Tame Your Inner Monster and Become A Warrior for Christ

Picture a Capuchin friar with bad arthritis climbing onto a horse and riding to the front of an army. He carries nothing but a wooden crucifix. The Ottomans have some 80,000 men on the field, and the Christian force is outnumbered four to one. The Pope sent him as a chaplain, not a general, just to help the men keep their courage. The story goes that he went through horse after horse, riding back into the fight to rally his soldiers. They won, and they retook a fortress the Ottomans had held for almost sixty years.

That's St. Lawrence of Brindisi, and he's where I started when Dr. Dan Schneider joined me for his fourth appearance on the The Manly Catholic podcast. We set out to talk through the most gangster saints we could think of, and we got through about half our list in an hour (I’ll blame Dr. Dan for that one…such a chatterbox). However, in our time together, two themes emerged that I want to share with you. 

The first is that courage isn't something you summon in the moment. You must build it. Let’s face it. We all wish that if the darkness is surrounding us and hope seems bleak we will step it up and lead the charge. But will we? Sure, we can picture it. We can imagine it. But can we train for it? 

Yes, you can. And you should. Because it must be built. Dr. Dan pointed to St. Maximilian Kolbe, who volunteered to die in place of a father of a family at Auschwitz. When the guards asked who he was, he said, "I am a Catholic priest." Dan's point was that Kolbe didn't wake up that morning and decide to be brave. He had spent his whole life speaking the truth when it was unpopular, setting up presses to evangelize, and calling out the enemies of the Church. Heck, here was the man who had the audacity to say to the Blessed Virgin Mary he wanted neither the red or white rose but BOTH (indicating he would die in purity with martyrdom). He called out the Nazis when few people would. He was constantly in training. 

When the moment came, the decision was already made. We love the war-movie version where we imagine ourselves rising to the occasion, but nobody rises to an occasion they haven't trained for. Dan put it simply: excellence is on the other side of boredom. Even NBA players have to practice free throws, and nobody is going to block the shot. The spiritual life works the same way. St. Paul says "I strive," and the Greek behind that word is where we get athlete.

The reality is, most of us will never ride into an army. Dr. Dan, an Army combat veteran, said it was easier to be courageous facing the enemy as a young man in combat than to face his own demons. The small attachments and the habits we justify take just as much courage to fight. Venerable Matt Talbot, a poor laborer in Dublin who beat alcoholism and lived the rest of his life in deep penance, is a good example. For most of us, that interior fight is where the real battle is, and it's the one that matters most, because it's for our soul.

The second idea is what I'll call the gentle monster. Dan used the image of a Claymore mine, the infantry's perimeter weapon. It's about a pound and a half of C-4 and 700 steel balls, and the casing has one instruction stamped on it for exhausted soldiers: front toward enemy. Dan's observation is that too many men take the monster God gave them, all that strength and aggression, and point it at their own families instead of at the enemy. Our strength is good. But it must be used for good. It must be tamed and then aimed at the enemy. Dan said it feels like Our Lady is building an army of exactly these men: dirty faces, clean hearts, beat up and knocked down but still getting back up. Their weapons are prayer, fasting, penance, and sacrifice for their wives and children. Smashmouth Catholicism is Dr. Dan’s theme and he is the All-Star (I hope you all saw what I did there). 

And you don't have to start big. Dan talked about how giving up meat on Fridays, which is no small thing for a Midwest guy from a family of pork and potatoes, changed him. A 24-hour fast is another place to begin. St. Bartolo Longo, a former Satanist who became the apostle of the Rosary, is the reminder that the enemy pounds hardest the moment you turn toward Christ, and that penance is how you pound back.

If you want the full conversation, you can watch the episode on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Dr. Dan's earlier appearances on the show are well worth going back to as well. You can check out the past episodes: episode 90, episode 103, episode 172, and episode 201.

Support the show at Patreon or Buy Me a Coffee.

Go out there and be a saint.

James