Ep 221 - History’s Toughest Saints (Dr. Dan Schneider)

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 crowd, 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. Hello all. Welcome back to another episode of the Manly Catholic. This is James, your host. And with me once again, our good friend, Dr. Dan Schneider. Dr. Dan, welcome back to the Manly Catholic, my friend. James, great to be on. Great to be back. I'm glad glad good to see you again. Yeah, now this Dan, this is your fourth appearance on the Manly Catholic podcast. And you I had I know if you know Sean McAfee. I know he writes a lot for Tan. But he has five appearances and I said if you get to five, we gotta get like a medal or something for people. So one more time, Dan, and maybe you can get a medal. You gotta bring me on twice just so I can beat that guy. All right, all right. So he's a five, so we have to bring on two more times. So we'll just I guess we'll have to another part two, part three. But I can take that guy. Come on. Two more times. He wasn't the air. I know. I know we got 'cause he was in the Air Force as well and you were a pilot. So I was army, yeah. So we got a competition here. Let's do it. It got it. Absolutely. All right. Well, today we're talking about the ten well, we're gonna more than ten, but we put ten most gangster saints that we think that we have thought of. I'm sure there are many more. I'm sure we will get many comments about this is that we forgot many people, but you know, I was going down the list and it was just like this is Yeah, we could do we could do five hundred, you know. And every like the first one first one you got courage. Everyone has courage to be a saint You have to have courageous virtue. You have to have heroic virtue. And so to be a hero, to be to have that depth of of courage, that that's one of the traits. But we had to narrow them down. And so yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We're yeah, so we're we're really excited. Now, for those of you who who do not know Doc who Dr. Dan Schneider is, so Dr. Dan is a professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, and he's basically become our go to voice on spiritual warfare. Like I said, this is his fourth time on with us. He back on episode ninety. We talked about his book, The Libra Cristo Method. And I'm just, you know, a shameless plug for you here, Dan. I got all your books listed right here. Libra Cristo Method, Sins of the Father. And then I know this is with Jesse. I gotta give a little shout out to Jesse. This was spiritual warfare QA with with Dr. Dan and Jesse. So yeah, but he was on episode ninety, episode one three, and episode two one. I'll link in the show notes for you guys as well. Go back and listen to those. But before we dive into these, because we're gonna go we're gonna go hard on this, we we need to do the Saint Michael prayer, my friend. So we will begin in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Saint 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 prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen. Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Man, now Dan, I thought I could just kind of run through this list a little bit. I'll hit you with one and I'll let you add some commentary, maybe someone that pops into your head as well, and then we'll just we'll see how many we can get through. Does that sound good? I love it. All right. So this first thing we kind of separated these into categories, like like Dan said. So the first one is courage, and this is actually what kind of spurred me into asking Dan if you want to do an episode on this. So this was Saint Lawrence of Brindisi. So we put in parentheses the warrior priest. So we start with a guy who should not have been anywhere near a battlefield. So St. Lawrence of Brindisi is a Capuchin friar. He I think he spoke something like six languages flu fluently when I was reading about him. He's a Hebrew scholar. He ends up actually being a doctor of the church as well. So in sixteen one, the Ottoman Empire is at kind of the height of its prominence. The Ottomans have an army of somewhere around like 80,000 men bearing down on a fortress in Hungary. So the Christian force that's defending it is outnumbered better than four to one. And the Pope sends in St. Lawrence, not as a general, but as a chaplain, you know, to try to help the men keep their courage. And so here's a guy, and I guess he had a lot of rheumatism, he had arthritis, he he wasn't moving very well, but he still gets on a horse and he rides to the front of the army and he basically leads the charge of these, I guess if there's eighty thousand, about twenty thousand men, and he doesn't carry anything except a wooden crucifix. And I don't know if it was around his neck or if he was actually holding it out on his hand as he was riding into battle, but eyewitnesses literally recorded as his only instrument to bless people or to defend himself in wartime situations was this wooden crucifix. And I think I remember reading day to Dan that he wore out or lost like four or five horses as he was doing this. He just kept going back into the battlefield trying to encourage his men. And so what happens though Well, largely due to Saint Lawrence is that they actually end up winning this battle and they retake a fortress that the Ottomans had held for almost sixty years. So this is just a man again, just we think kind of like as lay people as well, well, we're not called to these grand things, but this is something that Saint Lawrence, we never know when we approach in life the different situations that come into our life when God's calling us to do something extraordinary like this. So St. Lawrence I thought was a great one to start off with, Dan. Yeah, he's a great one because he's it's really a gr great saint for the modern time as well. And this idea of a warrior priest, we've lost that we've you know, we've lost the the concept of our priest as warriors and that go into and lead spiritual battle. I think this is very important for us to to to remember. a Franciscan, a great Capuchin. And I know I know some great Capuchins in the US, that there's San Antonio, Denver. different areas. I've good friends of mine. and they're they're this is Padre Pio's order. you know, this is this is this is a good this order steep in tradition of warrior of warrior saints. So I think is a great, a great st great way to start the as well. One that came to mind here or two of them, of course. if I could bring up one of the OG gangster women, Joan of Arc. yeah, of course, she was burnt at the stake. She did battle She was, you know, she she was not afraid to stand up at a time being accused of heresy. They they asked her, are you are you in a state of grace? And you know, if you if you said yes, you know, it would be you know, presumption, you know, and we d we don't know we know that we have certitude, but we don't know we would go to heaven. We have certitude. But if she says no, then she would be confirmed guilty. She said, If I'm not, may God put me there. If I am, may God so keep me. One other came to mind under Courage that that that I think is a mo a modern saint, died in nineteen twenty five, Venerable Matt Talbot. Are you familiar with him? yes, yes. He was he was a working man, a poor guy in Dublin, fought alcoholism and and ended up battling it and and being able to conquer it and grew in holiness. And lived a life of penance and when they when they found his body at his death as they were preparing his body for burial, they he had he was wearing I don't know how many, but at least a couple of of the Siles. If you are you familiar with the Siles, what a Silise is. Mm-hmm. It's a chain it's a it's a penitential chain that some of the saints wore. And so he lived a life of and it's a it it doesn't it doesn't hurt you, it kinda bites into the flesh. And and and just creates a little discomfort and a little bit of pain throughout the day, or you know, however however long you wear it. So he was found wearing a selece. John John Newman also was was you know, in Philadelphia. He was also known and a lot of the saints did did these types of penance, but John I mean, Michael Talbot was found again, he lived a life of penance in after his conversion, which is a sign you know, symbol i encouragement for all of us to part of being courageous isn't just being courageous in combat. Sometimes it was easier for me to be courageous in the face of the enemy as a young man in combat than to face my interior battles, my own demons. those small little those small little things that we become attached to, those are those take great courage as well. No, absolutely. And and for the majority of men who are listening to, that is going to be the great battle that we have to face. You know, a lot of us aren't going to be called into battle like St. Lawrence was or or like you as well, Dr. Dan. So it's is are we battling the interior interior demons, so to speak, as well? Because that is for a lot of us, like I said, the greatest battle that we'll have to face. And, you know, it's the most important one too, because obviously it's for our soul and and to get to heaven. So all right. So that that was courage. That was courage. So number two, I have two here for you guys. So we have Perseverance, Saint Sebastian, which I think probably most of us had known. I'll I'll kind of recap his story a little bit. And then Saint Nicholas Owen, which I love the story as well by Saint Nicholas. I think I think I've talked about him on the podcast before. I don't know if it was you or or that other guy, Sean, you know, who's on here all the time. So he's on there all the time. One of the guys. Of course, it's probably him. I know probably. Yeah. You know, I you know, I'm not I don't pick favorites, Dr. Dan. Okay, Saint Saint Sebastian. All right, so Saint Sebastian, he was a captain in Diocletian's own Praetorian Guard, which was like the most elite fighting unit, I think you could say, back in the old in the Roman Empire. So see, during while he was captain, he was secretly ministering to Christian prisoners. So eventually he gets caught, it gets found out. A Diocletian orders him to be shot full of arrows and he's just left for dead in a field. But a widow named Irene comes to collect the body that night, and he's still breathing. So those all those arrows actually didn't even kill him. So she nurses him back to health in secret. So then he go so so here's kind of the the the ironic thing, and actually this reminds me a lot of St. Paul too, when he got stoned and they thought he was dead, and he just gets up and goes back in. So Sa Sebastian just goes and he finds a staircase he knows Diocletian walks with and he confronts the emperor to his face about the persecution. It's like, hey man, why'd you shoot me full of arrows here? So Diocletian, who looking at a man who he thought was surely killed, has him clubbed to death. And that one actually actually did work. Is that he he ended up dying? But yeah, I I love the parallel with Saint Sebastian and Saint Paul, Dan. It's just these guys who they get shot. They thought they're dead or they get stoned, but they thought I was stoned to death with Saint Paul. And they just get right back up and it's like, whatever. Let's just dust ourselves off and go right back into the face of the enemy. And then obviously they end up getting killed. But no, again, that I guess is courage. Like you said, all these saints have s courage to an extent, but just perseverance as well, serving these these Christian prisoners that Saint Sebastian saw were being persecuted for for unjust reasons, and then he's there ministering. Just again, another man. Of faith stepping up when it is needed the most. The the the Praetorian Guard is a later development. Julius Caesar picked his favorite, his his most beloved unit was the tenth the t the tenth legion. They they were the most loyal. They were they were They were his right wing. If you're having a battle and everybody, you know, your your shield is on your left hand, your sword is on your right, the guys on the right wing are the most vulnerable. And you would always attack the enemy's left wing first because because they would have to turn to defend themselves. So you had to put the your baddest dudes on the on the right wing. And that was the tenth legion. And so that was his inheritance. Sometimes you'll see people say, Sebastian pretended to be a Legion. A legion, you pretended he joined the legionaries just evangelized from within. That's just simply not true. If this guy was truly Praetorian Guard, he was about as bad A as it gets. This would have been you know, top tier, top tier tier one, tier two operator. These are the people that seasoned, seasoned veteran who's seen multiple deployments of combat, seasoned in hand to hand combat. This is and if he was in a Praetorian Guard, this guy would have been the the the Green Beret or Navy COE. equivalent of his day. And so martyred, left for dead. I have I have over here, not the famous one of him ta tied to a tree. They use that. The artist would use that in in antiquity Christian art to to portray the male body. but I have n one that shows him being brought back to life and tended to by a couple of holy women, Irene, that one's special to me. My my oblate I'm a Benedictine oblate. My oblate name is Sebastian Mary. And so he's brought back to life from Irene and Irene is the Greek word for peace. You know, and it's only gonna be through finding peace with Jesus Christ that we brought back to life. And there's a lot of guys listening out there that have that have are either been shot to de shot to death by their own loved ones, shot themselves in the foot, they've injured themselves in the battlefield. They've been wounded, they've been carried off, they've been left for dead, seemingly left for d for dead by those that used to care for them, seemingly left for dead by even the Catholic Church that's supposed to be the the the the field hospital to care for the wounded. This guy is a saint for you. This is a saint that that reminds you, you get back up no matter what life deals, no matter what you get dealt in life, no matter how hard you get hit. You know, you remember the the I forget was Rocky five, I think, you know, when he when he when he comes makes this this fight, he cut this comeback fight, right, in his fifties. And he has this talk in his in with his son, this famous little it's a zinger, I mean, of a of a small little scene on the street somewhere wherever they were, Philadelphia, maybe or maybe New York, wherever they were living. And he he tells his son, it life isn't about how hard you can hit, it's about hard you you can get hit. and keep move moving forward. And so you're gonna get knocked down you know, you're gonna make mistakes, you're gonna get beat up. It's getting back up and and getting back in the fight. And this is what Saint Sebastian shows us. And he goes back, he confronts the emperor and and and for not just why did you why why did you shoot leave me for dead, but he confronted him for why are you persecuting the Christians? You know, why aren't you a believer in Jesus Christ? And then they they clubbed him to dead, beheaded him and then threw him in the sewage the city of Rome. And so I've been to his grave in Rome. It's a beautiful it's a really beautiful site, yeah. How was that? it's incredible. They put him right there under the altar. yeah, yeah, yeah. Exa exa that was a great one. a great it was a great a pilgrimage site for me in in Rome. Another one that comes to mind from again from that before that era is Saint Polycarp. Are you familiar with Polycarp? Yeah. Well, I haven't I don't know a story, but I obviously heard the name. He he was Polycarp was in his eighties, and he was led before the emperor and told you, you know, up to commit apostasy. And he said, you know, eighty years I've served my Lord. I'm not I'm not gonna apostasize now. And he says, you know, The the the emperor says to I you know, away with the atheists, you know. And he looks up to the crowd and he says, Away with the atheists, because they're all, you know, Roman atheists in the crowd. Eighty-six years I have served him and he has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my king and my savior? And so enraged they they they they burn him at the stake, in Rome and they burn him they burn him, but what and it they just the the the in the martyrdom of polycarpet describes it says that the that the the flames surrounded the saint's body like an oven and they're e emitted from the the from the arena the smell as if baking bread. And so it the flames didn't penetrate his body and so and it's and it was it was very Eucharistic. the baking of bread says it shows, you know, this guy is remember, this guy is a disciple of a discip this guy was actually a disciple of John the Apostle. he was he was he was a trait and he was a disciple of John. and so so he knew John, you know, they they they lived to g they lived a distinct time period. and so John was only John died at one ten. And he lived this guy was born in sixty nine AD and died in one fifty five. And so they eventually pierced his heart with a sword and so much blood flew out it extinguished the flames. and this is this is the the and they also they they took his body and and they started taking parts of his clothes and other parts as relics. So we see even in this early time period the use of relics and rel the martyrs. I mean rel the the the the veneration of relics. And it's it's so it's a mortar of the polycarp. So Polycarp was a was a beast. Dan it I know it's a little bit off topic, but yeah, I have noticed like it was I I feel like in like the early church they recognized people who are holy and then they it's like they kept their artifacts more than I think maybe we do now. It's like I know we keep like sometimes we keep loved ones, some of their stuff, but it seems like a lot of times we just kind of try to get rid of it. But it seems like in the even in this church, like with with Polycarp, they recognize this man was a holy man, so let's try to keep as much as we can and and venerate it and you know try to pass it down through the ages. Have we have we just kind of lost the idea of there are holy men and women and then let's let's try to carry on their tradition and their story? Yeah, and I think that goes back to the the the our understanding in antiquity. Of what history is. if you look at the the Greek word history, where we get the word history, today history is dates, facts, linear, just accumulation of data. In the ancient mind, history was either to investigate or to remember, remember the deeds. So Herodotus and Livy. Two great Roman historians. It was either we did history to to probe to search for meaning, or history was a way you remember the great deeds of our ancestors. So we don't repeat the mistakes of the past. You remember those deeds and you make them, make the lessons learned from them. And so in this saint, in this sense, exploring the lives of the saints is a is a is a work of history. We'll remember the great deeds of these men and we're recalling that these are men. And women that are no different than you and I. but they just pursued through and and grew in holiness and fought against the enemy and the the demons within that they battled with their own vices, the enemy without they faced all sorts of persecution. And so we remember these great deeds, but also we investigate, we explore, we look in what makes what is what makes what is the DNA of a great man? And And so let us not forget the deeds of the great men and let's investigate what is what is what are what are the commonalities. If you look at the commonalities of all these men and women that we're looking at today, they all have very similar traits. And this is an act of history. We've lost that. In the modern mind, history again is just mote and facts. This is time period, this happened here, and you know, this battle took place here. There's we don't, you know, it's linear. We don't look at it the way the ancients did. Yeah, that that's a really good point, Dan, too. And even just, you know, Jesus obviously instituting the the Eucharist, you know, do this in remembrance of me. So it's it's remembering those deeds of the past, like you said. And yeah, I just feel like we in a modern man, you know, we've lost so much of our history. I mean, that's why we are repeating the same mistakes that we our ancestors did, right? We don't remember what they did. And so we're like, we're smarter, we're more intelligent, we know more than they did, you know, those Neanderthals back then. But you we're just We're doing the same exact thing and probably even worse or in in other ways as well. But anyways. Yeah, no, it's true. We have the hen again. This is one of the errors. Once you begin to see the assumptions behind the assertions, one of the errors of the mo of modernism is this idea and modernism, one one philosophical well theological assumption within modernism is called process theology. And it's and we and you know we've seen in our own lifetime both the suppression of Des Chardins and the resurrection of Des Chardins by two different papacies. Deshardins came up with this idea of the cosmic Christ, right? This it applied it he took evolutionary theory and he plied and and he applied evolutionary theory to Christian revelation. And so and so evolutionary theory. Imbued into Christian revelation, you come up with processed theology, everything is in the process of evolving to a greater form. And in radical forms of processed theology, God Himself is changing. And it sounds like this in theology. Why do you think we can suppress the Latin Mass? Well, theology changes. We have to change our understanding of homosexuality before we start changing the doctrine. Because we've we've evolved in our understanding of the human person such that now we can re-look at our definition of marriage and our definition of love. You see, that's processed theology. We all we all seem to attack the idea, hey, wait a minute, this is a non-negotiable in the Catholic faith. But we we don't the assumption behind the assertion is we're allowing a development, we're allowing a process of of evolutionary theory in implied it into our own doctrinal formula. And that's just false. That's modernist and it's false. And so going back into the lives of the Saints, it it it it helps us to stay grounded, you know. It's like, you know, my son and I, my oldest son, he's a he's a boxer and and I trained him when he was younger and I've trained some of his friends and we work out together whenever we get together. But whenever we get together, we like to watch old fights from the seventies and the eighties, some of the great ones, you know. the four the the the four the four kings, Duran, Hagler. hearns and haggler hearns duran someone's I'm gonna get lambassett and and the comments for the for the four for the the four kings. Hagler Hearns Leonard anyway there's a Duran Hagler Hearns and Duran. You saved me. How did I forget Duran? The Duran fans are gonna crush me. So we like to watch these little fights. We watched these little fights to Steve Yeah, there's different styles now. You got the Eastern some of the Eastern European styles of boxing that have changed things. you know, it's kinda changed the footwork and some of the but the basics are still there. The four kings are still the four kings. There'll never be another another fourfold like that. And so we see we going back and in in and going into the past and looking at how did fighters what you know, there's certain things that are common to every champion, you know. That that th that those three steps into the gym, when you walk into the gym, you know, into a boxing gym, especially a gym you've never been to before, and you hear you hear the speed bag, you hear the timer, you hear the jump rope, the skip, the too, too, too, you hear the bells, you hear the coaches barking, you know, it takes courage, you know. It takes courage to to to to for any fighter, you know. You you you give up your right to to To not to suffer. When you when you decide to be a fighter, you give up your right not not to suffer. And that that is true about being a Christian. You give up your right to a soft life when you decided to be a Christian. You know, so another one under here, under perseverance, the same time period is Ignatius of Antioch. he was the he was he was tradition, small T tradition, says that he was the child when they brought a child and put him on Jesus' lap, and Jesus said, Let the children come to me. That was Ignatius. he he was martyred before John he was a disciple of John in succession of Antioch. John was at Antioch and then Peter and then no Peter, John, and then Ignatius. and Ignatius was led us led to Rome. He wrote off seven letters to seven churches. Some of those churches are mentioned in the book of Revelation of the churches there. And he writes to them, he writes several things about the Eucharist, where the bishop is. There there is the Catholic Church. The first time we hear the word Catholic. applied to the Catholic Church is is in the writings of Ignatius of Antioch. And he says, do not prevent me, you know. do not try to dissuade me from this martyrdom. He says, because when I when I give my body to Christ and I suffer as he suffered for me, then he says, I will be a man. I will be fully human. I will be fully human when I give of myself completely like this. This is what we're talking about, digging into the past to pull out those lessons. And and so many of us are so effeminate today, you know. We have women being told you got to be macho, machismo, when that's just a disordering. It's a disordering for a man to be a to be macho, machismo, but it's even more disordering for a woman to have machismo, and so much more effeminism. I'm not I'm not talking about effeminacy being effeminate. I'm talking about effeminate in in as a as a of a a softness. blondior is the the Latin word, it to be soft, effeminate, to not able to endure. That's a sin for women not to be able to, you know, but it's even more grotesque when a man is effeminate. And so and so we're talking about manly courage and manly value. And if you look at the word virtue, Julius Caesar would stand before his armies and he would say, Men be virtu. The word virtue means manly courage in battle. Manly courage in battle. But lest we think this is only for men. Teresa Vagula told her daughters, her sisters, the Carmelites, I want you to be manful in your pursuit of virtue. So manful, so manly that you scare the men in when you pr in your pursuit of virtue. And I want you, she says, to be like you. I want you to be Barabada. She's looking at these soldiers coming off the Spanish campaign. You know, and she sees the you know, the Chris Kyle with the beard like our Green Berets and and the Navy SEALs that have been out there rugged. And she says, I want you to be I want you to picture yourself so rugged that you're bearded like a rugged soldier. And you know why you know, our Navy SEALs and the Green Berets, like when I was over there, uniform, you had your patches, your rank, your your US Army insignia, your name y armies on the over the heart, your name's over here. And we had all of the exact same uniforms, right? We were conventional warfighters. The guys in the special operators, the special operations, tier one and tier two operators, they had the coolest gear. Their uniforms didn't match. Some of them had boony caps. They'd have baseball cats on backwards. And they all had beards and no name tapes, no no insignia, no rank. and the big thing was the beard. And the beard, the Spanish word barbada, the beard. means the rules don't apply to us. It applied to guys like me, and I got all my I love me wall over here with my aviation stuff, my airborne wings and all I love me wall. yeah, show me this I love me wall. This is the I love me wall over here, you know? Yeah. So I got the I love me wall over here. But I'm conventional. The rules don't apply if you're if you're bearded in combat, the rules don't apply to you. And the enemy knows that. They couldn't get away with certain things with the top tier guys, top tier meaning Rangers, Green Berets, Delta and and Navy SEALs and SEAL Team Six. So these guys worked at a operated different level. And this is why, you know, in the Libra Cristo manual I said spiritual warfare is guerrilla warfare. And these guys are guerrilla warriors. And so to to so being bearded, not what are the what rules don't apply to us? The rules that the rules that the world would put on us, those don't apply. If you look at the lives of the saints, the rules don't apply to them. These guys, these guys are all, they're all non-conventional guerrilla fighters. They're played by a different set of rules, the rules that God sets, not the rules that man set. I'm not talking about church. I'm talking about what the world says that what it means to be a man, what it means to be a woman, what it means to be what is courage in the world. You know, the only courage the world, the only warrior the world allows today is social justice warriors. It doesn't want manful men that that live out their vocation in a manful way that do penance, that sacrifice for their families. They don't want men standing up. They don't want men to be manful and courageous in defending their homes, being leaders in their homes. They don't want that, you know? They want they want they want they want this effeminate masculinity that isn't threatening. Well, 'cause they they can control them, you know, 'cause then the rules apply to them and then they can control them because then they dictate the rules and yeah, it makes perfect sense. Coffee and prayer. It's the perfect blend. Mystic Monk Coffee isn't just another cup of coffee. It's handcrafted by the Carmelite Monks of Wyoming, roasted with care and infused with prayer. Whether you're starting your morning or fueling your day, Mystic Monk Coffee has you covered. It offers rich, bold flavors that are as divine as their mission. By choosing Mystic Monk, you're not just enjoying exceptional coffee, but you're supporting a community of monks dedicated to their work, to prayer and to the church. It's coffee with a cause. So what are you waiting for? Visit MysticmonkCoffee.com and experience the brew that's feeling faith and flavor. Yeah. Yeah. So Dan, so Dan, what when are you gonna when are you gonna grow your beard out? You know, I I shaved today specifically because I thought I'm gonna be on the show and I want to Dan, you never shave for the manly catholic. You can't I know. You gotta d you gotta choose beard or no beard, you know, and so when I grow a beard I look I can kinda grow the Joe Dirt neck beard. I look Amish. And I usually when I'm writing I don't shave and I it's kind of I get kinda irritable when I'm writing I get irritable. I get hyper focused. A little itchy. I'm no itchy it gets scratchy and it's and I I my wife doesn't like it when I'm writing. She's like, please don't write another book 'cause you're not fun to be around. I'm not Yeah, I live in my basement. I got candles here. I got Gregorian chant over here. I got books everywhere. And I'm and I'm and I'm and I'm irritable. And I my mind is is somewhere in the second century or even earlier. And so and and so so that's when I grow my beard and I don't shave until I till I get so if you see me with a beard, it's be it's it's I'm right. It's frightening. Yeah, but leave me alone. It's kinda like what was what was the Spanish word? Barbada. Barbada. Yeah, when I get more bothered, I get nasty. Yeah. And the rules don't apply to you. And the rules don't apply to me. Even rules of being courteous to my wife or being, you know, the rules don't apply. The Christian right now. They should. You would think that you're reading a book about God, but I'm getting you it isn't that I'm irritable, it's that it's that I just get I try I I just get se a sering focus on what I'm writing and what I'm you're locked in. I'm locked in. I'm I'm on mission and I'm locked in. and and it's like I I I know what I'm like when I was a pilot. I'm you know when I'm in the aircraft. you know, a helicopter, you're just everything's engaged and you're just locked in. You know, you're just locked in and so yeah. But anyway, writing about the Saints and the lives of the Saints is it's It's it's encouraging to us, you know. These guys these guys were fearless, you know. And and and like like like Ignatius said, don't don't try to talk me out of this because you because it won't take much. You know? It won't take much. And so encourage me because I want to I want to die a man, he says. I want to die a man. Well you you brought up the you know effeminacy and it just when you hear these stories Consistent stories. like next we're going to talk about Saint Maximilian Colby, who is one of my favorite saints, but you just hear these these consistent stories of these men who who step up when nobody else would. And it's like, where are those men in society today? And it's like, well, wait, look in the mirror first. Like, are first of all, are you that man? Like, are you willing to step up when no one else is going to? Because a lot of times too, a lot of people will follow someone who does take the lead. You know, but no, we don't have anyone who's willing to. step up and take the lead. And so, you know, men like you know, like Saint like I said, Saint Maximilian Colby, who we're gonna be talking about next. I mean, here's a guy that, you know, in Auschwitz, you know, concentration camp, priest, and he volunteers himself to like, no, I will go and die in place of another man. You know, he sacrificed himself as a priest. You know, take me, I am a priest. This man who has a wife and children. And he and he set up printing, right? He set up a pr printing and evangelization through the written word, through media. He called out Freemasonry of its day. Freemasonry which has always been since its inst institution has been the enemy of the church. It's been denounced by I I forget I think something like nineteen or twenty-three total documents church documents denouncing formation. He speaks out against the the Freemasonic infiltration of culture. he is unafraid of of speaking out and bringing the gospel in a very unpopular way, but with joy. And then when he gets put into the concentration camp, he's already ready. He's lived a life fearlessly. And when the time came to make that decision, it was really easy for him. He didn't one day go, man, I think today's the day I'm gonna actually man up and and you know show that I have testicular fortitude. You know what I mean? He's been living his whole life this way. So when it gets to that point, it's like, hey. And when they asked him, this is the best part, he said, I'll I'll take his place. And they asked him, Who are you? He said, I'm a Catholic priest. So he said, I'm a Catholic priest. Beautiful. Beautiful. Dan, too, is that I think that's a mistake a lot of men think. You know, we see these, you know, these war movies and it's like, I want to be that guy. But again, like you said with with St. Maximilian Colby, like he lived a life where he equipped himself so he could rise to the occasion when he was called upon. You know, I think we we forget that that this is a training ground. Right. You don't you don't just aren't you're just formed into a warrior for Christ. Like you have to be trained and you you're gonna get knocked down, but you have to get back up and you have to keep going because that is what builds this virtue that you talked about. Because it's not, you know, it's not just a natural. I mean, some people might have like more of a natural inclination for it, but for most of us, you have to be trained into it and you have to be willing to get uncomfortable a little bit in order to be trained in order to, again, when you are called upon, you are able to rise to that occasion because You prepared for it. And you know, it's not just, all right, I'm gonna one day, like you said, w I'm gonna wake up tomorrow. It's like I'm gonna be that that manly man that's courageous, that has that zeal. But no, you have to train for that. And you have to take those punches and you have to learn and you have to grow and you have to fall down in order to learn in order to become the man God's creating you to be. I think that's I mean, we might have, you know, some saints that, you know, are canonized and that happened earlier in their life, but for the majority of us, especially nowadays. We are gonna go through kind of like you said that that that smash mouth Catholicism and because you have to grind it out because that's what most of us are called to, I think. Yeah, no. There's a s there's a statistic on I forget the number, but on how how low the free throw percentage among MBA players is. It's not it's not as high as you think. it's not a high high percentage. And and The point about the on free throws is that it's boring to just sit and practice. You know, if you ever coach your kids in basketball, you gotta practice free free throws. They're free. They're free. You get a free point, all you gotta do is put the ball in the basket, but no one's gonna block it. So just practice that, right? And so, but excellence is on the other side of boredom, right? And the in the in human excellence, you still have to work through. You know, when St. Paul says I strive, right? I don't shadow box. I don't I don't I I I I I fight to win. I run so as to win the race. Every athlete trains his body. That word to train, it means it means exhibiting labor. It's the word striving. it's it where we get the word athlete, right? It means to strive. And so so we especially in the monastic tradition, they saw this as the call to strive not for a a human crown, which we all strive for, right? I've I I had my hand raised a few times in the ring and and I and I and I I wanted to I wanted the glory of a human crown. But St. Paul says we strive for a heavenly crown, a heavenly crown. And that heavenly we strive for that, but we got to do the work. There's work involved, you know, there's work involved with that. And so and and what is the work? Doing battle. Doing battle against our vices, doing battle against our defects, getting knocked down and getting 'cause every if you ever play any sport, you're gonna get knocked down. You know. The champion isn't the guy that gets knocked down, the one that refuses to stay down. You know? And that's in the in the in the worldly sense. And the same thing in the spiritual sense. So I don't mind those guys that have been beat up, that have been knocked down, that got a little scratch here that maybe got a little chip in the tooth and and and you know what I they They've been beat up and they've suffered and they've made mistakes and they and they've they've have they have regrets and they they would have done it differently if they could do it again. But those sometimes, that junkyard dog, those sometimes are some of the best Christians because they're not, and it seems to be like God is calling that type of guy right now. You know? I mean, for a while we went through this phase of apologetics and, you know, did Jesus have brothers and all this stuff we need. It's good. I'm glad we did all that. You know what I mean? We still need to defend the face from that. But this whole warfare that we're in now, it's totally different. The battlefield has shifted. And and I I just get the sense that our lady is putting together an army of just guys with with with maybe some history, but they got dirty faces but clean hearts. And that's what she likes. And she's putting together an army of gentle monsters. We're still monsters. You're still a man. You you're still capable of doing Strong things. But our lady, if you let her, will help perfect that masculine that masculine, all those masculine traits to bring you to become the man that that that our Lord created you for, you know, and part of it is is whatever you are in the world, God's gonna you you're gonna use that in the spiritual world, but you gotta learn how to how to use spiritual tactics, spiritual weapons, you know. Yeah, I love that. I love that analogy, Dan, the the gentle monster, because I'm sure you went through this too when you were raising your boys, is is teaching them that your strength is good, but you have to channel it for the good. You know, because we all have, like you said, that that monster inside of us. And, you know, it's it's about taming the monster though, and and but unleashing it as well when the time is right and for the right cause. too because we have that strength. God's calling us as men to be strong. But so many men use it for the wrong reasons, for the wrong purpose. You know, and like you said, Mary is is having these guys that maybe were beat up, but they have pure hearts. You know, even like we when we talked about, you know, you were on the Sean Ryan podcast too, but there is a man too, I know you know him more personally than me, but just from the outside, here's a man who's seeking truth and he is very vulnerable and he's been very open and honest about on his show. about what he's going through. But there's a man that is seeking truth. And I I think God's gonna do great things through him if he continues down this path that I see him going on. You know, and I just that's just one example, but you know, like the the world, the veil has been unleashed and has been lifted up. And we have now seen the underside of the belly of the beast. And now like you said, Mary is creating warriors and and I think we're we're really seeing that come into fruition. Yeah. Yeah the analogy I use is in in the military and the infantry they have what's called Claymore Mines. And they're you've seen they're kind of famous. they're this is one of my icons. They're about shaped. This is you like that one at St. Paul. Yeah. Nice. They're about this size, maybe a little smaller, but turns this way. And it says and it's and it's filled with I forget how many BBs basically and C four, but enough to blow an angle going out thirty five meters out, spread out this way. So it's a the kill zone is something within within everything within a hundred hundred feet or so is dead. Okay, so thirty five meters, whatever that is, thirty a hundred and twenty feet, everything is blown away. And you string that around for perimeter in the enemy to keep the enemy away, you know? And then you can you you and you there's a little clacker and it blows. And it says, you know, because the military, you gotta keep it simple, especially for the army and the marines, you know. And it says front towards enemy, right? So in case you're out there in the middle of the night and you haven't eaten and it's you you haven't slept in about three days, you haven't eaten in two days, your feet hurt, your back hurts, you're tired, you got your eyes are burning from from smearing coffee grounds in Just try to stay awake and you gotta remember, which way do I put it? Front towards the enemy, right? And so so many men take this the the monster, instead of taking the monster and putting it towards the enemy in in the spiritual realm, both with their bodies through prayer, penance, fasting, sacrificing for their families, they turn that monster and they put it towards their family and not towards the enemy. You know, and because we're we're thinking, we're thinking not as man does, as but as we're not thinking not as God does it, but as man does, and learning how to take all that. masculine identity and becoming a gentle warrior, a gentle monster. Becoming you're you're no less a warrior, but having the problem is most men don't have a mission. They don't see that these guys that were studying here, these saints, they're no different than us. You know? They're no different than us. But they just made a decision that they were going to live they were going to live their life fullest. You know, you raise yourself from the dead, I'll follow you. And these guys followed that guy that raised himself from the dead. Yeah, a man that focused on mission is a very, very dangerous man. That is for sure. Yeah. for those of you listening at home, for Dr. Dan, it is w about one point five pounds of C four plastic explosive, seven hundred steel ball bearings. I think you're looking for that. And it's a lethal up to fifty meters. So that's about one hundred and sixty four feet. For all our listeners in the United States, because we don't use meters. We use feet. We use feet. We use we use That's right. 'Cause we're American. We use Americans right the way God intended things to be measured. Exactly. Dan, we we're at about 10 minutes left. I want to get through Saint Bartolo Longo because I I love his story. Do you know much about St. Bartolo? Yeah, I've read a little bit. Yeah. Okay. All right. So I'll read I'll read a little story and I'll let you chime in whenever you want. But here Saint Bartolo Longo, he was a Satanist priest who becomes the apostle of the Rosary. So Bartolo Longo, he lost his mom when he was young, and he goes to Naples, Italy, and he studies law. And he falls into the occult. So he gets really deep in the occult. Like I said, seances, spiritualism. He starts doing, let's see, satanic rites and presides over black masses, which is obviously the Satanist mockery of the Catholic mass. let's see, he was let's see here. The ordination was a parody of one inside an anti-Christian cult, but it doesn't bring him power or peace. It brings him breakdowns, nightmares, despair, severe enough that by his own account, he was thinking about ending his life. So severe depression. So a Dominican priest comes in his life, Father Alberto Redenti. they meet. I don't know the story of how they met, but he talks to him, he walks him back. So years later, he's doing legal work. This would be St. Bartol, legal work near the ruins of Pompeii. And Longo is struck by how spiritually abandoned the place is. So he says he heard an interior voice, and it said, if you seek salvation, promulgate or promote the rosary. And this is Mary's own promise. So he starts a rosary confraternity on the spot. It becomes the shrine of our Lady of the Rosary of Pompeii, which he predicted would become a fault basilica years before it even happened. He and a widowed countess, Mariana, Fusco enter a chase celebrate marriage at the Pope's suggestion to quiet rumors about their partnership, and together they built orphanages in a city of charity for thousands of abandoned kids. So his last words, allegedly he said, My only desire is to see Mary who has saved me and who will save me from the clutches of Satan. Just a very powerful conversion story, and obviously he turned that into something good. Yeah, he finds this image of our lady in a In a trash heap, he finds this piece of art, valuable, very valuable art of Our Lady giving the rosary to St. Dominic and St. Catherine. So a Dominican image of Our Lady giving the rosary promulgates the rosary. What's interesting is he has a conversion from Satanism and and I think he's a model for us, and that he didn't just go out and Go on the speaking circuit and and start a podcast. You know what I mean? And I think it's good. I think we need to we need to be, look, the the laity, according to the Second Vatican Council, Sacrosanctum thirty one, I'm sorry, Lumingentium chapter thirty one. The the the the the the the the charism of the laity is secular in nature. Indules seculares is the the Latin it uses. We are we are to bring the gospel into the secular realm, right? But sometimes, you know, we have to take a time of purification and penance for our past. And he he does this. He doesn't just go on the speaking circuit. Hey, I was a Satanist and now and now I'm on Team Jesus. And so now give me a give me a platform. He lives a life of prayer and penance. He served the the poor. he served poor orphan children in in Pompeii because it was very destitute, and he promoted the rosary. This is what this is how he spent the rest of his life. He spent the rest of his life in this way, in penance for his previous life of of of just complete not just apostasy, but the occult and Satanism. And so he he really reminds us that when you coming out of our past, even St. Paul, when St. Paul has his conversion experience. You know, he's struck blind. Ananias prays over him. Ananias, by the way, the first bishop of Damascus. Ananias prays over him at God's command, scales come off his eyes. He goes to where? Damascus for three years. He spends three years in solitude, in prayer and penance, because he persecuted the church. He persecuted Christians, right? And so he spends time. in prayer and penance. And I said we have to that's a good model for us to be very careful, especially in the modern area era. There, you know, we could just get a microphone and broadcast. And the devil's gonna use you if you're not careful. He'll he'll he'll he'll bring you got to you have to make satisfaction for that past or or your pastor's gonna come back and get you and I the devil's gonna eventually use it against you. So he's a great, a great role model for and how did he do it? How did he combat Satan? And he didn't die saying, I'm a Christian now, I'm good to go. He died devoted to our lady, asking her to protect her from the enemy because he knew the enemy. And the enemy, after he finished with him, and as he started having his conversion movements to Christianity, what did he do? He drove him to despair. He drove him to to suicide, to c you know, suicidal thoughts. He drove him to to depression. And this is what the enemy does. He'll use you, but the minute you start having this conversion, and so I know there's guys listening here that are that are going through this conversion. And as soon as they started making that turn towards Christ, the enemy's like, I don't think so. And he starts pounding and pounding on the interior. And how do you pound back? Penance. Fasting. Right? Jesus himself says this type only comes out through prayer and fasting. Doubling down with your body, you know, giving up meat on Friday is one of the hardest things I did after You know, we all go through some people have these crazy instant conversions. Others it's you know, I've had a series of deep but meaningful conversions deepening. And I remember years ago as I was converting more towards traditional Catholicism, I just started giving up meat on Fridays, even though I tried to give up other things and you know, and man, that was hard. You know, for a guy from Ohio and you're from Michigan, we meet. You know what I mean? We're Midwest. Cows, you know what I mean? You know, we eat cow or pig. My wife says, you know, every time you visit your family in Ohio, you eat pork and potatoes every meal is some form of pork or sometimes cow potatoes every meal. I'm like, yeah. So just that small little thing of giving up meat on Fridays will change you. Making small little sacrifices. In you know what they're finding about inner you know, you're in the healthcare field, intermittent fasting, how healthy that is for you. Go figure. Go figure. It's so good for you, physically as well as spiritually. So when you do these small, even if you just say, I'm not gonna I'm gonna fast 24 hours, I'm gonna have dinner, I'm not gonna eat dinner, I'm gonna eat anything the next day. you know, we're not monks, you know, we're not we're not we're not called perhaps to the deeper penances that of of you know Talbot and others, and but he was a rare layman, mostly the monks in the monastic life do more of the deeper penance. We're we're we're men, we're married men, men of the world. There's plenty of ways that we can do penance for our past and make satisfaction. And that's what Bartaloongo did, and promoted Christian charity among the poor and devotion to the Blessed Mothers of the Holy Rosary. I mean, th that's it. And whatever man and God's given you this great platform, then use it, you know. then use this platform for to bring souls into into into the kingdom of God, you know, and whatever God but ultimately what did Teresa of Calcutta say? You want to change the world? You want to bring about world peace? Go home and love your family. You know? And and love them. And and and how do we love them? You know, we love them through sacrifice. Peter, do you love me? Do you love me? Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep, you know? When Pope Benedict talked about the The ye it was like two thousand five or two thousand seven, the year of the priest, St. John V and A, he's on my list of one of the on leadership. We'll get into that next show. he used that to the to the authority structure and the two ends of the authority structure. He's talking about the author the petrine authority and the priestly authority, but also our authority as men and head of households. do you love me? Feed my lambs, tend to my sheep. So the two ends, if you're in a position of authority, Provide and protect, feed the lambs, protect the lambs, you know, from the wolves, the wolves of this world, you know. And it's and it's tough raising kids and and and and and trying to lead a family in this in this age, but we're called to do that. and it's going to be through as Jesus says, You love me, he uses the word agape. We hear all about sermons about love and I mean, it's just I hear these love sermons. I'm like, okay. Love is love, Dan. Love is love, man. Jesus says, Do you love me, agape? Ag Agape is a love unique to Christianity. It's a love that sacrifices. It's a love that gives of itself. Do you love me? Husbands, Saint Paul says, love wives, obey your husband. You know, be ordered under subordinatio, right? Obey your husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church, handing himself over. So it's a love that sacrifices. It's a love that dies to himself so that Christ may rise. That's the sacrificial love that that the saints, everyone we've talked about, died to themselves, you know, and they rose. They rose. The the the there's a in the monastic Benedictine world, there's a a tradition when they make their final vows, they they drape a funeral paw over them. They lay prostrate before the altar and they drape the funeral paw over them, a black funeral pall. And it's represents spiritual death. You know, it represents spiritual death. Joe Blow, you know, James Caldwell laid down prostate and he rose up. Brother John, you know, or brother Michael of Mary, you know, the new person, right? So spiritual death takes place. We don't do that as married folks, you know. but but symbolically it's there. Spiritual death has to take place. We have to die to ourselves. If you want if you want Christ to rise in you and live in you. The old guy's gotta die. The old that St. Paul called it the old man. And that that's the hardest fight I've ever fought. That's the toughest guy I've ever fought. My old self trying to put that guy away so that Christ can come alive, you know. And and you know what I mean, we can I can live out my Christian dignity as God has called me to do. 'Cause that battle's always there. Yeah, that sacrifice and dealing with your inner your inner demons like we talked about earlier in the show is always it's always the I mean we're always our ear worst critic, right? Or sometimes we're our worst justifier. You know, we try to justify our sins as well as like, well, that wasn't that bad. You know, did I really sin? Yeah. Did I really need to go to confession for that? You know, we I mean we we're great at justifying ourselves too. So it's like, nope, I gotta go. I messed up, own it, ask for forgiveness. Yeah, but we're always making excuses. We're we're quick to accuse other people, but we're quick accuse ourselves. The saint when you're dealing with holy people, they're very quick to excuse other people. They don't accuse. They only accuse themselves. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's the I think the the key. is is the holy ones. They're they they they recognize their own sinfulness. Saint Francis himself says, I'm the greatest sinner on the face of the earth. Right? Like really? He never met you and me. Right? You know, you know what, Dan, I I don't know about you. Speak for yourself, man. You know, I think I'd be right up there. What does it say first? You're right there, yeah, yeah, right. I'm gonna have to touch my my rosary to your cloak and make it a some kind of relic or something. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No. No. Yeah, hey, when when we finally meet in person, Dan, we're gonna have to I'll let ya I'll let you tuck any relics you want. Wait, we got to like half our list and we've already over an hour here. So I guess I guess you have to come back. Sean. Sean. Yeah, yeah. Sean. Yeah, I'm gunning for him. You tell Sean I'm gunning for him. All right, I'll let him know. I'm gonna I'm gonna tie him up. We might we might have to bring us on for a tiebreaker. Let me go to five and then we'll do a we'll do a two way tiebreaker. Yes. Battling banjos. Gang whatever topic you want to. I like that. I'm gonna I'm gonna make this happen. This is great. Dr. Dan, can you close us in prayer, please? Yeah, let's let's close with with my favorite prayer in the name of Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst 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 day. Amen. Say Maximilian Colby. Pray for us. Pray for us. Pray for us. Saint Lawrence. Pray for us. Pray for us. Pray for us. Saint Polycarp, pray for us. Pray for us. All you holy angels and saints, pray for us. Pray for us. Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Dr. Dan, always a pleasure. Always a pleasure. Thank you your time. And then thank you, everyone, for listening. Till next time, go out there and be a saint. 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.