Ep 203 - You Are Frozen on the Stairwell and It's Time to Move: The Basics of Spiritual Warfare

James Caldwell: 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. So thank you guys for coming. Thank you guys for coming. Welcome to Forged in Faith. We're going to get the fire going a little bit more. Thank you guys for coming. Really, this was always good to have you guys all here. And it's good to have Father Maron with Father Tony. There he is, the boss, Father Tony. Father Tony in here. So real quick, one of the things that we have as guys is. We're kind of in a battle, whether we know it or not. And sometimes we make it about ourselves. ⁓ But there's more to it than that. It's like a band of brothers, right? So I want to introduce James Caldwell. He is the co-host of the Manly Catholic Podcast with Father Underdom over at Allseed. So he's going to be here. And I want to say thank you, thank you to James for being here. ⁓ Thank you sir. Thank you. Thank you. I know, that's probably a good call. Let me know if it's getting too close to me, right? All right. Well, thank you all so much for coming out. This truly is an honor and a 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-hosts to speak here tonight first. But as we all know, backups sometimes get to shine. So this is my chance to shine. I have your number. ⁓ that's fair too. All right. He didn't have my number, so he says. So tonight we'll be talking about 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, seems that in our culture, it seems to be becoming more prominent. We've had exorcists on podcasts like the Sean Ryan podcast or Tim Pool. I know my good friend Dr. Dan Schneider has been on Sean Ryan if you listen to his podcast at all a couple of times as well. So definitely a big thing that's going on in our culture nowadays and something I think us as Catholic men really need 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 St. Michael prayer. So we begin in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen. St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou prince of the heavenly hosts by the power of God, cast in hell, Satan, and all evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. In the Father, 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 and 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. was, you know, fresh off the boat, so to speak, very inexperienced, very smart guy. He 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. Everyone liked him, got along with him, just, you good, nice guy, you could say. So there comes a part in the movie where it's called the Battle of Rimmel, it's towards the end of the movie, and Upham, his job was very important but very simple. So his job, if you guys remember, if you've seen any of those World War I, World War II 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 a 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 of brothers though, they encourage him, partly because they needed to survive and they need him to 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 a, one of his men, Private Melish, is 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 Melish, he's in hand-to-hand combat with a German soldier. What's good about this scene, and it also kind of makes you agonize with it, is that it keeps bouncing back from where Private Melish was 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 winning. So he's overtaken Private Melish and he's about to kill him. And if you're watching this movie, you're agonizing 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 this ammo. Why don't you just help out your fellow brother? So Upham doesn't, and you see the look on his face, he is just completely terrified. He's shaking. And so he continues to freeze and he doesn't do anything. So the story goes, Private Melch is killed by this German soldier. And as agonizing as that scene was, as the 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 that 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 disdain 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 this story? Because I think too many of us, unfortunately, are like Upham when it comes to the spiritual realm, spiritual warfare. know, we're good guys, we're nice guys. A lot of us 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, a lot of 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. It's 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, know, with transgenderism or gender transition surgery or some so-called same sex marriage. And it seems that more people are starting to wake up like, oh, this is actually bad for our society. And so with that being said, there's sort of two extremes that we can take in 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 when 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 end 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 that 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 gonna dive into with the spiritual warfare, I have four pillars, if you will, four, 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 close father Dom, tells me time and time again on the podcast is that it always goes back to the garden. And the garden is now the creation of Adam and Eve. If we go back to Genesis two, I don't know if you guys remember in Genesis two, what was the first order that God gave Adam after he created him in the garden? He told him in Genesis two, he says that God put Adam in the garden until and to keep it. Now seems like a pretty basic order. No, he's basically a gardener, right? Well, if actually look at the original Hebrew, the word till is abad. And abad means to serve, to cultivate, and to work. Interestingly enough, it's 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 translated to keep is shamar. And that means to guard, to protect, to keep watch or to stay in sentinel. 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 king. 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, in naming our children. Because names mean something and words have meaning. And I know in our 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 and scriptures. Abram became Abraham. Simon became Peter. So that you can see the changing of names when God... enacted it usually sent a man on a mission and that is we are called to do as men. Now something that 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 this toxic masculinity 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 in spiritual realm are very legalistic. They're very black and white. There's no real gray area with them. Dr. Dan Schneider, my good friend, he often calls demons as literal lawyers from hell. 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. And when it comes to exorcisms and things like that, that you guys have heard about, the bishop of each diocese is actually the chief exorcist in their diocese, unless of course they delegate it to somebody else. So Bishop Okobiak would be our exorcist unless he has delegated it to another priest. Okay? This matters importantly because, you know, Dr. Dan has talked about too, where he's gone into a session with a priest. The priest actually has failed to receive the authority from the bishop. 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-given authority it actually become can become dangerous. They can attack you now. It doesn't happen all the time But it is a possibility even thing this is more in the Protestant world But like the deliverance ministry or things like you guys may have heard that where kind of pray over individuals who might be spiritually afflicted. Now, if they were actually spiritually possessed or things like that, that also could be very dangerous because those people do not have the rightful authority. Now, this matters for 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, 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 the 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 too involved, something like 80 to 90 % of the time the children would stay in the faith that was raised. So almost a two-fold 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 of 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. It always goes back to the garden. Right, what did Satan, who did he tempt first? He tempted Eve. And the question always becomes is, 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 Dhammi interviewed Jesse Romero. I know if you guys know who Jesse Romero is. He was telling us a story of, he used to be involved in the exorcism ministry in his diocese and he tells us the story. was, a young boy, I think 16, 17, maybe 18 years old, and the whole exorcism team was there. They were about to start a rite of exorcism, but the exorcist wasn't there, which is kind of a problem. So anyways, the demon 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 and the priest isn't 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's like, the demon is manifesting, so what do want us to do? And so the priest asked Jesse, he's like, okay, is the father there? And he said, yes, he's here. And so he said, okay, have the father put his hands on the son. Jesse tells that the father only spoke Spanish, so Jesse was translating and the father was just freaking out. He's like, I'm not touching him. I don't wanna go near him. And so Jesse basically called him out and he said, you are his father, put your hands on the son. And so immediately he put his hands on the son and actually the boy started to calm down a little bit. And so then the priest was basically on speakerphone 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 for about 15, 20 minutes, the boy kept calming down, calming 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 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 exorcised a demon from your son. Now this might seem like a crazy story, because all we hear about is that exorcism is designed for the priests and the priests 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 exorcised his right through natural law and order. to pray with the authority given to him by God over his son, and he was delivered. Because never forget men, 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, I'm sure some of your boys as well, are starting to play mass. So I have two boys, so have the oldest boy, of course, is the lead. He's the head priest and his younger brother is the altar server. But I didn't tell them to do any of that. It's just... taking them in mass consistently, obviously every Sunday, sometimes daily mass, and they emulate it. Especially the priests that we have, if you just explain to them their role in this life, your boys will naturally start to follow and want to emulate that. Especially Father Dom, he's a very close friend of our family. If you guys know Father Dom, 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, someone 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. In every battle that we deal with, whether it's sports, whether it's in business, there's competition, it's always good to know what the other side is doing and their tactics. And the spiritual realm is no different. So who are demons? So demons are fallen angels. They were created by God as pure spiritual beings with tremendous intellect, will, and power. And they've chosen a single irrevocable act of the will to reject God. So there is no redemption for these fallen angels. They are always looking to devour us as lions prowling the world, as it says in St. Peter. So what does that mean for us? Practically, one is that they are way smarter than us. And no matter how smart we think we are, they will all far outweigh us in intellect and the will. They've been observing humanity for millennia. You know, especially for men, they know how to attack. So what's the big five things for men that we tend to fall into? Lust, power, prestige, authority, things like that. Guys, we tend to fall into the same thing. If you just look at your 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 is that? 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 Ripaker was on a podcast and 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 start 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 would God 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, ⁓ Jesse Romero's story 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. It's the perfect blend. 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St. Paul puts it directly when he says, for we do 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 it. 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 they call obsession, spiritual obsession, extraordinary internal activity, severe and persistent dark thoughts, irrational despair, deep spiritual desolation. Father Ripgar also talks about, he has a whole ⁓ giant book, I'll talk 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... 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 it goes through a whole protocol, I won't go into the nitty-gritty details. Like I said, this could be, 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, 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, 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 rarer than I think people are led to believe, but it 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, that 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 infestation. 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, a sin that occurred there typically involves like 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 a demon actually will attack someone. St. Padre Pio actually experiences this very well documented, which I didn't know until recently. But the main thing again is spiritual temptation. And 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 the sin? 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? Am I on my phone too much? Am I spending too much time at work? These are the questions we need to 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. So 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 probably is the most important one for me at least, is the implementation of order in your life. A great ⁓ Navy SEAL, modern day philosopher, Jocko Willings said, 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 Magnificat and everything that we have, what is that actually called? It's called the order of the mass. So why is that? Because everything God created has a very logical sequence to it. He created natural law, natural order. Everything has a purpose and it's logical in its reasoning. But Satan, of course, wants 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 doing the devil's work for him, so to speak. We're very distracted. We have these smartphones 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 in prayer. A lot of men too will say, well, I'm too busy to pray. Yet they are monitoring their fantasy football team night in, night out. making sure that they have the best pick in the NFL draft. 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? know, another trap too that men fall into is with work. You know, if I'm working hard to provide for my family, and of course some people have to do just to make ends meet, but for most of us, especially in the West, we probably don't need to be working 90 hours a week in order to buy the boat. or to go on a 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 you're a man of the distracted, you're kind of doing the 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 the confessional or adoration, and you are just slipping further. in further way. 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 in 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 in the church is huge. This is a brotherhood. And the more we act on that, the more the demons will flee. Because it's easy to ask yourself or to kind of tell yourself with the saints, it's like, okay, most of the saints that I know were... in a monastery or a cloistered nun or they were probably praying all day. But no, 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 it's about how are you fulfilling your vocation that you've been called? Because again, most of us here, the father was here as well, he's a little bit different, but most of us here are in the marriage, matrimony. We have children. We are not called to pray, wake up at 3 a.m. 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 to lot of men too who ask is praying the Angelus prayer at 6 a.m., 12 p.m., and 6 p.m. Dr. Dan also mentions on the podcast that he came on and he said, you 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 convert 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 like St. Thomas Aquinas, and I'm just like, who's that? It's like all 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 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 at our disposal, especially in the spiritual realm. So men need order, we need ritual, and we need brotherhood. And where they are lacking from the top, so I don't know how St. Anthony is, but there's a men's group, but 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 Exodus 90 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 too, but that's okay. And, 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 there's six men in a united mission, and we're 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 Sacrament, it's a very powerful image and something I hope you all can experience as well. But the primary weapons, I added two, so I lost my count, or I think I'm at six here. But the first one is kind of a 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 where the disciples try to ask Jesus, 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. like prayer makes sense. God calls us to pray. He gives us the Our Father. 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? know, the old Latin phrase, memento mori, right? Remember your death. Remember that we are dust into dust, we shall return. And fasting is very powerful too, because I think kind of one of the downsides over the years, the Catholic Church has kind of lessened the restrictions on fasting, because now it's, yeah, you fast two days out of the year, you can have two small meals, but the King can go one meal, and then you can have one meal. So it was like, okay, where's the mortification? 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 gonna drink water today for 24 hours. And the thing about fasting too is, I've done a couple like three day water fasts, those sucked as well, just in case you were 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, 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. can say, I'm gonna fast this day for my son. I'm gonna fast this day for my priest. I'm gonna 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, especially if you're doing a long-term fast and you're hungry and you're grumpy and you want to snap at your kids, because all you want to do is eat the burger that they're eating, is you can remember your why. Now, one thing about Exodus that's beautiful is that they always consistently ask, okay, what is your why? 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, because you have to unite it to a cause, otherwise it's so easy to fall into the temptation. So prayer and fasting, confession. Multiple exorcists have said many times that one good confession is better than a hundred exorcism 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 to confession in 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? 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 thing about it, like I said, it pulls you back to God. when you're sinning 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 that 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. I 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 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 he spends 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 to the three children was to pray the rosary every day. And when she gave it to Saint Dominic, she told him that the rosary is going to be the battering ram. Now, if you guys have heard 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. Padre Pio said, is the weapon of our times. Now, for 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. Praying 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, right? 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, men, you don't have to say much, but even just saying, okay, we're gonna pray our rosary, even if you don't really explain it to your children, they see, ⁓ this is something important, because dad's having us 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. like, dad, what are you doing? And then they got used to it and they're like, ⁓ okay, this is important. This is a ritual that dad does with us. And finally, the brotherhood. I think this is something that a lot of men neglect, because I know men, we 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. Upham 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 men that God created us to be. In Ecclesiastes it says, 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 is 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 and if he told anyone else, they would disown him. You guys, isn't that the exact opposite of what we actually experience? 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? No, you admire John more because he just told you something that was vulgar, 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, 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, I'm doing this talk tonight, please pray for me. And almost right away they all responded with, absolutely, I'll pray for you right now. Do we have that brotherhood that can unite us? Because guys, it's hard enough to do life alone. If those of you who are married as well, it's wonderful to have that helpmate, 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. And 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 bunch of political turmoil. The leaders were going against Christianity and religion. And I'm quoting him. 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 I am snatching minutes to read this story of Mexico's tragic hour as 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 men 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 their majority lose 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. Its last hope and its strongest hope must be in the hearts of Catholic men. When Catholic manhood loses religion, the nation is irretrievably lost. Guys, is awesome to be Catholic. Now, we are not all called to be martyrs of St. John Henry Newman, but we are called to be saints. And we are men who are ready to engage in the spiritual battle. have all the weapons that we need in our arsenal. We don't want to be like Abba, who freezes on the stairwell. We want to be the man who runs up and saves our brother, who lifts them up. He protects them, protects his family, uses his authority, and utilizes the weapons that God has given us. Now we'll finish with a prayer. In the Father, 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 that 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'll ask for our wonderful Mother's intercession. We'll say, Mary, full of grace. the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is 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, Son, and Holy Spirit, amen. Thank you guys, appreciate it. Brothers, thank you so much for listening to this episode. If the shows add value to your life, I'm going to ask you to do three things. Share with a 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.