angels. They were created God is pure spiritual. beings with tremendous intellect, will, and power. And they chosen a single, irrevocable act of the will to reject God. So there's no redemption for these fallen angels. They are always looking to devour us as lines prowling the world, as it says in St. Luke 1 Peter. So what does that mean for us practically? One is that they are way smarter than us. And we matter how smart we think we are, they will all far outweigh us in intellect and will. They've been observing humanity from millennia. You know, especially for men, they know how to attack us. What's the big five, five things for men that we tend to fall into is lust, power, prestige, authority, things like that. Guys, we tend to fall into the same thing. Just look at the temptations or you look back at your confessions. You probably realize that there's a pattern. You probably are confessing the same sins over and over and over again. Now why, now why is that? Right? Because they know your weaknesses. They're very patient. They're very observant. Now they are limited, obviously, because they are not God. They are created creatures. They're not omniscient omnipresent nor omnipotent. They have real limitations. They cannot read your mind or your thoughts. But they can suggest things to you. Another reason I think Father Ripper was on a podcast that he was talking about, you know, that is the danger of pornography. Because pornography, because men are very visual creatures. And if you are looking at pornography, it's almost like an imprint goes into your brain. So if you guys may have noticed, if that's something that you conquered a long time ago, and you haven't even thought about pornography or images or things like that, sometimes 10, 15, 20 years down the road, something might be happening in your life. And you might realize that these images stop popping up again. Now why is that? Well, the demons have access to that. And they can tempt you, especially if a big life decision is coming up, you're highly stressed. Maybe you're moving away from God a little bit. And they can just subtly slip in those temptations and hope that you fall again. So the natural question that people ask is, okay, so why does God even allow this? Because one thing to remember with demons as well is that they are basically like a dog on a leash. And Jesus is holding the leash. Okay, so he can let him go a little bit and then he can bring him back. Okay, so why why we've got to allow this? So St. Bonaventure talks about four primary reasons why God would allow this to occur. The first one is to reveal God's glory. So when the battle is won, the victory is clearly his. Number two is to punish sin. Sometimes affliction is the consequences of choices that we make. That's the thing about sin that we often forget is that there are actually consequences for our sins. There are consequences for our actions. Every time we go to confession, and we come out of the confessional, what do we have to do? We have to do a penance. We have to pay penance for the sins that we committed. Number three is to rebuke a sinner and call them to repentance and finally to educate the person afflicted, their family, their community, or even the church, just like just your maristory they told about the father. A very important lesson that we learned was the importance of the authority of the father over his son. Coffee and prayer is the perfect blend. Mystic monk coffee isn't just another cup of coffee. It's handcrafted by the Carmelite monks of Wyoming, roasted with care and infused with prayer. Whether you're starting your morning or feeling your day, Mystic monk coffee has recovered. It offers rich, bold flavors that are as divine as their mission. But choosing Mystic monk, you're not just enjoying exceptional coffee, but you're supporting a community of monks dedicated to their work to prayer and to the church. It's coffee with a cause. So what are you waiting for? Visit MysticMonkCoffee.com and experience the brew that's feeling faith and flavor. The biggest thing that we need to remember is that, again, like I mentioned earlier, is that there are repercussions for our actions, especially our sins. Yes, we can go to confession as we should, as much as we possibly can. There's still a price that needs to be paid for that. St. Paul puts it directly when he says, "For we did not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers, over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places." Now there are weapons that the enemy uses as well that we need to be aware of. Now the most common one, the one I'm going to focus on, is not the sexiest, but it is just temptation. So this is the ordinary day they experience as we all experience it, Jesus experienced it as well, and it's the ones that we need to kind of repel as much as possible. Two is oppression. Think of the story of Job, extraordinary, external attacks. So, financial ruin, relational destruction, illness, accidents, things like that. Number three is what he call obsession, spiritual, extraordinary internal activities, severe and persistent dark thoughts, irrational despair, deep spiritual desolation. Father Ippler also talks about, he has a whole giant book on talking about the differences between mental health disorders and spiritual affliction. He says one thing that demons do, which is very tricky about them, they can often mimic mental health disorders and basically cause people to go into severe despair and things like that. And of course there are real mental illnesses that people need to be aware of, but also that could be caused by a spiritual attack as well. And he goes through a whole protocol, I won't go into the great details. Like I said, there's many rabbit holes we can go on, but the point is that we need to be aware of things that are going on in our life because sometimes it, of course, accidents happen, things happen. You don't want to think the demons are behind every bad thing that happens, but there is something to be aware of as well. The fourth thing which is very rare and we all see this in Hollywood is possession. That's full interior control of a person's faculties. Again, this is extremely rare. It's much rare than I think people are led to believe, but requires extraordinary circumstances and often an open door. So usually some sort of mortal sin or you guys have heard like a pact with the devil, it is actually a real thing, but that's basically giving a demon full permission to come into you for an exchange of wealth power. You name it. Well, another thing is infestations. So demonic activity attached to a location or an object, things like a voodoo doll or haunted houses, things like that. Usually something like a haunted house. Usually if demons are there, it's some sort of like grave sin that occur there, typically involves murder or sexual exploitation, things like that. Finally, is spiritual vexation, which is actually a direct physical attack, also extremely rare, but it's when the demon actually will attack someone. St. Patrick Pio actually experiences this very well-documented, which I didn't know until recently. But the main thing again is spiritual temptation. It's something important to remember. I mentioned kind of going to confession. You're confessing the same things over and over again. But temptation is often God's way of teaching us. So if you're having difficulty and you're confessing the same sin instead of kind of beating yourself up about it, what if we took kind of a different approach and just start asking ourselves, okay, why do I keep falling into this in? What is the point of this? What do I do in my life or what am I lack in doing that is causing me to continue to go back to the well time and time and time again? Why do I keep getting angry with my kids and my own my phone too much and my spending too much time at work? These are the questions when you start asking ourselves because temptation again is our means for sanctification. So the trial is not the enemy. It's the training ground for us. Don't just ask, how do I get out of this temptation? Ask, what is God trying to show me through it? Nice. The third and this this probably is the most important one for me at least. It's the implementation of order in your life. Of the great Navy SEAL modern day philosopher, Jockel Willings, that is discipline equals freedom. And this is what order is. So here's why. So what do we call the mass? Like in the missile and the magnificate and everything that we have, what is that actually called? It's called the order of the mass. So why is that? Because God, everything God created has a very logical sequence to it. He created natural law, natural order. Everything has a purpose and it's logical and it's reasoning. But Satan of course, once chaos, he wants division because they can't create anything. All they can do is to divide and cause chaos. And when there is chaos, that is where they thrive. So a lot of men nowadays, a lot of times we are kind of doing the devil's work for him, so to speak. We're very distracted. We have these smart phones that most of us are addicted to. I know I have trouble with it. Or we are up late binge watching sports or we're drinking excessively or we're doing x, y, or z thing. And we're distracted. We're not spending time and prayer. A lot of men too will say, well, I'm too busy to pray, yet they are monitoring their fancy football team night in, night out, making sure that they have the best pick and then if they'll drag. So these things that we think we're so distracted, the things we don't have time for are really the most important things. How much time are we spending with our children? Another trap too that men fall into is with work. I'm working hard to provide for my family. Of course, some people have to do just to make ends of me, but for most of us, especially in the West, we probably don't need to be working night out. 90 hours a week in order to buy the boat or to go on the fancy vacation. Our children just need us, especially when they're in their formative years and they have young children. So we need to remember that a man living in disorder is a man who has left his gate wide open and oftentimes that is where demons can easily slip in. But again, if your man is distracted, you're kind of doing their work dirty work for them. So they don't even have to touch you because you are kind of just doing it for them. You're not going to church, you're not going to pray, you're not going to confessional or adoration, and you are just slipping further and further away. Now order does not have to be something extravagant, right? If we have discipline in our physical life, if you work out or you're training for something or you're building a business, there's order and structure and everything that we do, the same thing goes in the spiritual life. Now, are we going to mass every Sunday? Are we going to confession once a month or more often? Obviously, if we commit a grave sin, are we even aware that we are committing grave sin? Are we doing an examination of conscience? Are we going to adoration? Are we spending time with other like-minded men like all you guys here? Just the fact that we're all gathering around as men and the church is huge. This is a brotherhood. And the more we act on that, the more the demons will flee. It's easy to ask your Sarah for to tell yourself what the saints are like, "Most of the saints that I know were in a monastery or a cloistered nun or they were probably praying all day, but now there's ordinary men and women like us who have been declared saints as well." So, it's not about praying eight hours a day, but how are you fulfilling your vocation that you've been called? Because again, most of us here, the father is here as well. He's a little bit different, but most of us here are in the marriage. We have children. We are not called to pray. Wake up at 3am and pray four hours before our children wake up and then expect to go to work. We're not called to that life unless you really want to. But order means having maybe a morning offering. Maybe I tell this a lot of men too who ask is praying the angiolus prayer at 6am, 12pm, and 6pm. Dr. Dan also mentions on the podcast that he came on and he said, "You know, the implementation of order is often more important than the prayers themselves because there's no real magic sauce or magic pill that we can take or magic prayer that we can say that will make it all go away. But the implementation of order will cause structure in our life, will create boundaries in our life, and allow us to grow closer to God." Because a man who has ordered priorities is a man who is hard to move. A man in chaos is a man who can be pushed around. And finally, the fourth pillar is the arsenal I call it. So the weapons that God has given us because you are not fighting unarmed. Especially being Catholic, I'm a conver about eight years and it's incredible coming into the church and all the stuff that I missed. I remember I had a conversation with my wife and she was trying to tell me about St. Thomas Aquinas and I'm just like, "Who's that?" It's like all of this rich history that we have being Catholic, the rosary, just going to mass. Like what the heck is the Eucharist? All these wonderful things that we have. If you're a cradle Catholic, maybe you haven't had a fresh appreciation for it, but someone who is new and still learning day in and day out, there's just so many weapons that are disposal, especially in the spiritual realm. So men need order. We need ritual and we need brotherhood. And where they're lacking from the top, so I don't know how St. Matthew is, but there's a men's group, there's a lack of men's group. This is where you guys can come in kind of from the ground up. Do you have a brother that you can rely on? This is a great place to start if you do not. Men who are willing to come to events like this are probably someone who is open to talking with you, to praying with you. Because men who have a United Mission is pretty powerful. I did XS90 last year with a bunch of guys from I go to IHM and there's a group of six of us and the most powerful thing, I mean, everything else was great or some of it sucked to, but that's okay. But every morning, or every Saturday morning, before we met, we met for adoration for one hour. And that was by far the most powerful thing that I think I experienced in a while. It's because it was six men in the United Mission and we were all united in order to better ourselves for our wives, for our children, and to draw closer to God. But just seeing men on their knees praying in front of the blessed sacraments, it's a very powerful image and something I hope you all can experience as well. But the primary weapons I added to, so I lost my camera. I think I'm at six here. But the first one is kind of combination. It's prayer and fasting. Now in, I believe it's the Gospel of Matthew, I think a little bit in Mark, the disciples, you guys probably remember the story of the disciples, try to ask Jesus to go, they were trying to cast out a demon and the demon wasn't leaving this individual. And Jesus, of course, comes over and eliminates the demon right away. But when they're in private, they ask Jesus, why couldn't we exercise the demon? He says, some demons can only come out through prayer and fasting. Now prayer seems obvious to us. Okay, like prayer makes sense. God calls us to pray. He gives us the art Father. He gives them, we have the rosary, things like that. But why fasting? I think fasting is so important because one, it's a sign of mortification. And two, it reminds us that we are mortal creatures, right? You know, the Latin phrase, "Memento mori," right? Remember your death. Remember that we are dust and to dust, we shall return. And fasting is very powerful too because, you know, I think kind of one of the downsides, over the years that the Catholic Church has kind of lessened the restrictions or let you know, lessened the restrictions on fasting because now it's, yeah, you fast two days out of the year, but you have, okay, you can have two small meals with the can you go one meal and then you can have one meal. So it's like, okay, like where, where's the mortification? Like now for some people, that might be very difficult. We have medical conditions, things like that. Obviously that is a difficult thing for you. But I think for most of us, we could probably go a little bit more. Maybe a little bit harder. It's like, actually, I'm not only going to drink water today for 24 hours. And the thing about fasting too is, as I've done a couple like three day water fast, which those sucked as well, just in case you're wondering. But if you do do it, make sure you unite it to a cause because fasting in the secular world is just all about kind of your losing weight or, I mean, there's tremendous health benefits. Don't get me wrong and that's all well and good. But what's beautiful about being Catholic is that we can unite it to a cause. We can, we can say, I'm going to fast this day for my son. I'm going to fast this day for my priest. I'm going to fast this day for the Pope. So we can unite what we are doing, something that's hard, something that's difficult, and we can unite it to a cause. And that just adds so much more meaning. So especially if you're doing a long-term fast in your hungry and your grumpy and you want to snap at your kids because all you want to do is eat the burger that they're eating, as you can remember your why. Now, the one thing about Exodus that's beautiful is that they always consistently ask, "Okay, what is your why? Your why, your why?" And you kind of get sick of them telling you, especially, you know, if you guys did it with Jamie Baxter and his reflections, he just keeps telling you, "Okay, remember your why." But the reason for that is because you have to unite it to a cause. Otherwise, it's so easy to fall into the temptation. So prayer and fasting, confession. People, Exodus, have said many times that one good confession is better than 100 Exodus and sessions. And the reason for that is that when you go to confession, obviously you're getting yourself back into the state of grace. And I don't know if you guys have noticed. If you haven't been in confession a while, for me, it's about six weeks, but do you guys feel like kind of stupid? Like you're not yourself. Like you're making decisions. You go, "Why did I make that decision?" And you go, "Oh, yeah, I've been in confession in three months." You know, because your brain, because if you think about it with confession, the beautiful thinking about it, like I said, it pulls you back to God. But when you're sending consistently, even venial sins, you're slowly being pushed away from God and you're becoming less and less of the person God made you to be, because you're no longer able to listen to his voice very clearly. But when you get back into the state of grace, you are drawn closer to him, and you're able to hear his voice more clearly, because you have that stain removed from you. So confession is very powerful. I recommend going monthly. A lot of people recommend this as well. If you can go twice a month, even better. But even if it's been years or months since you've been back, there's no better place than to start today. The second one or the third one is the Eucharist. All right, put the Eucharist in adoration. You are what you eat, so to speak, right? So spiritually, as much as physically. You know, you guys have probably heard the expression, you know, you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with, but how much time are we spending with God? Now, it doesn't have to be adoration. But mass is the most applicable thing. I mean, obviously, we go every Sunday, do we go to daily mass, or at least another mass during the week? Do we have access to adoration? But how much time are we spending with God, with our Creator? Because again, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Why don't we make Jesus one of those five? And see what he can do for us. My personal favorite is the rosary. Our lady herself said at Fatima, the three children was to pray the rosary every day. And when she gave it to St. Dominic, she told him. them that the rosary is going to be the battering ram. Now if you guys have heard it as well in scripture it says that the gates of hell will never prevail against the church. Well a gate is a defensive position and the rosary is a battering ram so what does a battering ram do? It breaks down some gates right? So the rosary I think St. Potter Peele said is the weapon of our times. Now if those of you who haven't prayed in a while what I like to do? Maybe it's something that's difficult. I know my wife struggles with it as well but pray throughout the day. Maybe do a decade in the morning, a decade here, two decades there and a decade before you go to bed and then you pray the rosary for the day. The rosary is very, very powerful because again besides all the awesome quotes that the saints have given us, it unites us to reflect and to focus on the life of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Riding with your family or with your wife is very difficult for me right now. I have four young kids. We try to pray it. If we get through a decade without someone crying, it's a miracle. But the thing is, you know, the point of praying together as a family is that you're trying. You're doing the best that you can and every stage of life is going to be different. As your children grow up obviously it gets easier and easier but again, man, you don't have to say much but even just saying, okay, we're going to pray our rosary even if you don't really explain it to your children, they see, oh, this is something important because dads have to do it. Very important man to pray with your family. It can be very simple. What I do before I go to work, we have a little bit of holy water and I just bless my children before I go to work. Little things that we can do each and every day and it really can make an impact on our children. Now they actually look forward to me coming and do that. At first it was a little weird and awkward. It's like, Dad, what are you doing? And then they got used to it and they go, okay, this is important. This is original that dad does with us. And finally, the brotherhood. I think this is something that a lot of men neglect because no, men, we like to be, like to be go getters, we like to do things on our own, we like to build things. And sometimes it's hard to form relationships with each other. Think back to the opening scene, up on was scared but his fellow soldiers urged him on. Now, we're not in a battle for survival right now. But with men, we can urge each other on to unite ourselves to the cross, unite ourselves to a mission to better ourselves, to be the man that God created us, to be. And it clears the asses that says, a three-fold cord is not quickly broken. You, just one other man in Christ, that is your three-fold cord and that is unbreakable. Because if Jesus at the center, you guys can accomplish incredible things. Because Satan's strategy with men is almost always isolation. Get him alone, get him ashamed, get him convinced that his sin is uniquely bad. If he told anyone else, they would disown him. You guys, isn't that the exact opposite of what we actually experienced? If you come up to a guy, anyone here, and you say, John, I'm really struggling with X, Y, and Z, can you please pray for me? First of all, I don't think anyone would shame him. And second of all, if you are that man that does shame him, that says more about you than what John just told you. But what do you guys do? Know you admire John more because he just told you something that's volumbrous, something that he was struggling with. And you admire him more, you respect him more because he had the audacity to come up and say, hey, I'm really struggling with this. Can you please help me? A lot of men, I think, are afraid to admit that because we want to be kind of the self-made man. But Christ makes us strong in our weaknesses. So the antidote to isolation is brotherhood, accountability, fraternity. Do you have at least one other guy that you can easily call whenever you're in a pinch and you know will help you out? Even coming to this talk tonight, I texted a couple guys just like, hey, I'm doing this talk tonight, please pray for me in almost a right way. They all responded with absolutely I'll pray for you right now. Do we have that brotherhood that can unite us? Because guys, no, it's hard enough to do life alone. If those of you who are married as well, you know, it's wonderful to have that help me, that wife with you, but it's still hard. And we need other men because as wonderful as your wife is and she can be your best friend, she is still not a man. She still doesn't understand what you're going through as a man. The struggle to survive, to provide for your family, the weight of the world that you feel on your shoulders because you just want to be better for them. You want to provide for them as best as you possibly can. Now in closing, I have a quote here. It's from Bishop Francis Kelly. Now Bishop Francis Kelly, this was back in 1917 in the country of Mexico. He was writing a bunch of letters to his nephew. And he was writing in time when Mexico was going through a big, a bunch of political turmoil. The leaders were going against Christianity, religion. And I'm quoting him. He says, "Of course, you know that before a priest is ordained, he must make a retreat. I often think that retreats for laymen, especially for young laymen, are more necessary than for priests. If you could understand what depends upon laymen, not only for eternity, but also for our time. If laymen can only for a little while brush aside the veil, the world draws before their eyes and see unclouded the opportunities lying ahead of them. I am sad today as I write this letter for him snatching minutes to read this story of Mexico's tragic hour is a story of a nation whose leaders have forgotten God, whose great men thought they no longer needed him, who believed that religion was for only women, and that man were too strong for it. And behold, the star of their country's destiny is drowned in an ocean of blood. It will be the same with us, Jack, if those who are just reaching the majority loose the grip that faith has on them. I am not mistaken when I say to you that religion is ever driven out of our country. It's last hope and it's strongest hope must be in the hearts of Catholic men. When Catholic manhood loses religion, the nation is irretrievably lost. Guys, this is awesome to be Catholic. Now, we are not all called to be martyrs of Saint John Henry Newman, but we are called to be saints. And we are men who are ready to engage in the spiritual battle. We have all the weapons that we need in our arsenal. We don't want to be like up on who freezes on the sterile. We want to be the man who runs up and saves our brother, who lifts him up. He protects him, protects his family, uses his authority and utilizes the weapons that God has given us. And I will finish with a prayer. Being the father of the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for all the men here tonight. Thank you for this wonderful fire that is burning brightly. Thank you for the men who have come here today. Please just enlighten them. Help them to lead their families tonight today and to this weekend. Help them to be the men that you have created them to be. And we will ask for our wonderful mother's intercession. We will say Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with the blessed earth out among women and blesses the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Father of Son, Holy Spirit, amen. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. Brothers, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If the show has added value to your life, I'm going to ask you to do three things. Share with the brother who needs it. Leave us a review and finally support the show so we can keep fighting. Links are in the show notes. We'll see you next week.