Inside the Dominican Tradition: Faith, Rosary, and Spiritual Wisdom

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
Is watching porn a mortal sin?

SPEAKER_02 (00:02):
It is.
Any act that can't be like ameans or a way or a path to God
as our final end and heaven asour final end, those acts are
gonna be mortal sins.

SPEAKER_00 (00:10):
Tell me a little about what you're wearing today.
Is it Dior?

SPEAKER_02 (00:15):
Yeah, it is not.
It is not Dior, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (00:18):
Did you know that Chanel, she was raised by
Catholic nuns and was inspiredby Catholic tradition?

SPEAKER_02 (00:25):
Wow, I

SPEAKER_00 (00:25):
had no idea.
So maybe it's Chanel and notDior.

SPEAKER_02 (00:28):
Certainly the rosary is one of the most powerful
weapons in the toolkit ofsomeone engaged in spiritual
warfare.

SPEAKER_00 (00:35):
I also read that it's the most powerful prayer
for peace.

SPEAKER_02 (00:39):
Absolutely.
It makes sense that those twothings would come together.

SPEAKER_00 (00:44):
We're here today at Rome Reports with Father Philip
Neri.
Thank you, Father, for coming tointerview with us.

SPEAKER_02 (00:51):
My pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 (00:52):
So tell me a little bit about the Dominican
tradition and background.

SPEAKER_02 (00:55):
Sure.
So the Dominican order wasfounded by St.
Dominic at roughly the same timeas the Franciscans.
So both the Dominicans and theFranciscans, both St.
Dominic and St.
Francis, were...
saints that the Holy Spiritreally raised up and inspired in
the church at a kind of criticalmoment in the life of the

(01:16):
church.
So there's a very famous storythat the Holy Father at the time
had a dream where the church wasliterally falling apart, you
know, a physical church wasfalling apart, and he saw two
men come up and hold the churchup and keep it from collapsing.

(01:36):
And then lo and behold, the verynext day, according to the
story, he sees two men come intoRome, St.
Dominic and St.
Francis, both of whom had cometo Rome because they were hoping
that the Holy Father wouldapprove of these two new
religious orders, the Dominicansand the Franciscans.
So the Dominican traditionstarts with St.

(01:59):
Dominic and then moves forwardwere called the order of
preachers.
And so from the very beginning,St.
Dominic wanted there to be anorder in the church that was
dedicated entirely to thepreaching of the gospel.
And for St.
Dominic, he had this intuitionthat if you want to preach the
gospel well, you have to be ableto preach the gospel in an

(02:24):
articulate and educated way.
You have to be able not just totell people what is true, but
also explain why it's true andwhy the truth will set you free.
And so from the very beginningof the order, the Dominicans
have always been associated withlearning and study and teaching
as well as preaching because wesee them as one and the same

(02:44):
thing.
So St.
Thomas Aquinas is one of thegreat Dominican saints, St.
Catherine of Siena, both of whomare excellent examples of people
whose work of preaching the goodnews of the faith was deeply
tied to a very intelligent andarticulate expression of the

(03:05):
faith.

SPEAKER_00 (03:06):
So it feels like the Dominicans are pretty
intellectual, education-orientedorder, correct?

SPEAKER_02 (03:13):
Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (03:14):
Tell me how that's different from the Jesuits.

SPEAKER_02 (03:18):
Yeah, great.
So it's a very good question.
So both the Jesuits and theDominicans have a really rich
tradition of being dedicated tolearning, education, higher
education.
This might be a little bitunfair, but I can be biased
because I'm a Dominican.
So in general, I would say thatthe Jesuit tradition of

(03:42):
education is more focused onadministration, right?
So the Jesuits are much morefamous for running schools, both
at the high school level and atthe college and university
level.
Whereas Dominicans, ourdedication to the intellectual
tradition is much more focusedon the act of teaching because

(04:05):
the act of teaching is a lotcloser to the act of preaching,
right?
Whereas, you know,administration is a way of
sharing sharing in the work ofpreaching the gospel, but it's a
little bit more distant, right?
So Dominicans have always beenmore inclined to be professors

(04:25):
and lecturers and teachers in aneducational context than to be
doing the nitty-gritty ofrunning schools.

SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
Got it.
Okay, so people don't know that.
Okay, so give me one word.
Okay, Jesuits areadministrators, Dominicans are
teachers, legionaries are...

SPEAKER_02 (04:44):
Legionaries are much closer to the Jesuit tradition,
and not just in an educationalcapacity, but really a huge
amount of their structure, theirspirituality, their entire
approach is really shaped andmolded by the Jesuits, whereas
the Dominicans are much more inline with a kind of older and

(05:07):
more classical approach toreligious life within the
church.

SPEAKER_00 (05:10):
How about Franciscans?

SPEAKER_02 (05:12):
So Franciscans...
Dominicans and Carmelites areusually grouped together as the
three great examples of what arecalled the mendicant orders.
So you can kind of think of itlike this.
So religious life within thechurch is on a spectrum.
And so on one end of thespectrum, you have the monks.
So they enter the monastery.

(05:34):
They're dedicated almostentirely to the life of prayer
and contemplation.
And they might do some activeapostolic work but that's the
exception rather than the ruleon the other end of the spectrum
you have orders like the Jesuitsand and a lot of the more modern
orders where they they keep adedication to to the life of

(05:57):
prayer but the focus of theorder is much more on active
apostolic work and then Again,I'm biased, so I'm going to say
the virtuous middle between thetwo is the mendicant orders,
where you have the ideal, atleast, is a balance between the

(06:18):
active life and thecontemplative life, the life of
prayer and the life of apostolicwork.
And so Franciscans, Dominicans,Carmelites are all right in that
kind of center position.

SPEAKER_00 (06:33):
Got it.
Okay.
So tell me a little about whatyou're wearing today.

SPEAKER_02 (06:37):
Sure.
So that actually flows

SPEAKER_00 (06:40):
right in.

SPEAKER_02 (06:41):
Is it Dior?
Yeah, it is not.
It is not Dior.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (06:45):
Though, though, did you know that most of the work
of Chanel origins, she wasraised by Catholic nuns and was
inspired by uh catholictradition well i had no idea
maybe it's chanel and not do youare

SPEAKER_02 (07:02):
yeah i mean uh so i should um i should put in a
phone call and see if

SPEAKER_00 (07:06):
uh see if they want to chat okay perfect so tell me
what it's called and tell mewhat it symbolizes what it means
the whole thing

SPEAKER_02 (07:11):
absolutely so um so the the whole kind of get up is
called the habit uh and so umall of or most of the religious
orders that are older than theJesuits have a religious habit.
And each religious habit isunique to the given order.

(07:33):
So in a certain sense, you canread the different habits and
know exactly what religiousorder a given monk or mendicant
friar belongs to.
So if you see black and white,and especially, well, you can't
see it because I'm sitting, butwe wear on our left side a very
big, long rosary.

(07:54):
So if you see black Black,white, and a rosary.
Are you allowed to take it out?
I can pull it out, sure.
So here's my rosary.
Here's my rosary.
So there it is, yeah.
Yours is the little one.
Mine's a big one.
But they're the same thing.
So if you see black, white, anda rosary, that's a Dominican.
So typically, if you see Allblack, that's going to be a

(08:19):
Benedictine monk.
You can tell the differencebetween Cistercian monks,
Trappist monks, Franciscanfriars, Carmelites, all based on
what their habit is.
And there's a really beautifulspiritual and theological
meaning behind the habit, whichis that it's supposed to be a

(08:44):
sign to the entire world of thefact that this person is
consecrated to God and isdedicated to being a witness to
the new and resurrected lifethat all of us hope for.
So the idea is that when you seethis unusual set of clothing

(09:10):
walking around the streets ofRome, it's the very unusual
character of it or the veryunusual very sort of shocking
sign is supposed to remind usthat we're all living for not
for this life, but for a newlife, an eternal life, a
resurrected life in the world tocome.

SPEAKER_00 (09:31):
When I first met you, this is not how you were
dressed, right?

SPEAKER_02 (09:35):
That's right.
I was just wearing the white,not the black.

SPEAKER_00 (09:37):
Why not?

SPEAKER_02 (09:38):
So the black is...
So now my answer is going to bemuch less theological and much
more practical.
The black is our raincoat.
So right now it's raining inRome.
And actually, so there's a funnything in England, both at Oxford
and at Cambridge, there arethree halls, right?

(10:03):
So there's...
and two in particular, one forthe Dominicans and one for the
Franciscans.
The Dominican one is calledBlack Friars Hall,

SPEAKER_00 (10:14):
and

SPEAKER_02 (10:15):
the Franciscan one is called Gray Friars Hall.
And the reason is because bothDominicans and Franciscans are
friars, right?
So we're not monks, but we looklike monks, and yet we're
nevertheless out in the world.
And in England, we're called theblack friars because since it's

(10:35):
always raining, we're alwayswearing the black.
And for the Franciscans, theircape, their raincoat, is gray.
And so because it's alwaysraining in England, the
Franciscans are all known as thegray friars.

SPEAKER_00 (10:50):
Even

SPEAKER_02 (10:50):
though kind of more often when you think of
Franciscans, you might think ofbrown.

SPEAKER_00 (10:54):
Yeah, I was thinking brown.

SPEAKER_02 (10:55):
Yeah.
So the Capuchin Franciscanfriars especially are known for
wearing brown.
And it's where the wordcappuccino comes from.
So a cappuccino is a littlecappuccino.
And they called it that becausethe color of the cappuccino is
the same as the color of thecappuccino fries.
I love that.

(11:15):
Yeah, it's cute.
But yeah, but that doesn't workin England because it's always
raining.
So they're always wearing theirraincoats.

SPEAKER_00 (11:20):
Makes sense.
A little anecdote.
Do you remember when we firstmet, I was going through some,
like, joint issues.
And you kind of helped me get adevotion to St.
Joseph.

SPEAKER_02 (11:36):
Oh, great.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (11:37):
Yeah.
I think he kind of, he kind ofgets shafted a little.

SPEAKER_02 (11:42):
He's an often forgotten saint.
He's an underappreciated saint.

SPEAKER_00 (11:46):
But I feel like he comes through.

SPEAKER_02 (11:48):
He absolutely

SPEAKER_00 (11:49):
does.
So I just wanted to tell youthat.
Oh, great.
I'm

SPEAKER_02 (11:52):
so glad the devotion has kept up.

SPEAKER_00 (11:54):
Yes, I do.
I'm like, everybody forgetsabout him.
It's always the Mary and Jesusshow, which for good reason.
He's got a really important

SPEAKER_02 (12:03):
place to

SPEAKER_00 (12:03):
play.
Yes, I've developed a bit of adevotion to Joseph because of

SPEAKER_02 (12:07):
you.
Oh, great.

SPEAKER_00 (12:08):
Okay, now I want you to tell us.
about the Dominican history andthe rosary.

SPEAKER_02 (12:14):
Yes, great.

SPEAKER_00 (12:16):
Let me get my rosary out just in case we have to do a
little.
Probably yours is a better showand tell, but.

SPEAKER_02 (12:21):
Yeah, at least a bigger one.
Yeah, okay, so tell me.
Although mine doesn't quitesparkle the way yours is.
You blessed this one for me.
Yeah, nice.

SPEAKER_00 (12:28):
Yeah, this is my blessed rosary from you.
Remember you did that wholeblessing at lunch?
Oh, yeah, yeah, great, uh-huh.
Okay, so tell me about, there'sa whole history behind the
Dominicans and St.
Thomas Aquinas.
is it or did saint dominic

SPEAKER_02 (12:44):
uh so so all of the above okay okay

SPEAKER_00 (12:47):
sorry i remember uh father thomas telling us the
story while we were there and ithought it was so interesting i
went to catholic school my wholelife including st louis
university for my doctoraldegree and i didn't know that
story and i'm like if i don'tknow that story The rest of the
world doesn't know that story sothey need to know and I thought
that was really interesting.
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (13:07):
Yeah, absolutely So so probably there's well not
probably certainly there there'sno religious order in in the
life of the Catholic ChurchThat's more closely connected
with the rosary You know, thethe Franciscans have the
stations of the cross theDominicans have have the rosary
as sort of forms of prayer thatare like our special gifts to

(13:30):
the church.
The church has this wonderfultreasure chest of all these
different kinds of methods ofprayer.
But the rosary really does holda very special and privileged
place among that treasury ofprayer.
And yeah, the Dominican order isthe order that has always been

(13:54):
the champions and the preachersand the protectors of the
rosary.
So historically, there's areally long history account of
how the rosary came to be and itdeveloped in little small stages
over hundreds and hundreds ofyears.

(14:16):
I'll give you just the shortversion.
So in the tradition of prayer ofthe various monastic orders, the
monks, right, like theBenedictines, there grew up this
tradition of praying the 150psalms every single week and

(14:39):
that that collection of prayingthe psalms and the arrangement
of praying the psalms is oftenreferred to as the psalter or
and then it became known as thedivine office so even to this
very day you know the if you goto a benedictine monastery and
join them for their communityprayers they will be chanting or

(15:00):
singing mainly the psalms andthe same thing is true for the
dominicans for the for thefranciscans and even down to you
know your every one of yourparish priests has what he calls
the breviary, which is kind ofthe priest's prayer book.
And it splits up the 150 psalms.
Now we do it over the course ofa month.

(15:22):
It used to be that they did all150 psalms in the course of a
week.
And the way that the monks weretrained to to pray the Psalms
was by memory.
So they memorized all 150 Psalmsand prayed 150 Psalms each week
by memory, which is a lot.

SPEAKER_00 (15:44):
It's

SPEAKER_02 (15:44):
a lot.
But it was much harder to dothat, to memorize the Psalms, if
you were illiterate if youweren't able to read and if you
were busy through most of theday.
And so it happened that therewere some monks were set aside

(16:06):
to spend most of their day doingwork and they tended to be the
ones who couldn't read or write.
And then other monks were themonks who were sort of dedicated
to being in the chapel prayingthe Psalms.
And so this custom developedamong the less literate monks

(16:28):
of, since they weren't in choirchanting the 150 psalms, what
they would start to do is theywould, on a given day, they
would pray 150 Hail Marys.

SPEAKER_00 (16:42):
Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_02 (16:42):
And that became, that kind of poor man's psalter
became the...
the backbone for the prayer thatbecame the rosary you know so um
so for for most of the historyof the rosary it's been um split
up into decades so you pray 10hail marys at a time so you've

(17:04):
got you see there right

SPEAKER_00 (17:06):
okay 10 hail mary's out of time wait we start out
with the

SPEAKER_02 (17:09):
Yes.

SPEAKER_00 (17:10):
Or should we go back to how

SPEAKER_02 (17:13):
you're doing it?
We'll focus on the core, whichis

SPEAKER_00 (17:16):
the Hail Marys.
Okay, the Hail Marys.
These are the 10 Hail Marys.
Yes.
10 Hail Marys.

SPEAKER_02 (17:20):
So the other stuff can kind of change depending on
which spiritual tradition you'retalking about.
But the things that are alwaysthere are the 10 Hail Marys.
Okay.
And you start, so you start withan Our Father.
Ten Hail Marys, and then a GloryBe to the Father, and to the
Son, and to the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 (17:36):
Glory Be, and then an Oh My Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 (17:39):
So in one spiritual tradition, you pray the Oh My
Jesus, right?
So because I'm a Dominican, wecarry on a much older tradition.
So there are extra prayers thatgot added on later in the
history, which are great.
They're beautiful prayers, butyou don't have to pray them.

SPEAKER_00 (17:57):
But wait, before we go on, Tell me about the story
about how Mary gave...
Yes.
Okay, you're going to go tothat.
Yes.
Okay, sorry.
Or am I jumping in?
No, no, you're doing great.

SPEAKER_02 (18:07):
Okay.
So the idea is this.
So you have this tradition ofreplacing...
the 150 Psalms with 150 HailMarys, right?
And then those 150 Hail Marysget broken up into what are
called decades, right?

SPEAKER_00 (18:26):
These are each decades.
These are each decades.
So

SPEAKER_02 (18:28):
this is a decade.
This is a decade.
So one set of 10 Hail Marys is adecade.
OK.
And then there became thistradition associating a decade
with a different mystery in thelife of our lord um and uh so
for ex and then you'd have whatyou've got here as what you

(18:52):
would consider to be a fullrosary right yes is a set of
five decades yes right

SPEAKER_00 (18:57):
so i feel like i feel i feel like because i like
color by numbers yeah i feellike there should have been one
of these, one of the Our Fathershere?

SPEAKER_02 (19:11):
Like a bead, yes.
Yeah, just...
Yeah.
Well, so then this might makeyou happy.
Okay, tell me.

SPEAKER_00 (19:19):
Originally, there was.

SPEAKER_02 (19:21):
Because that was a bead.

SPEAKER_00 (19:24):
Ah, okay, got it, okay.
I got it, okay.

SPEAKER_02 (19:28):
Yeah, so the idea was a set of five decades like
you've got there.

SPEAKER_00 (19:33):
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (19:34):
became associated with a set of mysteries in the
life of Jesus.
So you've got the joyfulmysteries, the sorrowful
mysteries, the gloriousmysteries.

SPEAKER_00 (19:41):
And the joyful mysteries are Mondays and
Wednesdays.
Sorrowfuls are Tuesdays andFridays.
and Luminous are Thursdays, andLuminous was just added.

SPEAKER_02 (19:50):
Yeah, Luminous was just recently added.
Do you like that?
I think they're beautifulmysteries to pray.
Just for the moment, let's focuson the three kind of older sets.
Because if each set, so like theJoyful Mysteries is five

(20:10):
decades, that's 50 Hail Marys,right?

SPEAKER_00 (20:13):
Sure.

SPEAKER_02 (20:14):
And so if you do the Joyful Mysteries, the Sorrowful
and the Glorious, so all threesets of mysteries, you've done
150 Hail Marys.
And that's the 150 Psalms.

SPEAKER_00 (20:31):
Oh,

SPEAKER_02 (20:32):
wow.
So that's the correspondence.
And so there's this verybeautiful custom of referring to
the rosary as Mary's Psalter,Mary's Book of Psalms, right?
So if you pray the joyful, thesorrowful, and the glorious
mysteries together, then you'veprayed a Hail Mary for every

(20:52):
single one of the Psalms.
And that's how the rosaryinitially developed.
And then in the

SPEAKER_00 (21:00):
course of...

SPEAKER_02 (21:02):
That's four rosaries a day.
Yeah, that's a lot of praying,you know.
But in the course of the...
Four or three?
Three.
Three.
Yeah, three sets of mysteries.
Oh, okay, three sets ofmysteries.
If you were to do all four, ifyou were to add in the luminous,
then you'd do 200 Hail Marys.

SPEAKER_00 (21:20):
Okay, that's a lot.
So that's

SPEAKER_02 (21:21):
like going over and above.
Okay.
Right.
But so in the midst...
But the development, you know,from...
from monks working in the fieldsjust praying 150 Hail Marys as
they work to the rosary as wehave it now, there was a really
long history of development.

(21:42):
And in the midst of that historyof development, the Dominican
order played a really importantrole of preaching it and
popularizing it and encouragingpeople to pray the rosary as it
was developing.
And so as you mentioned earlier,part of that comes from a number

(22:04):
of different stories where ourlord or our lady would appear to
different dominican saints so uhand and give the rosary to the
dominican saints and

SPEAKER_01 (22:16):
encourage them

SPEAKER_02 (22:18):
um well so in the vision right so so i i think the
the story that you were

SPEAKER_00 (22:23):
really sorry i'm asking basic questions right now
but i think people want to know

SPEAKER_02 (22:27):
yeah so uh so there's so there's one story
where um where St.
Dominic saw Our Lady appear tohim, and she gives him a set of
beads, very similar to the onethat you're holding, right?
And he's, You know, Dominicstands in this tradition of the

(22:51):
development of the rosary as wehave it now.
But so Our Lady gives him a setof beads in the vision and then
encourages him to preach that bypraying these Hail Marys, by
praying Our Lady's Psalter,people will be able to grow

(23:12):
closer to the Lord.
There's a similar story aboutSt.
Catherine of Siena where she hasa vision where it's not just Our
Lady, but Our Lady holding theinfant Jesus and she sees
Dominic there as well.
And so Our Lady hands a rosaryto Dominic and the baby Jesus
hands a rosary to Catherine.

(23:33):
And so you'll often find thatpainted uh so you can find lots
and lots and lots of reallybeautiful paintings of the
rosary being given both to saintdominic and to saint catherine
uh that comes from this storyfrom from catherine's life so um
so you know clearly our ladywanted um clearly wanted the the

(23:56):
dominicans to to be promotingthe rosary and we

SPEAKER_00 (24:01):
have

SPEAKER_02 (24:01):
um ever ever since

SPEAKER_00 (24:03):
i say the rosary like Three times a week.

SPEAKER_02 (24:06):
That's great, yeah.
Dominicans, so in the order, atleast for the friars, every
Dominican friar prays it once aday.

SPEAKER_00 (24:16):
All of the

SPEAKER_02 (24:18):
mysteries?
One set of mysteries.
And some places you'll go andthey'll pray it in common.
So they'll be in the church andthey'll pray it.
Other places we do it inprivate, but the Dominicans
actually have a slightlydifferent way of praying the
rosary.
The Our Father, the Ten HailMarys, and the Glory Be is the
same, but some of the otherprayers are a little bit

(24:41):
different from the way that mostpeople pray the rosary because
the little prayers that we haveadded make it um

SPEAKER_00 (24:50):
the dominicans have added

SPEAKER_02 (24:51):
uh-huh um

SPEAKER_00 (24:52):
so what's the approved vatican

SPEAKER_02 (24:54):
there is there is no single right way to pray the
rosary

SPEAKER_00 (24:58):
can you do the rosary without the mysteries

SPEAKER_02 (25:00):
you can

SPEAKER_00 (25:00):
And what's that called?

SPEAKER_02 (25:02):
Just the rosary.

SPEAKER_00 (25:03):
Not the prayer to Fatima?
No.

SPEAKER_02 (25:05):
Yep.
So there's the prayer to Fatimathat a lot of people will add,
right, to the rosary.
But look, so let me tell you astory.
Okay.
So there's a beautiful storyabout Blessed Jordan of Saxony,
who was the successor to St.
Dominic, so the second leader ofthe Dominican order.
And there were two Dominicannovices, so two Dominicans who

(25:27):
were in their first year ofDominican formation.
And they were having a debateabout what the best kind of
prayer is.
And so one of these novices wasreally kind of in favor of a way
of praying that's associatedwith the older religious orders,
the monks, called Lectio Divina,or a kind of prayerful reading

(25:50):
of scripture.
The other novice was really abig supporter of this idea this
beautiful way of praying thatdeveloped in the Middle Ages
that was called the visitationof the altars.
So you'd have in a church, solike in a Dominican church,
you'd have kind of the main highaltar, but then you'd have lots

(26:13):
of little side altars all aroundthe church and they'd be
dedicated to different saints.
And so there was this practicethat developed of going and
spending just a few minutes infront of each one of those side
altars and having a little bitof kind of me time with that
particular saint.
And so one of them thought thiswas the visitation of the altars

(26:36):
was the best kind of prayer.
One of them thought LectioDivina was the best kind of
prayer.
So Blessed Jordan arrived rightin the middle of this debate,
and so they asked him, you know,will you be the judge?
So Blessed Jordan arrives rightin the middle of this debate.
And so they look to him and theyask him to be the judge.

(26:59):
So tell us what the best kind ofprayer is.
And you can sort of hear himkind of facepalming.
But his answer is verybeautiful.
His answer is, brother, thatprayer is best, which makes you
love God most.

SPEAKER_00 (27:17):
Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 (27:17):
That prayer is best, which makes you

SPEAKER_00 (27:19):
love God most.
So whatever works for you.

SPEAKER_02 (27:20):
Yeah, so, you know, all of the different kinds of
prayer within the church are,they're treasures, right?
But some people, you know, look,you might like emeralds and I
might like diamonds and that'sfine, right?
You can like emeralds and I canlike diamonds, right?
So, I mean, for some people, therosary doesn't move them at all,

(27:45):
right?

SPEAKER_00 (27:46):
Oh, it totally moves me.
It calms me down.

SPEAKER_02 (27:48):
Yes.
For many, many, many Catholicsacross hundreds and hundreds of
years, the rosary is somethingthat we find deeply moving,
deeply powerful, deeplyspiritually enriching.
But there are different ways topray the rosary itself.
And so I think Blessed Jordan'srule of thumb is very helpful

(28:09):
here as well.
that way of praying the rosaryis best, which makes you love
God most.
So if you like the fathom ofprayer, add it.

SPEAKER_00 (28:17):
Five more questions.

SPEAKER_02 (28:18):
Great, go

SPEAKER_00 (28:18):
for it.
Okay, so I thought, okay, sosometimes I do the rosary
without the mysteries, but thensomeone told me that the whole
point of doing the rosary was tomeditate on the mysteries
themselves.

SPEAKER_02 (28:35):
So, yeah, so that is strictly speaking not true.
So, yeah, so, yeah, yeah, you'refine.
And, you know, one way that wecan know that that's not
strictly true is because of whatwe just talked about, the very
history of the rosary, right?
So the rosary first developednot with mysteries, but as 150

(29:01):
Psalms correspond, or 150 HailMarys corresponding to the 150
Psalms.
So the first kind of way thatthe rosary developed was as a
way for people who don't haveall 150 Psalms memorized to sort
of share in the monastic prayerof the monks in the chapel,

(29:23):
right?
So if you can't be with themonks praying the 150 Psalms
each week, That's okay.
You can pray the 150 Hail Marys,and that's like your way of
participating or sharing intheir really rich life of
prayer.
Later on in the development ofthe Rosary, the different

(29:45):
mysteries of the life of Jesusget associated with sets of 10.
And that's great.
So if praying with the mysterieshelps you love God, then pray
the rosary with the mysteries.
If you want to pray withdifferent mysteries, that's
great too.
There's no official and so nocorrect versus incorrect way to

(30:11):
pray the rosary.

SPEAKER_00 (30:12):
Okay, how about speed?

SPEAKER_02 (30:16):
Uh-huh,

SPEAKER_00 (30:16):
yes.
Sometimes I'm like

UNKNOWN (00:00):
.

SPEAKER_00 (30:20):
That's

SPEAKER_02 (30:21):
what we call an Irish rosary.

SPEAKER_00 (30:22):
Okay.
Is that okay?

SPEAKER_02 (30:27):
Yes, it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 (30:27):
Because the Pope said, you're supposed to think
about the prayers and not rushthrough them.
I'm like, I screwed up again.

SPEAKER_02 (30:33):
No, so the important thing, and I think what the Holy
Father was really sort oftalking about there, is that
However it is that you want topray the rosary, you should do
it attentively.
So our Lord says in the gospelthat the way that the pagans

(30:54):
pray is with many words, justthinking that saying a whole
bunch of words will somehow makeprayer possible.
better.
And that's not true.
What makes prayer really richand life-giving is the

(31:16):
attentiveness of the mind thatwe bring to it.
But there are lots of differentways that you can be attentive
while praying the rosary.
So for some people, it'sespecially helpful to be
attentive to the very words ofthe Hail Mary or of the Our
Father that are being prayed,right?
For other people, it's helpfulto be attentive to the mystery

(31:39):
of the life of Jesus that'sbeing associated with the time
that you're spending prayingrosary.
praying those words, right?
So here's what you should avoid.
Avoid praying the rosary likeit's sort of something on your
checklist that you need to checkoff.
Because if you're approachingthe rosary as just something

(32:02):
that you need to get done, thenprobably you're not going to be
attentive to anything that'sspiritually life-giving.

SPEAKER_00 (32:11):
You know what, though?
I'll flip that a little bit.
Sure.
Sometimes I make it like that,like a checklist, and then as
soon as I start doing it, itcenters me down.

SPEAKER_02 (32:20):
Yes.

SPEAKER_00 (32:21):
You know what I mean?
Absolutely.
I'm like, I've got to do therosary.
I haven't done it in a few daysor a couple days.
I've got to do the rosary.
I've got to do the rosary.
It's my checklist.
And then I start doing therosary.
I'm like,

SPEAKER_02 (32:31):
ah.
Yeah.
No, absolutely.
Look, so there's an oldDominican who once gave me a
very helpful bit of advice.
Prayer is one of the few thingswhere the only thing we have
control over is the quantity,not the quality.
So sometimes we're sitting inprayer and it's just a dry

(32:51):
spell.
We don't have this really vividexperience of the Lord being
present to us or speaking to usin the words of the prayer.
revealing himself to us in themystery that we're meditating
on.
But what we can do is we can sitour butts down for 15 minutes

(33:19):
and we can pray the rosary,right?
And we can give him thatquantity of time and then just
ask the Lord, invite the Lord,right?
You say, Lord, This time ofpraying the rosary is your time
and whatever graces you want towork in my heart while I'm
praying, that's up to you.

(33:40):
But what I can give you is the50 Hail Marys, right?
And so I don't think there'sanything wrong with praying
faster or slower, right?
So just a little personal story.
So for me, sometimes the mostdifficult rosaries to pray are

(34:04):
rosaries that I pray when I'mvisiting Dominican nuns,
cloistered Dominican nuns,because many Dominican nuns will
pray the rosary very, veryslowly.

SPEAKER_00 (34:17):
I can't do it.

SPEAKER_02 (34:18):
And for me, that...
that slowness of the rosary isactually kind of distracting,
right?
I know.
So again, I think it comes downto this, I'll call it blessed
Jordan's rule, right?
So that way of praying therosary is best, which makes you
love God most.
So if praying the rosary veryslowly is distracting for you,

(34:41):
then don't pray the rosary veryslowly.
If praying the rosary reallyquickly is distracting you, then
don't pray the rosary veryquickly, right?
The right speed is the speedthat helps you be attentive to
the Lord and that helps you loveGod most.

SPEAKER_00 (35:00):
One of my non-Catholic friends said, you
should not do the rosary becauserepetitive prayers are like not
okay.
Right.
So tell me about what thatmeans.

SPEAKER_02 (35:12):
Yes.

SPEAKER_00 (35:13):
Because all the rosaries is a repetitive prayer.

SPEAKER_02 (35:15):
Right.
Yeah.
So it's an excellent question,and it's a very common objection
coming from Protestants.
In some respects, it's not avery serious objection because
it's an objection that you wouldonly raise if you didn't have

(35:37):
any concept of how Jews at thetime of Jesus prayed.
Because the prayer of the Jewishpeople, and so the prayer that
Jesus would have been trained topray in the period of what's
called the Second Temple period,involved a lot of memorized

(35:58):
prayer.
wrote repeated prayers.
So just from a kind ofhistorical standpoint, I think
in general, it's a good rule ofthumb to not criticize any kind
of prayer that Jesus would haveprayed.
And Jesus would have prayedrepetitive or memorized or wrote
prayers.

(36:20):
Now, like we talked aboutbefore, Jesus does criticize the
pagans for thinking that aprayer is better just because it
involves more words.
Oh, I see.
Yeah, that's definitely false.
And so we definitely should notthink that the rosary or a
litany or a novena orspontaneous kind of charismatic

(36:46):
prayer.
We shouldn't think that any ofthose kinds of prayers are...
better just because they involvemore words.

SPEAKER_00 (36:55):
What's your favorite prayer?

SPEAKER_02 (37:00):
Probably Lectio Divina, which is that kind of
prayerful monastic reading ofscripture.
But I also...
I also do love litanies,actually.
We have them on the app.
Yes.
Yeah, that's right.
And I should say that actuallymy favorite kind of prayer has
changed and shifted over thecourse of my life.

(37:24):
So there was a time in my lifewhere I found litanies very hard
to pray.
There was a time in my lifewhere I found the rosary very,
very hard to pray.
And so it's also true, I think,and very normal and very
natural, that the kind of prayerthat makes you love God most can

(37:49):
can shift as you change, right?
You know, the kind of prayerthat fits you best and that
helps you love God most at anygiven moment can be different.
So the most important thing forus is to always have the
commitment to the life of prayerand an openness to for the Holy

(38:14):
Spirit to kind of move us indifferent ways when it comes to
the sorts of prayers that wesay.

SPEAKER_00 (38:20):
Tell me, okay, so I heard a story about how the Hail
Mary prayer came to be.
I guess Elizabeth says, or wasit Elizabeth that started the
prayer?
There's quotes that were puttogether.
Yeah, exactly.
So the Hail Mary starts bydifferent quotes that were put
together.
That's right.
Explain those to me.

SPEAKER_02 (38:39):
The Hail Mary, in its earliest form, was only half
of what we call the Hail Mary.
Okay, so tell us about that.
So Hail Mary, full of grace, theLord is with thee.
Blessed art thou among women,and blessed is the fruit of thy
womb, Jesus, right?
So, you know, Holy Mary, Motherof God, pray for us sinners now
and at the hour of our death.
Amen, right?

(39:00):
So let's just focus on the firsthalf, right?
So Hail Mary, full of grace, theLord is with you, right?
That's a quote from theArchangel Gabriel, right?
Oh, I thought it was fromElizabeth.
So the next bit is fromElizabeth.
So you're not wrong, right?
You're just not quite right yet.
So, Hail Mary full of grace, theLord is with thee.
That's Gabriel at theAnnunciation.

(39:22):
Hail Mary full of grace, theLord is with thee.
Elizabeth, let's back up forpeople that

SPEAKER_00 (39:31):
don't know.
Elizabeth is Mary's cousin.
Is

SPEAKER_02 (39:36):
Mary's cousin, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 (39:37):
And they were pregnant at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 (39:39):
Yep.

SPEAKER_00 (39:40):
And when Mary went to go visit her, that's when she
said...

SPEAKER_02 (39:43):
Yes, she says...
So, so Elizabeth, she sees Maryand the moment she sees Mary
pregnant with the, with the LordJesus, the baby in her womb,
John the Baptist leaps for joy.
Right.
And so she says, you know, whois this that the mother of my
Lord should come to me?
Right.

(40:03):
And then, you know, blessed artthou among women and blessed is
the fruit of your womb.
Right?
So Elizabeth, so what you haveis the first half of the Hail
Mary, which is the older, theoldest sort of thing that we
would identify as the Hail Mary.
Itself is composed of these twoscriptural quotes, one from

(40:26):
Gabriel to Mary, and then theother from Elizabeth to Mary.

SPEAKER_00 (40:31):
And then how does the rest come about?

SPEAKER_02 (40:34):
So again, through the, the pious devotion of the
people who pray it, right?
So in the same way that youmentioned earlier that you like
the Fatima prayer, right?
And so what happened was peoplewho thought the Fatima prayer

(40:57):
was really beautiful would addit after a decade.
So you'd pray the Our Father,the 10 Hail Marys, the Glory Be.
And then they said, well, thisis a really beautiful prayer.
Let's add that on.
And so then it gets added on.
So then the second half of theHail Mary eventually got added
on as a beautiful bit of prayer.

SPEAKER_00 (41:19):
Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners

SPEAKER_02 (41:21):
now and at the hour of our death.

SPEAKER_00 (41:22):
Amen.
Do we know who added that?

SPEAKER_02 (41:24):
The person?
You know, I don't think there isany one identifiable person who
kind of composed that and addedit.

SPEAKER_00 (41:31):
But the first half is Gabriel and Elizabeth.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (41:34):
the first half is sort of scriptural quotes and
then with a few words here orthere kind of stitching them
together.

SPEAKER_00 (41:41):
I like it.
Our Father is from Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 (41:44):
That's exactly right.
That's the perfect prayer.
Beginning to end from Beginningto end.
Yeah, that's all our Lord.

SPEAKER_00 (41:50):
Okay, now I'm going to go over this with you really
quickly.
Without the mysteries.
Let's start.

SPEAKER_02 (41:57):
Well, so this is...
Sign of the cross.
Yeah, but so you're doing thedangerous thing, right?
Why?
Because, so I'm a Dominican.
So we pray it differently.
So I can tell you the way theDominican tradition starts.

SPEAKER_00 (42:13):
Okay, let's do it.
Okay, let's do the Dominicanverses real quick.

SPEAKER_02 (42:17):
So the beginning of the...
See, you didn't know what youwere in for, right?
I really did not.
Yeah, no.
No, it's great.
So the Dominican rosary startslike this.
Lord, open my lips, and my mouthwill proclaim your praise.

SPEAKER_00 (42:32):
Okay.

SPEAKER_02 (42:33):
That is the way that...
So when all the Dominicans orall the Franciscans or all the
Carmelites or any of the monksare gathered together in the
chapel to begin their very firsthour of prayer of the liturgy of
the hours, which is, remember,that's the psalms, right, where
we pray the 150 psalms.

(42:55):
The very first communal prayerwhere we chant the psalms each
day begins that way.
So, oh, Lord, open my lips andmy mouth will proclaim your
praise.

SPEAKER_00 (43:04):
Non-Dominicans is a sign of the cross.

SPEAKER_02 (43:06):
Non-Dominicans sign of the cross.
Okay.
Then the second thing that theDominicans do is, God, come to
my assistance.
Lord,

SPEAKER_00 (43:15):
make haste to help me.
Are we still here?

SPEAKER_02 (43:16):
I have no idea.
Okay.
Because it's different, right?
Okay, got it.
How many will we get here,though?
Yeah.
Well, so here's the thing.
So let me pull out mine, right?
So mine's really big, right?
And so you'll notice for the bitof rosary that I'm going to
grab, do I have any of that?

(43:39):
No, I just have the decades,right?
So I prayed my rosary on the buson the way here this morning.
So what did I do when I prayedthe rosary?
So I grabbed this bit.
And I started the way I justtold you.
Lord, open my lips and my mouthwill proclaim your praise.
God, come to my assistance.

(43:59):
Lord, make haste to help me.
Glory to the Father and to theSon and to the Holy Spirit, as
it was in the beginning, is nowand will be forever.
Amen.
Right.
And then I just start into themysteries.

SPEAKER_00 (44:09):
Ah, okay, so.

SPEAKER_02 (44:11):
So everything that you guys pray here, so in the
name of the Father and the Sonand the Holy Spirit, right?
Our Father.
Our Father.
Hail Mary, Hail Mary, Hail Mary,Hail Mary, right?
Our Father again.
And then Our Father again, orsome people will add the creed,
so the Apostles' Creed.
Apostles' Creed, of course.
And then, so all of that, thatkind of introductory, all of

(44:32):
those introductory prayers onkind of the normal rosary,
right, are replaced in

UNKNOWN (44:39):
you

SPEAKER_02 (44:39):
the Dominican Rosary, or maybe better is to
say that the Dominican Rosary issort of an older tradition.
But our introductory prayers areall ways of connecting the
Rosary to the chanting of thePsalms together in choir.

SPEAKER_00 (44:56):
Got it.
So you guys go right into the

SPEAKER_02 (44:59):
decades.
Yeah, after all of the beginningstuff.
And then we go into the decades.

SPEAKER_00 (45:04):
Got it.

SPEAKER_02 (45:04):
Okay.

SPEAKER_00 (45:06):
On the app, we have one version of the

SPEAKER_02 (45:09):
Rosary.
Which Which is the much morecommon standard version, right?
But maybe the listeners willthink it's kind of fun to
discover that there's adifferent way of praying the
rosary that can't be wrongbecause the Dominicans are the
order of the rosary, right?

SPEAKER_00 (45:28):
You know, I didn't do the rosary for a really long
time because I was too scared toscrew it up.

SPEAKER_02 (45:34):
You know, don't be afraid.
It's intimidating.
It is.
No, I remember...
When I was in high school, itwas the first time I'd ever gone
on anything like a kind ofreligious retreat.
I never went to Catholic schoolgrowing up.
Really?
And so when I didn't know how topray the rosary, right?

(45:58):
My family, we would pray gracebefore meals, but we never
prayed the rosary together as afamily.
And And in my own privateprayer, I just never learned it.
So for me, it's a very vividmemory of being as a high
schooler, being on this retreat,and somebody asking me.

(46:24):
We were all praying the rosarytogether, and I was just kind of
there along for the ride.
Going through the motions.
But the priest who was leadingit was just pointing to
different people to lead thedecades, right?
And so he- Very intimidating.
Yeah, so he pointed to me, and Iwas paralyzed, right?

(46:47):
And even though I'd beenlistening to other people kind
of leading it in the past, Icouldn't do it, right?
And it was extremelyembarrassing for me, right?
And so I...
So after that, I went and sortof learned how to pray the
rosary.

(47:08):
But yeah, it is not somethingthat we should assume that
everyone knows how to do.

SPEAKER_00 (47:14):
Yeah, I found it very intimidating in the
beginning.
And then I just kind of color bynumbers.

SPEAKER_02 (47:20):
Yeah, that's right.
And I mean, having a guide forhow to do it on an app is really
a very kind of gentle, welcomingpoint of entry.

SPEAKER_00 (47:31):
Is it okay for me just to, I have a narrator on
the app too, is it okay just toturn it on and listen?
Yeah, of course.
Okay, good.
I just wanted to make sure.
Sometimes I'm like, I'm notsaying it, but I'm listening.

SPEAKER_02 (47:44):
Yeah.
That is still praying.
That's still kind of activelyparticipating in the rosary.
And another thing that manypeople find very helpful is kind
of guided rosary meditations.
So there are lots of examplesthat you can find where people
will have composed or maybethey've cut and pasted from

(48:08):
scripture a little bit of text.
So after you announce themystery, so the the first joyful
mystery, the Annunciation, andthen you might have on some ways
of doing the Rosary a little bitlike a guided meditation on the
Annunciation and the way thatGabriel appears to Mary, what

(48:31):
that must have been like forMary.
Oh, okay, that's prettyinteresting.
And then they'll go into the OurFather and the Hail Marys.
And like we've been saying, noneof that is wrong, right?
You know, whatever is the bestand most helpful way to pray is
the way you should use.

SPEAKER_00 (48:48):
Who's your favorite saint and why?
Ooh,

SPEAKER_02 (48:51):
favorite saint.
Taffy.
So...
Setting aside Our Lady.
Okay, that's

SPEAKER_00 (48:59):
like numero uno.

SPEAKER_02 (49:01):
Yeah.
St.
Thomas Aquinas is the saint whois nearest and dearest to my
heart.
Why?
Because he was a man who washumble and pure and holy.
And totally dedicated to thetruth.

(49:26):
So St.
Thomas, maybe this is the bestway to kind of explain my love
for St.
Thomas.
So a lot of people find St.
Thomas hard to kind of fall inlove with because when you pick
up any of his writings, it'slike he's not there.
So his writings are very,they're very intellectual,

(49:49):
they're very intelligent,they're very well-reasoned, but
you don't get a sense of theperson.
Whereas when you pick up SaintAugustine, Saint Augustine, the
man is kind of jumping off everypage.
When you pick up SaintCatherine, Saint Catherine's
personality is just leaping outof her different writings.
Saint Therese of Lisieux, youget to know the person as soon

(50:12):
as you pick up their writings.
Saint Thomas?
Not like that at all, right?
But there's a really beautifulreflection that a 20th century
Dominican gave on St.
Thomas that meditates on exactlythat point in a beautiful way.
So he says that St.

(50:35):
Thomas is, in all of hiswritings, he's totally
transparent.
So you don't see him, you seethrough him to the truth.
So he's totally dedicated tocommunicating the truth of the
faith and the way that thattruth will save us and set us

(50:55):
free.
And so this Dominican, he said,so in that way, St.
Thomas is a lot like the pieceof glass that you so when you go
to eucharistic adoration the theblessed sacrament is put in
something called a monstrance soit's usually it's like a big
gold thing that holds up the theblessed sacrament and you and

(51:19):
you sit in or kneel right inadoration looking at at the lord
in the sacrament and you lookthrough straight through a piece
of transparent glass to look atthe Lord.
And he said, St.
Thomas is just like that.
His dedication to the truth andhis dedication to clear writing

(51:43):
about Jesus makes him like thatlittle bit of see-through glass
that you look through him toJesus.
And I think that's reallybeautiful.
And I hope that I can be likethat.

SPEAKER_00 (51:54):
You are.
Thank you.
But wait, and he's also thepatron saint of students and
teachers, right?
He is, yeah.
Is there another patronage hehas that I don't know about?

SPEAKER_02 (52:01):
So he's called the common doctor.
And so he's kind of theuniversal teacher for all
Catholics.
And yes, especially forstudents, but also for teachers.

SPEAKER_00 (52:11):
I want to talk to you a little bit about the
importance and the power of therosary, praying the rosary.
Great.
So I read that the rosary wasthe most powerful prayer against
evil.
Can you explain a little bitabout that?

SPEAKER_02 (52:29):
Sure.
I mean, so of course, you know,the most powerful name against
the evil one is the name of ourLord Jesus, right?
discussed a little bit, theRosary is fundamentally a prayer
about The mysteries that wemeditate on as we pray the

(52:52):
different decades of the Rosaryare mysteries that are focused
on the life and the work of theLord Jesus.
And there's no one who's morededicated and more focused on
Jesus than his mother.
And so our Lady's Rosary, ourLady's Prayer is dedicated.
by that very fact, first andforemost, a prayer focused on

(53:17):
Jesus.
And so the more centered onJesus something is, the more
powerful it's going to beagainst the evil one.
And so there's an incrediblyrich history and tradition of
the rosary as a weapon againstthe devil.
And in fact, this is a funlittle thing.

(53:39):
So you can't see it right now,but the Dominicans in our
religious habit, we all wearthat very big rosary, but we
wear it on our left side.
And there's a kind of spiritualsymbolism there because back in
the Middle Ages, soldiers andknights would wear the sword on

(54:03):
their left side.
And so for the Dominicans, we'vetraded a physical weapon of the
sword to a spiritual weapon,which is the rosary, but we wear
it in the same place.
And so it's a sign of the powerof the rosary as a weapon
against the devil and ultimatelya tool that we can use to
protect ourselves from hisinfluence in our lives.

SPEAKER_00 (54:27):
I heard that there's a priest in Texas that makes
rosaries out of bullets.
Really?
And puts it in this like giantcase and it's basically like
spiritual warfare.

SPEAKER_02 (54:40):
Yeah, I mean, well, certainly the rosary is one of
the most powerful weapons in thetoolkit of someone engaged in
spiritual warfare.

SPEAKER_00 (54:52):
I have, people give me, I'm in this field and
friends with a lot of priestsnow and they always give me
rosaries and blessed or iusually buy a beautiful rosary
but so i look at i have like acollection of rosaries right
next to my bed and i i swear itprotects me

SPEAKER_02 (55:08):
absolutely

SPEAKER_00 (55:09):
when people from downstairs are coming to visit
they see those rosaries and theybolt and i have a virgin mary
next to my bed too i heard thatthey can't stand to see her face

SPEAKER_02 (55:21):
Absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_00 (55:22):
Okay, now tell me, it's the most powerful prayer
against protection, but I alsoread that it's the most powerful
prayer for peace.

SPEAKER_02 (55:32):
Absolutely, yeah.
And it makes sense that thosetwo things would come together,
right?
Because what is, you know, ifyou think about the act of...
protection, right?
So when we protect ourselvesfrom the devil, what does that
do?
It saves our spiritual lives,right?

(55:54):
And so to be spiritually alive,to have sanctifying grace in
your soul is to be protectedfrom the devil, right?
And as long as you're protected,you have that sanctifying grace.
And then one of the very firsteffects of sanctifying grace in
the soul is the fruits of theHoly Spirit and what is one of

(56:17):
the first fruits of the HolySpirit, but the fruit of peace.
And so the more we arespiritually safe, the more
profoundly at peace we're goingto be.
And so it's not an accidentalconnection that a prayer that
powerfully protects us from thedevil is also going to be a

(56:39):
prayer that gives us a profoundsense of peace.

SPEAKER_00 (56:43):
Makes sense.
Tell me now, Father, about themiracles that are attributed to
the rosary.

SPEAKER_02 (56:51):
Yeah, I mean, so there are way too many for us to
talk completely about, but...

SPEAKER_00 (56:56):
Highlights.

SPEAKER_02 (56:57):
Okay, yeah.
So, I mean, let me start withone related to the last thing
that you just said, which is therosary as a prayer focused on
peace, right?
So...
I'll talk about not peace in anindividual soul, but peace in
the world.
So probably the event in worldhistory that the Rosary is most

(57:21):
commonly connected to is abattle, right?
The Battle of Lepanto.
So in 1571, the A huge Turkisharmy and navy encountered a much
smaller navy and army puttogether by the different

(57:46):
Christian countries in Europe.
we were so profoundlyoutnumbered that basically
everyone thought thatChristendom as a whole was
doomed.
And so the Pope at the time,Pope St.
Pius V, who, you know, we'rehere in Rome, so you can go to

(58:08):
Santa Maria Maggiore and you cansee him lying in state there.
But he had been, before he waselected Pope, he had been a
Dominican.
And, you know, being a goodDominican, he had fostered a
very deep devotion to theRosary.
And so in this moment of greatdistress and great need, the
Holy Father called on allChristians to pray the rosary

(58:32):
that the Christian army would beprotected from the invasion of
the Turks.
And so during the battle, Hepersonally was praying the
rosary the entire time and hecalled on all of the Christians
to pray the rosary and tocommend the peace and the safety

(58:56):
of the Christian world into thehands of Our Lady.
So the Holy Father calls on allChristians to pray the rosary
and he does it himselfpersonally, right?
So during the Battle of Lepanto,Pope St.
Pius V is praying the rosary.

(59:17):
He has all the Christiansthroughout Europe praying the
rosary.
And lo and behold, despite thefact that the Christian navy and
the Christian army is completelyoutnumbered, they're able to win
the Battle of Lepanto.
And historians really do saythat in many respects that one
battle kept Lepanto EuropeChristian and kept the Christian

(59:44):
faith alive in the West.
And there was no question inanyone's mind that this victory
was won through the intercessionof Our Lady, right?
And so in many respects, you canthink of the Battle of Lepanto
as a a modern version of any ofthe battles that you would read

(01:00:05):
about in the Old Testament whereGod is directly intervening to
save the Israelites who arecompletely outnumbered by their
enemies.
This is something that God lovesto do.
The Lord loves to pick theunderdog and then bring
protection so that they can wina victory.
And what God loves?

(01:00:26):
Our Lady loves.
And so Our Lady through thepower of the Most Holy Rosary
brings about this great victoryfor the underdog and really
saved us.
And so the The date of theBattle of Lepanto, it turns out,
is a date that we celebrateevery single year because after

(01:00:47):
our victory, Pope St.
Pius V made that the Feast ofOur Lady of the Rosary.

SPEAKER_00 (01:00:52):
Oh, I love that.
Okay, great.
Any other miracles that youknow?

SPEAKER_02 (01:00:56):
I could, I mean, so you can look to...
Almost all of the individualparticular miracles of healing
that are associated with theShrine of Our Lady of Lourdes
are also miracles of the MostHoly Rosary because what did Our

(01:01:19):
Lady in the vision at Lourdesrecommend that all Christians do
and pray?
The Rosary.
And

SPEAKER_00 (01:01:25):
I actually started praying the Rosary after, I mean
more, When I went to Magigoreand the visionaries, they were
telling the story of thevisionaries, and the visionaries
said one of the messages thatour mother gave us was that we
should pray the rosary.
And so ever since then, I'vebeen really actually trying to

(01:01:47):
pray the rosary.
I do it probably about threetimes a week.
Sometimes I do it every day.
Yeah, great.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (01:01:52):
I mean, this is a consistent theme, right?
So when Our Lady appears tovisionaries, she's constantly
promoting the Holy Rosary andasking them to promote the Holy
Rosary.
There's, all right, have youheard of Blessed Bartolo Longo?

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:13):
No.

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:14):
Okay, so I have a funny feeling this is one you're
going to like, and maybe italmost certainly is not going to
be one that the people who watchyour interviews will be familiar
with.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:27):
It's sad what gets me excited these days.
I'm so excited to hear aboutBartolo Longo.
Yeah, exactly, right?

SPEAKER_02 (01:02:35):
So Blessed Bartolo Longo was a...
an Italian layman who lived inthe middle to the end of the
19th century, so like the late1800s.
And that was a time in Italy'shistory where there were a huge

(01:02:55):
number of changes going on,right?
So Italian unification had justhappened and one of the And so
there was a lot of tension, letme put it that way, between the
Italian state, which was verysecular and kind of
nationalistic, and the CatholicChurch.
So many people in Italy at thetime sort of viewed the Catholic

(01:03:18):
Church as belonging to the pastand a kind of secular Italian
identity as the way in thefuture.
But something that a lot ofpeople don't know about Italian
culture during that time is thatthere was also a rise of
spiritualism, paganism, and evenexplicit Satanism during that

(01:03:44):
time.
And so Bartolo Longo was a youngman who was studying law.
And eventually he became alawyer, but he was also caught
up in this movement of youngItalians to turn away from
Catholicism and embraceCatholicism.

(01:04:06):
paganism, spiritualism, andexplicit Satanism.
And so Bartolo Longo wasordained, if you can call it
that way, a satanic priest.
And this should not surpriseyou, but Pretty soon afterwards,
he became racked with anxiety,racked with depression, racked

(01:04:31):
with suicidal thoughts.
And he just, he knew that hewasn't, if he kept going along
this path, he wasn't going tosurvive.
But he didn't know what-

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:41):
Wouldn't he be rewarded temporarily, at least,
if he was a satanic priest?

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:46):
You mean by the devil?

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:47):
Yes.
You know, like you would thinkthere's like a window of like
all good things happening.
happening and then it all goesbad.
That's kind of my...

SPEAKER_02 (01:04:55):
Yeah, I mean, and to some extent, you know, I think
you could say that he was,right?
You know, he was by, in worldlystandards, he was a successful
man.
He was a successful lawyer.
He was, you know, he waswell-respected by his peers, you
know, but...
his interior life was a mess,right?
And so he reached out to afriend who, just to ask for

(01:05:20):
advice, for help, and His friendrecommended that even though the
Catholic Church is kind ofbackwards and not the way
forward, well, there's this goodDominican priest that I know.
Maybe you should have aconversation with him.
And so it was by talking to thisCatholic priest that Bartolo

(01:05:45):
Longo was persuaded to he wasconvinced that it was, the root
of the problems in his life washis satanic practice and these
sort of spiritual practices.
And the solution and the pathtowards interior peace, like we

(01:06:07):
talked about before, was tofoster a devotion to Our Lady
and to begin praying her rosary.
And so Bartolo Longo takes theadvice.
So he returns to the Catholicfaith.
He falls in love with Our Lady.
Lady and her rosary and it'sthrough praying the rosary that

(01:06:31):
his life is completely convertedand he begins to find that
interior peace that had hadeluded him so much before and so
he ends up moving to the city ofPompeii to practice law.
And there, he begins reallyactively working to promote the

(01:06:55):
rosary and to promote catechesisamong the Italian people there
in the city of Pompeii becausehe finds that these people, they
don't even know the basics ofthe faith, right?
So he asks an older gentleman,How many gods are there?

(01:07:16):
And the older gentleman says,well, when I was a boy, I think
I remember being taught thatthere were three.
Recently, I've only really heardpeople talking about one.
So maybe I guess one of theothers died or got married.
And Bartolo Longo is losing hismind, right?

(01:07:36):
Because it's clear that thelevel of catechesis, the level
of understanding of the faithwas just zero there.
And the people of Pompeii were,any time that they had a
problem, they were seeking outthe interventions of a witch.
So he begins preaching therosary, teaching the faith, and

(01:07:59):
he creates a shrine to Our Ladyin Pompeii, and he's given an
image that has become now knownas Our Lady of Pompeii, but it's
also an image, like we talkedabout before, of...

(01:08:21):
Our Lady giving the rosary toSt.
Dominic and Our Lord, you know,the infant Jesus in Our Lady's
arms giving the rosary to St.
Catherine.
And the number of personalmiracles of healing, miracles of
conversion, miracles of atransformed life that have come

(01:08:41):
through devotion to the image ofOur Lady of Pompeii and devotion
to the Holy Rosary and prayingthe Holy Rosary because of that
shrine that Bartolo Longocreated.
I mean, it's countless miracles,countless conversions.

SPEAKER_00 (01:08:59):
You don't think I'm going next week?

SPEAKER_02 (01:09:01):
Are you going?
I'm going to go.
You're going?
Oh, I'm going to go now.
Yes.
No, you absolutely should.
Yeah.
He's an incredible blessed inthe church that almost no one
knows about.
I

SPEAKER_00 (01:09:13):
know for me, the Rosary is a really powerful tool
because I'm just like naturallyan anxious person.
And I feel like with age, all ofour like issues just get a
little more amplified i don'tknow you can't really relate
you're younger than i am butwell i'm not i'm not that young
yeah but you know what i'mtalking about like more of you
comes out as you get older andi'm like getting more and more

(01:09:34):
anxious as the years go by butlike seeing the rosary for me
has been just a powerful toolbecause it like calms me down
sometimes when i have insomniaat night i'll start saying the
rosary and I'm like an OCDperson too, and I'll start
almost instantly falling asleep,and then I make myself get up.

(01:09:54):
That's the OCD in me.
Finish the rosary, and then I'mlike, just go to bed.
And for me, it's been like areal calming experience.

SPEAKER_02 (01:10:03):
Yeah.
I think there are an enormousnumber of people, myself
included, who have exactly thesame experience with the rosary.
And I think there are a numberof things about the rosary that
really help and contribute tomaking it such a great tool to

(01:10:23):
overcome anxiety and to find areal deep sense of peace.
One that comes to mind is justthat all of the central prayers
involved, they're totallyfamiliar to us.
The Our Father, we know it.
The Hail Mary, we know it.
The Glory Be, we know it.
It's a familiar prayer andanything familiar is something

(01:10:46):
that is going to help usovercome worry, overcome
interior distress, overcomeanxiety.
Another thing that I think helpsit in that regard is the way
that it's repetitive.
So you don't need to be creativewhen you're praying the rosary.

(01:11:07):
You don't need to be sort of onthe top of your game.
You can just sort of letyourself fall into it, let
yourself slide into it, letyourself rest in it because
you're repeating these prayersover and over and over again.
And then maybe a third thingthat contributes to that is the

(01:11:28):
fact that the mysteries that areassociated with it, right?
So the things that aren't thewords, right?
But the themes are preciselymysteries that are supposed to
be meditated on, right?
And meditation is a peacefulpractice, right?
And all of this, you know,ultimately is...

(01:11:51):
grounded in Scripture as well,right?
So you can think of the repeatedlines in the Gospels about Mary
where it's said that she shekept these things or she
pondered these things in herheart.
And so Mary was the first personto really meditate on Jesus.

(01:12:18):
The time where she's carryinghim physically in her womb is
also a time where she's carryinghim meditatively in her heart
and in her mind.
And the rosary as Mary's prayeris like our way to enter into
that experience that Mary had ofpondering these things in her

(01:12:42):
heart.
So it's a deeply meditativepractice.
It's a deeply meditative prayer.
And so yeah, we shouldn't besurprised if it helps us
overcome anxiety and distress.

SPEAKER_00 (01:12:53):
You know, you said it's a Rosary is a spiritual
warfare tool.
I interviewed Father DanielRehill.
He's kind of an Instagram famousexorcist in the United States.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:08):
I'm not on social media at all.

SPEAKER_00 (01:13:10):
I'll catch up to speed.
He is now working with the NavySEALs, Team 6.
I thought that was interestingin spiritual warfare.
And I have a feeling he'sprobably just going to give
every one of those.
Like Team Six, as you know, isthe most specialized Navy SEALs
group of men.

(01:13:30):
And he's training them inspiritual combat.
And I think that's super cool.

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:36):
Yeah, that is super cool.

SPEAKER_00 (01:13:37):
And I have a feeling he's giving them blessed
rosaries like,

SPEAKER_02 (01:13:40):
I would be shocked if he's not.

SPEAKER_00 (01:13:43):
I know, right?
One thing I really struggle withis we have a very good idea of
what jesus looks like in ourhead right like we know he's
dark hair somewhat dark skin anda beard right

SPEAKER_01 (01:13:59):
but

SPEAKER_00 (01:14:00):
i have i really struggle with and i've kind of
this week come to terms withthis conclusion i'm about to
tell you i don't really have agood idea of what mary looks
like what she actually lookedlike in my head because she
appears in her apparitions whereshe comes like when she came to
magigory she came as a typicallooking croatian woman with pale

(01:14:25):
skin blue eyes and black hairwhen she revealed herself in
guadalupe to the mexicans shecame as a indigenous mexican
woman You know, I'm pretty surewhen she has an apparition in
Africa, she's going to come asan African-American.
I mean, not an African-American,as an African, as a black woman.

(01:14:45):
So I want to know what is themost real depiction of Mary.
I

SPEAKER_02 (01:14:53):
mean, so for just most real, right?
I mean, so she was a youngJewish woman.
from the Middle East, right?
Right.
So historically speaking, that'swhat she would have looked like.
But I think actually there's areally important spiritual

(01:15:15):
lesson that we can learn fromthe phenomenon that you just
talked about, right?
So I'm a Dominican.
We talked a little bit about,you know, I'm really devoted to
St.
Thomas Aquinas.
And so one of the things thatwhen St.

(01:15:35):
Thomas talks about ethics ormoral theology, he says that one
of the most important things isin our moral growth is that we
have exemplary, virtuous peoplethat we can look to who are our
guides.
So if you want to learn how tobe patient, you can read a book.

(01:15:55):
But way better is looking at theexample of people in your life
who are actually patient andfollowing their example.
If you want to learn how to growin justice or in courage, you
look at individual people whoare exemplary in that regard.
So, we learn by looking at thegood examples.

(01:16:19):
So, when we look at how Maryacts, what do we see her doing?
Exactly what you just said.
We see that Mary over and overand over again, she will appear
to people as they are, right?
She's doing that for a reason.
Because she's the mother ofJesus and the church is the body

(01:16:44):
of Christ, which means she's themother of the church.
The mother of us.
Which means she's the mother ofevery single one of us.
And so you shouldn't besurprised that Mary will appear
to people as their mother.
And not just in a kind of vaguespiritual sense, but the actual

(01:17:08):
visage that she'll take on isone that's going to be familiar,
one that's not going to causeanxiety, that's not going to
cause distress.
She never appears to us assomeone alien and other.
She appears to us in the mostintimate way possible.
So we should not be shocked bythe fact that she would rather

(01:17:31):
appear to people in a way wherethey can immediately relate to
her as their mother thanappearing kind of as she
historically would have lookedJust

SPEAKER_00 (01:17:43):
for reference, though, I'd like to know what
she

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:45):
looks

SPEAKER_00 (01:17:45):
like.
Yeah, that's right.
How she looked to Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:48):
Right.
Yeah, I mean, I would, too.
But, you know,

SPEAKER_00 (01:17:53):
we don't have any...
Even with the paintings, shelooks different in almost every
painting.

SPEAKER_02 (01:17:57):
Yeah, I mean, and we don't have any images that are,
you know, 100% photographs ofOur Lady from back then, right?
But I think...
I do think also for us there's aspiritual point as well, which
is that we should strive to belike Our Lady, which means when

(01:18:21):
we encounter other people whoneed to meet the Lord, the way
that St.
Paul puts it is, be all thingsto all men.
And so we should do everythingwe can to appear to people in
ways that are familiar andfamilial So in just the same way

(01:18:43):
that Mary appears to people in afamiliar way that's not going to
cause anxiety and in a familialway as their mother, you and I
are called to encounter peoplein a familiar and familial way.
You should present yourself astheir sister and I should
present myself as their brother.

(01:19:05):
So as to never cause needlessanxiety or stress or distress to
them, right?
We want to present the gospeland present Jesus in a way that
will ultimately bring peace.

SPEAKER_00 (01:19:21):
I thought it was interesting in the Marian
apparition at Medjugorje that Ialways, in my head, envisioned
the apparition or when she cameto speak to the visionaries as a
hologram.
Is that how you envisioned it?
Envisioned it?

SPEAKER_02 (01:19:39):
You know, I have to be honest.
I don't think I ever thoughtabout visions and holograms
before.
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:19:44):
I'm a very visual person, so I'm like...
So I asked the visionary...
We stayed at one of thevisionary's sister's homes.
And I asked her if I could talkto her.
And she said, yes.
I said, do you mind if I ask yousome questions?
I am like now in like...
the second half of my life, justa journalist, I guess.

(01:20:06):
So did not expect this, but Isaid, can I talk to you about
how the visions were?
And she said, yes.
Do you, did you see her as likea light, like a kind of like how
you picture a ghost or like ahologram?
She said, no, she looked like anactual person, like a real
person.
And then I said, like, what wasshe doing?

(01:20:26):
She said she was holding a babyand the baby was covered in a
blanket.
She was so beautiful.
And we thought she was from likea neighboring village and all
the other kids got scared andwere running away.
She said, I came towards her.
She kept going like this withthe blanket to let me know that
the that was baby Jesus.
And so Maria was her sister, isone of the more famous pioneers

(01:20:48):
who still has visions to thisday at six o'clock in the
evening.
So, but she wasn't allowed to goback because she had to help on
the farm.
But I just thought that wasinteresting that she came as a
real human.

SPEAKER_02 (01:20:59):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:20:59):
Not as an actual vision like this.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:02):
Right.
It's not like a ghost thatyou're seeing through

SPEAKER_00 (01:21:04):
or something.
Yeah.
I thought you would kind of seeher like kind of like a dream.
But no, she came as a realperson.

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:10):
Yeah.
And I think, again, I think theThere's a spiritual lesson to be
learned from that, right?
Because Mary, like Jesus, isalive.
You know, right now.
So Christ rose from the deadwith a real body.

(01:21:31):
And so, you know, right

SPEAKER_00 (01:21:34):
now.
What happened to the body?

SPEAKER_02 (01:21:36):
He has it, right?
He's up there.
So Jesus Christ at this verymoment has blood pumping in his
veins, right?
And he's got air, you know,coming in and out of his lungs,
right?
He is as...
human, as bodily, as physical asyou or I, right?
The difference is just that hisbody is glorified where ours

(01:21:59):
isn't, right?
So, you know, he has real woundmarks in his hands, you know,
now and forever, right?

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:06):
Like Padre

SPEAKER_02 (01:22:06):
Pio.
And yeah, I mean, you know,Padre Pio's real wounds, right,
were an imitation of andparticipation in the real wounds
of Jesus, right?
And then the same thing is trueof Our Lady.
So part of what we believe asCatholics when we talk about the

(01:22:28):
assumption of Our Lady intoheaven, right, is that she was
assumed body and soul intoheaven.

SPEAKER_00 (01:22:36):
Body

SPEAKER_02 (01:22:37):
and soul.
now is what we hope for afterthe second coming, right?
Which is we too will rise again.

(01:22:58):
We too will experience a bodilyresurrection, right?
And so, yeah, so it doesn'tsurprise me at all that when
Mary appears to people invision, she would appear not as
a ghost, not as an angel, not asa kind of like a glowing
ethereal, you know, who knowswhat, but she would appear as a

(01:23:18):
a real physical bodily personbecause that's what she is.
I

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:23):
told you about my Mary experience.

SPEAKER_02 (01:23:25):
You didn't, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 (01:23:26):
Okay, this is a really good story.
As I was kind of, I'm a bit of arevert.
I'm born and raised Catholic,went to Catholic school my whole
life.
I think that kind of had a bitof a...
kind of backfired on me becauseI felt like it was being shoved
on my throat at all times.
And of Armenian descent, really.
When I was in Turkey, I used toshare a room with my grandmother

(01:23:49):
sometimes.
And I used to have to hear allof the genocide stories.
And I was like, OK.
Even though I thought it was sosad and never really like, I
never really rebelled againstit.
But I was just like, OK, I wanta little bit of breathing room
from this religious stuff.
And after high school, you know,every day, even during high

(01:24:11):
school every day, reflectionsabout this and how, you know,
Catholic holy moly stuff, right?
And so I will go to college.
I kind of like center of left,left of center, I mean, and kind
of like left the faith a littlebit, always believing but never
really practicing.
And even, I'm ashamed to admit,I didn't, I have baptized my

(01:24:34):
children but never reallypracticing.
did what my parents did you knowand when I started this company
Saint I started doing theresearch and really found my
with the Saints and really foundmy faith back again and I
developed a fear of flying Ididn't get on an airplane for 10
years and um I decided this isruining my life.

(01:24:57):
I'm just going to get on thisairplane.
And I'm like kind of halfwayback, but halfway out.
And I just, the plane isturbulent now.
And I took a Xanax because Iwanted to sleep and it's my
first flight in 10 years.
And I'm saying the Hail Maryover and over again.
And I said to myself, if you'rereal, please send me a sign.
the plane landed i'm reallyexcited to be in europe my

(01:25:19):
friend peter helps me with mysuitcases and it was right at
the end of covid and um therewas a something stuck to my
suitcase about this big And itwas full of like tissue.
And Peter's like, don't touchit.
It's gross.
We're going to catch COVID.
And I'm like, no, no, what isit?
And I took it and I peeled it.

(01:25:39):
And it was a giant plaque.
And I'm talking to you.
It looked like it was over 200years old.
Okay.
The Virgin Mary holding babyJesus.

SPEAKER_02 (01:25:48):
Really?

SPEAKER_00 (01:25:49):
I have a picture of it.
I'll show it to you.

SPEAKER_02 (01:25:51):
Yeah, send it to me.
I sent it to Sister Maria.

SPEAKER_00 (01:25:53):
Okay.
And she said it was somethingthat they...
put on the bread.
Something about like some...

SPEAKER_02 (01:26:03):
Yeah, like an imprint to make the image appear
on the...

SPEAKER_00 (01:26:07):
Yeah, and like from the Russians.
I don't know.
She had some name for it.
Like a Mary of something.

SPEAKER_02 (01:26:13):
Cool.

SPEAKER_00 (01:26:13):
And I thought to myself, this is my sign.
Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 (01:26:16):
there's your sign.

SPEAKER_00 (01:26:17):
That's her.
I mean, what is the likelihoodof a Mary medal this big at the
airport from JFK to London?
No way.
I'm like, okay.
i've got my marching orders i'mgood now

SPEAKER_02 (01:26:31):
yeah praise god

SPEAKER_00 (01:26:31):
so a year almost to the date i'm going back to
europe and i kept that thingwith me everywhere i went i mean
sometimes it was in my brasometimes it was in my purse
sometimes it was in my backpocket i never went anywhere
without it and it was kind oflike a security blanket and then
i'm going through security ayear later and i see this little
boy he's in a wheelchair he'sgot like tubes all over him,

(01:26:55):
ball, like some things go,cancer, I don't know what's
going on.
And then I thought to myself,I'm gonna give this to him.
So I gave it to his mom, I said,here's, and then I'm like, why
did I do that?
I shouldn't have given, but Ifeel like maybe it would've
helped him more.
Anyway, so that was kind of my,Sorry, my little apparition of

(01:27:15):
the Virgin.

SPEAKER_02 (01:27:16):
Yeah, that's beautiful.
I'd be so stoked.
And I think you did the rightthing giving it to that boy.
You think so?
That sounds like an inspirationfrom the Holy Spirit right

SPEAKER_00 (01:27:24):
there.
I'm so mad.
I miss it every single day.
I'm like, what did I do?
Anyway, so that's all I got.

SPEAKER_02 (01:27:32):
That's great.

SPEAKER_00 (01:27:33):
But yeah, so that's my Mary's miracle.

SPEAKER_02 (01:27:36):
Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (01:27:37):
I hope she appears to me, though, one day.
I'm so happy.

SPEAKER_02 (01:27:40):
I'm pretty low on the totem pole, I have a
feeling.
No, no, no.
I mean, the advice that I'llgive you is, so my patron saint,
St.
Philip Neary, was a man whoselife was marked by lots of very
extraordinary spiritualexperiences.

(01:28:02):
But he...
always said that Christiansshould not seek out
extraordinary visions.
We shouldn't hope for them, longfor them, kind of put our trust
in them because ultimatelythey're not the most important

(01:28:26):
thing, right?
You know, the Lord can and oftendoes appear in miraculous ways
to people who are not in a stateof grace, right?
And, you know, to people whoaren't, you know, saints, right?
And so having visions is not amark of holiness.

(01:28:47):
And that's something that Ithink a lot of people get wrong.
You know, we think, you know,oh, these are such extraordinary
experiences, so they mustcorrespond with like
extraordinary holiness.
They do not, right?
And so, in fact, this is one ofthe reasons why the church is so
careful whenever sheinvestigates claims about

(01:29:08):
visions, because, you know, theconsistent teaching of the
saints and the great theologiansof the church is that, you know,
to quote a Portuguese proverbGod writes straight with crooked
lines and so God can givevisions to very sinful people
and he can work good throughthrough those people and through

(01:29:32):
their visions through he canwork miracles through sinful
people right so a sinful man canbe an instrument of God's you
know act of of miraculouslyhealing and so The miracles
themselves aren't signs ofholiness.
Let me put it to you this way.

(01:29:53):
If you ever had a miraculousvision where an angel appears to
you, or one of the saintsappears to you, or Our Lady
herself appears to you, and theyask you this question, you have
a choice.
Either the rest of your life canbe marked by extraordinary
miracles, or the rest of yourlife can be marked by no

(01:30:17):
miracles and just simplesanctifying grace.
You always choose sanctifyinggrace.
Because that is what gets you toheaven, not the miracles.

SPEAKER_00 (01:30:28):
I knew the answer to that.
I'll tell you a little story.
You already know this, butpeople probably don't.
One of the visionaries, Vitska,She had a brain tumor.
Okay.
And the virgin told her, I canget rid of your brain tumor,

(01:30:49):
give you basically, grant you amiracle, or...
But if I grant you this miracle,I'm not going to appear to you
again.
She said, no, I'll keep my braintumor.
And guess what?
The brain tumor went away andshe kept seeing her.
So she got both.

SPEAKER_02 (01:31:08):
Yeah.
I mean, and, you know, look,like the Lord always, you know,
he always wants to work miraclesin our lives.
But from his perspective, themiracle that's that's the the
deepest the most profound andthe most impressive right um is
the miracle of a of a heartconverted from from sinfulness

(01:31:28):
to love of god right um i have aquestion about that change is
way more profound than the thehealing of a brain tumor or the
you know the curing of anillness or you know uh something
like that

SPEAKER_00 (01:31:42):
i have a question kind of related sort of related
to that um if god is forgivingWhy do we have hell?

SPEAKER_02 (01:31:52):
Yeah, so because God is also just.
And so, you know, think of itthis way is so, you know, close
your eyes and imagine people whoare suffering from, I mean,
profound, deep oppression,right?
When they call out for justice,right?

(01:32:15):
Should their prayers be heard ornot?
And so God, I think we're allgoing to agree that the cries of
the oppressed should be heardrather than dismissed, right?
And their desire that theiroppressors be punished, right?
That justice be done, you know,that the scales be leveled is a

(01:32:37):
good and holy desire.
It's not misguided or somethinglike that.
And so God...
always, like you said, ismerciful, right?
Which means he always gives theopportunity for conversion,
right?
And so anyone who turns awayfrom their wicked deeds and
says, Lord, I'm sorry, pleaseforgive me, the Lord will give

(01:33:03):
them forgiveness, will give themhis mercy, will give them the
gift of heaven, right?
But if someone just stubbornlyrefuses to turn to the Lord, you
know, and is oppressing otherswith their wickedness, with
their evil, with theirsinfulness, right?
And, you know, in big ways or insmall ways, right?

(01:33:24):
And that person refuses to askfor forgiveness, right?
Then what is the Lord going todo?
He's going to be just.
And so he's going to punishpeople who deserve punishment.
He's going to balance thescales.
He's going to hear the cries ofthe poor and the oppressed.
And so at the end of the day,one of two things will be given

(01:33:48):
to us by God, either mercy orjustice.

SPEAKER_00 (01:33:53):
One thing that Father...
Omulain told me that really kindof like I think about all the
time.
He said that when he goes togive the last rites to dying
people that if they haven't likehad Jesus in their life or like
maybe dabbling in the occult, hesaid those are really sad

(01:34:16):
because people are like kind oflike getting tortured near the

SPEAKER_02 (01:34:19):
end.

SPEAKER_00 (01:34:21):
it's so scary i don't want to be that

SPEAKER_02 (01:34:24):
yeah no no you don't and uh to to bring it back to
kind of where we started whichis um you know the rosary in
addition to being a a powerfulprayer for peace um and a
powerful prayer for protectionis also one of one of the
greatest prayers for um dying aholy death right um and so

(01:34:45):
that's interesting you know thethe the rosary is uh has been, I
mean, consistently recommendedas one of the greatest prayers,
aside from the sacrament, right,of anointing of the sick and,
you know, and the conferral oflast rites, one of the most
powerful prayers that we canpray by the bedside of a dying

(01:35:07):
person is the Most Holy Rosary,right?
Now and at the hour of ourdeath, amen, right?
And so, you know, Our Lady is isthere when we're taking our
final breath, right?
And she's interceding for us.
And, you know, no matter how bada life you've lived, up until

(01:35:29):
that point, salvation is there,present, ready at the 11th hour.
And so if we turn to our Lordand to our Lady in the Rosary,
in those final minutes, that canbe a powerful path to salvation.

SPEAKER_00 (01:35:48):
Super cool.
I have kind of a stupid questionfor you.
Sure.
I just recently did the Jubilee,but I guess it's cleansing of
our soul, right?
I did the four things and I wasin line to do confession and
there were all these people inline for the English American

(01:36:10):
confession.
And I was, people were like, oh,I'm just going to confess this
one thing that has been on my...
I said, no, you can't, or elseit's invalid.
You have to confess all yoursins or your confession's
invalid.
And usually, and some peoplewere...
I became some sort of aconfession guide now for all the
Americans, which I thought washilarious because I'm like...
if only my mother could see menow, you know?

(01:36:33):
But that aside, I go intoconfession and usually I just
get like a one Hail Mary andthree Our Fathers.
And the priest was like, youhave to see the joyful Mysteries
Rosary.
I was like, Is that a littleworse, though?

SPEAKER_02 (01:36:49):
So, yeah, so two things.

SPEAKER_00 (01:36:52):
Did I do something really bad?
No.
That was a lot of prayers tosay, which I'm totally fine
with, but I'm like,

SPEAKER_02 (01:36:59):
am I being sketchy?
No, the penance that you get isat the discretion of the priest
who is serving as your confessorat the time.
So, you know, some priests givemore rosaries or more home more
prayers, longer prayers, harderpenances than others.

(01:37:20):
That's just up to the priest.
And so your task is to dowhatever penance the priest has
assigned to you.
The one other thing to say justabout something that you said
earlier, which is that so anyCatholic is obliged to mention

(01:37:40):
penance all of the sins thatthey're aware of that are mortal
sins that haven't been confessedbefore yes um so you know if
someone is um uh is not in astate of mortal sin right um and
they're aware of you know abunch of venial sins and they

(01:38:02):
mention some but not others it'snot like that's an invalid
confession Do you

SPEAKER_00 (01:38:08):
want to tell everyone what a venial sin and a
mortal sin is?

SPEAKER_02 (01:38:11):
Sure.
So the difference between avenial sin and a mortal sin, it
just comes straight out ofScripture, right?
So in Scripture, we hear thatsome sins are deadly.
and some sins are not deadly.

SPEAKER_00 (01:38:27):
Examples?

SPEAKER_02 (01:38:28):
So, well, so what do we mean by deadly, right?
So deadly sin doesn't mean a sinwhere, oh, if I commit that sin,
then I'm immediately going todie, right?
That's not, you know.
So what it means is spirituallydeadly, right?
So what a mortal sin is, is asin that kills the life of grace

(01:38:51):
in the soul.
Whereas a venial sin is a sinthat doesn't kill the life of
grace in the soul, but it doessort of turn us temporarily away
from God.
So you can think of it likethis.
Mortal sins are any actions oromissions of ours where we

(01:39:19):
change fundamentally our spiritspiritual destination right so
as long as I

SPEAKER_00 (01:39:26):
need a concrete example

SPEAKER_02 (01:39:27):
yeah so so think of it like this so it's it's not
possible for me to say oh yeahmy destination is heaven and the
way that I'm going to get thereis with this act of murder Yeah,
that's a gimme.
Right?
So an act of murder is not a wayto get to heaven, right?

(01:39:48):
An act of, you know, of...
Overeating?
So some acts of gluttony aregoing to be mortal sins.
Some acts of gluttony are goingto be venial sins, right?

SPEAKER_00 (01:40:01):
Like overeating, venial?

SPEAKER_02 (01:40:03):
Well, so depends on the case.
So for example...
Suppose you've got a reallyextreme case of gluttony where
someone is overeating to thepoint where they make themselves
sick and they know full wellthis is going to make me sick,

(01:40:26):
they know full well that I don'tI don't need to be eating this
way.
It's not like we're celebratingsomeone's graduation or a
birthday or something and it'ssocially appropriate for me to
have a sliver of cake eventhough I'm full.
But imagine someone who is atrue glutton, a really

(01:40:47):
extraordinary glutton where theygenuinely do knowingly and
willingly eat to the point ofmaking themselves sick.
right i see that that's not away to get to heaven that's what
makes it mortal right um so thisyou know

SPEAKER_00 (01:41:08):
um mildly over

SPEAKER_02 (01:41:10):
yeah so so look like if um you know if you're yeah
you know so

SPEAKER_00 (01:41:14):
in italy especially yeah

SPEAKER_02 (01:41:16):
right um

SPEAKER_00 (01:41:16):
i always say i'm not going to get this again i'm just
going to eat a little more

SPEAKER_02 (01:41:19):
right

SPEAKER_00 (01:41:19):
because i'm going back to the united states

SPEAKER_02 (01:41:21):
yeah so so if you if you know um that so a um i'm I'm
full, and B, there's not like areally good other reason for me
to eat this.
Like, for example, it'ssomebody's birthday, this is

(01:41:42):
their cake, and they want me tohave a slice, right?
And I still eat more, right?
Then that's a sin of gluttony,right?
But it's a venial sin ofgluttony.
V.
Neilson.

SPEAKER_00 (01:41:56):
Okay, got it.

SPEAKER_02 (01:41:58):
So, you know, it's not fundamentally changing.
You know, it's not incompatiblewith my getting to heaven,
right?
Got it.
But it does actually make itharder.
You can think of it like this.
It's taking a kind of windingroute.

SPEAKER_00 (01:42:11):
It's like a federal crime versus death.
To

SPEAKER_02 (01:42:12):
get to heaven.
Well, no, because both of thosecan put you in jail,

SPEAKER_00 (01:42:18):
right?
So can both of you.
Gluttony could do both, too.

SPEAKER_02 (01:42:22):
I mean, I guess so.
Mortal and venial.
Well, I was thinking hell isjail, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So venial sin doesn't send youto hell.
But you have to confess itstill.
But yeah, because it's like,look, I knowingly and willingly
took the long way to get toheaven.

SPEAKER_00 (01:42:39):
Then you're in purgatory longer?
I

SPEAKER_02 (01:42:42):
mean, you will be.

SPEAKER_00 (01:42:44):
Is watching porn a mortal sin?

SPEAKER_02 (01:42:48):
It is, yeah.
And so the litmus test, right,that you should always ask
yourself, whether it'spornography or drunkenness or
impatience or something likethat, is just this.
So think about the act thatyou're engaging in and ask

(01:43:12):
yourself this question.
is is this act um a way ofgetting to heaven

SPEAKER_00 (01:43:21):
that's for sure and and if the answer is no

SPEAKER_02 (01:43:25):
right um then then the act the act is incompatible
with having heaven as your asyour final destination or what
saint thomas aquinas would callyour final end um and so no
action um that's that'sincompatible with heaven as your
final end, with love of God asyour ultimate goal, is an action

(01:43:49):
that we can knowingly andwillingly engage in, right?
So any act that can't be like ameans or a way or a path to God
as our final end and heaven asour final end, those acts are
gonna be mortal sins.
But acts that are are likeorderable to, they're like ways,

(01:44:12):
you know, it's not incompatiblewith like trying to get to
heaven.
This idea that I've been talkingabout, you know, with heaven as
your final destination, SaintThomas Aquinas just often talks
about your final end, right?
And so the idea is this, All ofthe actions that we engage in
should be means or ways or pathsthat lead to God or heaven as

(01:44:36):
our final end, our ultimatedestination.
And so if there's an action thatjust, it's not possible for that
act to be a means that leads toGod as the end or a way or a
path that leads leads to heavenas our final destination, that

(01:44:58):
action is a mortal sin.
Venial sins are acts where wekind of willingly, knowingly
take the long route, but they'restill kind of ordered towards
heaven as our final destination.

SPEAKER_00 (01:45:13):
I think that's me.
The idea of desire, not actingon the impulse, but thinking it.
I think it's not fair thatthat's a sin.

SPEAKER_02 (01:45:28):
Yeah, so maybe two thoughts on desire.
First, the negative part aboutsin, and then maybe a more
positive perspective

SPEAKER_00 (01:45:37):
on desire.
Because you're practicingrestraint.

SPEAKER_02 (01:45:39):
Yeah, so you can think that-

SPEAKER_00 (01:45:41):
Can't you be in your head a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 (01:45:44):
Well, so it depends on what you mean by that.
Let me give you two examples.
Okay.
So one example is not just alustful thought, but a sinful
thought.
So suppose you're someone whounfortunately lives and drives

(01:46:05):
in LA.
And so you have a regular,unavoidable temptation to rage,
to the sin of wrath and angerwhen you're caught in traffic.
you know, you have, there's thatfirst moment where the sinful
thought, the sinful impulse, thesinful desire, right, kind of

(01:46:28):
arises in your heart.
So whether it's, you know,seeing a beautiful person and,
you know, the kind of lustfuldesire, you know, gets stirred
up, or whether it's getting cutoff on the highway and all of a
sudden there's just this desireto pop your trunk, take out a
driver and just smash somebody'swindow, right?

(01:46:48):
There's that that initial momentof unruly desire.
And that moment is not a sin.
because it's not a voluntaryaction that we have.
It's an emotion.
It's a feeling we feel.
But then it's the beginning ofan action, but it's not yet a

(01:47:10):
properly human act.
This is something that I teachall of my students in ethics.
I teach an ethics course at theAngelicum.
And so we have a class daythat's devoted to this.
So there's the initial moment offeeling or emotion or desire
that wells up within us.
And then there's the momentwhere we engage our heart and

(01:47:34):
our minds, you might think ofit, or our reason and our will.
And so there's the moment ofwhat do I do with these
feelings?
And so here's one thing that canhappen is just in the moment you
can recognize, nope, to act onthat, would not be right.

(01:47:57):
You know, I shouldn't smash thewindow of that car in front of
me.
You know, I shouldn't commitadultery or fornication or
something like that, right?
And so your, you know, in yourmind with your reason, you know
what the right thing to do is,and then when you engage your
will, you exercise what you weretalking about earlier, which is

(01:48:20):
self-control or self-restraint,right?
And so if that's how the storygoes, that the act that you
engage in is just an act of theemotion or the feeling wells up,
reason and will engage, and youcontrol yourself, and then your
outward action corresponds withthat inward choice, then you

(01:48:44):
have an act that is not just nota sin, but is a positively
virtuous action because itbuilds virtue in the soul.
Here's a different way the storycould go, right?
Is the emotion wells up, right?
You feel the feeling.
You experience the temptation.

(01:49:05):
And then sort of when your mindand your heart, your reason and
your will engage, you make thischoice.
Well, I'm just gonna kind oflike indulge in the thought,
right?
So I just, I let myself imaginepopping the trunk, pulling out

(01:49:27):
the driver, smashing in thewindow, right?
And I kind of like, I like, Istay there for a while.
And I cut it off eventually.
I don't outwardly perform theact.
I stop myself before I actuallyopen the door, pop the trunk,
and smash the window.
But I do kind of make theinterior choice to indulge in

(01:49:52):
the thought.
what St.
Thomas would call, it's anincomplete human action.
So it's an action that staysinterior and doesn't become
exterior, but it is sinful.
Venial or mortal?
So depends on what's going on inthere, right?

SPEAKER_00 (01:50:15):
I need clear lines.

SPEAKER_02 (01:50:19):
So basically it depends on what the...
the exterior act that you'resort of allowing yourself to
indulge in is.
So if the exterior thing is amortal sin and you give yourself
free reign interiorly to indulgein it, then the interior act is

(01:50:40):
a mortal sin.
And, you know, Jesus tells usthis in the Gospels, right?
You know, so he talks aboutpeople who have already
committed the sin of adultery intheir hearts, right?
You know, so, you know, evenEven if you're not exteriorly
engaging in an act of adultery,if you're knowingly and

(01:51:04):
willingly giving yourselfpermission inside to indulge in
that fantasy, you're committingadultery in your heart.
You've engaged in what St.
Thomas again would call anincomplete act of adultery.
What kind of action is it?
It's still a mortal sin.

(01:51:26):
It's just an incomplete mortalsin.
Got it.
Yeah.
So restraining, having thefeeling well up and stopping it
and exercising self-restraint isone thing.
Having the feeling well up andthen knowingly and willingly
indulging in the thought is avery different thing.

(01:51:46):
The one is not just not a sin,it's actually a virtuous action.
The other is a sin and dependingon what sort of fantasy you're
indulging in, it might even be amortal sin.

SPEAKER_00 (01:52:01):
one more question sure one of the biggest dms i
get through instagram is ibelieve in god because i do a
lot of interviews with exorcistsi believe in god but not the
devil and i i'm always like wellif you believe in god you kind
of have to believe the flip sideof god too which is the devil
how would you as a priest answerthat

SPEAKER_02 (01:52:21):
um sure i mean so um I probably don't have anything
especially insightful to say,but one thing that is often said
because it's so true is justthis, that the devil wants
nothing more than people to notbelieve in him.
Because if we don't believe inthe devil, then we don't defend

(01:52:42):
against the devil.

SPEAKER_00 (01:52:43):
Great answer.
Great answer.

SPEAKER_02 (01:52:46):
Maybe just one other thought for...
So that's the answer thatapplies to most people because
most people are probablyinclined to go to the extreme of
not believing in him.
For any kind of like Catholiclisteners or viewers that you
have who might be tempted to theother extreme, that's also worth

(01:53:10):
saying, which is that we shouldnot spend nearly as much time
thinking– talking obsessingabout the devil as we do
thinking talking and obsessingabout god

SPEAKER_00 (01:53:24):
i love that i love that because i know people
because i do interview a lot ofexorcists constantly looking for
clues about the devil and demonsi'm like look you're gonna find
it you go looking for it's kindof like looking for illnesses in
your body you could be on web mdall day looking for a symptom of
this and symptom of that that'sright like

SPEAKER_02 (01:53:45):
Here's one way to think of it.
So I think all of us have theexperience of toxic people in
our lives, right?
And one of the things that Ithink all of us would agree on
is that the more we let thetoxic people in our lives sort
of control our mental space, ourmental energy, our spiritual

(01:54:11):
time, right?
the more their toxicity affectsus, right?
110%.
The devil is the most toxicperson in the world, right?
And so the more we let himinfluence our thoughts, our
words, and our deeds, you know,the more sort of spiritual space

(01:54:31):
we give to him, we shouldn't besurprised that that's going to
have an effect on us.
So the best thing we can do isbelieve that the devil is real,
recognize that he is, you know,constantly knocking on our door,
recognize that he's, you know,like other toxic people.
He always wants our time and ourattention.

(01:54:52):
And then what we should do isjust ignore Because God is much
more powerful than the devil,right?
And God is worth our time andour attention.

SPEAKER_00 (01:55:03):
Okay, we talked a lot about Mary, the rosary.
Father, do you know the prayer?
We live in Rome.
Do you know the prayer forfinding a parking space?

UNKNOWN (01:55:13):
No.

SPEAKER_02 (01:55:13):
I don't.
I don't have a car.
I'm happy to teach it to you.
Please.
I would love to learn it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:55:18):
Hail Mary full of grace, help me find a parking
space.

SPEAKER_02 (01:55:21):
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Yes.

SPEAKER_00 (01:55:23):
That comes from Father Thomas Montanaro.

SPEAKER_02 (01:55:26):
And look, Our Lady is not above

SPEAKER_00 (01:55:29):
the little things.
And I swear it worked.
He was driving around like,okay, it worked twice now.

SPEAKER_02 (01:55:33):
I totally believe it.
I did my PhD at the Universityof Notre Dame, which is often
called Our Lady's University.
And there's a wonderful storyabout a past head coach of the
Notre Dame football team who hewas in an interview and
somebody, a kind of skepticalreporter and interviewer, said,

(01:55:54):
I know that you have the teampray before every game and you
pray after every game.
I mean, do you really believethat God cares about who wins a
football game?
And without missing a beat, hesaid, no, of course God doesn't
care about who wins a footballgame.
but his mother does.

(01:56:15):
I love it! Which is to say,look, you know, there are lots
of things that are notultimately spiritually
significant, right?
Like our salvation doesn't hangin the balance on whether a team
wins a football game or whetherwe find a parking space.
But that actually doesn't meanthat God doesn't care about
them, right?
And so, you know, if helping usfind a parking space is also
going to protect us from gettingfrustrated and getting angry,

(01:56:39):
then Our Lady cares.

SPEAKER_00 (01:56:40):
I

SPEAKER_02 (01:56:41):
love it.

SPEAKER_00 (01:56:41):
Thank you, Father.
Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 (01:56:43):
This has been a pleasure.

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Episode Transcript

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}24/7 News: The Latest

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Inside the Dominican Tradition: Faith, Rosary, and Spiritual Wisdom

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