Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #741 Digging For Treasure: A Young Man Finds Home In the Catholic Church

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#741 Digging For Treasure: A Young Man Finds Home In the Catholic Church · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Claymore Become Who You Are podcast, the production of the John Paul 2 Renewal Center.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Jack Riggert, your host.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here with my co-host today, Mark Schmidt, who's been working with me at the John Paul II Renewal Center for a long time and helped us launch Claymore Militus Christie, our apostolate for young men.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_01: Also joining us is Jack Ray, who's going to share his journey with us.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: So, Mark and Jack, great to be with you.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: And Mark, I'm going to turn this over to you.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to get a little bit of a little bit of a break here.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Cheryl, it's great to be uh back here with you.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And Jack, it's great to great to have you on.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Jack and I, we go way back.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: We got some great uh history together.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: I think first meeting maybe in the Wheaton College gym through a mutual friend working out together.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then Jack and I have been roommates over the years before we got married.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: So we've shared a lot of a lot of great memories and and have both been with each other through a lot.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: So looking forward to uh just diving into your story today, Jack, because I think you know God has clearly worked in your life, and I think it's important for for other men to hear that.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: You know, something that Jack, you've brought up uh multiple times is just the the great quote from Pope Paul VI about just men, they want to they want to witness, right?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: They they don't just want to teach or they want to witness.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where really at the heart of this episode and these conversations we've been having with men is all right, uh, we know that this is true, but what has it done for your life?
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's really why we're sitting down with you here, Jack, uh, today is to hear what the faith has done for your life.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now that I said I'm gonna be quiet, tell tell them that story because it's you and Jack together when you w went in and did that parish mission.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: You're just getting into theology of the body, and Jack happens to be in that audience.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Jack, you had you had asked me to uh to come along with you.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I had just I had just found you know theology of the body, and it had really been a light switch moment for my life that changed my really changed everything, the whole trajectory of of my life, and my heart was on fire for that teaching and and for my Catholic faith.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so you said, you know, hey Mark, I'm giving this parish mission out uh at Northern.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Would you hop in?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I had, you know, I definitely wasn't qualified or anything like that to be to be speaking, but you know, God was working in my life and moving me, so you know, we leave it in the Holy Spirit's hands there, but it was a great, great experience.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then Jack, you had gone to Northern, so we'll get into that.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: But you were able to, you were there for uh for one of those nights.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, you were there way back in the beginning of this all.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Jack, why don't we start with a quick bio on yourself?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: But then uh what I'd love to start with is just from the beginning, you know, what was your experience like of Christianity in your home?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, how how did you grow up?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: What was kind of your worldview as you were a younger kid?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um well, I was grateful to grow up in Wheaton.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I grew up in uh technically Winfield, Illinois, but Wheaton adjacent and uh went to Wheaton schools, grew up in a a pretty Christian community, I would say.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: We weren't raised in a Christian household per se.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: We went to church until I was maybe eight years old, uh, actually at Wheaton North High School as a non-denominational church.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: So I got introduced to my faith in Jesus at that point, but for about 10 years it was it was dormant.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_02: And my parents, to their credit, did a really good job, I think, keeping a moral compass for me and my brother, and you know, gave us a North Star for a lot of different issues when it came to, you know, marriage and sex and marriage, things like this, a moral code, if you will, that I think was through a a Christian lens.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_02: Both my parents worked for a Christian publishing company, so they were being fed the truth, at least at work and who they worked with.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_02: But uh, yeah, overall, very pleasant childhood, you know, had a very good upbringing.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: My parents were both working.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: Um, my brother and I had, you know, a lot of fun in our neighborhood and all those kinds of things.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, I would say my journey into Christianity really started in high school.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: So at that at that time when you had stopped going to church growing up, was there more of a kind of a negative sentiment towards Christianity?
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Was it more neutral?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know, kind of what was your view in kind of those grade school years before getting to high school?
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it wasn't um there wasn't a negative view on Christianity, because I think my parents, again, they believed in God.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_02: We would pray uh, you know, at family holidays and and sometimes dinner.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_02: I would say Jesus was kind of like uh like a second cousin, twice removed.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like we knew he existed, but he was not uh he was not a part of our family unless the holidays kind of showed up, you know, Christmas, Thanksgiving.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, we got to pray.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a very distant relationship at that point, uh, for sure.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: I will say, from a Catholic perspective, my parents had a very narrow, bigoted mindset around Catholicism.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: I had some some uncles and some divorce in my family, and so words like annulments would be brought up in a negative way, you know, the Apocrypha, because my mom worked for a publishing company on the Protestant side, so it's like the Apocrypha is this like fake news, you know, books of the Catholicism world.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_02: And so things like that, you know, just really misinformation, um, which maybe painted a little bit more of a negative light towards Catholics than it did actual Christianity in general, because I think that was still relatively positive.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's uh that's a great analogy, Jack, that you you had there about just the second cousin twice removed, you know, just coming in.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of people would resonate with that and experience that of just do come holidays, come big events, you know, we bring prayer in, we we all of a sudden bring bring Jesus to the table, but you know, the other 360 days a year, you know, he's that he's nowhere to be nowhere to be found.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's back.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's uh yeah, he's he's back for the holidays.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_02: That's kind of how we yeah.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, so what was it, you know, because Wheaton obviously is a very Christian town with Wheaton College here.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what would what was starting to be the shift in high school there towards Christianity?
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I was very, very thankful to be in organized sports growing up.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so football, baseball, basketball, all through high school.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_02: I had a very good friend group in high school of just guys that were faithful, including guys like you know, Mikey Swider, for example, whose dad is the ex-football coach of Wheaton College.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: He was, in particular, him and a few guys that grew up in Wheaton, they were great influences on me and invited me to things like FCA.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um and Fellowship of Christian athletes, I'd say was the great gateway drug for me to really start exploring my faith and get reintroduced to this distant second cousin, as we said, to the point where maybe now he's a first cousin, right?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: FCA was a really good introduction to uh exploring my faith, getting my curiosity back and engaged, reading the word, getting into the Bible for the really the first time.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um and that was around 16, 17 years old.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, Jack, these these young guys, Fellowship of Christian athletes, these young guys were already sharing their faith, huh?
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, they were.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: They were they were unapologetically involved with things like Fellowship of Christian athletes.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: And I was I was attracted to that.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_02: You know, on one hand, it was like I didn't feel like it was an exclusive club.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: It was more of a hey, come one, come all, like you you should be here.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: You're an athlete for one.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: I think it was what attracted me, it was it was athletics maybe first, and then secondary was we're gonna talk about Jesus as well.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: So it was a little bit more approachable for a young guy who was like, oh yeah, all the athletes are going here, doing this, and we're gonna talk about Jesus instead of the other way around, which I think happened later as you kind of mature and get into that, get into your faith a little bit more.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: So you're starting to get introduced to Christianity.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Was there was it more of what you say just kind of a mere Christianity where you know, were you starting to go back to church at this point?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: Were you wrestling with certain questions?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, kind of where were you at in that journey, right?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously today you're you're a practicing devout Catholic, there's there's a gap, you know, there's there's a lot of decisions and thoughts that need to be made.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: But uh what what was kind of stirring in your heart there and going on in high school?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: You know, FCA was like once or twice a week or maybe even just twice a month.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_02: So it was I I kind of had the thirst, you know, I had uh I had half the Gatorade and I was looking for the rest of it, and I was looking for outlets, and so started to think about things like you know going to young life or being invited to other Christian camps and things like that, and uh, you know, and again, more Protestant focused.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_02: But I would say where my journey started to the the third question of my triage of questions, which I think the first for me was, does God exist?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, I I knew the answer to that.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: The second question was all the religions that exist, is Jesus Christ the truth?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_02: I answered that question probably through FCA again as a as a more eighth grade to sophomore junior at high school.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: Then it became well, what denomination of Christianity makes the most sense?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_02: And I owe credit to a girlfriend I dated in high school and her family, devout, devout Catholic family.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_02: Started going to mass with them, and first time ever was probably sophomore junior year of high school.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_02: And um just remember the curiosity being absolutely through the roof, being like, I've never done this before.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_02: I've heard Catholics are, you know, they love ruining divorces.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they they have all these the annulment situation again, right?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: There's all these pre-existing notions that I had from my parents that kind of kept my walls up, but I just remember being enthralled in the mass.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I know we'll get more into that sort of situation, but that was my first introduction, was probably around FCA, post-FCA, getting an idea of what the Catholic Mass was about and Catholicism in general and asking questions.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: So you talked about kind of having this negative view of Catholicism, maybe at least that's what you heard within your home.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Was there part of you as you started to go to Mass for the first time?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, was were you skeptical?
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Did you think that there's no way this is true?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you said you had this kind of hunger, but was there, you know, was there part of you that was kind of more in line with maybe what you grew up with?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, where you know, what was kind of going on interiorly as you're starting to experience mass and start, you know, you're you're you're seeing this family who's all in Catholic.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: So like maybe there's some truth here or I think there was a mixture of some some confusion when you're not Catholic, as we all know, you know, you're not allowed to receive communion.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_02: So I'd go to Mass and I'd be stuck in the pew just sitting there watching everyone else receive.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember sitting there being like, I want that, but I'm also kind of upset that I can't have that.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: Why can't I have that?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: So it just started with that why of why can't I receive?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: And then it dove into, well, what is the Eucharist and what does that mean?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: And why do Catholics hold that to a more sacred level than others?
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and that was the that was again another gateway for me to start asking good questions.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_02: But I just remember sitting in mass and thinking to myself, like, what an elevation, what a reverence that I've never seen before.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the old church that we went to, all the Protestant camps and stuff that we'd go to, loud music, great music, quite frankly, good, good uh overall experience there.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_02: Felt, you know, oh my gosh, this is a good, entertaining way to, you know, receive our Lord.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_02: But then actually seeing it physically, being him physically being received and the reverence that goes with that, it just blew my mind.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: And it was kind of a, I want that.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_02: I'm a little upset, I can't have that right now, but I'm gonna unapologetically go learn more about this so that I can be prepared to uh make a better decision.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just to kind of touch on you, so you're you're you're saying that, you know, this experience in the Protestant church, you know, it was it was a good experience, you know, the good music and so forth, all that, but you know, there was something, there was that greater beauty that was there within Catholicism and the mass.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, was there anything else to I think you know, we don't really look for answers to questions we don't we're not asking, right?
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: So as you're as you start to open up to Catholicism, I think a lot of times that's that that openness comes from I'm starting to feel a lack of you know a strong foundation in this Protestant environment.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what would what were maybe some of those cracks in the foundation, I guess, that you started to see through your thought, I I just this maybe isn't resonating with me as much anymore, isn't it making sense?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's funny.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: I think that realization was more hindsight because as I started to get into my Catholic faith and going through RCIA at the time is what it was what it was called, I started to realize how the Protestant faith for me was very much surface level.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_02: It was, you know, I didn't really have maybe a mentor or a pastor or someone that I could directly go to.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_02: A lot of it was, well, just you know, hey, read your Bible.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Here's this verse, reflect on this verse.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: But being able to, again, hindsight's 2020, getting into my Catholic faith, and all of a sudden I have a authoritative interpretation of everything that I'm reading.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_02: I have the saints who obviously have lived and interpreted scripture to the, you know, the best degree possible in their in their lives to go to.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_02: I guess I felt less alone on my Catholic walk, knowing that I had the catechism, the authority, the saints to look back on and you know, walk alongside rather than more of the Protestant feel where it was like, Yeah, I've got my buddies that I'm going to FCA with, but it's a lot of my own interpretation and their You know what's interesting because I so many guys that I talk to start delving into those early church fathers, the saints, etc.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: And they become your friends.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you're outside, you go, Well, what are you talking about?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: But literally, I'm having conversations daily, daily with with these friends of mine who have actually become good friends.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's really something that happens, isn't it?
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, absolutely.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_00: You and I are both uh Wheaton natives.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um we know that uh uh Catholicism kind of carries some weight in this town, not always um the best experiences like maybe you you you had in your own home.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um what was that like for you?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, did you experience kind of some roadblocks from some your buddies from Wheaton North, you know, from your parents?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, as you're you're delving deeper, you're going through RCAA.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: What yeah, what was going on with kind of your community at that time?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's a good question.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_02: I uh reflecting on that, I again I'm so grateful for my parents because for all the things that I again wish they would have raised me and my brother in the faith with or you know, taught us or whatever, catechized us better.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_02: They were extremely accepting.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: And I felt like they they were happy that I had found something to pursue that was true and positive.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_02: Whether or not they were fully engaging in, you know, oh, Jack's Catholic, let me go and actually do my own research on this and potentially, you know, rebuttal against this.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_02: It was never anything like that.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was a lot of awesome.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I'm glad what are you learning?
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_02: You know, they were curious from a distance.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: I don't think they were ever, you know, open to potentially changing their minds on organized religion.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: They're still to this day not going to church, but they were happy for me.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: They were supportive.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: So that was really positive.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_02: Coming home and having that support system there.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and as far as, you know, other friends, I'd say towards the end of high school, early college, I started hanging out with a group that was a little bit more non-religious.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_02: And so, again, to their perspective, it was not a huge deal.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: It wasn't like my Protestant buddies that I was friends with in high school were like, now you're Catholic, what's that about?
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: My my friend group kind of shifted a little bit to a group of people who didn't really care as much.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_02: And so, and that was also another reason for me to be like, I need to go find a different community, quite front, quite quite frankly.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to find a group of guys and gals that you know I could grow with and uh you know sharpen instead of kind of an echo chamber of, you know, here's what I'm going through.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it was kind of a pat on the back from everyone, like, oh yeah, you you do you, your your reality, your truth is your own.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_02: I wanted to be engaged more in a in a group of people that were like, I get it.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_02: We're seeing life through the same lens.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: It's very similar.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: So that's kind of how that transpired.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and maybe this is a good a good point to touch, touch base on.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think a key key part to our our own faith journeys is just the role that that good friends play in that.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you had started talking about in the very beginning, right?
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's FCA.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's your buddies on the football team, on the basketball team, whatever it is coming together.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so those bonds, you know, what role would you say?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: I know you know we share a lens group together, Jack.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like what what role would you say in how crucial are are good male friendships uh when we're on a journey with our Catholic faith?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I think guys, men in general, they have this deep, deep desire to be respected and affirmed.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: And when you're living in a world where there's no truth but your own, it's really hard to, you know, find that respect and affirmation because you might get a lot of other people saying, like, yep, you do you.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_02: But when you actually find a community that is walking alongside you and keeping you accountable, that is the utmost respect, you know.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I realize that it's not, I don't want friends that are good to me.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_02: I want friends that are good for me.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_02: I want people that can walk with me in that truth.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: And when I started meeting other good men, um, especially guys that I could get vulnerable with, because I think from a surface level, men can get vulnerable to a degree in groups of other men, but it really gets deep when you have that one-on-one conversation, that cup of coffee, that beer, that bourbon, that cigar, and can dive into things that are quite frankly scary to talk about or embarrassing to talk about.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's when you kind of start peeling back the layers of your true self and you start getting into that good for you instead of good to you.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because I feel like from a surface level, most men are gonna be like, hey, you got this, it's all right, things are okay, versus, hey, you know what?
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_02: That's actually not okay.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: You should be doing that.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_02: But guess what?
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here for you along the journey.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's what I needed, especially as a young convert.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_02: I converted in 2014.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_02: So I was in the middle of college and uh, you know, 20, I think I was 20 years old, uh, 21 almost.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: And uh I needed that.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_02: I needed guys around me, not just telling me, hey, you're so amazing.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: You're a great guy, keep your head up and more like, hey, come to the reality of your your immorality, come to the realization that you are broken and that you also you have other guys to walk with and sharpen you up.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: That brings up an interesting thing.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_01: I like to throw this out to both of you guys.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Something really happens when you're journeying like Jack is talking about here, uh, to this faith in in Christ at a deep level, at a Catholic sacramental level, that you can make friends pretty fast.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: I meet guys, you know, in the church or people that have this real strong belief in in Christ.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we're all on a journey, right?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: We're all sinners, we're all but there's a trust level.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: I you know, you you can actually meet somebody, have a deep conversation with them, and men don't do that.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and the last thing I'll throw out to both of you guys is we're living in a culture that actually beats up guys like you guys, right?
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, really talk about not lifting you up, Jack, right?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: But actually trying to push you down.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: And the it's amazing when you walk into a group of guys like this and you sit down and you start talking, and I don't care what race they are, all of a sudden, boom, you see everybody in the same light, you start sharing, something powerful happens, doesn't it?
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a great, yeah, that's a great point.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it made me it made me think uh back to what uh you know Coach Swiderism, Jack.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: We both we both know.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: You used to say, you know, you are who you surround yourself with.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and I think it's just so so key to surround yourself with good men that are thinking the way that you do, that are striving for sainthood, that maybe you're a little holier, a little further down on the journey with you.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it keep keep pulling you along because yeah, when you when you're surrounded with maybe the old high school buddies that haven't kicked the drinking habits, that are looking at pornography, that are stuck in these these vices of the culture, that that does weigh on you.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we gotta surround ourselves with good men that are that are all in, you know, that are really striving, striving to be to be saints, you know.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, I I know our friendship, I can imagine, you know, without you know the guys that we get together, Jack and I are part of a a weekly Bible study, just guys coming together and saying, look, life is hard.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's difficult.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Jack, Jack Rigger, you saw, you know, I remember you saying, you know, life is hard, but there there is no easy path.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: There's the heart of doing the right thing, but there's also the heart of, man, I haven't kicked that drinking habit.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't kicked pornography.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm 15 years into marriage.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not the husband I should be, I'm not the father I should be.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: My life is absolutely crushing me because it's so different.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: So there's the good hard and then there's the bad hard.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Jack, maybe I'll toss this back to you here.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you you're uh you're a husband and a father.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: You've had uh you have three boys at very young ages close together, you had twins.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, life is beautiful, but I'm sure you've had a lot of challenges over the past few years.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, what is the lens of your Catholic faith, the practice of the sacraments and prayer?
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: How do you feel like that?
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: What has that done for your life?
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's a great question.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, my wife and I, we've we've had a lot of trials uh just with pregnancies and health.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: And uh, you know, we lost we lost one of our babies really late, 34 weeks.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: We've been through a lot, and it it's super hard.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I look back and I'm so thankful for our Catholic faith for I say probably three reasons that come off the top of my head now.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_02: One is the understanding of morality, you know, being able to teach my boys, and my oldest is almost four.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: He's not quite there where we're gonna be talking about, you know, true morality.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: But there is a right and wrong.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: There's a black and there's a white, there's a uh there's a truth.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: To how we need to view life and Catholic, that Catholic lens is the truest, the best, the most beautiful version of that that I can share with my boys.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_02: One big thing that I have reflected on the last five years is kind of the understanding of perfect and permissive will of God.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: And the Catholic faith, our understanding is that there's there's a perfect will that is easier to understand than the permissive will.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_02: Things that don't go well, evil in the world, death, losing someone, you know, hurt, pain, those things are permitted that, you know, in this lifetime we may never understand.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: But being able to look through that Catholic lens and, you know, be okay with that lack of understanding, with the the understanding that God is is for us, you know.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_02: Um, that was a big thing that got us through in the last five years of our marriage and our kids.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then I'd say last is just the community.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I look at, I'd say the one negative thing that maybe has come from my parents, for example, is they use the word echo chamber.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, you're just you're in an echo chamber of all the right, you know, all the same ideas and the same thought processes.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, well, that might be true, and our community is beautiful for that because we support each other in the, you know, the world of potentially homeschooling or, you know, uh going to mass every Sunday and celebrating feast days outside of Sunday Mass, you know, bringing the Catholic faith to life.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: But my rebuttal to that is there's an echo chamber in the secular world, just as bad, if not worse, of tolerance, of you know, this lack of judgment, which again is being good to people, not necessarily good for people.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that goes both ways.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: And I think for my parents, you know, I would tell them I'd rather be in an echo chamber of what's good, true, and beautiful than an echo chamber of you do you, moral relativism, it's all good.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I think people ultimately thirst for that echo chamber of true, good, and beautiful.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: The Catholic faith brings that.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because if it's not my friends that I go to church with, it's the catechism, it's the saints, it's hopefully the good pastors that we have at our churches that can be that that beacon of truth, that icon of God's love here on earth.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_02: So those are the three main things that come to mind is the morality, the permissive versus perfect will that I've I've come to realize, and then just the community and the positive echo chamber of of good, uh loving people.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's beautiful, Jack.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, we're I think so often too, uh there is um just a misunderstanding of freedom.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: So it seems like this this idea that your freedom, Jack, is limited because you're around people that think a certain way.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: And what true freedom would be is just a thousand different ideas, a thousand different options.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that and you just totally miss miss the whole point of our life is guided towards what is true, good, and beautiful.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so freedom is not multiple options, multiple ideas.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually more narrow, it's an encounter with the truth.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so to be in a bubble that's the truth, you're actually most free.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's the counterintuitiveness you in this echo chamber of what's true, good, and beautiful is the human flourishing and freedom that God has created for you, not this idea that you're just uh listening to lies and you know things of the culture and so forth.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think at the heart of so much of the issues going on in the culture is just that misunderstanding of true human freedom.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I agree 100% with that.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, you know, I know we're kind of coming up to uh the end of our time here, Jack.
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_00: I uh, you know, I think one thing I want to close with and give you an opportunity with is you know, this Claymore apostolate that Jack and the John Paul II Renewal Center is uh leading the charge with here is is really geared towards men like yourself who are asking these questions, who are seeking the truth.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: So what advice would you have to to a young man who's who's asking these questions?
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: He's trying to figure things out, he's trying to work through vices that are holding him back.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what would you say to a guy like that?
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think you know, it's kind of the analogy in uh in my business world, you know, when you're running a business, the next piece of revenue or the next sale comes from just continuously digging.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I think you have the analogy of someone's digging, digging, digging, and they don't know that the little gold nugget is right behind the next shovel that you put into the ground.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I would tell men to just keep digging, keep digging into your faith, keep finding truth, keep reading.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_02: I would say the biggest book that I remember reading that I'm like, holy cow, this is insane, is the under, especially when I'm 21 and you know, I'm a young male, like I am guns ablazin on the sexual side.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: Theology of the Body for Beginners by Christopher West, still to this day is one of the best books I've ever read of understanding the truth and the beauty of sexual sin and sexual desire.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_02: And that book, easy read, but that was a good introduction for me on the morality side.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_02: Um, why we're Catholic by Trent Horn, another great book for just apologetics of why I believe what I believe.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: But if I'm a young Catholic guy, I am just, or not even Catholic, someone who's exploring the Catholic faith.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Keep digging.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_02: Dig that one more, put that shovel into the ground one more time, grab a coffee with someone who's five, ten years ahead of you with kids and you know what's going well in their marriage, ask them questions, getting getting to know what they're doing well and what are some things that they would have done differently.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's the best place to go.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: Don't be lukewarm and don't be stagnant.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_02: Always be dynamic in in what you're doing and what you're searching for.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's great, that's great advice.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think uh it is hard for men sometimes because they get scared maybe of what's on the other side.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, but I think that is a great encouragement to just to just keep digging, right?
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: And and as Christ tells us, the truth will set us free.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's evident in your own lives, Jack.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: So thanks for uh thanks for sharing and your time today.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: We appreciate it, and I think this will bless a lot of guys who are uh who are on this journey.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks you guys, and I'm gonna put a link into Claymore Militus Christie.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put it in the show notes for you guys that are trying to bridge this gap and saying where to start, check out that website.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna bring you not only into a community, but it's gonna bring you into the Claymore battle plan.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know, the big sword behind us is the Claymore sword.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: We know this is a battle.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_01: It starts on the battle of the individual human heart between love and lust, right?
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: Becoming the self-giving person and this grasping and taking.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_01: And that's where it starts with.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: So so uh join us, join up as a disciple or a leader on that website, get into the plan.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_01: All of those emails will will come to somebody on our team, we'll reach back out to you and and and get you hooked up.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: Say thank you, uh Jack.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Mark, thank you so much for being with us.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, everybody.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: Talk to you again soon.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: Bless.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: See ya.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_02: Bye bye.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_02: God bless.