You're Not Real (and how you can be!)
Welcome to the Catholic Experience podcast. I am the Catholic adventurer. This episode recorded August 9 in the year of our Lord 2025, and I say, thank you, Catholic church. Today, I'm here to tell you, you're not real. What does that mean that you're not real?
Speaker 1:I mean, you're sitting there, aren't you? You're not real, but god is real. Well, how can you get real yourself? That's what I'm talking about in this episode of the Catholic experience, how you can be more real. And I talk about a lot more stuff than that.
Speaker 1:This is a really dense, heavy, valuable episode that you're not going to want to skip. But check it out. I'm also making a couple of announcements, couple of a couple of announcements, and the first one is actually very serious. Gotta fade that music out because I really need your attention. Very serious announcement.
Speaker 1:I'm coming out of the closet as a fraud podcaster. Mhmm. I'm a fraud. You see, this episode wasn't supposed to be an episode of the Catholic Experience. It was supposed to be an episode of the live sessions.
Speaker 1:If you don't know what the live sessions is, look at the description. I explained it there. The thing is, the live sessions are supposed to be kind of casual. It's not supposed to be very teachy. It's supposed to be kind of more fun, more loose, laid back, whatever.
Speaker 1:But this episode got very teachy. It was prompted by the topic, you're not real. That was the real topic. But then it was further guided by questions and comments from the live audience. It got very, very rich, and I wanted to make it an episode of a Catholic experience instead so that more people can enjoy it, can benefit from it, can learn from it.
Speaker 1:So that's what you have here. It's very easy to listen to. I have chapters in there. Bounce around, come back to it later, whatever. It's very easy to listen to.
Speaker 1:The chapters, they are intertwined, but they also stand alone. Really solid episode coming up here. The other thing I wanted to push you in the know of is the podcast's new website, catholicexperience.fm. The most important thing about that website is it cancels out the middleman of social media. So when you subscribe to the podcast at catholicexperience.fm, subscribing is free, I have a direct line to you and you have a direct line to me.
Speaker 1:Every time I make an announcement or every time I drop an important episode, whatever, it goes directly to your inbox. So check it out. Catholicexperience.fm. Subscribing is free. It bypasses the algorithm.
Speaker 1:You have no idea, folks, the stuff that you miss because the algorithm never told you that it was happening. So don't let it happen again. Go to catholicexperience.fm, check out what I've got there, and maybe even subscribe. It's free. Okay.
Speaker 1:Now this episode is really solid. This episode is going to bring you a little bit closer to sainthood if you take it in and put it into practice. Here we go. Yeah. Welcome to this live session with the Catholic adventurer.
Speaker 1:Let's start that music again, mister Maestro. Welcome to this live session with the Catholic adventurer. Thank you for those of you who are joining me. I've already got a few people who are coming in. Tonight, we're talking just a little bit about how you aren't even real.
Speaker 1:You're not real. Hate to break the news to you, but you're not. What does that mean? We're gonna talk about that. Let's get on with it.
Speaker 1:The title of this live was supposed to be God is real, you are not. But I didn't wanna go in that direction because I didn't want to put out there something that would be tempting to atheists. An atheist on TikTok sees God is real, and he's like, You can't prove it. God is real. And then there's somebody else that I have to make look stupid, live and on the digital airwaves.
Speaker 1:I just wanna chill with my people. I'm I spent a lot of years in debate and discourse with many, many, many, many, many, many atheists, and it's just not my bag anymore. So what do I mean by you're not real? God is real. You are not.
Speaker 1:Now, you may not know this, but God had a thought, and you were that thought. Okay? He thought you up a long time ago, and the interesting thing is he had the perfect idea of you. Obviously, it was a perfect idea. It was a perfect idea.
Speaker 1:And he's like, I can't wait to make this happen. In the fullness of time, he made that idea happen when you became ensouled in your mother's womb. But as soon as that happened, the idea got changed. Do you know what changed it? Original sin.
Speaker 1:Not gonna get into the whole theology of original sin. Original sin instantly changed his great idea. In fact, it changed it quite a lot. And then you were born. And then you began to have and then you began began to grow up, make choices, commit sins, have experiences in life, not all of them good.
Speaker 1:And not all of the not all of those bad experiences are your fault. Right? Some of the bad things that have happened in your life experience are not because of your choices. They just happened. And some of those things are because of our choices.
Speaker 1:But all of these things changed God's idea of didn't change his idea, but it changed what he wanted for you. His perfect idea changed because of original sin, and it changed further with our bad decisions, our sinful choices. You can call them mistakes, call them whatever you want. We all do them. But at the end of the day, they're sins.
Speaker 1:Right? We choose them. Experiences like bad experiences, even the ones we're not at fault for, those also change his perfect idea. And so when I say you're not real, what do I mean by that? You, right now, are not exactly what God thought up.
Speaker 1:You're not real because you're not what he wanted you to be. Not really. As soon as you're conceived, you're less what God thought up. As you commit sin, become become tempted and fall to temptation, so on, you become less what God thought up. So you're not real.
Speaker 1:You're really here, obviously. You're part of reality, but you're not what exactly what God thought up. And my friends, that is what this journey, this adventure, this Catholic adventure to sainthood, that's what it's all about. It's about becoming real, becoming more real, becoming the version of you that God actually originally thought up. I got these flyaways in my hair, and now I can start to see them in the corner of my eye, and it's annoying the hell out of me.
Speaker 1:So the journey to sainthood really is a journey to becoming more and closer to what God made you to be. That image that he had of you will be perfected when you're in heaven and you see him face to face. Then you'll be exactly what he envisioned after the resurrection. But the journey from now until then is a journey to become more and more real. And let me tell you something.
Speaker 1:You might not have heard because I don't know how many of you are following my show on a regular per well, according to the numbers, very few of you are. But I do say this a lot. The holier you are, the more real you are, and you begin to feel it. Let me say that again, and I really want you to take this in. The holier you are, the more real you are, and you begin to feel it.
Speaker 1:You begin to experience the world differently. You begin to experience your highs differently. You experience your lows differently. You see them from a different perspective. The things that you love in your life, you love them more, and you love them differently.
Speaker 1:And the things that really need to change in your life, you really feel those differently. Not just sins, but just bad habits that that aren't sinful but can lead to sin. The bad things in your life or in your character, in your personality, you begin to see those from the perspective of God, and you're like, my God, I want this to change. The holier you are, the more real you are, and you begin to feel it. You begin to experience the world differently.
Speaker 1:You begin to experience your whole life differently. Thank you to those of you tapping like on my live. Lorena is tapping the hell out of my out of the that like button. I really appreciate that. Listen.
Speaker 1:It's hard to make it's hard to stand out amid all of the voices on any social media platform, but especially as a podcaster, most especially as a Catholic podcaster. So please keep those likes a coming because it costs you nothing to tap on them. Okay? And if you like the stuff I post, even if you like it a little if you don't like it at all, don't tap like. But even if you like the stuff that I post, you see something and you like it just a little bit, tap that like button.
Speaker 1:What the hell is it costing you? Nothing. But it helps me a lot. It helps me a lot. You know something you might not realize too?
Speaker 1:And this is interesting, not just for me, but for for the other content, creators that you support. If the this is any social media platform because they all operate this way now. If an algorithm shows you a post from Creator X, doesn't matter who it is, you see it and you like it, but you don't tap like, the algorithm remembers that. The algorithm says, okay, they saw some of this post, didn't tap like, maybe this post isn't likable. And so the value of that post from the algorithm's perspective begins to diminish.
Speaker 1:I sent this to 300 people, only five of them tapped like, which means 295 people didn't care for it that much. Okay. I'm gonna keep that in mind. Degrade this post a little bit. So keep that in mind with the with the content creators that you like.
Speaker 1:If they post something and you just like it even just a little bit, please help them out and tap like. Help them out and leave a comment and so on and so on, especially with your old pal here. Alright? Engage with my stuff. It really helps me a lot.
Speaker 1:And it helps you too because the more you engage with the stuff that you like, whether it's from me or anybody else, the more the algorithm will show you their stuff. So it's good for you too. So how do we become real? When I say that we're not real, I mean that we are not what God imagined when he thought us up. The way to become real is to become more holy.
Speaker 1:Believe it or not, I know it sounds corny, but it isn't. It really isn't. The way to become the most powerful you, the most authentic you, the most potent you, the sharpest you, the strongest you. And by strong, I mean, I mean, the most concentrated you. The way to do that is to become more holy because the more holy you are, the closer you are to what God envisioned.
Speaker 1:I don't just mean, oh, you're you're holy like all of the other saints. Your holiness is unique to your person. You being holy and me being holy, let's say we, in life, in our lived lives, we reach the same level of holiness. Let's say we reach 98 out of 100. You do and I do.
Speaker 1:But we don't look the same. Our holiness will not be the same because our persons are different from each other. So your holiness for you is going be something completely different from my holiness, even though we've both reached 98 out of a 100 rating for holiness. You understand? If you enjoy cooking, being holy is gonna make you enjoy it more.
Speaker 1:You're going to see God in it. And you just apart from seeing God in it, be seeing something about God in it, you're just going to enjoy it more because there are going to be aspects and dimensions in the in the the process or in the enterprise that you're going to see in different ways and you're just going to love it more. I don't give a damn what you like. If you like skateboarding, you're going enjoy it more the holier you are. My thing is music.
Speaker 1:I'm like fanatic about music. Now, I don't have the kind of brain where I can say, yeah, Sam Cook recorded his first album in 1968, and it was produced by I don't have a brain like that. I just know what I love listening to. The holier I am, the more the more I'm hearing things in music that I never heard before. The more that it moves me, the more that it stirs me, the more that I hear whatever.
Speaker 1:It might be a Sam Cook song. And I'll say, oh my God, a human being made that. Doesn't matter what it is. The things that you like and love that are good about your character and personality, these things that God made with inside you, they become stronger, more pronounced. You experience them, not just feel them.
Speaker 1:You experience them differently. And the things that have been tacked on to us are bad habits, are sinful habits. I don't know what this fan club thing is that just popped in over my head. TikTok is TikTok is really crazy town. It's it's like so crazy, this this app.
Speaker 1:I enjoy it, but it's really damn crazy. God forgive me, but TikTok is like a Koreans person a Korean person's dream, but they fell asleep on acid. That's TikTok. I'm not being racist. I'm just saying.
Speaker 1:The Korean culture is very, glitz and glamour, and you know what I'm talking about. Those of you, whether you're Korean or not, you know how the Korean culture is. Okay? The TikTok app and platform is a Koreans person's Korean person's dream, but they fell asleep while tripping on acid. That's just what it is.
Speaker 1:So the holier you are, the things that are negative about you, bad habits, sinful habits, whatever, sinful inclinations, sinful attachments. And sometimes we have sinful attachments to things that aren't in, in, in and of themselves bad, but our attachment to them is the holier you are, the more you see the damage of it, the more you see it for what it really is and the more you want to separate yourself from it. So the way to get more holy, the the way to to to get more real, and I and I mean real, I mean you are you get more real, is to be more holy. You do that through prayer life, through sacraments, by going to mass, by getting closer and closer to God through Jesus Christ, with the help in the intercession of the saints, most notably the blessed Virgin Mary. And I'm gonna tell you I'm gonna tell you something personal.
Speaker 1:It's not like scandal or anything, but it's something personal. And I'm not gonna get into the details, but years ago, I said to God at mass, Lord, make me holy. Lord, make me a saint. Lord, make me truly good. I mean, like and and God knew what I meant by that.
Speaker 1:Like, just I'm a nice guy. I'm a good guy, but truly, truly good. Almost like I'm goodness itself. Make me truly good. Lord, make me a saint.
Speaker 1:Make me holy. Let me tell you the the Lord has actively been answering that prayer all these years later, and it has been a hard journey. I won't lie. It's been a hard journey. You know what it reminds me of?
Speaker 1:I'm reading for the first time, The Lord of the Rings. I read The Hobbit, and when I was a teenager, I'd read some of The Fellowship of the Ring, but I never finished it, and that was that. So as as a grown up now, I'm reading it for the first time, And I'm reading about Frodo's journey through this dark forest with his friends, and they're on their way to, Rivendell. And all kinds of bad stuff happens to them, and then things get really freaky when they arrive at Brie and, and stuff like that. And they're being pursued by these black writers.
Speaker 1:And the journey has some highs and has a lot of lows. And I'm thinking that's that's the journey to sainthood right there. That's exactly the journey of sainthood. Sometimes it's raining and the rain, damn it, it just won't stop that rain. And sometimes it's cold.
Speaker 1:And sometimes you're being pursued by something dark. Could be the devil. Could be your temptations, your inclinations, the things that you're trying to get away from, but you carry them inside you. Whatever the inclination is. Right?
Speaker 1:It could be, substance abuse. It could be gossip. It could be sleeping around. Whatever the inclination is. Okay?
Speaker 1:It has its highs. I'm just trying to draw a parallel. It's it's those lows and it's the highs and it's the discovery. I'm telling you, man, it's the Lord of the Rings. Highs and lows.
Speaker 1:It's the pursuit, something pursuing you. Right? Temptation, the devil, sneers of the devil, your own temptations and so forth. It's something pursuing you, and it's you pursuing God. And it's God pursuing you.
Speaker 1:And it's you saying, here I am, Lord. Come find me and bring me home. And sometimes it's God pursuing you and you saying, get away from me. Get away from me. It's Lord of the Rings, bro.
Speaker 1:I'm telling you. It's better than Lord of the Rings. So this pursuit to holiness, and it and it happens through your prayer life, through reading scripture or reading spiritual works, or it could be just reading theology, right, which isn't necessarily spiritual, but it it is a spiritual kind of exercise, but it's not spiritual. Obviously, the the sacraments, holy Eucharist, frequent confession, going to mass as frequently as you can involves all of these things. And that involves spending what you've, you've accumulated, living what you have come to learn, to know, and to believe.
Speaker 1:Living it. That's another one of my problems. Living it. Doing living like Jesus lived. Doing good works, putting everybody else first, very hard to do.
Speaker 1:Turning away from sin and being faithful to the gospel, those are two separate things. It's hard. It's hard, but what the hell do you want? You want it to be easy? Where's the fun in that?
Speaker 1:What's the point of that? You know what's easy? Let me tell you something that's easy. I can sit my ass in that recliner over there that you cannot see and watch TV or or eighties movies all day. I can't, obviously, because I have a job, but, you know but that would be easy.
Speaker 1:Right? Sit there and just watch movies all day, seven days a week. That would be easy. Wouldn't that get boring? Wouldn't something be missing from my life?
Speaker 1:Man, wish I could go for a walk. Man, I wish I could go work out. Man, I wish I could spend some time with a friend. Whatever. Something would be missing from your life, and you begin to feel it.
Speaker 1:Not just realize it, but feel it. Right? My friends, that's life. We all want it easy. I want to sleep in.
Speaker 1:I don't want to go to mass. I want to do this. I want to do that. I to live a sinful life as long as I'm not hurting anybody who cares. Well, that's life.
Speaker 1:Right? We always want it easy, but we're missing something when we when we live it that way. And deep down, you know it. Deep down, you know it. Deep down, you know that nigh and nigh draws the chase with unperturbed pace, as Francis Thompson said in his poem, The Hound of Heaven.
Speaker 1:You know there's something out there that you need to win. Deep down in your bones, you know it. And that's that is the path to holiness. It's hard. Yes.
Speaker 1:It's hard. And that's normal. Because if anybody told you it was going to be easy to become like God, they lied to you. That's not easy by its nature. Let's see if I can read some of these comments.
Speaker 1:Happy Sunday. Van something said happy Sunday. Damn, this text is so small. One step forward, two steps backward. I'm right there at the moment.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing, said miss accountant. Miss accountant's a great correspondent. Thank you, Accountant. That was fantastic. We're talking about being real.
Speaker 1:You are not real. Your life is a journey. It's a mission. It's a Catholic adventure to become the realest, truest, most authentic version of yourself. To become what God imagined when he thought you up, before he placed you in your mother's womb.
Speaker 1:Because after that happened, everything started to change. Hello to Protestant Son just joining me tonight on this live session with the Catholic Adventurer. Very happy to see you here. We're talking about how the holier you are, the more real you are, and you become to feel it. You become to experience it.
Speaker 1:And folks, while I'm waiting for people to chime in, me let just bring you in the know on a couple of things. I am primarily a Catholic podcaster. I'm not primarily a I'm sure as hell not a social media influencer. I wish I was, because damn, there's some people that I would like to influence the hell out of. But I don't have that kind of clout.
Speaker 1:And that's okay because I don't want to be that famous anyway. I'm primarily a podcaster, and it's very hard for a podcaster to gain any traction on socials because the algorithm determines everything that you see. If the algorithm has its reasons that it doesn't want you to see this, it just won't show it to you. It doesn't matter how much I beg and plead. That just doesn't I could I could even throw a few bucks behind an ad campaign.
Speaker 1:If the algorithm doesn't want you to see this, the algorithm is gonna show my my ad, whatever I'm advertising, to lots of people, but it's going to show it to people who don't care about it. The only way that I can get through that haze is by having a direct connection with you. So I'm gonna make this, like, super brief. It's not even gonna take a minute. It's not even gonna take a minute.
Speaker 1:Check out my podcast website. The link is in the bio. Catholicexperience.fm. The fm stands for Fiat Media. Catholicexperience.fm.
Speaker 1:You can find past episodes there. You can find current video episodes there. You can find articles there. If you like the stuff that you're hearing me talk about right now, that's the kind of stuff that I write about. You'll find great articles there.
Speaker 1:You can subscribe so that when I drop new episodes, you get a notification. When I plug upcoming episodes, which I've got a real smoker coming up, by the way, a smoker of an episode that you're gonna wanna know about. I'll I'll tell you this one. Are aliens real? Do aliens exist?
Speaker 1:And what does that mean for us as Christians? Oh, I have a lot to say about that. Backed by scripture and theology, backed by reason and logic. So I don't know when I'm gonna do that show. It'll probably be the next episode.
Speaker 1:But, if you're someone who enjoys that kind of podcasting, as a Christian, as a Catholic, and you subscribe, you don't have to trust the algorithm to let you know this episode is happening or has happened, and here's where you can find it. The algorithm is is definitely not gonna tell you. But by subscribing to catholicexperience.fm, you get a notification right in your inbox. You don't have to worry about a freaking algorithm. Okay?
Speaker 1:I don't want to, have a relationship with you through the proxy of an algorithm. I wanna have fellowship with you one to one, a direct connection. Catholicexperience.fm is my way of making that happen. Hello to Leo. Just join me here.
Speaker 1:And if you're enjoying this live, please tap that like icon, and let the algorithm know that this is not such a bad guy. You should not shadow ban him. So let me give you a couple of tips on how you can, be more real. Tell God that you want to. Tell God that you want to be holy.
Speaker 1:Don't think of holy as, like, a really corny, you know, Yoda. Don't think of it that way. Think of think of yourself. What what what is holy? Okay.
Speaker 1:Imagine yourself right now. Really do this exercise. You don't have to do it literally right now, but literally do this exercise. Imagine yourself right now. What can you identify that's objectively good about you?
Speaker 1:I love clothes. I I asked someone this, and this is what they told me. I love clothes. It was a girl, by the way, so I guess that's okay. But that's no.
Speaker 1:Something else. I love things that are beautiful. Now we're getting somewhere. Okay. Clothes is one of them.
Speaker 1:What else? What else do you love that's beautiful? And so on and so on. Tell me other things or tell yourself other things that are objectively good about you. I really love to laugh.
Speaker 1:I really, really love music. Music takes me to another place, and so on and so on. I really love other people. I don't know why. Sometimes I just love other people just just for their own sake.
Speaker 1:I love what some things about them. Whatever. Whatever. What's objectively good about yourself? I don't mean frivolous or stupid, but but objectively good.
Speaker 1:And they can be minor things as long as they're objectively good. Now what's objectively bad about you? And you know that answer. Don't lie to yourself. Do not lie to yourself.
Speaker 1:Do not lie to yourself. What's bad about you that really needs to change even though you love it? Identify the things that are objectively bad about yourself and don't lie to yourself about it. What is it about your personality, your character that you really don't like? Don't say something crazy like, I don't like that I'm stupid.
Speaker 1:Nobody's stupid. Nobody's stupid. I'm not talking about silly things. I don't like that I'm fat. I don't like that I'm skinny.
Speaker 1:I don't like that I'm short. No, no, no. Come on now. You know what I'm talking about. Talking about your character, your personality, the choices that you make, the decisions you make.
Speaker 1:What's objectively bad about those things that you know need to change? Go to confession and give it to God, And then bring it to God in prayer. Lord, thank you for making me someone who loves music. I don't know. Thank you for my love of music.
Speaker 1:It's not just a like, it's a deep love, and I know you made me that way. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for this or that or the other good thing about my personality or about your life. And then tell him that you're sorry for the things that are bad about you. Go to confession, but also say this to him, like, privately, you know, in in your prayer.
Speaker 1:And then ask him for the help to maximize the good in you and to diminish and purge what's bad in you. Ask him for that help. You really only have to ask him once because if you're serious, he only needs to hear it once. But be real serious about it. And then, hold on to your hat because it's gonna be a bumpy ride.
Speaker 1:Begin practicing the faith anew. Start with a prayer life. Keep it simple if you're not experienced. But start with a good prayer life. Read the scripture.
Speaker 1:You don't have to read it like a book because it wasn't written that way. Read a couple of verses here and there, or read a chapter here and there. I would say if you've never read the scriptures before, probably start with the gospels, couple of chapters here and there, maybe or a couple of verses here and there, maybe a chapter here and there. It's up to you. But you don't have to read big swaths of it.
Speaker 1:Just read little pieces of it and think about what you're reading. And talk to God about what you take from that reading that you just did. Talk to God about it. Ask God about it. Go to confession on the regular.
Speaker 1:Don't make it this once every six months nonsense because you sin a lot in six months. Don't go once every six months. Go once a month. Go once every two months at the very least. Don't do this once every six months crap.
Speaker 1:Go to mass as frequently as you can. Bare minimum, Sundays, and holy days of obligation. Do this regularly, the Mass, the sacraments, reading Scripture, talking to God, spending quiet time alone with him as you sit in church. Do this frequently And put into practice these things that you come to learn along the way. Put it into practice.
Speaker 1:Live like Jesus. Be patient with yourself as you fail. Are you better than God? No. Right?
Speaker 1:Well, God is patient with you, so you should be patient with yourself because you're no better than he is. And progressively, the Holy Spirit will lead you to up your game, to up to level up your prayer life and persevere as challenges come. You do that, those things that I just said, you're gonna be a saint. When you fall, get back up and keep going. I don't care if you fall a million times a week, get back up and keep going.
Speaker 1:Go to confession, whatever it is. Because the fall may not be sin. The fall may be you give up on your prayer life. Get up and keep going. Start your prayer life again.
Speaker 1:Be consistent. I'm telling you, if you do all of these things that I'm telling you, you are going to be a saint. A 100%. There's no question on my mind. You're going to be a saint.
Speaker 1:Well, how is it possible that the formula is so simple, but sainthood is so great? How is that possible? First, because it's the grace of God that does it. It's not your work that makes you a saint. It's your corrupt it's your cooperation with the grace of God.
Speaker 1:That's number one. God made all things out of nothing. You think he can't make you a saint? Come on, man. That's number one.
Speaker 1:Number two. Okay. How does something so great happen out of something so simple? Apart from the grace of God, what here's number two. The path to sainthood is perilous.
Speaker 1:From here to there, it's perilous. It's Frodo and the fellowship of the ring. It's peril. Its highs, its lows, it's perilous. It has its glories, it has its victories, it has its amazing moments.
Speaker 1:Yes, a thousand percent. But it's perilous, and it's the prep and it's the peril that we usually respond to. Right? We can have five days of glory, five days of amazing, but two out of two days out of the week are perilous, and that's what we respond and react to. Two days of peril, I'm out.
Speaker 1:Right? Five days of glory, but two days of peril, I'm out. As fallen creatures, that's what we most respond to. So there are highs and lows, but it's the lows that really burn our ass. And it's the lows that we really wanna run away from.
Speaker 1:And it takes toughness to soldier on through those lows. It takes particular toughness. You have to be very tough to be a Catholic. You have to be strong if you're doing it right. It's not all peril, but it has its peril, and the peril is what we usually react to.
Speaker 1:And I'll share something simple with you as I bring this to a close, something personal rather as I bring this to a close. You know, years ago when I said, make me a saint, you know, it's been highs and lows. It's been an adventure. Most of the time I say to God, I would have it no other way. I'm down and I'm out and it's hard, Lord.
Speaker 1:And I'm complaining about this and that and the other thing. And then I say, but Lord, I would have it no other way. But there have been times where I've told the Lord, I kinda wish I didn't make that prayer. Not even joking, like being serious with him. Lord, I know in the past I've told you I would have it no other way, but I'm reconsidering right now.
Speaker 1:That's true. It's hard, the road to sainthood. It's not all hard, but it is hard, and that's usually what we respond to, what we react to as fallen creatures. But ask yourselves, man, that nut job on TikTok said even when he was down and out, he would tell the Lord, I would have it no other way. What would bring him to say that?
Speaker 1:He's down. He's out. He's hurting. He's tired. And then he tells the Lord, I would have it no other way.
Speaker 1:I swear that's the truth. Ask yourself, what would make him say that? You need to find out for yourself. Let me just see if there's anybody here that I should acknowledge. How do you know if you Damn this thing.
Speaker 1:How do you know if you are self sabotaging? Oh, good question. How do you know if you are self sabotaging and falling into scrupulosity? Okay. Damn, that's a good question.
Speaker 1:In the way to sainthood, how do you know that you're not self sabotaging? How do you know that you're not falling into scrupulosity? Scrupulosity is basically nitpicking yourself. Right? For instance, I'm going to daily mass.
Speaker 1:I'm having my coffee and my cream half an hour before mass starts. Oh, now I can't receive communion because I'm supposed to fast an hour before mass and I lost track of time. Now I cannot receive holy communion. Lighten up. Go receive communion.
Speaker 1:Go to Mass and receive communion. It's not a mortal sin. Yes, you're supposed to fast, but take it easy on yourself. You lost track of time. It's not like you were indulging.
Speaker 1:You didn't do it on purpose. Okay? But saying I shouldn't receive communion because I accidentally had coffee with cream in it, that's scrupulosity. Taking yourself too seriously leads to scrupulosity. Not taking yourself seriously enough leads to presumption in God's mercy.
Speaker 1:So how do you find the balance? Try your hardest and be patient with your failures. Try your hardest. Be patient with your failures. Failing is part of the process.
Speaker 1:Don't try to fail. Don't permit your failures, but be patient and tolerant of your failures because failing is part of it. God has made it so. God doesn't bring you to fail, but he uses your failures to bring you closer to holiness. Believe it or not.
Speaker 1:He uses your failures to bring you closer to holiness. Can you believe it? Who would who else would think of something so crazy but God himself? Okay. Sometimes you fall into this cycle of rising and falling and rising and falling.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm just I'm just so tired of falling. I might as well just stay down. Don't do that. The cycle brings you closer to holiness. It's not really a cycle.
Speaker 1:It is forward momentum. You just don't see it yet. So you're self sabotaging you're self sabotaging if your self governance is keeping you from moving toward the objective good. I drank coffee with cream. I shouldn't receive communion.
Speaker 1:Your self governance is keeping you from the objective good. Are you in a state of mortal sin? No. Go receive communion. Just shut up and go.
Speaker 1:Okay? Also, have reasonable faith in God's mercy. But self sabotage listen. I'm gonna tell you a little thing. Self sabotaging is real because the devil can't really knock you off your horse.
Speaker 1:He can make you fall off of it, but it's you who does it. One of the ways he does that is through self sabotage. He makes you pray let's say you're starting your prayer life. Okay? You're not used to praying, but you're doing like an hour, father, hail Mary, and a glory be before bed.
Speaker 1:And you're like, I feel like I should pray more. I'm gonna pray 10 rosaries every day. 10 rosaries. And you're up to the seventh rosary, which is a lot of rosaries. And now it's making you crazy, but no, I wanna be holy.
Speaker 1:I gotta get through this rosary. You know who's making you do 10 rosaries a day? The devil. It's not the holy spirit. Absolutely.
Speaker 1:The devil will push you to pray beyond your capacity to pray. We all have a finite capacity to pray, my friends. We all have a finite capacity to pray depending on your experience. Okay? I can't stay I'm gonna be very honest with you.
Speaker 1:I don't like saying the rosary. It makes me crazy. I cannot get through a five decade rosary if I can. It's by a tremendous act of grace. I have to break it up.
Speaker 1:Three decades here, two decades there, and so on. I have to break Benedict the sixteenth also could not get through a whole rosary. Did you know that? He said it himself. He he said he could not get through a whole rosary.
Speaker 1:He prayed the rosary throughout the day, but he broke it up. Two decades, three decades, and so on. The devil will push you to pray beyond your capacity. He'll make you think it's an act of piety. It is not.
Speaker 1:Okay? If it if something feels feels painful, ease up. But the devil will push you to acts of piety that aren't actually good for you. He'll push you to excess. On the other other extreme, he'll push you to laxity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't have to pray before bed. You're tired. Just go to sleep. Well, and this is me now talking. It's not a sin to skip that prayer, but it's real unwise.
Speaker 1:Very unwise. You have to maintain these major pillars of your prayer life. I'm exhausted. It's an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory be. Don't bitch and moan to me.
Speaker 1:Just say your prayer, then you go to sleep. Sorry. Former Marine here. I don't play that. Don't bitch and moan to me.
Speaker 1:Say your little prayer there, and then you can go to sleep. The devil will push you to laxity. He will also push you to excess. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you find the balance, and the Holy Spirit will. The Holy Spirit will help you find the balance.
Speaker 1:Excess is never good. That's a good rule of thumb. So those are a couple of things, couple of pointers I can give you. How do you how do you know you're not self sabotaging? Are you moving toward the good or being deflected from it?
Speaker 1:Are you stunted, or are you moving forward? Are you hurting yourself, or are you feeling in your groove? Are you feeling in your groove or are you feeling really relaxed? You don't wanna feel relaxed, but you don't wanna feel like you're killing yourself. Get to where you're balanced, you're feeling in your groove, and have faith in God's mercy.
Speaker 1:He knows you're not perfect. God knows that we're all stupid and he knows that we're all weak. Okay? But take it seriously. Take it seriously.
Speaker 1:You don't, you know, you don't want to be like, oh, I can just send my life away. God will understand. Don't do that. Take it seriously and make a good effort, but be patient with your faults. Be patient with your failures.
Speaker 1:Be patient with your shortcomings. But don't be tolerant of them. Be patient with them, but don't be tolerant of them. This has to change. That has to change.
Speaker 1:Be patient with them, but don't tolerate them. I come from a Protestant background, lots of hard truth and teaching in the church. There's not a lot of hard teaching in the church. I I'll I'll be honest with you. It's harder to be a Jew.
Speaker 1:It's harder to be a Muslim. Not a lot of hard teaching in the church. It's hard, though, if you're coming from the secular world. It's hard. You know, to put it this way very simply, if you're used to eating six meals a day with cupcakes and cookies in between each meal, then it's hard to eat healthy.
Speaker 1:Very hard. But when you're always eating healthy or after you've gotten used to eating healthy, it's like, it's not even an effort. It's not even an effort. The hardest thing about being Catholic is the act of surrender. You have to surrender to the Magisterium.
Speaker 1:As a Protestant, you are the Magisterium. You have to surrender to the Mass. You have to surrender to Jesus in the Eucharist. It's a surrender because as a Catholic, the steering wheel is taken out of your hands. And now it now the magisterium holds the steering wheel, which is g which is what Jesus Christ designed.
Speaker 1:You take worship out of your hands. When we go to mass, we are worshiping with the priest, but the priest is offering the worship for us. Again, that is God's design. Right? So we have to worship according to the formula of the church throughout time.
Speaker 1:Right? So you get the point. In the Catholic world, in the Catholic experience, there is a lot of surrender. Surrender to Jesus, which is hard. Surrender to God.
Speaker 1:Surrender to the Magisterium because that is surrendered to Jesus. Because the Magisterium has his authority to teach. Right? I tell people all the time, you know, I think X and Y This is them saying, I think X and Y and Z aren't a sin. And then I say, Well, the Magisterium teaches or the Church teaches, and they do not like hearing that.
Speaker 1:I don't care what the church teaches. I think, buh buh buh buh buh buh buh Okay. But I want to tell you, when you face Jesus, which will happen at the end of your life or at the resurrection if he comes again before you die, When you face Jesus, he's not going to care what you thought, what you felt. He's going to say, my church had my authority, my teaching authority, and my church rightly said that x and y and z and a and b and c are doctrine, are truth. And someone told you that, and you still rejected it.
Speaker 1:And Jesus is gonna say, now tell me why. Tell me why. What are you gonna tell Jesus? Well, I just felt dot dot dot dot dot. You how do you think Jesus is gonna respond to that?
Speaker 1:Oh, you just felt? Depart from me, you evildoer. Jesus don't play games, man. He's love and he's mercy and all that stuff. He is also justice and he does not mess around.
Speaker 1:You you're not gonna con Jesus. You're not gonna con your way into heaven. Yeah. I know I never went to church, but you gotta understand. Bum bum bum bum bum bum bum That's you trying to con your way into heaven.
Speaker 1:You're not gonna con your way past Jesus. Come on. You think he's dumb? He's the savior of the world. God made everything from nothing.
Speaker 1:You're gonna con him? You got to understand, God. I know I shouldn't have slept with all those girls, but you got to understand, you know, I'm a man, you know, and I got feelings of this and that. And Jesus is going listen to it and you go, uh-huh. Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:And that's what Jesus is going to say. You think you're going to con your way past Jesus? You ain't going to con Jesus. All right. Let's see who else has anything to say before I head on out of here.
Speaker 1:Some good question there. How do you know you're not falling into scrupulosity yet? I just wanna retouch that. How do you know you're not falling into scrupulosity? Take the journey seriously, but don't take yourself too seriously.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna leave you with this last thought, I really want you to take this to heart. We underestimate the value, the dignity, and the power of the human person. You don't take yourself seriously enough in some ways is what I mean. You know, when God came to Earth, he came as a human being. He came as a man, but that's that part's not important right now.
Speaker 1:He didn't come as a dog. He came as a human being. I got something else for you that you that might shock you. God could not have come to earth as a dog. You're thinking God can do whatever he wants.
Speaker 1:No, he can't. God only does things that make sense. He can't do things that don't make sense. Can God blah blah blah blah blah blah blah? Well, that doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1:So no, God can't do that. If God wanted to come as a dog, he would have had to change reality. Do you know why? Because a dog's nature is incompatible with the nature of God. God can't become a dog.
Speaker 1:God could become a human being because the nature of God is compatible with the nature of the human person that God created. Do you know what that says about you? That your nature is compatible with the nature of God and that's why he was able to come and incarnate and become incarnate in the womb of the blessed virgin Mary and become a man, become a human being? Do you know what that says about how great you are? I'm serious.
Speaker 1:It says a lot about the greatness of the human being. We don't take ourselves seriously enough, and sometimes we take ourselves too seriously. So here's how you make that balance in the end. Okay? You're welcome, miss accountant.
Speaker 1:Miss account says, thank you so much for sharing your faith. You gave me hope tonight. Oh, that makes me feel so good, man. You gave me hope tonight. That makes me feel so that right there is my salary.
Speaker 1:Right there. That's what I do this for. Right there. I don't care if you never remember who I am. If this got you to the next if this got got you to the next waypoint in your journey, that's good enough for me, man.
Speaker 1:That's good enough for me. That's why I do this. So here's how you find balance. How do we balance between taking ourselves too seriously and not taking ourselves seriously enough? You are fallen.
Speaker 1:You are weak. You are stupid. That's literal. Okay? Sin, even original sin, made us weak.
Speaker 1:It weakened the will, and it made us stupid. It darkened the intellect. How weak and how stupid are you? Well, let's see. Have you ever been on a diet?
Speaker 1:Okay. Have you ever said, I'm on a diet. I will not eat that muffin. And you ate the muffin anyway? You're weak and you're stupid.
Speaker 1:All of us are. All of us are. This is a sin, and I know why it's a sin. I know that this sin is hurting me, or I know this sin hurts others, but I'm gonna do this sin anyway. You're weak and you're stupid.
Speaker 1:We all are. Okay? You have to acknowledge that. So be patient with yourself. You're weak, you're stupid, that's why there's a whole mechanism of mercy in the church.
Speaker 1:Confession, the sacraments. That's why there's an entire mechanism of mercy in the Church of Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church. Okay? Because you're weak and you're stupid. That's that God knows that.
Speaker 1:That's that's why this whole machine is here, because he knows that you're weak and you're stupid. He also knows that you are great. You are created in his image and likeness, and he expects better from you. But he knows that's going to take time. And he's going to be patient with you, and he's going to accompany you, and he's going to help you, and he's going to pick you up when you fall, if you would only ask.
Speaker 1:You would only ask. God knows that you that you've got issues, but he knows you are greater than your issues are. And he insists that you keep trying and that you try harder. But be patient with your shortcomings. Be patient with your falling as long as you're getting up and trying again and trying harder.
Speaker 1:Jesus Christ, God did not come to earth as a dog because their natures are incompatible. He would have had to change reality to come to to to Earth as a dog. Serious. But he could come to Earth as a human being, and that should tell you something about how great you are, that your nature is compatible with the nature of God. God made something unbelievable.
Speaker 1:I'm folks, I'm not being poetic. God made something truly unbelievable when he made you. Not just human beings, you. Truly unbelievable. Truly, truly, truly, truly magnificent and unbelievable.
Speaker 1:And this beautiful, magnificent, unbelievable thing is being scarred and marred and weighed down by sin, by a lack of holiness and so on. So you've got to shake yourself loose from it. And it's sticky. It's damn sticky. So shaking yourself loose of it happens piece by piece, layer by layer.
Speaker 1:It's just part it's just how it is. You're not gonna be a saint by tomorrow. So you have to persevere through the process of peeling this, frankly, this shit off of you and away from you and getting it out of your life and out of your personality and out of your character. It takes time piece by piece, layer by layer, and you have to persevere through it all. So this amazing thing that God created can become exactly exactly how God imagined it before space and time began, before he placed you in your mother's womb.
Speaker 1:This mission is a journey to be exactly what God thought up when he thought you up and he went, wow. That's gonna be a great one. This has been a live session with the Catholic Adventurer. Folks, check out my website. The link is in my bio.
Speaker 1:Catholic at catholicexperience.fm. Catholicexperience.fm. I really hope you also decide to subscribe. It's free. Catholicexperience.fm.
Speaker 1:And I am the Catholic adventurer wishing you all a good night. God bless you. God be with you all. Say your prayers tonight, man, and don't forget, bro, take yourself not too seriously, but take yourself seriously. You are greater than you realize.
Speaker 1:God bless you. God be with you all. Catholic Adventurer signing out of here. Bye bye. TikTok just wanted me to confirm that I'm a real person.
Speaker 1:TikTok, you're so stupid. Honest to God, you really are. I've been live here moving around talking and for, like, an hour. You you now you wanna know if I'm real? Holy crap.
