EP 7 | Alex Jurado AKA Voice of Reason: Faith, Fame, and Finding Truth in a World of Chaos - The Salt Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome to the Salt podcast. I'm Georges Gander, have with me
as always my Co host Simon Thomas Gilto.
Today's guest is someone I've looked up to for a long time,
especially as someone also creating content for Christ and
I'm so happy and so blessed thathe agreed to come on the show
and dealing with him. He is such a great guy, can
really see Christ through him. He's very gentle, even though

(00:23):
his voice is quite unique, whichI think everyone's going to
hear. We're going to have a chat about
that. So the person that I'm
introducing today is Alex Gerardo.
He is known as voice of reason. He's a Catholic theologian and
content creator, helped thousands rediscover the beauty
of faith. And he's very bold, very clear,
very grounded. And his work online has honestly
been a huge inspiration for us. So Alex, it's an honour to have

(00:47):
you on the show. Welcome to the Salt Podcast.
Wow, thank you so much for having me on.
What an intro you, you know how to make a guy look good and feel
special. Let me tell you, thank you so
much. I you, I have been so excited
and so looking forward to to doing this and sitting down with
you guys. Thank you so much for having me
on. This is one that I'm just

(01:08):
really, really, really excited for.
So it's an honor to be here. God bless you guys, God bless
everybody behind the scenes and God bless your your amazing
audience and the amazing people of Australia.
I hope to be there in person to visit you guys, God willing
soon. Honestly, thank you.
It means a lot coming from you with what you've achieved and
what you're what you're doing atthe moment to hear that from
you. So I really, really appreciate

(01:29):
it. Before we get started, Simon
needs to make a comment. I just wanted to ask where did
the voice turn into that? When did the voice become the
voice of reason like that? Well, the voice became the voice
of reason just in 2023, two years ago.
But this voice, I don't know, I've, I've kind of had this

(01:49):
voice for my voice has always been a little unique and it's
changed a little bit, you know, as I've gotten older.
But I don't know, I remember thevery first time somebody ever
commented on my voice and told me that I sound like Rocky.
The first time it happened. I remember the very first time
someone made that comment. I probably was around 16 years

(02:09):
old. And then ever since then, just
my whole like half my life almost, people have been making
that comment so. Yeah, it is definitely unique.
It is definitely unique. And you, you mentioned before we
started the call that you, you, you were in sales.
And I'm just thinking he, this guy wasn't selling, he was
telling people to buy it. I was, I was, you know, I'm
going to make you an offer you can't refuse.

(02:30):
It exactly 100% No, that's awesome.
That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for
coming. And I think before we dive into
a little bit about you and, and,and your experiences with
Christ, let's talk about what's happening in in the world today.
So at the moment, it seems like we're on the brink of World War
three. And I think we need a voice of

(02:51):
reason in this, in this chaos, you know what I mean?
So what are your thoughts about what's going on?
Well, yeah. Well, first of all, you know,
this goes without saying, but wehave to pray.
We have to pray always. Not just pray, but we have to
pray and we have to fast and we have to make reparations for all

(03:11):
of the, all of the evils that happened in the world.
But in particular, when you're talking about a large scale
conflict like this, we have to this is the time when all
Christians, no matter what, you know, which Apostolic Church or
matter what denomination, all Christians should be fasting
right now. Well, I don't necessarily

(03:32):
believe this, but a lot of people think as Christians we
should always be on the side of Israel because, you know, Israel
is God's people and, and all that.
But I don't necessarily believe that to be the case.
And the stance that as Christians we need to side with
either Israel or with Iran or with Palestinians.
I think as Christians, we we stand on the side of what is
right. What are your thoughts on that

(03:53):
when people try it? I mean, I saw an interview with
Tucker Carlson and AUS senator and he was saying he believes in
God and God said those who blessIsrael will be blessed and those
who curse Israel will be cursed.So therefore I'm on the side of
Israel. And he used that as like a
blanket statement, but I don't believe that to be the case in
my understanding of Christianity.
What? What are your thoughts?

(04:13):
Right. Yeah.
So I haven't seen that. That was a conversation between
Tiger Carlson and Ted Cruz. And I've seen just just the
headlines, but I haven't actually listened to what was
said. But if that is what Ted Cruz
said and and he made it as a as a blanket statement, that's just
incorrect. That's just not that.
That's not true. You have two extremes.

(04:34):
You have the, the, the side on, on one extremes, on one extreme,
the, the, the dispensationalist that say that, you know, we have
to completely ignore Israel in every single way that they're
not important anymore. And then you have another side,
another extreme that says that no, you know, Israel does
everything and, and everything that we do has to revolve around
them. Those are two extremes.

(04:55):
And you know, the extremes of the, I'm sorry, the positions of
the Apostolic churches is something that's more nuanced
and more in the middle where we do not the, you know, there is
no teaching, no biblical teaching or any teaching in in
in the tradition of the church or in church history that says
that we have to have in a blind loyalty to the nation of Israel,

(05:19):
especially as it exists today. The current nation state of
Israel that was founded in 1948.That's that's not the case,
especially because when we talk about God's people, it's not
just the Jews, but it is expanded to the entire church,
the entire. Christian Church House.
Yeah. And, and when you, and when you
read, you know, when we read in,in Romans, you read what Saint

(05:41):
Paul says in, in Romans, you know, 9 through 11, it's clear
that the Jews will still play some sort of role.
And actually one of the prophecies that is yet to be
fulfilled is the conversion of the Jews into the church.
So it's when, when they say, oh,God isn't done with Israel,
that's true. God's not doing with Israel.
The, the fulfillment that we're looking for, the fulfillment of

(06:03):
prophecy is for them to be come into the, into the Christian
faith, to be fully initiated into the, into the Christian
faith. And that's what we're still
waiting for. We're hoping for and praying
for. But just politically speaking,
just as a matter of foreign policy, there is nothing that
you can point to in the Bible orin tradition that tells you that
you have to be a that you have to have an allegiance, exactly a

(06:24):
blind allegiance to the nation state of Israel and all of its,
all of its policies. You can make a case for why we
would want to support Israel in this particular conflict, and
you can make that case purely from a geopolitical standpoint,
of course. Yeah.
But not from a theological, biblical Christian standpoint.
There's nothing there. Yeah.

(06:45):
It's unfortunate because a lot of Christians do have a Zionist
mentality, and I think that's not the right approach.
And, and yeah, I think you, you articulated it very well.
You mentioned that you were, I noticed on Instagram, you
mentioned you were going to do atrip to Israel.
Has that now been put aside because of what's happening?

(07:06):
Yeah, so it has been changed. And it's actually the first time
publicly that I've said anythingnow, because we, I literally
just found out one or two days ago we were supposed to go to
the Holy Land in November. But here in the United States,
the US government has put out a travel warning warning any
Americans from going to to travel to Israel.
So the pilgrimage company that was setting up this pilgrimage,

(07:29):
they've changed it. And now instead of going to the
Holy Land in November, what we're going to do is next May,
in the month of May of 2026, we're going to do a cruise of
Turkey, around Turkey and Greece, and we're going to
follow the footsteps of Saint Paul.
So this is the first time that I've said it publicly because I
just found out two days ago. But now everyone, your audience

(07:51):
will be the first ones to know. We've got an exclusive podcast
exclusive. It's an exclusive Man, the Salt
podcast exclusive. We're going to Turkey and Greece
in May of 2026 on a cruise, following the footsteps of Saint
Paul the Apostle. That's cool, that's really cool.
But you got to visit Australia before then though.
I do. I have to.
I have to. And I want you guys to come
along with us. The cruise man, if we can make

(08:12):
that happen. That will be amazing.
I have two little kids which I think will hold me back, but
Simon's a a free man so I'm surehe'll.
If George goes, I'll, I'll be there, definitely.
We can both go Turkey together. Alright, so we look, we pray for
everyone that's, you know, affected by this war and we we
pray that God gives wisdom and, and justice to the world leaders
to handle it. What I want to do is move on to

(08:35):
another clip that I want to bring up, which was something
that went quite viral about Jordan Peterson.
Now I love Jordan Peterson. I think he is a really good man
with a really good ethics and heseems to have his finger on the
pulse of what being a man shouldlook like and, and getting your
life in order. And I think he says a lot of
great things. The one thing that I am a bit

(08:57):
concerned about is his stance onChristianity because he kind of
gives lectures about, you know, Bible books in the Bible and
things like that. And he speaks so much about
Christianity, yet he doesn't want to.
Openly admit. It yeah, he doesn't want to
admit it. It's like he goes around in
circles. So let's watch this clip and
then I'll just get your commentson it.

(09:20):
So what are your initial thoughts on that?
I was I was pretty happy that someone put him on the in in the
corner to answer it, to be honest, but I was just shocked
that he wouldn't commit. What do you what do you think?
Surprised he got posted. Yeah, I, I think that that young
man was being a little rude, being a little too, too
aggressive. You know, that's, that's not the
way to get an answer out of somebody.

(09:40):
You got to be, you know, don't be so heated, be cool, be
relaxed, be calm. Just have a good conversation,
light a cigar if you have to or not, you know, but but I do
think that that Peterson, I think he kind of undermines his
own credibility, kind of undercuts his own arguments when
he refuses to just come out and say, you know, yeah, I'm a
Christian. It it, it just, it's hard to

(10:03):
engage and it I think it turns people off.
But the fact that he just doesn't want to come out and
just and just say it, you know, because there's really is no
good reason to, to not to not just come out and say it.
I think that what he should say is you could say I'm a
Christian. But let me tell you what I mean
when I say that this is my definition.

(10:25):
And if we're working with this definition, just know that this
is what I mean when I say I'm a Christian.
You know, I'm not saying that, you know, he could just make,
you know, give his own definition of it at least at
least now we can just move from there because it, you know,
leaving it vague it I don't think it's helpful, you know?
I, I feel like maybe he's, he's a very serious guy and maybe
he's looking at it as like, I don't want to say that I am

(10:46):
because if I call someone to stumble, then I'll get judgement
or, you know, that kind of mentality.
Like it's a really deep way to look at it.
Like if I, if he admits it to everyone that he is, then he'll
be held accountable for what he's saying before God, Maybe
it's like a very deep kind of concept because he's a deep guy.
So that's why I thought that. But then at the same time,
someone in that public light that so many people are

(11:06):
listening to who talks about Christianity so much and and
doesn't want to admit it, I feellike it does a disservice to
him. Yeah, I think more than anything
it's confusing to his interlocutors.
Then I can understand maybe not wanting to fully come out and
admit it because of precisely what you just described.
Maybe he has a a fear of maybe letting people down.

(11:28):
But you know, either way, I think that it's even more again,
confusing and could even be scandalous for people when the
fact that he doesn't want to sayit, that he clearly is defending
us. He's defending our, our world
views, our philosophies, our, our teachings, our
understandings of the world. But then to not just to not come

(11:49):
out and, and just say it, admit that he is 1 again, I just think
it, it can cause confusion and even scandal.
And, and that might even be worse.
You know he's not really helping, helping the cause by
refusing to say you know that he's a Christian.
Well, Doctor Peterson, if you'relistening, which I highly doubt
that you are, we'd love to have you on the show.

(12:09):
And I'm sure our friend Alex here would love to have you on
his show so. Absolutely.
Now he's. Incredible.
He is on that topic of faith. Now that we have brought it up,
we've discussed a few important points.
Now we want to get to know Alex the person, before we really do
a big deep dive into a lot of other topics.
So with that being said, what was young Alex like growing up

(12:29):
other than the 16 year old voicechange?
Were you always passionate aboutyour faith or tell us a bit
about yourself? Yes.
So I became passionate about thefaith when I was around 141516
years old around that, those, those years, those pivotal years
growing up, I was just like any other kid.
I have a great family, amazing parents, you know, best mom and

(12:51):
dad in the world. I have a, you know, a younger
sister that I'm very close to. She's my assistant.
Actually, I hired her as my assistant at voice of reason
with a good relationship there. My parents were just the best.
They, they, they really, really,I was spoiled.
I would say that I was, that I was spoiled, or at least I feel
like I was spoiled just because they just took such good care of

(13:13):
me. They love me so much, and my
childhood was just so much fun. I had the best friends in the
world that I'm still close to tothis day.
So my producer for Voice of Reason, my best friend Jonathan,
we've been best friends since wewere in kindergarten, since we
were five years old. And all of our friend group from
kindergarten, we, I, it's like maybe you know, at least at

(13:34):
least half a dozen of us. We've all maintained that, that
friendship, that circle and we're all of us are still close
to this very day. So like, you know, 678 guys from
kindergarten that are still the best of friends and I just had a
regular, normal, healthy upbringing, good family, good
neighbors and, and just my childhood was just so much fun,

(13:59):
you know, and then 1415 years old is when I really started
looking into the faith, taking it seriously and really becoming
passionate. When you see what the Christian
faith is, what it has to offer and why it's credible, it's hard
not to become passionate about and hard not to fall in love.
You really fall in love with theChristian faith when you really
take an honest, objective look at what it is, why it is, the

(14:22):
history of it. You just completely and totally
just become enthralled with it. And that's what happened to me
when I was 14. So when you were growing up in
America, because I guess we're Australian and we have a very
like safe country compared to what we view America as in terms
of like having the access to guns and school shootings and
things that we hear about, it's quite scary.

(14:44):
So did you ever have any of those fears growing up?
I don't know you're in, I believe in New Mexico.
I don't know what's it like there.
Is it, is it as scary as certainother places in terms of gun
violence and. Yes, New Mexico is 1.
It's one, actually one of the most dangerous states in the
country. But, you know, it's crazy
growing, growing up, I never sawany of that, you know, because

(15:07):
that's kind of a more recent thing.
I'm kind of an old man now. I turned 30 this year.
But growing up, it was safe. Growing up, there were no
problems growing up, at least I didn't see it.
Maybe I was assured from it, butit really only got this bad over
the last maybe 10 years. Yeah.
So my formative years, my years as a kid, it wasn't like this at

(15:28):
all. But nowadays, yeah, it's, it's
kind of rough out here. Wow, so you're 30?
You're right in between me and Simon in in age.
Yeah. You look, you look younger than
some of us as well. OK, so when did your faith kind
of move from something that you inherited to something that you
believe for yourself? Yeah, it happened again in high

(15:51):
school when I was like, you know, 15 years old.
I had a, you know, I think that everybody at around that age,
you know, mid teenagers, we all,you know, kind of that's when we
get very curious. We get very curious and we start
asking all of the big questions.All of the, you know, does God
exists? Is God real?
What is the purpose of life? Why do I exist?
What is, you know, what is a true religion?

(16:12):
You know, you start asking all these questions and for many of
us, we have these questions. We really think about these
questions, but we don't know where to look to find the
answers. And me personally, I was just
one of those kids that I said, I, you know, I, I want to know
what the answers are to these big questions that I have.
So I just went out looking and Ijust went searching and, you

(16:32):
know, coming to the conclusion that, yeah, God, God exists.
God has to exist. And if God exists and God is
indeed personal, then there's a possibility that God could have
revealed himself to us. And if God revealed himself to
us, where do we find this revelation?
And you kind of just take it step by step and you come to the
conclusion that God revealed himself in Jesus of Nazareth, in

(16:55):
Jesus Christ, and then you just take it from there.
That's beautiful. You mentioned earlier how around
141516 you, you sort of got closer to the faith.
Was there anything growing up that your parents that you took
from your parents in terms of the spiritual aspect of it?
Yeah, well, you know, my, my momtook me to church every single

(17:16):
Sunday. Never missed every single
Sunday. I grew up going to church.
I was an altar server from the time I was eight or nine years
old. After I made my first Holy
Communion, I was served the altar, had a really good
relationship with, with all of the different priests.
I had the, the, the, the honor, the privilege and the blessing
of, of going to a Paris that hada really amazing priest, a

(17:39):
religious order that ran the, the, the Paris that I grew up
going to. And yeah, I was just always, I
was always involved, you know, in the faith somehow, someway,
just at least going every singleSunday and being an altar
server. And it was really my mom that
instilled in me the importance of not missing, it's the

(18:00):
importance of going to church. And honestly, I can never
remember and you know, growing up, I never remember a single
time when I didn't want to go orI said to my mom, I don't want
to go. And you know, you know, didn't
go because I was being stubborn or whatever.
I always went. I just always went.
It was just something that my entire life, it was just part of
part of the routine and I never questioned it, you know, and I

(18:23):
actually enjoyed going. I, I enjoyed serving the altar
and I enjoyed listening to the priest homilies and I enjoyed
learning. So I, I kind of, I always, you
know, kind of say that I'm kind of like, like the success story
that everyone wants to be. You just were born into the
faith. You grew up actually enjoying
the faith, learning about the faith and that that excitement
and that joy just just, and thatthat devotion just never left

(18:46):
me, you know? Beautiful.
So what's one thing you would say you learnt from your mom?
And what's one thing you learnt from your dad?
That's a really good question. I think that with my dad, I
really learned about the virtue of, of, of humility.
I think about the importance of humility because my dad is, is

(19:07):
quiet, the happy go lucky, easy going, you know, just a, a
really good, a really, really good person.
With my dad, I never got the sense of pride or ego or my dad
was never one of those guys that, you know, thinks he, he,
he knew more than he actually did.

(19:28):
He, he always was just such a loving, affectionate father.
And I think that having the father that I had it, it helped
me, you know, easily understand the idea that I would hear in
church about God being a God of love and God being father and,
and God the Father being, being love.
I totally understood that because that's how my dad was.
That's how my dad is to this day, you know, just a man of

(19:51):
love, a father of love. So my dad taught me about, you
know, tender fatherly love. And then my mom, she taught me a
lot about, I think about, about wisdom, about being wise.
My mom, her biggest strength wasthat she was always able to
point things out to me that I never would have noticed myself.

(20:12):
Things that she had to point things out, you know, that she
would say this is wrong, this isright.
Here's why it's wrong. Here's why it's right.
For things that I never would have even bothered to even asked
those questions about is this wrong or is this right?
My mom is very, very wise and very, and actually the kind of
the way that I describe it is she was like very like street
smart. She was very, very wise, very

(20:33):
prudent. My mother is very, very prudent.
So I learned about humility and,and love and tenderness and,
and, and, you know, the reflection of God's tender love
and mercy for all of us. And my father and I learned
wisdom and and prudence and all of the other virtues from from
my mom. Wow, that's very beautiful, very

(20:54):
beautiful. Very blessed to have such great
parents. That's fantastic.
I would I would not be where I am today without them.
Absolutely. Our parents are very, very
important in our life. Now you strike me as a very
lucky guy, Alex, because you've obviously experienced the, the
beautiful stages of the faith, which of course, there's an
abundance of it. But let's sort of let's sort of

(21:15):
track back the other side. What's been your lowest moment
spiritually? And how did God meet you there,
right? Wow.
Well, it would have to actually have to be a series of events
that happened not too long ago. They were kind of kind of recent
where through my own carelessness, I heard people

(21:35):
that were really close to me, people that were really, really
close to me, where I, I hurt them just because I was being
careless. And I, I hurt them to the point
where I, I really damaged the relationship to the point where
the, the relationship could havebeen completely, you know,
irrevocably damaged. And I really, really hurt these

(21:58):
people. And it was something that I, I
really had to deal with, something that I really had to,
had to wrestle with again because of my own, my own
carelessness. And it was my fault.
And I had to ask these people for forgiveness because I, I
messed up big time. And I had to humble myself,
admit that I was wrong, ask themfor forgiveness.

(22:20):
And they, and they forgave me. You know, they forgave me and
they, they received me with openarms and I got to see God's love
and God's mercy through them, through these people that I'm so
close with. But it was, it was really hard
on me. It was really hard on me because
I thought that I was going to becut off from these people for,
for hurting them the way that I did.

(22:41):
And, and these are people that are part of my, my, my support
system. And, and they didn't cut me off.
They gave me a second chance. And, and they, they pointed out
to me where I was wrong, where Iwas failing and, and they give
me a, a, another shot. And that was, that's God's
mercy. That, and God does that with us
an infinite amount of times if he has to, because God is

(23:02):
infinite love and infinite mercy.
And you really get this to really experience God's love and
God's mercy. When you've messed up and you
know you've messed up and you'vehurt somebody and those people
forgive you, that's when you really, really get to feel God's
mercy in a really real, you know, visceral way.

(23:22):
And I have the best friends in the world that, that they love
me and they support me and they stick with me even when I'm an
idiot, you know? And I thank you for sharing
that. It's very honest.
And I, I guess that lesson of humility you learnt from your,
your father really came through because you have to be able to
accept correction and accept fault, which is an ego thing.
So being able to admit you're wrong is definitely a sign of

(23:46):
humility that you've learnt fromyour father.
So that's great. Oh yeah.
So you mentioned as well when wewere talking before that you
actually were a professional actor at one stage.
So what to tell us about the transition?
You went from being sales actingand now like the voice of
reason. What is that transformation and
what led you to be focusing moreon on creating the spiritual

(24:09):
content for God and what gave you that that passion and fire?
Sure. So, so let's actually clean up
the timeline a little bit because it was, I did sales,
then I went to seminary, then I left the seminary, became an
actor. It was acting full time and then
went, had to go back to sales and then started voicing.
So it was a whole, you know, a, a whole timeline of, of changes

(24:31):
that happened in my life. But I, I just had an offer from
somebody that knew my father actually, who was a good friend
of my father. And she, she saw me one day and
she said, Hey, her name is Karen.
She's I call her my theatre mom.And she was the one that just
one day she just, she saw me oneday I was with my dad.
She said, Hey, she's, she's one of my dad's clients.

(24:54):
And she said, have you ever considered acting?
And, and she gave me her information, you know, gave me
her card and said, I'd like to talk to you because I, I, I, I'm
a, I'm a playwright and I, I wrote a part.
And this is my first time obviously seeing you, but like,
you're the person that I envisioned when I think of this
character and like you're perfect.
You are exactly who I, I've beenenvisioning, you know, you know,

(25:16):
all this time that it took me towrite this character, It's you.
So if you, if you'd ever consider acting, you know, I'd
love to have you come and read for me.
And, and if you have any talent,any, any ability, maybe you
could give it a shot. And then I said no, because I
got to go to seminary. And she said, oh, well, if
anything changes, let me know. I went to seminary, discerned
out of, of seminary. When I came back home, it was in

(25:39):
November of 2018 and I called upKaren and she said, yeah, let's
meet. I met with her.
I did 1 cold reading. And then she was like, she got
me in the business and I was, I was immediately a working actor.
That very same month I started working on, on television shows
and, and, and films and doing theatre and just everything.
I became a working actor and it was going really well for me for

(26:02):
a couple of years. And then in 2020, it was when
the pandemic happened. And when the pandemic happened,
obviously Hollywood shut down. They weren't making movies.
Everyone lost work. And then when they started
working again, when Hollywood started started filming again,
they wouldn't take me back because I didn't get the, the,
you know, the, the vaccine and they wouldn't take me back

(26:25):
because of it, even though I hadthe virus.
I got the virus and it, and it affected me.
Like I got really, really sick. But they were mandating it for
everyone that I just, you know, something about that just didn't
sit right with me and just the fact that they were going to
force me to do it. And so I just #1 back.
Wow. So in your little short stay in

(26:46):
Hollywood, did you, what did youexperience?
Did you see the dark side of Hollywood?
I didn't I so I didn't I. And God's had this guy bubble
wrap. I don't.
Think I was. I don't think I was deep enough
to be able to see it because we all know it's there.
We know that Hollywood does havea dark side, but I wasn't able
to, I wasn't deep enough yet to be able to release the dog side.

(27:09):
Probably the worst that I ever saw was people that were so
overworked, people that were literally working two days
straight without, you know, theywould not go home and, and, and
sleep or bathe or anything. They would literally be in the
same clothes working for two or even 3 days straight without,
you know, taking a break. And I would see them like in the
parking lot, you know, doing lines of cocaine just so that

(27:31):
they can stay awake. So that's, that's the worst that
I, that I saw. And that was just a couple of
people. But you know, the, the Hollywood
is a, is a, is a, it's a tough business because it never stops.
There's, there's always a production going on that there's
always, it's a huge, huge, enormous, you know, undertaking

(27:51):
with so many moving parts. And there are some people that
just they, they work very hard. They work too hard.
They work too hard to the point where it it becomes sinful
because they're not sleeping, they're not taking care of
themselves, and they're turning to drugs to be able to just to
stay awake and keep working and keep pushing themselves.
And that's the worst that I saw.So then what led to the
transition into doing what you do now?

(28:15):
So my best friend Jonathan, he was the one that convinced me to
start Voice of Reason because heactually had a reversion.
He grew up Catholic, but he, youknow, he never really cared much
for religion at all. But in 20, around 2021 is when
he started to have this, this reversion.
It took him some time. He had to work out some things

(28:35):
in his mind. And you know, like around 2022,
he just fell in love with ChristAnd he, he was confirmed in the
church. I was actually his sponsor for
confirmation. So he's technically my godson,
my best friend since we were five years old.
And he had a a reversion, A profound reversion to Christ.

(28:55):
And he said, hey, man, because Iwas his teacher for confirmation
for the courses that he had to go through to be confirmed.
I was his teacher. And he was the one that told me.
He said, you know everything that you know, you know a lot.
You shouldn't be put you on camera or film.
You just teaching and we'll put it out there the world and I
promise you like it'll, it'll behuge.

(29:16):
And I blew him off for like a year and a half.
I was like, no, I'm all right, man.
I'm not interested. And to one day he kind of just
forced me to do it. He just came over to my house
and he sat me down and he said, we're doing this.
I don't care what you say, trustme on this.
This is going to work. Like you need to do this.
And I was like, all right, man, whatever.
I was just kind of, you know, just go just going along with it
just to kind of, you know, because he really was like, OK,

(29:36):
let's see, this is important to you.
All right, let's do it. And then he he did it and he put
it all together. To this day, he's the one that
films my stuff. He edits everything, puts it all
out. He uploads everything to the
socials and two years later, here we are.
Wow and. My life has completely changed.
Your friend Jonathan Revisory eerily similar of George here.

(29:57):
George and I have the not exact same story, but George for as
long as I've known him, always loved to preach about soldiers.
I've got to go on attention, always loved to preach about God
and he helped me through sometimes.
And then one day, not so not toolong ago, he's like, man, I
really want to do something for God.
I was like go to church, like dosomething And he was like, no,
no, no, like more than that. He's like, do you, would you

(30:20):
ever like want to start a podcast?
I looked at him. I said, man, honestly, hopefully
it works out for you. Good luck.
And like you, I kept brushing itoff, brushing it off.
And he was like, Simon, I've like, it's, it's happening.
I've set it up, blah, blah, blah.
I said, I'll help you with just one episode that was about, I'd
say what, three months back? And we haven't looked back
since. So hey, George, when you have

(30:42):
someone like in your case, a Jonathan or a George who's so
adamant, who, who sees a goal and always wants to push for it,
there's like only only like something massive events could
stop it. But man, they're very, very
important. And thank God that your friend
Jonathan did do that, did do that and to reach millions of
peoples of lives. So thank you, Jonathan, and

(31:03):
thank you. Jonathan and God bless George
for for getting me and Simon on track.
I appreciate that. Thanks guys.
That's really sweet. But that now look, that's
awesome. And I guess what I want to touch
on as we're talking about creating this content for
Christ, we've kind of felt this a little bit as well.
We have a big desire to reach asmany people as possible.

(31:24):
And sometimes that desire for usis kind of met with the amount
of views something gets because obviously more eyes, more
people. It's kind of like like.
It becomes conflicting. Yeah, it's kind of complete.
It's like I want, I want to reach more people, I want to get
more views. And if something doesn't perform
that well, we don't get as many views.
I'm, I'm kind of a bit annoyed about it and I just don't know,
you know, if that's right or wrong, but I'm, I'm sure you,

(31:44):
maybe you have a similar feeling.
So can you explain that to us? Well, you know what's so crazy?
I'm, I'm a weird person, right? You know, putting it out there,
I'm a weirdo. So I'm the only person that I,
that I know in my life that up until we started voice of
reason, I never had a personal social media.
I never had a personal Instagram.

(32:05):
I never had Twitter or whatever.I never had Facebook, I never
had Instagram. I never, I never had any and
never had Snapchat. Whatever it is the kids use.
I never had any of that ever in my life.
I was like the only one like that.
I knew in my whole life that that didn't have at least one of
those things. I never cared for social media
ever, ever, ever, ever. And to this day I can't tell you

(32:28):
what my views are like. If you were to ask me like what
kind of views do you get on yourvideos, I would say you need to
ask Jonathan. I don't know.
Jonathan is the one that keeps track of all this.
I really have no idea. So Jonathan will be the one that
when we're talking on the phone,he'll be like, hey, that video
is doing pretty good and I'm like, OK, cool, cool.
And then he'll tell me the viewsand I'm like, I don't know if
that's good or bad. I'll see views on the video and
I'll say I don't know if these are good views or bad views.

(32:49):
And I asked Jonathan and he'll tell me if it's good or bad.
I've never understood social media.
I've never really understood howit worked or what's good or
what's bad or what's considered viral.
What's not considered viral. I've never, I've never cared
about numbers. I don't know how many followers
I have on Instagram right now. I think on I think on YouTube,

(33:10):
YouTube is the only thing that Ithink I'm at 155,000 as in
subscribers on YouTube, but I don't know how many I have on
Instagram. I don't know how many I have on
TikTok right now. I just don't.
It sounds kind of weird, but I really just don't care.
Jonathan takes care of it because this is like his idea.
Like what was the reason was hisproject his idea.
So I let him worry about the numbers and stuff.

(33:31):
I just make the video besides just he just films me and, and
that's it, you know, and we justkind of take it from there.
And if it, you know, and I, I trust Jonathan, I trust that he
knows what he's doing because this is what he does.
So I just kind of just, I followhis lead.
He's the boss. He's really the boss.
I think next time we should have, next time he comes to
Australia, we should have Jonathan on the podcast.
Yeah, 100%. We've got to get him on camera.

(33:52):
He's the guy that you really want to talk to get him on.
Camera. He's the brains.
It'll be it'll be Alex and I talking, and you and Jonathan
talking. Yeah.
OK, well, look, absolutely. Let's dive in a little bit about
your ministry and your mission. So if you could sum up your your
mission or Jonathan's mission, now that we've discovered, what

(34:13):
would you, what would, how wouldyou sum it up?
Like what is your goal? What do you want to achieve?
Well, I would say that it's in the in the BIOS to my Instagram
and my I think it's I think my YouTube too.
And you know my TikTok. I know it's on my Instagram for
sure, but it's all I want to do is help people come to the
understanding that God exists. Jesus Christ is God and the

(34:34):
Catholic Church is the church that he founded.
And that's it. Just that.
And, and, and if I can help people come to that realization,
that understanding, you know, praise God, that's all it is.
It's not about me. It's not about anything else.
It's just about those three things, you know, taking that
this step, you know, God exists.Jesus Christ is, is God and
where we find the revelation that the personal God gave us

(34:54):
and, and we can find the fullness of the revelation in
the Catholic Church, nothing more, nothing less, you know.
Beautiful same time. Absolutely.
On on that topic, what so you obviously know what your goal
is, but what church teaching do you personally find the most
misunderstood and how can you explain it to our viewers and
viewers all that are going to watch it as well very simply.

(35:18):
Sure. That's a really good question.
So, you know, it's interesting because you ask what particular
church teaching and there's a bunch, I could rattle off a
bunch of church teachings on topof my head that people
misunderstand. But you know, what I think is
actually the big picture here isn't even individual teachings.
It's actually how the church teaches.
The biggest misconception that people have or the big, the

(35:40):
biggest thing that people don't understand at all is how the
church teaches. People don't know how to even
identify like in authoritative binding teaching of the church.
They don't know how the church teaches.
They think that if if the Pope says something when he's on an
airplane or giving an interview to CNN or saying, saying
something in Singapore, you know, they think that that's

(36:02):
like what the Catholic Church teaches or that's binding
teaching. So they don't know how the
Magisterium works. Magisterium is just the fancy
word that just means the teaching office of the church.
They don't know how to identify the Magisterium.
They don't know how the Magisterium functions.
They don't know how to how the Magisterium promulgates
teachings. I think that is the biggest and,

(36:23):
and, and most important thing. That is the number one issue
that even Catholics, even Catholics within the church,
they don't know these things either.
And I think that's what causes alot of problems too, even within
the church. So I think the biggest
misconception is about how the Church teaches and how do you
identify what is an actual official, authoritative teaching
of the Catholic Church? OK.

(36:43):
And then. So what's the answer?
So the answer is that the Magisterium is the official
teaching office of the Church, and the Magisterium is comprised
of all of the successors of the Apostles.
So the Bishop of Rome and all ofthe other bishops in the world
that are united to the Bishop ofRome make up the Magisterium.

(37:05):
And this Magisterium which is comprised of all of these
bishops, they have the authenticauthority to be able to teach
right and their teachings are binding.
Now the question becomes what teachings are like infallible?
Like can we trust the teachings of the Magisterium?
The answer is yes. The universal Magisterium is

(37:29):
protected by the Holy Spirit from ever teaching error or
binding the rest of the the restof the church to Erin.
So the universal, the universal Magisterium is infallible,
considered infallible. Well, what does that mean?
How does that look like? Here's out what it looks like.
You have all of the bishops in the world, all of the teachings

(37:50):
that all of the bishops have in common with each other, meaning
all of the bishops, you know, everything that they teach that
all of the other bishops teach, right?
These are the universal teachings.
Those teachings are considered infallible and this is known as
the ordinary and universal magisterium.
All of the common teachings of the, of the, of the, of the
bishops make up the universal orare are objects of the ordinary

(38:14):
universal Magisterium. Now the universal magisterium
can be expressed in an extraordinary way, and that's
when all of the bishops formallycome together, like in an
ecumenical council and they teach the universal church and
an ecumenical council. And it's not just all teachings,
but it's the teachings that are on matters of belief and morals.

(38:35):
Those teachings are the teachings that are protected
from the Holy Spirit from from being an error.
So that's another thing is that a lot of people, they don't know
how to make distinction between matters of, of belief, matters
of morals, matters of practice, matters of discipline, you know,
which are matters of prudence, matters of the faith.

(38:56):
They don't know how to make those distinctions either.
So the Church as a whole universally is infallible when
it comes to the teachings havingto do with the deposit of faith
and with morals. That's how the Church is
infallible. And there is one Bishop in
particular, the Bishop of Rome, the Pope, who is able to

(39:17):
exercise the extraordinary universal magisterium all by
himself. And whenever he does such a
thing, that's what we call the ex catheter teachings and ex
catheter teachings or any solemnteachings that the Pope makes on
matters of faith and morals thathe is binding the universal
church to. So all of the bishops are able

(39:39):
to bind the entirety of the church to their teachings when
they teach together, whether ordinarily or extraordinarily.
And the Bishop of Rome is able to do it all by himself, if he
ever, if he ever has to, extraordinarily as well.
And the teachings on faith and morals are the teachings that
are protected by the Holy Spiritfrom ever being in error. 100%

(40:01):
you lost Simon, 100% I could just say you he is in another
world, this one. But I think that's one of the
differences, I guess between Catholic and Orthodox, which
we'll touch on a little bit later.
But then fallibility of the Pope, I think I believe in our
orthodox faith. It's more we don't have, I mean,
we believe in the early church fathers.

(40:21):
We believe in the Apostolic tradition.
We believe that Christ, you know, instituted the church
through his apostles and the apostles are the founders of the
church. We believe all that.
And I believe that we believe that the the Pope is our our
leader and teacher, but we don'thave anything that says he's
infallible. It's more like we have a Holy
Synod and they kind of make decisions together about the
church. If there is something that comes

(40:42):
up in the teaching that they need a discuss or, or, or have a
decision that the church's stands on.
I believe it's the Holy Synod that is a group of bishops that
come to that decision. But we don't put the emphasis on
the Pope saying something on thepulpit.
And that means it's, you know, infallible or, or, or biblical.
But look, we'll touch on that a little bit later.
But I'm, I'm glad you brought that up.
And what I want to move on to now is a little bit more about

(41:06):
if you've ever had a conversation or an encounter in
in ministry that impacted you the most, Was there any
conversation or encounter that maybe impacted you the most?
You know what's so interesting? I always come back to the same
thing and I said this on either Roses podcast.
I've said this before on, I think I said it on when I talked
to Matt Fred, There was one thing that for some reason,

(41:27):
whatever, whatever, I don't knowwhy, but it just sticks out to
me. This was back in December.
I went to California for a speaking event and there was
like, I don't know over 150 people there that were that were
there they at this event and I spoke and then afterwards they
all came to talk to me. And I, I feel like I've talked
to every single one of them witha one by one.
There was this one girl who has since become a, a friend of

(41:50):
mine. Her name is Angel and she really
is an Angel. And when she came up to talk to
me, she told me, she said, I just want you to know that your
content helped me get sober. Oh wow.
And you know, what's so crazy isthat at that point, I don't
think, I don't even think to this day, I don't think I've
ever talked about like substanceabuse or sobriety or anything

(42:10):
like that. I don't think I've ever talked
about it. But she said that for some
reason, watching my contact, my content, helped her get sober.
It's amazing. And for some reason, that one
just just stands out to me. Of all of the great compliments
that I've received, that one always, for whatever reason, you
know, God bless Angel has just always stood out to me.
And you didn't even set out to do it.

(42:32):
And, and you did it. That's, that's what you can.
That's when you know God really did something because you, you
had no intention and God used you in a way you had no idea
about. Oh wow.
Yeah, it was, it was like it like, to this day it's like, it
like confuses me Like how? And but that's just the grace
and mercy of a God, man. You know it.
It really shows that it's not me.
I'm not the one running the showand it's not even really

(42:54):
Jonathan. It's God that's that's taking
care of this, you know? So praise God, I'm, I'm happy to
just be a tool, an instrument inhis hands, you know, because I
don't know what I'm doing. Absolutely.
And we've taken all the credit away from Jonathan now.
I can't wait to meet this Jonathan guy as well.
On that note though, so you've spoken about the the best thing
that you've not best thing that you've heard, but something that

(43:15):
touched you the most. Now, what's the hardest
criticism you've ever received, whether it be online or in
person, and how did you respond to that?
That's another really good question.
Well, you know what, just a couple of days ago, because
right now as we're speaking, my interview that I had on pints
with Aquinas, with, with Matt Fred, another great Australian.

(43:36):
It's like premiering right now live, I think, and it might be
over already, but we talked for like 3-3 hours, 3 1/2 hours.
And over the last two days therehave been short clips that have
been coming out, you know, to, to whet people's appetites to
watch the whole 3 1/2 hour long show.
And it's weird. I, I never read my own comments.
Yeah, I just don't, you know, mostly because I don't really

(43:57):
know how to use social media like that.
But I, I don't really, you know,we, we get so many comments now
that I don't even like, I don't know, I don't even, I don't, I
don't really just, I don't read them anymore.
But you, when I, whenever I appear on other people's
platforms, I get a little curious.
I don't know why this is. And I'll read the comments, you
know, just just curious what their audience is saying about
me. And there were, there was a

(44:19):
couple of people who, who left in the comments section of, of,
of some of the videos that Matt Fred, you know, put out over the
last couple of days saying that I come off as very arrogant,
right? There's like, you know, this was
a reason that he's so arrogant. And I sat back and I watched and
I said, you know what? Because I, I'd watch the clips
and I'd say, you know what? I can see that I can, I can see

(44:40):
that. I can see why somebody would
come to the conclusion of that. I'd come off as arrogant.
You know what? I totally get it.
And and so now I'm like, OK, nowI know what I need to work on.
I don't, you know, because I'm very like passionate when I
speak and I talk with my hands and I'm very, you know, and I
can see how it can come off as like as arrogant sometimes.
So I saw that and I really took it to heart and I'm like, Oh no,

(45:01):
like I never want to give peoplethe wrong impression of the
wrong idea. So that was one that I've really
been thinking about the last couple of days.
Like it's been on my mind. Like, wow.
Like am I? Do I come off that way?
Do I come off mean? Do I come off rude?
Am I arrogant? So it's something that I need to
work on. I love your your view on it and
I love how you took it because like I said, it's just humility

(45:21):
to be able to read that and takeit on board.
But from my point of view, like dealing with you, I can say you
are definitely not arrogant. I just think you're confident in
what you know and what you believe.
It's a confidence thing. And of course the voice doesn't
help because the voice commands a lot of authority.
So that voice, definitely. Appreciate it, thank you so
much. And that's another thing and
this one makes me laugh. A lot of people think that I

(45:42):
faked my voice. Right.
So like that, there's no way that his voice really sounds
like that he's faking or whatever.
And like that one just makes me laugh like I don't, you know,
I've. Tried to impersonate your voice
and I can tell you that is not avoice you can fake.
A few people from the back, a few people from the back in our
team that were like, is there issomething wrong with the audio?
We're like, Nope. That's that's Alex.
That's. Something Oh my goodness, that's

(46:03):
funny. Well, yeah.
Well, thank you. I appreciate the kind words.
Thank you so much. And, and of course, know that I,
I, I always want to make sure and I get this from my mom.
This is one of the things that my mom taught me because you
asked me earlier about what, what have I learned from my
parents? My mom really taught me about
the importance, the importance of how you engage people, how

(46:27):
you engage with people, how you talk to them.
You know, my mom is all about respect, all about respect.
But you know, I get that from mymom.
My mom always, from the time I was little, instilled in me the
importance of making, of being aware of how you behave in front
of other people, whatever respect for them.
You don't ever want to be disrespectful or rude to them.
So that's something that my mom always, ever since I was little,

(46:50):
would instilled in me. So when someone online says all
voice of reason is arrogant, I'mlike, oh, man, I feel like my
mom would be so ashamed if, if it's the truth and if I'm
arrogant, my mom would like, man, my mom would have to have a
serious talk with me, you know. So I think that's why I kind of
take it to heart because I always, I always have the back
of my head like man, what would my mother say, you know?

(47:11):
So, but I think it's a healthy thing, you know?
Getting good, a lot of good lessons of things I need to talk
to my children about. So that's really good that
you're sharing all this. Oh wow.
So with all the unbelievable guests that you've had the
pleasure of talking to, which guest has been your favorite or
said something that's really stuck out to you?
Good question. That's a really good voice.

(47:32):
Which guest has been my favorite?
You know, what was one of the most memorable talks that I ever
had was I have a great friend who's another content creator
that you guys need to check out.His name is Cameron Riker.
Cameron Riker is he's a stud. He's a stud.
And let me tell you something. You want to talk about holiness
like real, true, authentic holiness.

(47:52):
Cameron Riker, look him up on YouTube.
He is one of the holiest, holiest, the people that I've
ever met. I think we're the same age
actually. I think he's only like a day
older than Jonathan. I think.
Yeah, we're all the same age. He, he's incredible.
And we had a really good conversation at his house one
time. One time we were travelling, me

(48:12):
and Jonathan. We passed through and he, he
invited us to stay at his house and we, we filmed a podcast.
We did a, a, a show in his living room about Saint Joseph
and you go and go and watch it if you ever get the chance.
I felt like Saint Joseph and Cameron like, had like a, like
a, like a conspiracy. It was like a pact that they

(48:34):
were going to like ambush me andteam up and they were going to
just like convict me And, and, and, you know, I talked to
Cameron Riker and like, at the end of it, I was just like,
well, I need to have a better relationship with Saint Joseph,
you know, and, and the conversation we have everything
that he was just saying. It was almost like the Holy
Spirit was talking directly to me and, and, and it was just

(48:57):
very profound. And I, and I pointed out, I say
it in the episode, if you guys ever have a chance to watch it,
you know, it's on my YouTube channel.
And we're talking about, you know, the importance of, of, of
Saint Joseph for, for a man, for, for a father, for a parent,
you know, for a good husband, the importance of Saint Joseph.
And it was just, it was so profound for me, like

(49:19):
spiritually, like it touched me spiritually.
So Cameron Riker is incredible and one of the nicest, sweetest,
kindest, most gentle human beings that I've ever had the
pleasure of knowing. He's the real deal.
He is the real deal. Cameron Riker is incredible.
You guys should have him on. You need to you need to connect
us. You need to connect us.
He sounds from your recommendation sounds exactly

(49:39):
what we're looking to to to have.
So yeah, that would be great. And I do think I do think Saint
Joseph is I mean, if we're goingto give out an award for the
most underrated St. I think Saint Joseph gets that
he he. Is.
Amazing. He's amazing.
And he kind of just in the background, you know, and you
don't really realize the most amazing things.
And he, I mean, God chose him tobe his, his dad on Earth.

(50:01):
Like that's crazy. Yeah, yeah.
And yeah, it's amazing. It's and it reminds me of my
father too. Again, going back to my, to my
parents. My dad was like, he was like in
the background, happy, good, lucky guy.
My dad never has had to raise his voice, right.
We don't have any recorded wordsof Saint Joseph in the Bible.
My dad has never had to raise his voice with me.
My dad never had ever, ever. Just just just his presence

(50:23):
alone just like was enough for me to have awe and respect and
admiration for him. And, and I want to do right by
my father, you know, and I feel like that's how, that's how I
imagine Saint Joseph being that we don't even have any of his
words recorded in Scripture, that that's maybe how he was,
the strong, silent type that wasstill at the same time gentle,

(50:43):
you know, that makes me think ofmy dad, you know.
So actually speaking about your guests as well, I watched your
conversation with George Janko and I'm actually, you know, he's
one of the reasons why I startedthis podcast before I even knew
who you were. I, I, I saw George Janko and I
saw what happened with the wholeLogan Paul thing.
And then he kind of went on his own and then he started to

(51:04):
really like dive into the Christianity.
And I was like this guy with theplatform in like living in the
heart of like Hollywood and, andall this stuff where it's really
taboo. He's speaking out about Jesus
and bringing all these people out and getting them to talk
about Jesus. And I was like, this is what I
want to do. So I'm a very big fan of him.
And of course, I, I was taken aback when we watched the whole
Eucharist episode. And that was a bit

(51:26):
disappointing. But then again, I was really
happy with how he apologized andhow sincere he was.
And then I watched the episode that you had with him and I
thought, this is so good, like 2Christian brothers talking with
such reverence and respect and genuine willingness to, to help
each other and learn from each other.
So I, I really admire him. So I just wanted to know from
your point of view, meeting him,what, what was that like and

(51:47):
what was the conversation like? And do you still have contact
with him and is he still lookingfor the answers?
Let us know. Yeah, yeah.
Me and George still to this day,we still talk.
He he, he made me feel, you know, me and Jonathan, he made
us feel like we're part of his family.
He let us into his home. You know, he does his podcast
out of his home, let us into hishome.
We did the podcast. That was the first thing we did.

(52:08):
And then we just hung out the rest of the day.
He just wanted to hang out with us.
He took us out to eat. He took us to his dad's cigar
lounge. We were, you know, he treated us
so well. You know, we got to know him.
It's incredible because, you know, this is George Jenko.
He's like a like a bona fide celebrity and he was just like a
regular. He was just like us.
He was just like a regular guy. So nice, so sweet, you know,

(52:29):
very thoughtful. Our conversation was great.
And I think that even the conversations that we were
having after the cameras, you know, stopped rolling because
the whole day we were together hanging out, all night we were
together hanging out. And the conversations that we
were having off camera, those would have broken the Internet
if we had put those out. It was incredible.

(52:51):
But I can't say any good things about George.
He's he's a sweetheart. He's very brave to be able to
wear his faith on his sleeve theway that he does.
And he's so, so genuine and so sincere and, and he and he is,
he's just the nicest guy. Someone he called me because it
was through a, a, a mutual friend that that put us in
contact and he called me and he was the most humble guy, the

(53:13):
sweetest dude. He called me and he's like, hi,
my name is George Janko. You know, I just, I'm just
calling just to say hello and just let you know that I
appreciate how kind you were to me on, you know, on your, I saw
your YouTube video and I love tohave you on my show.
Just the, just the, you know, he's such a humble guy, you
know, and, and yeah, we still talk to this day.
He, he wants to hang out again. He wants to, you know, I think

(53:35):
he, he wants to like Take Me Outto fly me out to San Diego and
to do stuff out there. He's just a really good, really
good guy who really genuinely loves the Lord and wants to
follow him, you know, and, and he's open to the truth of, you
know, he says, hey, man, like myfamily, they're, they're
Orthodox. My family is from the Assyrian
Church of the East. Like if that's true, I want to,
I want to be there. If, if that's a true church, but

(53:58):
if the Catholic Church is a truechurch, then I want to be part
of the Catholic Church. Like, like he's sincere, he's
open to it. He's like, if this is true, I, I
want the, I want the fullness oftruth, you know, So I think just
give him time, give him time, pray for him.
Let him get his questions answered and I think that he's
you're going to see big things from him.
Yeah, I think so. He's approaching it in the most
beautiful and correct way I think you can.

(54:19):
Like he doesn't. He's literally open to learning
and he's not holding on. Like I think if anything, I'm
more stubborn with my Orthodox faith then he is probably with
his faith because, you know, I'mhe's more open to the idea that
he's wrong, you know. So I think that's that's really
great. And of course I'd love to have
George Jenko one day on the show.
So hopefully if, if, if this ever gets to him, I'd love to

(54:39):
have him on the show because yeah, we can learn a lot, a lot
from him. And I pray that we can reach as
many people as he's reaching, because he is starting a little
bit of a revival, I believe. Yeah, I would say so, yeah.
Next time I talk to him, I'll mention you guys to him.
Yeah, that'll be great. We talk when we hang up.
I'm going to be like, hey, there's this great podcast, man
that I think you might want to check out.
They're doing great stuff. Check it out.
Thank you so much. Get George, get George to call

(55:02):
George, and they'll have that same conversation, hopefully.
Sounds good. Sounds good.
Perfect. So on that note, with what with
what happened with George Jenko,I want to ask you a question.
So with whatever happened, he understood that a mistake was
made and he took it the right way and he approached it with
sinceeness. And that's I feel was the right
thing to do. And we've spoken about this with

(55:24):
our other guests that we've had only had two Orthodox fathers
and we spoke to them about it. And they just were like they
were going on about his forgiveness and, and
understanding of the situation, sincerity.
And that was what was beautiful to see.
Now, on that note, how do you correct someone with compassion
while still holding to the truth?
Yeah, you, you always want to, you always want to let people

(55:47):
know that you, you understand where they're coming from.
You know, tell them like, hey, if if you don't understand this,
I get it. I totally get it.
It's hard to understand. This is difficult.
And let them know, you know, because sometimes we make the
mistake of, oh, it's so simple. It's so clear.
It's in scripture. Are you just dumb?
Do you just not see it? It's right there, but that's,
that's not the approach. That's not the approach because

(56:09):
there's things that I don't understand that other people
understand a lot better than me.And they'll probably think that
I'm dumb because I don't get it,you know, And the only reason
that you understand the things you understand is because maybe
you had, you were just blessed with really good teachers and
maybe this individual, you know,just wasn't that he didn't have
that luxury like you. So we have to be patient with
people because, you know, especially, especially when you

(56:29):
could tell they're being sincere, especially when you can
tell they're being sincere. They're being sincere, brother.
That's all you can ask for. Help them, help them.
They're being sincere, right? So, you know, I think the best
way to do it is to present it ina way that's exciting.
Say check this out, man. This is going to blow your mind.
You're going to love this. Maybe you haven't, maybe you

(56:51):
haven't considered this. But when you go over here in the
scripture and you read this, this is going to just blow your
mind. And I think that this is going
to make it make sense for you. Presented as something,
presented as good news because it's what it is.
It's good news. Present the fullness of the
faith, the fullness of, of, of, of Orthodox Christianity,
Catholic Christianity presented in a way that's just attractive,

(57:12):
man. Make it exciting for them.
Don't make it, don't beat them over the head with it.
Present it. Just just set it out there, let
it unfold. And it's like a great treasure
chest. All you got to do is just open
it in the box. Just open it and just, it's
right there and then they'll seeit for themselves, right?
You don't got to convince them. All you got to do is just open
it and, and, and show it to them.
And, and remember, always tell them, Hey, we're on the same

(57:33):
side, you and I, we're on the same side.
We're both pursuing the truth. Let me show you what I've, what
the conclusions that I've come to and let me show you why I've
came to these conclusions. Check this out.
We're just comparing notes that,you know, pull out your notes.
I'll pull out my notes. Let's compare notes.
Check this out. Maybe you can help me with
something. Let's let's figure it out
together. And when you see, when you, when

(57:54):
they see that they can trust you, that they're safe with you,
that you're not over here tryingto impose yourself on them, that
you're just trying to share something beautiful with them,
that's the best way to share thefaith.
That's the best way to show the faith, you know, And that's the
most effective way to do it. And then that's how that's the
best way to plant seeds. You know, if you're a jerk about
it, you're not even going to plant a seed.

(58:15):
You might think that you said all the right things, but they
weren't listening to you becauseyou were a jerk.
A. 100% You know, I think you articulated that so well.
I mean, I've seen a lot of Christians, I even on the Pierce
Morgan show sometimes he I love Pierce Morgan.
I think he's great and he has a lot of good conversations and he
allows people to talk and gets alot of debates happening.
And I mean, sometimes he had some Christian people come on
and the way they, they put each other down just makes me feel so

(58:38):
uncomfortable because someone who might have an opposing view
and they just talk with such like looking down, like, no,
you're wrong. Don't talk.
You shouldn't even you should never lecture me on this or
that. I'm just like, that's not the
way. That's not the Christian way.
Like we need to represent Christwith love and with tenderness
and gentleness. You be bold in the truth, but be
do it in such a loving way. I think that's the most

(58:59):
important. Thing yeah, that's what First
Peter 3/15/16 tells us to do, man that's it.
So it's always been right there.You know, we have a really hard
time with the second part. We love when we think we know
things, that we think we're smart and we all we love to
share when we think we're smart.We love to brag about how we
want to demonstrate how smart weare.

(59:20):
But it's always that second part, doing it with love and
with gentleness. That's hard.
That's very, very hard, you know.
OK, you gotta have both. Well, on that note, I want to
talk about what would you, what advice would you give to someone
who feels a bit disconnected from the church or feels like
maybe the church is a bit outdated and not really
applicable in their life? Because a a lot of people I

(59:42):
think can have this mentality of, oh, if I'm spiritual, I'll
just be spiritual to myself. I don't need a church.
I don't need people. I don't need, you know, men in
robes. Yeah, I don't need men in robes
telling me how to be with God. Why is the church important?
And how can someone feel connected to the church and and
realise that it's the same important church that was around
for thousands of years? Sure.

(01:00:03):
So so if you're talking to a Christian, if you're talking to
somebody that already that believes in Jesus and and even
reads the Bible, right, I told him, Hey, read the Bible closely
and pay close attention to what the Bible has to say about the
church. Because when you read the Bible,
when you, when you figure out what you realize is that the
church is a divine institution. The church is divinely

(01:00:27):
instituted by God himself. And if the church still exists
today, which it does because theBible says that the church will
always persist for all time until Jesus Christ returns,
right? That means that the that church
that was founded by God 2000 years ago is still around today.
And you could go to that divine institution, God's institution.

(01:00:49):
When you read the Scriptures, you see that this institution
has this great authority, that God gave such authority to this
institution, to this visible institution that is the church.
So when you read the Bible, thenyou just read it closely.
How could you not want to be be part of the church because the
church comes from God. If if you love the Bible so much

(01:01:12):
because the Bible comes from God, then you should love the
church just as much because the church also comes from God.
And it's actually through the church that we got the Bible,
that we have the Scriptures. So you, you can't have one
without the other. You can't really have the Bible
without the church because the Bible testifies to the church
and then you would have the Bible anyway if it wasn't for
the church, right? And for people that think that

(01:01:32):
maybe the church is outdated or the church is, all you got to do
is just read a little bit of history.
Read 2000 years of history if you can, and read about how the
church, how this divine institution has weathered
everything that has ever happened in the last 2000 years.
All of these other institutions have come and gone and entire
empires have stalled, have started and have fallen over the

(01:01:53):
last 2000 years. But the one thing that has
remained, the one institution that has remained is the
Christian Church. And when you think about that,
be like, wow, it's never gone away.
It's always been there. It's thrived and it's grown
absolutely my billion Christiansin the world today.
It's like, how did, how, how? And that's going to make you

(01:02:14):
really curious and very excited about the church, make you very
excited to be part of this thingthat is ancient, that is traced
back to the apostles that you can, that you can actually be a
part of this thing that will never go away like it.
You should be excited when it comes to the church.
Well, on that point, I, I agree with you a lot.
And, you know, I kind of understand sometimes some people

(01:02:36):
that are drawn to other churchesthat are more of the Protestant
faith that, you know, are very big and loud and they have
stages and it's like really penetrating and engaging.
And they, they, they may think that's like the modern church
or, or some people actually, I believe more the Protestant
Reformation is all about thinking that that is actually
what the church was like in the early, early days.
So on that point, like for me, Ialways, you know, I love all our

(01:03:02):
Protestant brothers and sisters and I love any, any person that
professes that Christ is king and that, you know, believes in
Jesus. That's great.
That's the very first step. But I always feel that there is,
they're missing out on something, which is the richness
of our faith, the richness of the Orthodox and Catholic faith
that has all the sacraments, that has the Holy Communion,
that has the, the baptism, the repentance and confession.

(01:03:23):
All these things are such gifts that enrich your faith.
And unfortunately, I feel like almost like the, the, the
Protestant Church might be like a great youth meeting, but it's,
it's not what we go to church for.
We go to church to become one body with Christ, where we all
partake of his body and blood. And that is such a big, strong
founding thing to be 1 and abidein human, human arson and then

(01:03:46):
also have all the other sacraments of the church.
So I guess what I want to ask you is what, what's your view on
that? And how can you maybe talk to
someone who's very much into that?
You know, you know, that emotionof feeling that great emotion
when, when someone's on stage and they're singing these
powerful songs or they have a really good preacher because
they, they are amazing. Like the songs are amazing, the
preachers are amazing. They, they cut really deep.

(01:04:08):
But that's, that's all it is at the end of the day.
Where's the rest? You know what, what would you
say to someone that's that's in that and maybe doesn't realize
the treasure of the Catholic or Orthodox Church?
Yes, what I always tell people, as I always say, guys, I have
great news for you. I have really good news for you.
No matter what tradition you're a part of, no matter what
Protestant denomination you, yougo to, whatever it is, guess

(01:04:31):
what, Anything that you have in your local Protestant church
that you love, that is good, that's true, and that's
beautiful. Guess what?
You get to keep it. You get to keep it because
anything that is good, true, andbeautiful about your Protestant
denomination, you're going to find that in the Orthodox
Church, in the Catholic Church, and you're going to find even

(01:04:52):
more of it. You're going to, you're going to
find it completely, fully. All of these things that maybe
you have that are lacking right now, you're going to find all of
those things, plus all of the things that you do have, you're
going to find all of those things in, in, in, in the
Apostolic churches. So, so that, that's great news.
You don't have to sacrifice anything.

(01:05:12):
You don't have to sacrifice anything that isn't good, that
isn't true, that isn't beautiful.
Anything that's good, true and beautiful, you get to keep it
all. You get to keep it all and you
get to forget it even in a more deep, in a more profound way in
these churches. And you're going to fall in love
with Jesus Christ even more. Because what's going to happen
is that you're going to realize that there's so many, so many
things that, yeah, you have missing right now.

(01:05:35):
And once you have those things, you're going to cherish those
things a lot more. Things that are more essential
to the faith, things that are substantial to the faith more so
than things that are not essential or substantial to the
faith. So you're looking for goodness,
for truth and for beauty. And if you want to find the
fullness of that, you find it over here.
So go, it's there. It's waiting for you.
It belongs to you. Go get it.
You know, So, you know, I was just presented in that way,

(01:05:59):
presented in that way like, so you probably, you know, it's not
that you're leaving something behind that you really love what
you love, you're going to get tofind it over here.
And even more so. So it's nothing but good news.
Nothing but good. News So would you say to someone
who's really, because I, I sometimes I feel like a lot of
people find the Orthodox or, or Catholic liturgy boring because
it's just the same thing every time.

(01:06:20):
So, and, but they, and then theygo to a Protestant church that
has like a like, you know, thesereally captivating songs and
it's exciting, it's emotional and you go through all these
kind of feelings. Would you say to someone, you
can still go to the Protestant Church?
You can have that part, but thencome to the Catholic Church or
the Orthodox Church and have Holy Communion and have the rest
of it? Or do you find that's a bit of a

(01:06:41):
you got to kind of pick one or the other?
So I think that you can start off for a while like that, but I
think that eventually what's going to happen is that you're
going to be, you're going to be confused and you're going to
pick one or the other eventually.
Like you're not going to really be able to do both.
I know plenty of people that do that, that, you know, they'll go
to the Catholic Church because they love the, the Catholic
liturgy, or they'll go to an Orthodox Church because they

(01:07:02):
love the Orthodox liturgy. But then they'll also go to
their, their Protestant church. And what happens is that they do
that, they do that for a while and then eventually they'll
pick, you know, one, one or the other.
So if if that's what you have todo to start out, just to get
your foot in the door, right, you know, yeah, if you're still
going to go to your apartment, sure, go ahead.
But if you want to come and check out the Divine Liturgy, go
and do that too. Go and do that too.

(01:07:24):
And you're going to you're goingto be able to have a first hand
experience yourself to be able to compare the two.
And, you know, there are people that might think that that that
the liturgy is boring. They're going to to Catholic
Mass is boring. But what I've always found is
that the more biblical that theyget, the deeper that they get
into the Bible, the more that they are enthralled and riveted

(01:07:44):
by what they see when they go toa Divine Liturgy or a Mass.
And because they realize that it's so biblical that it's
precisely what we read about like in the, in the Book of
Revelation, you know it, you know, from verse, you know,
chapter 5 all the way through, you know, chapter, you know, 11,
you read everything that you're reading.
There is what you're seeing happen in the Divine Liturgy.
Everything that you read in the way that the, that the old

(01:08:06):
covenant people would worship. You're seeing that at a Divine
Liturgy at a Catholic Mass. And it actually becomes so
exciting. I think that if it's boring,
it's because you're just lookingat the externals.
When you actually look at what'sactually really happening, it's
the most, it's the most enthralling, exciting,
beautiful, incredible, amazing, attractive thing in the world.

(01:08:26):
You know, And when you really look at look at it for what it
is, and then you compare it to maybe like a Protestant church
service that all they're trying to do is, is because you know, a
lot of these more evangelical church services, they're trying
to appeal to your, to your flesh, right?
They appeal to your flesh, they appeal to your, your senses.
And they, they, they're trying to, to really arouse your senses

(01:08:50):
is what they're doing. Well, you don't realize is that
when you go to like a divine literature or like a Catholic
Mass, the same thing is actuallyhappening.
But in a way that's actually it's not, it's not trying to
force anything upon you, you, you.
The beautiful thing about going to these ancient liturgies is
that you can kind of just go, you can kind of just sit.
It's not demanding really anything of you.
You can just witness it and experience it.

(01:09:13):
And you can kind of just be like, I'm really on the outside
looking in and you can just fallinto the beauty and the
reverence and the, the, the, thetranscendence of it.
And people as they get older andthey get a little wiser and a
little more mature, they look for the transcendental things
more than they do like the thing, you know, because
evangelical church services. OK, well, I, you know, I can get

(01:09:34):
something very similar to that. Like over here in the secular.
I go to a concert, like a reallygood country concert or whatever
it is, or a really good, you know, contemporary rock concert
or whatever it is. I kind of get that same feeling.
But the feeling that I get when I go to the Divine Liturgy or
when I go to a Mass, that that'ssomething that is you can't get
that anywhere else. There's nowhere else in the
world where you can get that. And once people realize that,

(01:09:55):
that's what that's what makes itso attractive.
And so many people will come into the Apostolic churches
because of that, because it's, it's unlike the world that's
there's nothing like it in the world at all.
Absolutely beautiful answer. I just want to I just want to
change topic slightly and I wantto ask you a personal question.
What's the one discipline that you refuse to drop no matter how

(01:10:17):
busy your life gets? So the the Jesus prayer, my life
can be going 1,000,000 miles an hour with all of the, you know,
traveling and praying and responding to emails and
messages and doing shows and filming and recording.
And, you know, I have a million missed calls I got to get back
to. But the Jesus Prayer because of
how simple it is, how, how shortyou can, you know, how short the

(01:10:38):
prayer is, just praying that over and over and over again,
right. I just thought day-to-day, the
Jesus prayer, man, that's, that's, that's my prayer.
And then of course, going to church every single Sunday,
living a Sacramento life, right?Those are non negotiables.
You got to do it. And then just Jesus, you know,
also I'll probably said that Jesus, I've probably said that
Jesus prayer probably close to 100 times today.

(01:10:58):
No exaggeration, you know. So for those that don't know,
can you tell us the Jesus Prayer?
Yeah, so the the Jesus Prayer isone of the most ancient prayers
actually in, in, in our Christian tradition.
It's just Lord Jesus Christ, Sonof God, Lord Jesus Christ, Son
of God, have mercy on me, a Sinner.
That's it. That's a Jesus prayer.
Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a Sinner.

(01:11:21):
And you just pray that over and over and over again.
And you know, that could be the one prayer that you have that
you just pray over and over again that it'll never get old.
It's just, it says it all. Lord Jesus Christ and of God,
have mercy on me, a Sinner. That's it.
That's like the most important thing, you know, help me, you
are God, I am not Jesus Christ. Jesus is the Christ.
I need his mercy, that's it. And everything else flows from

(01:11:44):
that. Absolutely, I love that.
So what do you hope people remember you for?
You know when all the content, all the clips phase, when it's
all said and done, what do you hope to be remembered for?
Well, it's not really about remembering me.
I'm not really too concerned with them remembering me.
I just want people to again, company what I have in my bio on

(01:12:05):
Instagram. The conclusion God, God is real.
Jesus Christ is God. He founded one church and we can
identify that one church. We know where we can go where it
is. That's it.
If people forget about me once I'm, you know, that's fine.
I have no problem with that. But if they can remember that
those three things right there, that's that's, that's the most

(01:12:26):
important thing right there. There's nothing better than
that. You know nothing better than
that. Well, that's one thing.
Then the other thing is, what doyou hope you know when it's all
said and done? When you're standing before God,
what do you hope that He says toyou?
I hope that he says well done, good faithful servant, you know,
and I just man standing before God.

(01:12:49):
I just I, I just want to, I would want to thank him and say,
hey, thank you for using me. Thank you for using me the way
you did. I hope I, I did OK and thank you
for your love and your mercy. And I just want, I just want God
to say that he loves me and, andjust embrace me and that's it,

(01:13:13):
man That's it. That's what it's all about.
What could you want? That's what it's all about.
As you were talking, I also was inclined to ask you because I
feel like a richness in our faith in the author of Catholic
faith is obviously the Saints and more so Saint Mary.
And we do have some differences between Orthodox and Catholic in
terms of, again, very deep theological differences, which I

(01:13:34):
won't get into because it's, it's too deep, but it's
essentially we, we both have a very strong veneration for Saint
Mary and we find her to be somebody that helps us.
So let me know from your point of view, how important is Saint
Mary and how can youth, young people watching today, how can
they benefit from a relationshipwith Saint Mary or any Saints?

(01:13:56):
Yeah, so when you ask about how important is Saint Mary, you
just got to think about this. God came into the world through
this woman and she's the only creature in the history of the
world that will ever be able to say that she gave birth to God,
that she carried God in her woman, that she gave birth to

(01:14:18):
God. Like she's the only one that
will ever be able to say that. She's the only one for all of
eternity. She's the only one that can say
I am the mother of God, the onlyone that can say it.
No one else can ever say that. So she has a unique place with
our Lord Jesus Christ because she is his mom.
She's the only one that can say that that she is his mom.

(01:14:39):
And because she is his mom and she has a special place with
him. If we are close to her, Mary,
St. Mary will keep us close to her
Son because that's all. That's what she's there for.
Saint Mary is there to keep us close to her.
Something about this, nobody will ever be able to love Jesus

(01:15:00):
the way that Mary loves Jesus. And Jesus loves Mary in a unique
and special way, unlike the way that he loves anybody else.
So imagine if you have such a great relationship with Mary
that she can teach you to love him the way you should.

(01:15:20):
And we honor Jesus as well by honoring his mother because he,
the last thing that he did, because Jesus gave us
everything, the last thing that he gave us before he died on the
cross was his mom when he gave her to Saint John and said,
behold, your mother, right? He's giving it to all of us.
Because Revelation 12 says that the mother of the Messiah is the
mother of all who follow the Messiah.

(01:15:42):
Revelation 12 says that everyonewho follows Jesus Christ and
keeps the commandments of God, that they are the offspring of
the woman who, who, who, who is the the mother of the Messiah.
Think about this. Jesus Christ took on human flesh
to save us. That flesh he got from Mary
Jesus looked like Mary Jesus hadMary's DNA and that that, that

(01:16:06):
DNA, right? That flesh that was crucified
for us on the cross, that came from Mary.
And you know, you never have to worry about loving Mary too much
because you'll never be able to love her more than Jesus loves
her. What about, you know, all she
does is she helps us love him. And what about people that say,

(01:16:27):
oh, it's, it's strange that you talk to her or ask her things
like, you know, that's God. There's only one mediator.
God is the Jesus, the mediator. She's like, you know, you can't,
she can't hear you kind of thing.
Like she doesn't have God's giftof hearing you.
Like, oh, God's ability to hear you.
What would you say? I would say, well, that's not
what the Bible says because the Bible says in second Peter that
we all get to participate in thedivine nature.

(01:16:48):
We all get to participate and, and, and become united to the
divine nature. If Mary is in heaven, what she
is, and I don't think there's any Christian in the world that
would say that Mary isn't in heaven.
She is a partaker of the divine nature.
And because of her special role as the Mother of God, as the
mother of our Lord Jesus Christ,because she is his mom, that
actually makes you the queen. Because when you go to the Old

(01:17:10):
Testament, you see that the king, the Kingdom of Israel also
always had a queen and the queenwas always the mother of the
king. And think about this.
The Bible tells us, Matthew tells us that Jesus takes the
place of the throne of King David.
So Jesus takes King David's throne.
Well, King David had his Queen Mother and all of the kings, you

(01:17:33):
know, all of the kings of the king of the Kingdom of Israel,
they had their Queen Mother and they were the Queens of the
entire Kingdom. So if Jesus Christ is our king
and it's the Kingdom that is thefulfillment of the king, the
Davidic Kingdom, that means thathis mom is our queen.
And we know this because the Angel, when the Angel appears to

(01:17:54):
her in Luke 1, he says hail, hail full of grace.
That's a title that you only give to to royalty.
And then the Book of Revelation,Revelation describes her, the
mother of the Messiah, as being royalty, having the crown on her
head. And if she's the Queen Mother,
she has a special place. She has a special place in the

(01:18:16):
Kingdom of heaven, the Kingdom of God.
And in the Old Testament, in theOld Covenant, God's people were
able to go to the Queen Mother and make special requests of her
that she would take to the king.So in the same way, in the New
Testament, we can go to the Queen Mother and we could ask
her to take our request to her son, the king, who was Jesus

(01:18:36):
Christ. And think about this, Jesus
Christ perfectly honors his mother.
He perfectly honors that that commandment, he never breaks
that commandment, right? The commandment says honor your
father and your mother. Jesus Christ perfectly honors
the his heavenly Father, God theFather.
He also perfectly honors his mom, and that's Mary.

(01:18:57):
So if Mary comes to her son witha petition and he asks her on
our behalf or something, can Mary deny his mom if it's
something that is that fits in accordance to God's will?
You mean? I have no right to ask Jesus of
anything. I'm a Sinner.
I have no right to ask him of anything.
I'm a Sinner. But Mary isn't Mary isn't having

(01:19:18):
a particular of the divine nature and she was already made
perfectly to begin with. According to what, to the to the
evidence we have from Scripture.And she has a special place, a
special authority because she's the mom.
So, so Mary is so important because Jesus came, God came to
us through her and we can come to him through her as well
because she just takes us to herSon, teaches us how to love him.

(01:19:41):
She has a special rule. Our salvation comes.
Our Jesus is our salvation, and our salvation came through Mary.
We're very lucky to be able to know and read about Saint
Mary's. I remember I was speaking to a
confession. Father of mine and I, I love my
mom to death. I'll, I will die for her any

(01:20:02):
day, as I'm sure everyone he would too.
And he told me for as much as you love, for as much as you
love your mom, that's not even .1% of the love Saint Mary has
for us. So Saint Mary's beautiful and I,
I want to ask you 2 questions, if that's all right.
What you said to me earlier in the podcast about your friend
Angel, it really stuck. Talk with me about how she told

(01:20:23):
you that you helped her become sober and that you don't really
sort of talk about that venture.I want to do a First Assault
podcast exclusive, if you will, and ask for those who are
struggling with some sort of addiction, whether it be
alcoholism, pornography, gambling, anything, drugs, what
would you say to someone who feels such despair in their life

(01:20:46):
and that feels like they're they're in a hole they can't get
out of because addiction's one of the worst things that someone
could possibly have. So how?
What would you say to them to want to help?
I would say, guess what, you're correct.
You are in a hole that you can'tget out of.
It's OK. Jesus Christ can get you out of
that hole. You can't get yourself out of
that hole to admit it. Just admit it.

(01:21:08):
You know you can't. You can't save yourself, but
Jesus Christ can save you. How do we receive that
salvation? How do we receive that help that
we need? He gave us away through the
sacraments. He gave us away through the
sacraments. Go to confession as often as you
need to. Go and receive the Eucharist as
often as you can. Never miss, never miss a Sunday
liturgy. Never, ever, ever.

(01:21:29):
And try to receive the Eucharistas often as you can.
And I always tell people, it might take you years, it might
take you decades. If it takes you that long, OK,
it takes, it takes you that long, but never stop.
Never stop receiving the Eucharist.
Never stop living in Sacramento 11, never stop praying.
Doesn't matter how many times you fall, it doesn't matter.

(01:21:50):
God is infinite. God has infinite mercy.
If you are sincere and you really, really want his
forgiveness, you really want hishelp to help you, he will give
it to you. It might take years, fine, let
OK, If it takes years, it takes years.
You can't save yourself. The only option you have is to
stay close to Jesus. And I always tell people, I
promise you, I promise you the closer that you are to Jesus,

(01:22:16):
the less you're going to have that inclination to fall into
sin. The closer you are to Him, the
less you love that inclination to fall into sin.
When you're really close to Him,you're not going to think so
much about that sin that you struggle with.
When you serve others, when you go out of your way to serve
other people, help other people,be be selfless.
Don't think so much about yourself because when you think

(01:22:38):
a lot about yourself, when you become selfish, that's what
that's what that leads you to fall into sin.
But when you make your life a life of service and all you want
to do is serve other people, serve other people and, and
worship God and serve your Lord,you'd be very surprised as to
how before you know, you don't even realize it.
When you're not thinking about these things anymore, you're not

(01:22:58):
thinking about your addiction oryour whatever it may be.
But also at the same time, give yourself time.
Don't think that it's going to happen overnight.
And if you fall, OK, You fell. Of course.
Yeah, of course you fell. You're, you know, you're you're
an addict. Let God pick you back up and
never despair. Never, ever, ever despair.

(01:23:19):
It doesn't matter how bad it is,how deep you know you get.
Never, ever despair. Always know that God's mercy is
there available for you. His forgiveness and His love are
there available for you. Very well seen.
This in his love first, because that's what you need, love.
Most of the time the reason thatpeople fall into addiction is
because they don't feel loved. That's really what it is.
They, they, they go to their addiction because their
addiction is that they're self medicating.

(01:23:40):
It sues them and it makes them feel loved.
No, you have an infinite love that you can get from Jesus.
And when you realize that, when you really realize that and you,
you have that in your, in your heart, that infinite love, you
know, your alcohol, your drugs, your pornography, your women,
whatever it might be, it's not, you know, you're not going to
need that anymore. You're not going to need that

(01:24:02):
anymore because you've already had.
You've already been fulfilled bythe love that can only come from
God. I'm going to quiz Simon now.
Simon, what is the difference between the righteous and the
wicked? The righteous got up.
That's right. So we mentioned this with our
2nd guest, Father Bishoy Elantoni.
He's amazing. And we made that distinction.

(01:24:24):
He said even if you're in despair, like the only
difference between the righteousand the wicked is the righteous
gets up. So even if you fall, it doesn't
make you wicked. It's getting up.
Right. Yeah.
The Sinner, you know, Saints arejust sinners that that didn't
give up. They just didn't give up.
They just kept going. They just kept.
They never were discouraged. You know, no matter how hard it

(01:24:46):
get, no matter how hard it got, they just kept going.
Just keep going. That's that's really the only,
the only rule. Just never stop, never stop
living a Sacramento life. I promise you keep going, keep
going, keep going. And eventually this thing will
melt away. Eventually, might take years or
decades. Fine, let it, let it.
Think about all of the virtue. Think about all of the treasures

(01:25:07):
that you're storing up in heavenWhen because think about it, if
I, if I'm not an addict, right, for me, it's easy.
It's easy for me to go and live the Sacramento life or whatever.
But for an addict, when an addict goes into the Sacramento
life that there's more virtue inthat because it's harder for
them. So think about everything that
you're storing up in in in heaven.
Beautiful. So just keep going.
Just keep going. Beautiful.

(01:25:27):
Don't ever get discouraged. One more question, if I may.
What's the what's a verse in theBible that gives the voice of
reason a lot of comfort? What's What's your favorite
verse in the Bible if you had topinpoint?
I'm I'm turn to that right now check this out We are going to
go to it is 1st 1st Corinthians 1013.

(01:25:52):
First Corinthians 10/13 is checkthis out.
It says this no temptation has overtaken you that is not common
to men. God is faithful and he will not
let you be tempted beyond your strength, but with the

(01:26:12):
temptation will also provide theway of escape that you may be
able to endure it. First Corinthians 1013 If you're
an addict, if you're an addict and you feel that urge to go and
get that, that, you know, go, you know, go and open that
bottle up or go and light it. Light, light up whatever you
want to light up or go to the computer to get on those

(01:26:33):
websites, whatever it is, go to 1st Corinthians 10/13 and ask
yourself, is God a liar? I don't want to call God a liar,
so I feel tempted right now. But according to what I just
read in First Corinthians 10/13,there's a way of escape here.
I don't have to fall into this sin.
God is giving me a way of escape.
Let me find that way of escape. And when I find that way of

(01:26:56):
escape and I escape, that's going to be so meritorious for
me. I'm just storing up treasures in
heaven because maybe I don't have a problem with drinking.
So if I don't drink, OK, well, big whoop, I don't have a
problem with drinking. But if you have a problem with
drinking and you escape it, Oh my goodness, there's you know
how much rejoicing there is in heaven. 100%.
You know how much rejoicing there is in heaven when you were
so close and you said, no, I love God.

(01:27:19):
I love God more than this. I don't need any this, you know,
the, the angels and the Saints in heaven party over you, man,
They rejoice, they rejoice. So 1st Corinthians 1013, man, I
always go back to that, always go back to that.
I'm like, you know what, God isn't a liar.
God is true. His word is true.
So I might be, you know, faced with some temptation right now.

(01:27:39):
There's a way out of it. There's a way out of it, you
know, so, so yeah, that's, that's the verse that I always
tell people to go to I. Love that.
So this next segment, Alex, I wanna preface by saying I'm
definitely not equipped to debate you on theology at all.
And I think that Catholic and Orthodox are virtually the same.
There are just a few small differences like infallibility

(01:28:02):
of the Pope, the filioque and notably purgatory.
So I'd like to discuss, not for purpose of debate, like I'm, I'm
not trying to say, you know, you're right or wrong, wrong,
but I just want to learn more. I want to understand a little
bit more because I've been askedactually by we interviewed a
race car driver, Andrew Verona, a few days ago and he asked me
about the difference of Orthodoxand Catholic.
And I tried to sum it up a little bit, but you know, for

(01:28:24):
me, let's talk about the the first part.
Let's talk about the filioque. So the Orthodox, they say that
the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Catholics say
that it proceeds from the Fatherand Son.
And I think that's quite a deep theological implication, which
not a lot of people, I don't think it makes a lot of
difference in people's lives. And correct me if I'm wrong, but

(01:28:45):
I found this clip from Father Theophen.
So if we can pull up that clip and I'll get you to watch it
because I think he articulated it in a in a really good way and
better than I could ever articulate it.
So let's pull that up. The filioque way disrupts the
balance of the Trinity. When we speak about the Holy
Trinity, we speak about either the entirety God, divinity,

(01:29:05):
omniscience, omnipresence. You talk about all three of the
persons of the Holy Trinity together, or you can ascribe to
one of them a characteristic only the Son was Incarnate.
Only the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.
When you say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father
and the Son, now that is double procession.

(01:29:27):
That means the Father and the Son share something that the
Holy Spirit doesn't. There is a balance when you talk
about either all three or one. When you can talk about two in
opposition to one of them, you place that third in subjection
to the other two. And so that's the balance of the
Holy Trinity that's thrown off by the Filioque.

(01:29:48):
And so why do you choose the Orthodox Church over the Roman
Catholic Church? Because we still have the same
creed that we did at the very beginning.
Well, what would your comments be on that?
Sure. So first of all, I'm about to
blow your mind right now, OK? Get ready, please.
What he said. So, Father Theophen, so you, you
know, you know where that clip came from.

(01:30:10):
No, it was that. Was that an interview with you
or or John? Wasn't it Roots of SO?
That Roots of Faith, so that that clip is from a channel
called the Roots of Orthodoxy. There's nothing on there with
that Channel. Yeah.
Yeah. Do you guys know, you know, you
guys know who runs that Channel?No.
That Channel is run by a Catholic, and you know who that
Catholic is? Is that Jonathan?

(01:30:31):
Jonathan. Wow, Jonathan.
Full circle, man. Jonathan is the one that
interviewed Father Theophen. That's Jonathan's interview.
That's his clip, That's that's Jonathan.
That's my boy route of Orthodox.He's run by a Catholic.
That that makes no sense. Everyone knows, isn't that
crazy? Yeah.
So Jonathan, Jonathan is like he's, he's Jonathan's everyone.
I know when you're dealing with Jonathan.

(01:30:53):
But anyway, sure. So filioque, right?
So filioque means and the sun. OK, so believe it or not, the
filioque actually isn't. And a lot of Orthodox will tell
you this. The filioque actually isn't
anything that we need to actually be fighting over,
because we actually mean the same thing.

(01:31:13):
Let me explain. Let me explain it.
The Orthodox concern with the filioque is that they believe
that when Catholics say filioque, what we mean by that
is that the Holy Spirit is caused by both the Father and
the Son. But that's not what the Catholic
Church teaches. When we say Filioque, the

(01:31:35):
Catholic Church explicitly teaches that the Spirit is
caused by the Father alone, but the spiration of the Spirit is
from the Father through the Son.So if you're an Orthodox and you
can say, yeah, we can say that the Holy Spirit proceeds from
the Father through the Son. That's exactly what we mean by

(01:31:58):
Filioque way. When we say filioque way, we
mean that the that the procession happens.
When we say Father and the Son, we mean specifically from the
Father through the Son, not a not causation.
The causation is not from the you know, from from the Son.
It's from the father alone, but the procession includes the son
as well. So think about this.

(01:32:18):
We know that there's only one God, right?
God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
We know that God is pure act. If God is pure act, that means
that everything do that with that pure act of God is that it
involves all three persons. So it involves all three persons
because God is 1. Let's say that the spiration of

(01:32:39):
the Holy Spirit or the procession of the Holy Spirit
doesn't involve the Son. Well, now what happens is that
you have a pure act, the, the pure act of being, because
we're, we're getting into God being, we have a pure act of
God, God ontologically being that involves only the Father,
but not the son. So you have the father and the

(01:33:00):
spirit over here and then the son over here.
That actually would be an imbalance, right?
Because because you know, most like Orthodox when they, when
they want to, when they, when they try to argue against the
Filioque, they'll say exactly what Father Theo Fonte and
they'll say that it's that it's an imbalance.
But the, the reason that that argument doesn't work is because
you could actually turn it rightback around and say, well, if

(01:33:23):
you want to say that it's just the Father and the Spirit over
here and the Son has nothing to do with it, now you have another
imbalance. So what is the symmetry breaker?
Where is the symmetry breaker here?
And it's the symmetry breaker isthe one that we all agree on.
And it's the one that actually Catholics and Orthodox agreed
upon at the Council of Florence in the 15th century, when the
Catholics and the Orthodox actually reunited briefly for a

(01:33:43):
time. And that symmetry breaker, that
agreement is that it's the, the,the, the Holy Spirit is caused
by the Father alone, just like the, the Son is begotten from
the Father alone. But the spiration happens from
the Father alone through the Son.
And the reason that we all agreeupon that is because that's what
the Scripture teaches. Scripture teaches that the, the

(01:34:05):
Son sends the Holy Spirit or theSon proceeds.
You know, I'm sorry, the, the Spirit proceeds from the Son.
You can say, but it originates with the Father, it's caused by
the Father, but that that procession happens to be the
son. So if we can say from the Father
through the son, then we're good.
We don't have to worry about this anymore.

(01:34:26):
Because that's exactly what the Catholic Church teaches, right?
If your, if your, if your problem is double procession,
because the Catholic Church teaches double double
procession. But the problem is that usually
when people hear double procession, what they're
thinking is double. Causation, yeah.
That's not what we mean. All right, double causation.
But let me, if I can read something really quick, there

(01:34:47):
shouldn't be an issue because guess what?
And this is good news. This is good news because what
this means is that we don't haveto argue about this because we
know that it's grounded in the tradition.
Check this out. If you go to the Athanasian
Creed, St. Athanasius, you know, St.
Athanasius, you know of Alexandria, the Athanasian Creed
says this. I'm the reader, really quick.
It says this, It says we venerate one God in the Trinity,

(01:35:10):
and the Trinity in Oneness. The Father was not made, not
created, nor begotten by anyone.The Son is from the Father
alone, not made nor created, butbegotten.
The Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son, not made,

(01:35:30):
nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
And that's the Athanasian Creed,right?
So St. Athanasius said is said from the
Holy Spirit is from the Father and the Son.
Now go, we'll go to Saint Cyril of Alexandria.
Check this out. St.
Cyril of Alexandria said this since the Holy Spirit and this
is from the from his treasury ofthe Holy Trinity.

(01:35:53):
This is thesis 44. Cyril of Alexandria said since
the Holy Spirit when he is in US, effects are being conformed
to God, and he actually proceedsfrom the Father and Son, it is
abundant to be clear that He is of the divine essence in in it,

(01:36:14):
in essence and proceeding from it.
So that language of Father and the Son, we see it in the
tradition. So and, and, and if you would
ask them, if you would ask St. Cyril of Alexandria or Saint
Athanasius of Alexandria, what do you mean by Father and the
Son? Can you get a little bit more
specific? They'll say it's originates with
the Father or is caused by the Father through the Son.

(01:36:35):
And that's exactly what what theCatholic Church teaches and
believes. So that's great news.
We don't got to argue about it anymore.
And, and actually, when you lookat the history, the history of
the Filioque is so fascinating. And when you read the history of
it, you realize we really don't need to argue about this, right?
Because, and I'm getting really excited here, guys.
So just come if I'm getting too excited.

(01:36:56):
I love it because I want us all to be 1 church and I think we're
so close. So, so check this out.
This history is fascinating. Check this out.
OK, so, so there's actually two different ways in which the
Orthodox will two different objections that they make over
the Filioque, right? Sometimes they'll make a
theological objection like Father Theophon made a

(01:37:17):
theological objection. But guess what we've just
demonstrated now, if we actuallyjust take the time to listen to
each other, actually listen to the concerns, because here's a
problem, Catholics, we don't, wedon't listen to what the
Orthodox say either. Because when the Orthodox say,
hey, our concern is that you guys believe in double
causation. That's what they're saying.
Listen to them and say, guys, guess what?

(01:37:39):
Good, good, good, good news. We that's not what we teach.
We don't teach double causation and and we teach as single
causation from the Father, but through the son.
Can you guys get down with that?And they say, yeah, we can get
down with that. Perfect.
And that already happened at theCouncil of Florence already in
the in the 15th century, the Council of Florence already
settled that. So we, we shouldn't have to
fight over it anymore. But there's a second way in

(01:38:01):
which in which Orthodox will will argue against the Fidioque.
They will not argue argue against the Filioque from a
theological grounds. What they will say is that the
actual sin of the Catholic Church was that they added the
Filioque way to the creed. And they'll say that the
addition of the Filioque way to the Creed that that was that
that was wrong because the Council of Ephesus, the Council

(01:38:25):
of Ephesus says that you cannot add to the greed.
But guess what? And a lot of people don't know
this and when they find this out, it blows their minds.
My friends, when once once this podcast is over, go and read
Ephesus. Check this out.
A lot of people don't know this.When Ephesus said that and they
said you can't add anything to the creed.
Do you guys know what creed theywere talking about?

(01:38:49):
I assume it wasn't the Creed. It wasn't the creed that we that
we all say, Catholics and Orthodox.
The creed that we say came from the Council of Constantinople
one in 381. That's not the creed that
they're referring to. The creed that they're referring
to is the creed from Nicaea, onein 325.
And so many people don't know this when, when Catholics and

(01:39:12):
Orthodox recite the Creed every single Sunday, We're not, we're
not reciting the creed from Nicaea.
We're reciting the Creed from Constantinople one in 381.
But the Council of Ephesus, whenthe Council of Ephesus said you
can't add to the creed, they weren't talking about the 381.
They were talking about the creed from 3:25.

(01:39:32):
But here's The funny thing. We have the creed from 325 from
Nicaea. We have the creed from 381,
which is the one that we all use.
Ephesus is referring to the creed from Nicaea.
If Ephesus says you can't add tothe creed, why did the Greeks in
Constantinople add a whole bunchof stuff to the creed in 381?

(01:39:54):
Because the creed from Nicaea isactually a lot shorter.
The creed from Nicaea doesn't say anything about the Holy
Spirit. Right?
But the Creed from Constantinople one does.
They added a whole bunch of stuff to the Creed at
Constantinople 1381 and they actually deleted a couple of
paragraphs from the Creed from Nicaea 325.

(01:40:15):
But here's why we get so confused.
And this is nothing but good news because it shows oh good,
we don't have to fight over thisanymore.
It's just confusion. A lot of people don't know that
the Council of Constantinople 1381 was not an ecumenical
council in the beginning, it wasjust a local regional Synod.
It wasn't until the year 451 at the Council of Chalcedon that

(01:40:37):
the Council of Chalcedon elevated Constantinople 1381 to
the status of Ecumenical. And at Chalcedon they actually
adopted the Creed from Constantinople 1 and they made
that the creed that all Christians would start reciting
in the liturgies every single Sunday.
So every. So that started in 451 where

(01:40:58):
Chalcedon elevated Constantinople one with the
status of ecumenical, and then they adopted that creed, right?
So Ephesus is working with the Creed of Nicaea 325, Chalcedon
is working with the Creed of Constantinople 381, and that
became the creed that everyone recites Constantinople 381.
But Constantinople 381 added a whole bunch of stuff to the

(01:41:20):
Creed of 325. Which they won't expect today.
So if, when, when they say you shouldn't have added the
Filioque to the Creed, they say wait a second though.
But guys, we added a whole bunchof stuff to the Creed at 381 and
Constantinople 381 to the Creed from 325.
And that's the one that we all use now.
So when they, when they made that argument and they said

(01:41:40):
you're not supposed to add to the Creed, be like, wait a
second, they're referring to theCreed from Nicaea.
That's not the Creed that any ofus use.
We're talking about 3381, not 325.
Wow, man. So a lot of it seems like
there's a lot of politics, but on, on, on that point, the one
thing that I would say is you made a very striking argument
and when you reversed it and said, OK, well, now the the
Father and Son have the Father and the Spirit have something,

(01:42:03):
but the Son isn't included. But then what about when we say
the the Son is the only begottenfrom the Father?
We don't include the Holy Spiritthere, right?
So wouldn't that also be an issue?
Right, right. So, yeah, so you could actually
make, you could actually make someone else could make that
same argument, you know, againstus and say, well, look, it says
only the Father is uncreated, unbegotten, right?

(01:42:27):
And only the sun is begotten, and only the Spirit spyrates.
So those descriptions of the different persons, the three
persons of the Trinity, the reason that they're there is
because it shows how they relateto each other.
It's but how do the three persons relate to each other
because they are distinct. We know that the presence of the

(01:42:49):
Trinity are not separate becausethere's only one God, but they
are distinct. So what saying that one is
begotten and one is spy rated right or 11 proceeds.
All we're saying is that we are making.
That's actually how we make the distinction between the three
right? Something that's Father Theophon
says in that clip, right? He says that only the sun, it

(01:43:11):
was Incarnate, which is true, right?
Yeah, only the Son Incarnate. But here's the question, did the
Father and the Holy Spirit play a role in that?
The answer is yes, right? Only, only the Spirit, you know,
only the Spirit proceeds pirates.
But the question is, did the Father and the Son play a role

(01:43:33):
in that? And the Orthodox can say yes,
yes, yes, because we can say through the sun.
Perfect. If you want to eliminate the sun
all together, that's when we nowwe have the problem where you
have an A pure act of God that doesn't involve one of the
persons that can that can lead to an imbalance in the Trinity.
So just remember, this is the rule of thumb that we always
have to use. Every pure act of God has to by

(01:43:55):
definition, always include all three persons of the Trinity.
They always have to be included in every pure act.
Even if there's a pure act that is specific to only one person,
like the incarnation, the Fatherand the Son are still involved
in that. So that's how we're able to
solve the difficulty as that it's only the Son is begotten,
only the Son is begotten, but the other two persons are

(01:44:18):
involved in the begottenness. Only the Son, only the Spirit
proceeds, but the other two persons are involved in the in,
in that action as well, right? So, and because, you know, the
Son and the Spirit are also eternal, are eternal, even
though the Father is the is, is the causation of the other two,
right? Not, not not eternally, right.

(01:44:41):
Yeah, it's not eternal in temporality, yes, but not
eternally because we know that the sun and the Spirit are
eternal. Yeah.
Even though the sun has no causation or anything.
His fatherhood, his fatherhood is what makes it's what
distinguishes him from the sun and from the Spirit.
And the sun and the Spirit, we're always still there
eternally. So God, if God is always

(01:45:01):
eternally Father, if the Father is always eternally Father, it's
because the Son is always eternally Son and the Spirit is
eternally Spirit because of that, because of the spiration,
right? And all of this is lined out if
we go back to Constantinople, one St.
Saint Gregory of Nisa, Oh my goodness.
And I think I read, you know, read his quote, Saint Gregory of

(01:45:23):
Nyssa and Saint Augustine read Saint Augustine.
Oh my goodness, his, his work onthe Trinity, right.
I, I just butchered with, with the great theologians how they
explained the Trinity. You read Saint Gregory of Nyssa
and you read Saint Augustine andtheir work on the Trinity.
Even all of the great Orthodox theologians, even after this
schism, like like a Gregory of Palamas said, read Augustine,
man read Augustine is amazing. And guess what, Augustine taught

(01:45:46):
this, He taught, he taught the filioque and it was never an
issue. It was never ever, ever an issue
because the Filioque was only inserted into the Creed in the
West and only in Spain. And the reason it was inserted
was to combat a heresy in a Trinitarian heresy in Spain.
And that's why it was added onlythere.
But the Easterners, they, they knew, they knew that the

(01:46:07):
Filioque was there in the Creed and they were in communion with
the West right up until, up until the 11th century, right?
Because it was at the end of the, it was in the, in the
sixth, in the beginning of the 6th century when it was added.
And there was still no communionfor another 500 years at least
before they, they broke communion in 1054.
So how come it took them 500 years to break communion if, you

(01:46:29):
know, they knew that the Filioque was, was part of the
Creed, you know, and the first person that ever discovered
this, that ever at least wrote about it was Saint Foetus in
the, in the, in the 9th century,in the 8 hundreds.
He was the one that pointed out and said, Hey, what's the big
idea over here with all of thesethe, the Christians in Spain,
they added the Filioque way to the creed.
And he was the first one that atfirst he got kind of rowdy, but

(01:46:50):
then he, you know, he calmed down.
Then he died in full communion with the church.
And he's a, he's a Catholic St. Foetus is a Catholic St.
He was cool with the filioque atthe end of his life because it
wasn't an issue. And no one batted an eye for
another 250 years, for another almost 250 years, you know,
after the time of Saint Fodius, until this isn't happened in
1054. So all of this is just to say

(01:47:13):
that it's good news. The Philio quiz, one of those
things that we can take off the table.
We don't have to fight over anymore.
Thank God we can be closer to reconciliation.
Honestly, I'm really happy with that answer because that made a
lot of sense. And the fact that, you know, I
think it was the issue was the double causation.
But now that you've clarified that, I think that makes perfect
sense. But the thing that I think.
We're going to so cool. And here's the cool one.

(01:47:33):
I'm sorry I'm yapping now. No, no, I love that.
I can tell the Orthodox. Guess what, you're right.
I don't have to say you're wrong.
No, you're right. You are right.
The Orthodox are right. The thing that you are concerned
with, you are correct to be concerned about.
And guess what? We don't teach that.
We don't believe that. So.
We're good. I love that.
I love being able to tell them you are right.
I love saying that. And I I love hearing it too.

(01:47:55):
I love it. I love it man.
I love it. I think the, the, the thing
that's going to stick us in the mud a little bit is this next
topic because purgatory for me, sure, sure is what I think is
the biggest discrepancy. And I think that's the point
that I want to touch on now. So it's something that I
personally wrestle with because I feel like it undermines the
power of God's salvation becauseit, it kind of says like

(01:48:15):
Christ's sacrifice wasn't complete and how, and that's
purgatory somehow suggests that there's still a debt left to be
paid and that Christ didn't, didn't really wipe that debt
completely. So I'd like to pull up a lecture
from Pope Shenudo, who's the previous Pope of the Coptic
Church. Very, very, he was the Bishop of
education prior to becoming the Pope and he's unbelievable.
If you've ever heard of him or anything, he is unbelievable.

(01:48:38):
So there's about 6 points. I sent you this article prior
for you to have a read and you know, but the three points that
I want to get on and actually Father Theophen in that video,
he actually said that purgatory was a theological innovation
that came out during the medieval period and it wasn't
existing prior. So that was his comment on that.
And I I found that interesting, but what I want to pull up.

(01:49:01):
Is before, before we get into, into what a Pope should notice
that actually, it's, it's interesting because I actually
just had a debate. I just had a debate with an
Eastern Orthodox apologist namedUbi Petrus.
And we, we talked about purgatory came up in the debate
and he actually admitted that the Orthodox do believe in
purgatory and that that's not something that we need to fight

(01:49:21):
over. There was a Synod in the year
1672. It's called the Synod of
Jerusalem. And the Synod of Jerusalem
explicitly teaches purgatory andsays that purgatory is something
that is indeed that that is believed.
So even the the Eastern Orthodox, the Greeks, they they
hold the purgatory and, and, andmy opponent in that debate will
be he admitted he's like, yeah, we can.

(01:49:41):
Purgatory isn't something that we should be fighting over too.
So when Father Theophon says that it's a medieval innovation,
if that's the case, then he would have to say that his own
community in the Eastern Orthodox that they accepted that
medieval innovation and that they taught it at one of their
synods as authoritatively binding, because Synod of
Jerusalem 1672 does teach it. So anyway.

(01:50:04):
But we can move on to what pub you know.
Yeah, Well, I guess this is what's interesting because there
are some minor differences between Eastern and Oriental
Orthodox. And I think this is our Coptic
background. This is definitely the stance of
our church that we don't believein purgatory.
That's for sure in terms of the Coptic Church.
And I believe our sister churches like, you know, the
Indian Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox.
But if we can pull up the lecture again, what what I'll do

(01:50:27):
is I'll I'll just, I want to highlight a few.
I'll do point 1.3 and .6 the rest.
We'll put a. Link in the bio when we put this
story out for people to read. But for me this is the things
that that really hit me. So first point is purgatory
contradicts the doctrine of atonement and redemption.
So the basic foundation of this doctrine of atonement and
redemption is that human beings totally incapable of satisfying

(01:50:49):
divine justice of God and thus God who alone is unlimited and
was incarnated provided us with this unlimited atonement for
sins. So the existence of any place
purifying sufferings for the believers implies that the blood
of the Saviour was not enough topurify us in the 1st place.
So this is one thing that I, I, I like.
It just hits home with me the concept of feeling that, you

(01:51:11):
know, as if like Christ's sacrifice wasn't enough, that I
need to be then subjected to some further purification like
it wasn't enough. So that's my first point, if we
can skip down to the Third Point.
Should you respond to that one first before we move on or I
think? I'll do, I'll do all three.
I'll do all three points that I want to pick and then I'll let
you comment as a blanket becauseI just want to paint the picture
of, of where the Coptic OrthodoxChurch is kind of, you know, so

(01:51:36):
.3 purgatory contradicts God's justice.
So Saint Paul said that we were bought at a price.
The price is the precious blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus
Christ who said on the cross, itis finished.
The sufferings and the torment in this alleged purgatory imply
that the price of sins will be paid twice, which is a clear
contradiction with the divine justice.
Moreover, the doctrine Accordingto this doctrine, purgatory is a

(01:51:57):
place of torment for the spiritswhile the bodies are lying in
graves not feeling a thing. This also contradicts the divine
justice because it implies punishing the spirit only and
not the body which participated with it in committing the sin.
So then allegedly, how would the, at the end of times, how
will the allegedly pure spirit be united with a unpurged purged

(01:52:18):
body at the last day? And then the final point, which
I think is the one that I've heard a lot in terms of when
Orthodox people speak, is how itcontradicts the Holy Scriptures,
especially with the concept of the right hand thief.
Because you would assume that ifanybody would go to purgatory,
it would most likely be the right hand thief.
But Jesus says to him, today youwill be with me in paradise.

(01:52:40):
So if this alleged purgatory indeed exists, then why didn't
the thief go there? And Christ's words was very
strict. Like today you'll be with me in
paradise. He didn't say, Hey, you've lived
a really bad life. My, my, my, my sacrifice isn't
enough for you. You're going to have to, you
know, go for a few thousand years in into a place just so
you're worthy of heaven. He said today you'll be with me

(01:53:00):
in paradise. So the rest of the point we can
leave. But that's basically the three
strong points that I find just doesn't doesn't sit right with
me in terms of feeling that, youknow, Christ's sacrifice wasn't
enough. So I'll let you comment.
Yes, absolutely. So again, I love when I get to
tell my Orthodox brothers that they're right.
And guess what? When it comes to .1, Pope

(01:53:23):
Shinodo is completely right. He is.
He is 100% correct. He's completely right.
And the good thing is that the Catholic Church actually doesn't
teach what, what he, what he said in that first point.
If all you got to do is go to the Catechism of the Catholic
Church, it's paragraph 10:30 and10:31, which explains purgatory.

(01:53:44):
This is all that purgatory is. Check this out.
So it's funny, it's what the Council of Florence, which was
the reunion council with the Catholic Church in the Eastern
Orthodox Church, they actually talked, they actually thought
about this, about purgatory, right?
And the, the council explicitly says that purgatory is not a
place. Purgatory isn't a place.
So whenever people talk about even Catholics, when Catholics

(01:54:05):
do this and they say, well, purgatories is a place, it, it
kind of like hurts my soul because no, purgatory is, isn't
a place. It's not like an intermediate
place. This is all purgatory is.
Purgatory is the process where God, Jesus Christ finishes your
sanctification and makes you perfectly clean before you enter

(01:54:26):
heaven. That's all it is.
If you read the Catechism of theCatholic Church, paragraph 10:30
and 10:31, that's all it is. It's not even a place, it's a
process. And it's not anything that is
apart from Jesus Christ death and resurrection from His
salvific work on the cross. It is through Jesus Christ,
death on the cross, and His holyglorious resurrection that when

(01:54:48):
you die, He is going to completeyour sanctification process
before you enter heaven. And that's only assuming if
you're not perfectly holy or perfectly clean at the moment of
your death. So let's say that you are
already perfectly holy by the time that you die.
Like you, you have exercised every single theological and you
know, supernatural and natural Christian virtue like to like to

(01:55:13):
its Max. Then you're perfectly holy
because Jesus tells us in Matthew chapter 5, he says be
holy, you know, be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Well, let's say that if I die and I'm, I'm, I can tell you
right now I'm not perfect, right?
Purgatory, all purgatory is, is the process that Jesus is going
to make me perfect before I enter heaven.

(01:55:33):
So check this out. And, and, and I think the next
point when he says that it contradicts like Saint Paul and
I think both the other two points, he said that it
contradicts Scripture. Again, this is nothing but good
news because now we can take these objections off the table
and and the concerns that Pope Shinoda had or that many Eastern
Orthodox that Eastern Orthodox Oriental Orthodox would have

(01:55:55):
about purgatory. We don't have to worry about it
because we can actually show it in the scriptures.
Now check this out if you guys have a Bible close to you and
you actually go to Saint Paul and you go to 2nd Corinthians
chapter 5. Go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 5
verse 10 and Saint Paul says something extraordinary.
He says this in 2nd Corinthians 5.
Then he says we must all appear before the judgement seat of

(01:56:20):
Christ so that each one may receive good or evil according
to what he has done in the body.And you say, wait a second, wait
a second, wait a second, hold on, hold on.
I know the gospel. I know that Jesus Christ paid
the price for my sins. I know that he that he paid it
all, and I know that I'm saved through his, through his

(01:56:42):
sacrifice. What do you mean that we all
have to appear before the judgement seat of Christ and
actually receive good or evil according to what we did in the
body. What do you mean by that?
What do you mean? Well, here's the cool thing.
We don't have to speculate aboutwhat Saint Paul meant because he
actually explicitly explains what he actually means and he

(01:57:04):
actually did so in his first letter to the Corinthians.
If you go to 1st Corinthians chapter 3, check out what Saint
Paul says. This is First Corinthians
chapter 3, and this is starting in verse 11.
Right in verse 11, Saint Paul says this First Corinthians 3.
He says starting in verse 11. No other foundation can anyone

(01:57:25):
lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver and
precious stones, wood, hay and straw, each man's work will
become manifest for the day. That's the day of judgement.

(01:57:45):
We'll disclose it because it will be revealed with fire, and
the fire will test what sort of work each one has done.
If the work which any man has built on the foundation
survives, he will receive a reward.

(01:58:06):
But if any man's work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though
he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.
So right there in verse 15, that's the kick over.
He says your, your work is goingto be burnt up and you're going
to suffer loss. But don't worry, you're still

(01:58:26):
going to be saved, but as through fire.
So in 2nd Corinthians 510, he says that we all have to, you
know, go before the judgement seat of Christ and that he's
going to judge us for the, you know, for what we did in the
body. And he's going to repay us
either good or evil for what we did in the body.
And then in First Corinthians chapter 311 through 15, he says

(01:58:48):
that if we have the foundation that is Jesus Christ and we
built on top of it with gold, you know, silver, precious
stones, we're going to get rewards in heaven.
But if we build on top of that foundation with wood, hay and
straw, that wood, hay and straw is going to get burnt up.
It's going to get, and he even says you're going to suffer
loss, but you're going to still going to be saved the last

(01:59:10):
through fire. So if you get rewards in heaven
for wood, for gold, silver and precious stones, but then you
get like a punishment for wood hand straw or that that wood
hand straw has to be burnt up. That process of God, Jesus
Christ repaying you, your good with good and your evil with

(01:59:31):
evil or burning your wood hand straw, right?
That's what we call purgatory. So that's all it is.
It's not a place, it's not something apart from the
finished work of our of our LordJesus Christ on the cross.
It's not something that we can do ourselves.
We can't because the Pope, the Pope is right.
You can't purify yourself, you can't save yourself.
It's only Jesus Christ that can purify you.

(01:59:53):
And that postmortem purificationis what we call purgatory.
That's all it is. So.
You're saying it's not a? Place, but then go ahead, go
ahead. It's not a place, but then you
know, the concept of indulgencesand being able to pray for
people to lessen the time. Like how does that fit?
And how does that fit with the The Thief on the Cross?
Oh yes, let's get to the thief on the cross.

(02:00:15):
So first let's talk about the indulgences.
So a lot of people that get indulgences is wrong, which is
understandable because indulgences are kind of like a
tricky thing to to to, it's a tricky thing to kind of like
wrap your head around. But this is all an indulgence
is. An indulgence is simply a
remission of temporal guilt thatyou have for your sins.

(02:00:37):
That's all it is. So purgatory, the purgatory
process, what it does is that itdeals with the temporal guilt
that you have accrued for your sins, right?
And we know that God is still going to take care of temporal
guilt because 2nd Corinthians 510 tells us so that he's going
to repay us our, our evil for evil, right, from what we did in
the body. So if we're guilty of anything

(02:00:59):
that is evil. But like First Corinthians 3
says, it's on top of the foundation that is Christ.
God is just going to take care of that before you enter heaven
because Revelation 2127 says that nothing unclean can enter
heaven. So even if you're in a state of
grace, right? And, and remember, purgatory is
only for the saved. Purgatory is only for people

(02:01:21):
that are in grace, people that are saved, only people that are
saved go to purgatory. If you're not saved, if you
don't have the foundation of Jesus Christ like Saint Paul
talks about in First Corinthians3, if you don't have that
foundation, it doesn't matter how many good works you do, it
doesn't matter how many rosariesyou prayed.
None of that matters. If you don't have the foundation
that is Christ, you're not in a state of grace.
You're going to hell. Purgatory isn't for you.

(02:01:43):
So what indulgences do indulgences?
Simply, they just remit that temporal guilt, right?
So when you receive an indulgence, all that means is
that that temporal guilt was removed from you in time here in
the body before you died. And when you die, God isn't
going to have to take care of that temporal guilt that you've
accrued, right? You know, in the in the next

(02:02:05):
life that gets taken care of here.
That's all that indulgence is. So think about it like this.
It's. Not the concept of after you're
dead, your your family can pay money or pray to reduce your
time. Because that's my understanding
that I've got the medieval concept of that.
So, so, so paying money that's not, that's not, that's actually
never been a thing. That's actually was, was an
abuse that was happening in the Catholic Church in Germany where

(02:02:27):
there was some corrupt clerics that were charging people money
for. You can't charge for an
indulgence. So this is all it is.
So, so let me ask you a question.
In the Oriental Orthodox Church,do you guys pray for like your
deceased loved ones? Yeah, we guys pray for.
Them, definitely, yeah. We pray for them.
We say, you know, God repose their souls in heaven.
We we, we recite them in the liturgy.

(02:02:47):
There's a certain segment where we can remember those that have
fallen asleep. Perfect and and and the prayers
for them, like what are those prayers for specifically?
What do you guys pray? Like specifically, do you pray
that they be in heaven? Do you pray?
Like what what do you pray? What are the prayers?
We actually say that we pray that we repose their souls in
heaven. That's the terminology we use.

(02:03:07):
Perfect. OK, good.
Perfect. Yeah.
So so that that that's all it is.
When we say that we that we're praying for the repose of their
souls, that that's actually whatwe mean.
Like we can pray, we can even fast and we can even offer
sacrifice for the souls of our deceased loved ones that they be
make sure that they be in heaven.
That's all it is. That's all that's all it is.

(02:03:31):
Now, in the medieval times, theydid use that whole language of
like, because you know, in the Western church, they're very
like, they're very specific, very precise and very
particular. And they do, they everything is
like very systematic in the Western Church, right?
So like in the Western Church, you would find language of, of
like priests, I would say, like if you pray that, you know, this

(02:03:52):
prayer for your deceased loved one, it would be as if that
person that deceased loved 1 during his life had done this
penance. Like they were just trying to
illustrate it in a way for thoseof us to like understand,
because it's really hard to illustrate the afterlife in a
way that's like tangible. But that language was very,
very, very confusing to people and it led to more problems.

(02:04:14):
So the church should stop using in that language.
So all we say is you pray, you know, so, so this is good.
This is really good. If we, if you, if we can all
come to an agreement that we canpray for our deceased loved ones
and that our prayers, even afterthey've died, right, our prayers
can actually have an effect on their souls.
That's all we mean by when we say purgatory and when we say

(02:04:35):
that we, that we, that we make sacrifice for them or that we
pray for them. And this is also in, in the
tradition as well. Let me read you something else.
Check this out. I'm going to read you.
Let me read you something reallyquick.
I know that I can pull it up really fast.
Check this out. Yep, this is Saint Cyril of
Jerusalem. Look at what he said.
Check this out. St.
Cyril of Jerusalem said this. He said I think I need glasses.

(02:04:58):
Let me read this. He says when we make mention,
right, because we're, we're talking right now about we're
talking about praying for, for deceased, our deceased loved
ones, right? And this isn't his catechetical
lectures 23 five through 9 written in the year 350 St.
Cyril of Jerusalem says this. He says, when we make mention of

(02:05:19):
those who have already fallen asleep, first the patriarchs,
prophets, apostles, and martyrs,that through their prayers and
supplications God would receive our petitions.
Next, we make mention also of the holy fathers and bishops who
have already fallen asleep, and to put it simply, of all among

(02:05:41):
us who have already fallen asleep.
For we believe that it will be avery great benefit to the souls
of those for whom the petition is carried up while this holy
and most solemn sacrifice is laid out.
And this is again from his catechetical lecturers.
So All Saints Cyril of Jerusalemis saying here, all he's saying

(02:06:03):
is that when we celebrate the Eucharist, we can actually offer
the Eucharist for the souls of the deceased loved ones.
And this is what we all agree on.
You know, Catholic Orthodox, we agreed that we can pray for the
souls of our deceased loved ones.
That's what we mean when we say,when we say purgatory.
We've just systematize it in a way according to what the data
that Scripture tells us that Scripture gives us that the

(02:06:24):
reason that process would take place is begotten because of
God. Christ in his judgment seat is
going to repay us good for good,bad for bad.
We're going to reap rewards in heaven.
But he's also, he's going to burn away all of our wood, hay
and straw. Let me read one more quote and
this is also from Saint Gregory of Nyssa.
And this he wrote this in the year 382.

(02:06:46):
So the Gregory of Nyssa says this.
He says, he says, if a man distinguish in himself what is
peculiarly and and by the way, this is, I think this is my
favorite quote ever from the Church Fathers about purgatory.
He says this, if a man distinguishes in himself what is
peculiarly human from that whichis irrational, and if he be on

(02:07:10):
the on the watch for a life of greater urbanity for himself in
this present life, he will purify himself of any evil
contracted overcoming the irrational by reason.
If he has inclined to the irrational pressure of the

(02:07:32):
passions, using for the passionsthe cooperating hide of things
irrational, he may afterward, ina quiet in a quite different
manner, be very much interested in what is better.
When, after his departure out ofthe body, he gains knowledge of

(02:07:56):
the difference between virtue and vice, and finds that he is
not able to partake of divinity until he has been purged of the
filthy contagion in his soul by the purifying fire.

(02:08:16):
Let me read that last clause onemore time because I know he was
very worried when he says after his departure out of the body,
he gains knowledge of the difference between virtue and
vice and finds that he is not able to partake of divinity
until he has been purged of the filthy contagion, purged of the

(02:08:40):
filthy contagion in his soul by the purifying fire.
That's purgatory right there. So we see it in Saint Cyril of
Jerusalem, Saint Gregory of Nisah.
Those are just two guys because they're Saints that we hold in
common. So all we mean when we say
purgatory, again, read the Catechism of the Catholic
Church, paragraph 1030. Read the Council of Florence

(02:09:01):
where this was where this was settled between the Catholics
and the Eastern Orthodox. All we mean when we say
purgatory. The word purgatory just means to
purge a post mortem purging thatmakes you perfect before you
enter heaven. The concept.
The concept. Saint Gregory of Nisa taught in
that tree and let me, I don't think I give you guys the quote

(02:09:23):
from Nisa or the source from Nisa.
That is from Sermon on Sermon onthe Dead, which he wrote in 382,
that Saint Gregory of Mrs. Sherman on the Dead, where he
literally, that's explicitly theCatholic teaching of purgatory.
So it's in the tradition. So if we believe that we can
pray for our loved ones and if we believe that God can make us

(02:09:43):
perfectly clean before we enter heaven, then we all believe in
purgatory together. Even if you don't use that word,
because it's a Latin word, totally fine if you want to call
it something else. I mean, I I feel like that we.
Actually all agree. Yeah, I feel like if it was
something that happens instantaneously when you die,
it's like an instantaneous thing, then it makes a little

(02:10:04):
bit more sense than something that you go there for thousands
of years and you're tormented. Guess what the Catholic Church
teaches that it can be instantaneous, that.
So the Catholic Church doesn't say that it's going to take
thousands of years because. Because purgatory, you know, the
process happens outside of spaceand time.
Yeah, so it's not appropriate tosay like 1000 years and like

(02:10:26):
when they say 1000 years in purgatory.
No, that's not, that's not accurate language.
Purgatories outside of space andtime, you don't measure it.
You don't measure that process by years.
That's not what we that's just like medieval language to help
us kind of understand. Like it's like a, it's like
hyperbolic language, but that's not accurate theologically.
Pope Benedict the 16th, if you read us, us, it's called CES

(02:10:47):
Palvi. That's one of his.
That's the name of the document And or Spez Salvi.
I'm sorry. Spez Salvi is what it's called.
Read it. He actually says that purgatory
can happen in the twinkling of an eye.
Yeah. I, I feel like I can get down, I
can get down with that a little bit better because I feel like
the concept of, I feel, I feel like the concept of being

(02:11:08):
tormented after death when you're a believer, then that
kind of like reduces what Christ, Why did Christ die then
if we're going to get tormented?Right.
And here's here's another thing though.
It's not torment. Yeah, we don't teach that you
get tormented in purgatory. That's not what we teach.
It's not torment. That's not the language that we
use. That's not what we teach at all.
No, it's just got to purifying you, God making you holy, That's

(02:11:29):
all it is taking away things from you that are like sinful or
unclean or, you know, dissolvinglike your unhealthy, unnatural
attachments that you might have to send.
But that's not torment. It kind of like how when you go
to the gym and you train and youexercise, sometimes we can be
like, oh man, that workout was torment.
But that's like a figure of speech.
We don't mean that we're being tormented.
We mean that we're, it's actually a good thing exercising

(02:11:51):
our bodies and our muscles, and it's actually making us
healthier, making us better. Even if it hurts, it's actually
a good thing. It's not real actual torment.
OK, Well, that God is not torturing us.
It's not torturing us. They might feel like torture
going to the gym and, and, and and working out, but when God is
purifying us and making us holy and sanctifying us, that's
actually and, and, and St. Pope Benedict the 16th even said

(02:12:12):
that the purgatory process couldbe happy.
You could be a happy 1. You could actually be joy joyful
being in purgatory or not being in purgatory, undergoing the
purgatory process. You can be joyful and you can
act and it can happen in the twinkling of an eye.
So does that put to bed the the right hand thief and concept?
Because it's not. Let's talk about the deep on the
cross. Check this out Twinkling.

(02:12:34):
This is something that a lot of people don't realize either
about the thief on the cross. So when Jesus said to the thief,
OK, this is a lot of people don't don't realize this.
And when he said to the thief, he said today I say to you, or
even if he said I say to you today you will be in paradise.
Check this out Is paradise heaven?

(02:12:59):
We believe that we first go to paradise and Haides first, and
then later at the judgement day we all go to heaven together.
All hell, right? Perfect.
So check this out. So we actually know what, what
paradise was understood as you know, in the tradition by the by
the church fathers. And when they said paradise, you
guys have heard of like Abraham's bosom, right?

(02:13:20):
You guys know that language, Abraham's bosom.
So paradise or Abraham's bosom or the limbo of the fathers was
the holding place where all of the Old Testament Saints or the
righteous people where they werebefore Jesus Christ died on the
cross. And then when you go to First
Peter, First Peter Chapter 3, heexplicitly tells us that on on

(02:13:43):
Saturday, Holy Saturday or the heroin of hell, he descended
there into that place, right? I thought that was them into
others or? Abraham's Bosom.
Wasn't that no, I thought he descended into Hades, not
paradise. Right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he, he descended the Hades.
And first Peter tells us to preach to the souls that were
there in captivity and to liberate them, to take them into

(02:14:05):
heaven. So when Jesus said today you
will be with me in paradise, he,he wasn't talking about heaven
because heaven wasn't open untilafter the resurrection when
Jesus Christ rose from the dead.That was when heaven was
actually made open. So when he said today, Good
Friday, you'll be with me in paradise, We know he wasn't
talking about heaven yet. Because the following day, Holy
Saturday, Jesus went into, into Hades, into the place where

(02:14:29):
where like, you know, you know, Adam and Eve and Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob and King David and all those where they were
and he liberated them. It's called the harrowing of
hell. And then he took, and then they
were able to make it to heaven when Jesus rose from the dead on
Sunday. So when he was talking to the
thief on the cross, he was talking about Abraham's bosom.
And then Abraham's bosom. That is where the purification

(02:14:52):
process would have happened. And Jesus would have made them
all perfectly clean before he liberated them and sent them off
to heaven. So, so that right there, so that
right there is a very important distinction.
But here's the thing, even if the thief on the cross, right?
Let's say that it that Jesus wastalking about heaven explicitly

(02:15:12):
when he said paradise, he means heaven.
Because I understand that sometimes in the tradition, we
can call heaven paradise, right?Even if he was talking about
paradise, it's no problem for, for, for predation, because we
also know from the other things that Scripture says that nothing
unclean will enter heaven. So the thief on the cross, he
would have just had to have beenmade perfectly clean before

(02:15:33):
entering heaven. And if that happens post mortem,
that's what we refer to as purgatory.
So it's no no issue at all. OK.
I think that's very interesting.I mean, you've definitely opened
the discussion a lot. And I think it's great that we
have these kind of discussions because it's important, because
I do think there is a lot of common ground.
And sometimes there's a lot of misinterpretations.
Yeah, there's misinterpretationsof what you guys think and what

(02:15:55):
we think. And there is a lot of common
ground where both both can fit together.
Absolutely, absolutely. I, I think we just need to stop
talking over each other. And Catholics too, Catholics
need to actually listen to the concerns that the Orthodox have
because they're valid concerns. And all we got to do is listen
to what those concerns are and then give them the good news and
say, guess what, guys? Totally.
I'm, we're totally with you. We would be, we would be

(02:16:16):
concerned about that too. That's not what the doctrine is.
That's not what we teach. That's not what we believe.
Purgatory is not a place. It's not you don't get
tormented. You're not paying for your sins.
You're not, you're not, you're not paying the price for your
own salvation. Purgatory is only for those that
are saved and it's only for those that are in grace that are
in friendship with Jesus Christ.And it's just a process where he

(02:16:38):
makes us completely perfect because he says be perfect in
Matthew chapter 5 as your heavenly Father is perfect, He
makes us perfectly clean becauseRevelation 2127 says nothing
unclean can enter heaven before he he gets us in before we go to
heaven. Because Saint Paul says in the
2nd Corinthians 510, he describes it in first
Corinthians 311 through 15 and even in Matthew chapter 5.

(02:16:59):
Actually, there's an allusion tothis process that Jesus talks
about when you know when he saysyou will not, you will not be
let go until you've paid the last penny or paid the last
copper, right? He's talking about like he's
talking about the afterlife and he's saying that you have to pay
something before you can get released to go and, and to be
with like in heaven is what he'sbasically saying.
So we have it in the tradition. So it's there.

(02:17:21):
So we don't have to worry about it.
We don't have to say that it's unbiblical.
And and we can say that Pope Shinoda, his concerns were good
valued concerns and he should have been, he should have been
concerned about those things. And thank God that he was.
But thank God that that's not what the Catholic teaching of
purgatory is, so we don't have to worry about it at all.
And remember, purgatory is only because of Jesus Christ.

(02:17:42):
He is the one that saves us. He is the one that purifies us.
We can't do it ourselves. We can't do it ourselves.
However, the prayers of our loved ones, which is why we all
pray for the dead, for our deceased loved ones.
Those prayers for our loved ones, like I've read in the
quotes from the Church Fathers, actually are able to aid us and
help us to be made perfectly clean and to be able to have a

(02:18:04):
greater experience of heaven. Well, thank you so much for
that. That was incredible.
Oh, thank you, guys. These are great questions.
Thank you. Great questions.
Speaking of questions, we you'vemade it this far to our final
question. It's a question we ask all of
our guests and can't wait to hear your answer.

(02:18:24):
The question is, Alex, what doesit mean to be the salt of the
earth in today's world? Oh my God, being the salt of the
earth means that you love Jesus Christ and you love the
Christian faith, and you love his church more than anything
else in the world, more than anything else in the world.
And that you you're so radically, madly, deeply,
passionately in love that you goout into the world and you show

(02:18:48):
that love to everyone by loving them and by serving them and by
letting the whole world know that God exists.
Jesus Christ is God, his church is of is visible.
And we can be in full communion with with Jesus of Nazareth, who
is God being united to him in his church.
And that salvation is for is foranyone that wants it.

(02:19:10):
It's there for for all of us. And that you can actually live
out the gospel message in the world and you can transform the
world just by living your faith out radically.
Because think about if there wasno Christians in the world, man,
the world would be such a boringplace.
It would be so boring and it would be so like depressing and
it would be so evil. And it would be so like just
full of just gloom. And it would, you know, but when

(02:19:32):
with us in the world, this amazing message that God came
down to visit us and God came down to save us, we go out into
the world and we just share thatwith everybody radically with
love, man. That's that's how the world gets
salty. Thank you so much Alex.
Honestly, you definitely live upto your name voice of reason

(02:19:53):
you, you're fantastic. Lovely meeting you.
Such a lovely guy can definitelysee Christ in you.
We pray for your ministry, pray for your service.
Please pray for us also that Godkeeps us on track and and pray
that we can get more amazing guests like yous to to spread to
our community and to our audiences.
Guys, I appreciate you guys so much, not only having me on but
hearing me yap so much. Trust me.

(02:20:15):
I know I know that I talk so much and it's so weird and you
guys Oh my gosh, when will this guy just stop talking?
Let me tell you this for you guys enduring this, this this is
this reduces your. Time and territory you.
Guys, you guys, you know, you, you guys have undergone a great
penance right now. Listen to me behave so much that
when you you know that this is cutting down on that on that

(02:20:36):
process for for all of us. Hopefully, you know, you know,
God, God is seeing this right now.
Like, oh, man, these poor two guys over here where, you know,
they're definitely, you know. God's blessed you with a lot of
wisdom. Process is getting reduced, you
know. God's bless you with a lot of
wisdom, and we're so glad that we got to learn from you.
And God willing, we'll do that. Do it again, especially in
person. I can't wait for you to visit
us. Yes, I cannot wait.

(02:20:57):
I cannot wait. You guys are awesome.
Keep up the amazing work that you guys are doing.
I'm always here to support you guys and to cheer you guys on
and if there's anything else that I can do to help you guys,
I'll talk to George and I'll lethim know.
I'll talk to George Jenko and let him know that you guys are
doing great things and that thatyou know that he would have a
lot of fun talking to you guys. I'll talk to who else did we
say? Lila Rose.

(02:21:19):
I'd love to. Like the Rose, she's amazing.
Talk to Like the Rose and. Let's not forget Jonathan as
well, yeah? We name Jonathan, OH.
Jonathan. OK, yeah, we got up Jonathan on
Did I blow your Did I blow your minds when I told you that
Jonathan is the one behind rootsof.
Order on that is. That's a full circle moment and
it's still it's still blowing onwines.
Yeah, that's Jonathan. You can, you can actually go to
Roots of Orthodoxy's YouTube channel where he does his face

(02:21:41):
review and he's, oh, yeah, I'm voice of reasons producer.
I started this channel. Here's why.
And it's it's there. It's on the page.
So that's basically like my content, you know?
Well, definitely. Actually, my content is his
content. And he runs the whole show, man.
He runs the whole show. Yeah.
I'll get you in contact with Jonathan.
Jonathan would love to talk to you guys.

(02:22:03):
You know, did you guys see my the conversation that I had with
Father, Father Lazarus? We we had Father Lazarus.
Actually, last week we had. Him last week.
Yeah, so his episode's going to come out very soon.
He's unbelievable. He.
Unbelievable. He is amazing.
If you guys haven't checked out the the interview that I had
with him on my YouTube channel, Oh my goodness.
And Jonathan too. He Jonathan interviewed him as

(02:22:23):
well. You know, it's just he's
incredible. He's incredible.
I'm actually going to see him atthe end of this month.
We're going to be doing something where you guys are
going to get one more exclusive.No one, no one knows this, but
you guys are my boys. I love you guys.
You guys get, you guys are the first ones to hear this.
We are doing a huge collaboration.

(02:22:45):
It's going to be me, Father Lazarus, an amazing priest,
Father Ambrose, a Catholic priest.
It's going to be a few Eastern Orthodox priests, one more
Oriental Orthodox priests, and Sarah from Hamilton, a great
Eastern Orthodox theologian. We're all coming together.
It's going to be like 8 of us. And we're all coming together to

(02:23:06):
do like this huge big podcast. And we're all going to be
talking together in person in California.
And it's going to be huge. It's going to be huge.
So you guys are the first ones to to find out about this.
No one else knows. That's amazing.
The everyone likes to open up inthe in the studio.
We have the exclusives beautifulnow we can't we look forward to

(02:23:27):
hearing it. Absolutely man.
And we'll definitely definitely keep in contact about everything
else. Thank you once again for all the
knowledge you've given us today,Alex and I hope our viewers can
take something from this podcastjust as we have.
Thank. You, God bless you.
God bless you guys. Pray for me and I'm praying for
you guys. God bless you all, absolutely.

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EP 7 | Alex Jurado AKA Voice of Reason: Faith, Fame, and Finding Truth in a World of Chaos

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}EP 7 | Alex Jurado AKA Voice of Reason: Faith, Fame, and Finding Truth in a World of Chaos