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The question haunts us all: Why do we suffer? And more importantly, does our suffering have meaning? In this profound conversation with Dr. Aaron Kheriaty—psychiatrist, author, and courageous voice during recent cultural upheavals—we explore the Christian understanding of suffering that offers liberation rather than mere explanation.
Join Jack Rigert and Dr. Aaron Kheriaty as they explore the profound themes of suffering, faith, and the significance of the cross in Christianity. They discuss how suffering is an inherent part of the human experience and how it can lead to deeper spiritual understanding and connection with Christ. Dr. Kheriaty emphasizes the importance of prayer, particularly the simple prayer "Doce me passionem Tuam"—teach me your suffering. This brief aspiration, when repeated throughout our days of struggle, shifts our focus from demanding explanations to entering more deeply into Christ's redemptive love.
The conversation also highlights the role of the Mass as a central aspect of Christian life, where believers can encounter the sacrifice of Christ and find healing and joy in their own suffering.
For anyone struggling with physical pain, psychological anguish, or spiritual questioning, this conversation offers not easy answers but something better—a way forward that acknowledges suffering's reality while discovering its redemptive potential. Visit passionemtuam.org to learn more about this powerful prayer and access Dr. Kheriaty's full series on suffering's meaning.
Dr. Aaron Kheriaty's Series: Catholic Exchange
Dr. Kheriatys's Blog: Human Flourishing
"Doce me passionem Tuam" (pronounced "doe-chay may") Website
Jacks Latest Blog: Building the City of God or the City of Man
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Learn this prayer doce me passionum tuum, teach me
your suffering, repeat it,meditate upon it.
Open the Gospels and read theaccounts of our Lord's
sufferings.
Place yourself there in thescene, as St Ignatius, loyola
and so many other saints haverecommended.
Become another character inthat scene in the Gospels where
our Lord takes up his cross, orwhere he's nailed to the cross.
(00:22):
Take in all the sights, thesounds, the smells.
We don't need a complicatedscholarly exegesis or
explanation of the Gospels.
If we pray this simple prayerin our hearts Lord, teach me
your suffering, don't you makepass the unknown to me.
If we go deeper into thosemoments in Christ's life where
(00:43):
he suffered, he will do theexegesis for us.
He'll explain to us.
What does this mean for mepersonally?
Yeah, thank you for bringing upthe Mass, and I have an article
in the series precisely aboutthe Mass Because the Mass is the
prayer of all prayers, and itis the place that we go to be
most fully united to our Lord'ssufferings, because what the
(01:06):
mass is, as the Council of Trenttaught, is their sacramental
representation of the sacrificeof Calvary.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a
production of the John Paul IIRenewal Center.
I'm Jack Riggins, your host.
You know being human's not easy, is it?
It seems that we all suffer.
Most of us want to avoidsuffering, go into the doctor
for a remedy at the slightestpain.
But since we can't avoid itwe're Christians.
We look up to Jesus Christ onthe cross.
(01:49):
We wonder why did he acceptsuffering?
And does our suffering have anydeeper meaning?
Can we make sense of it?
So today with us is AaronCuriati, md, a physician
specializing in psychiatry.
He's the author of three books,including the Catholic Guide to
Depression.
He is a fellow and director ofthe program in bioethics and
(02:09):
American democracy at the Ethicsand Public Policy Center.
For many years he was professorof psychiatry at the University
of California Irvine School ofMedicine and also the director
of the medical ethics program atUCI Health, where he chaired
the ethics committee.
Dr Curiati has publishedarticles in the Wall Street
Journal, the Washington Post,newsweek, the Federalist and
(02:32):
First Things and on matters ofpublic policy and health care.
He has testified at theCalifornia Senate and the United
States Senate.
And finally, dr Curiati is aplaintiff in the landmark free
speech case Missouri v Biden,which is currently before the US
Supreme Court and I'm wonderingif it's still in front of there
.
We've got to hear just a littlebit about that.
(02:53):
For his work challenginggovernment censorship, the
journalist Matt Taibbi hascalled him the most ambitious
theorist of the censorshipindustrial age.
Aaron welcome.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Thanks, Jack.
It's great to be with you.
Thank you for that kindintroduction.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yes, you know I was saying right before we came out
and I want to repeat it to ouraudience who may not know you
that I've been following you fora long time, well before COVID,
and we work with a lot of youngpeople and I was using your
research, your referencematerial, where you reference
anxiety, depression, evensuicide among them, and really
(03:30):
brought some answers, you know,trying to connect them to a
deeper meaning.
But it was during COVID that Ireally saw your convictions and
your courage come out.
You got yourself in a littlebit of trouble there, pushing
back on the censorship of freespeech, Obvious what was going
on to us, but there weren't manyvoices at that time, Dr Aaron,
(03:53):
speaking about these things.
But you did.
What gave you the courage to dothat?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well, I think it was my faith.
It was trying to live a life ofprayer and the sacraments and
my conscience while I was at theUniversity of California,
irvine.
My conscience just convicted meto try to challenge the
university's vaccine mandatebecause it contradicted, it
undermined, a core principle ofmedical ethics, the principle of
informed consent that I hadtaught to students in the
(04:19):
required ethics course medicalstudents every year and I
couldn't imagine getting up infront of those students with a
clear conscience and trying toteach and explain that principle
if I hadn't stood up and triedto defend that principle in the
real world when push came toshove.
So I ended up challenging theuniversity's vaccine mandate in
federal court.
I didn't prevail in that caseand the university ended up
(04:43):
firing me as a consequence ofthat in retaliation.
But I have you mentioned anotherfree speech case that I filed,
along with four other privateplaintiffs in the state of
Missouri and the state ofLouisiana against the federal
government and that's a casecalled Missouri v Biden.
We had alleged that the federalgovernment was pressuring
(05:05):
social media companies duringCOVID, but now we know it began
even before COVID and continuedafterwards pressuring these
companies to censorconstitutionally protected
speech and the plaintiffs, amongmany, many other people, were
victims of that governmentcensorship, which is a clear
violation of the First Amendment.
And just a very quick update onthat case yes, yes please.
(05:28):
The government is now sittingdown to negotiate with us a
settlement in that case.
So essentially you know thatsettlement will be a binding
precedent once it's approved bythe court, which we are hoping
will put a stop to a lot of thisgovernment-mandated censorship.
So I don't have the details ofthat yet because they haven't
been hammered out with thedefendants, with the federal
(05:51):
government and the agenciesnamed as defendants, but I
should have updates on that soonthat I'll post on my sub stack.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Well, thank you for that, and so you might have a
legacy there that we're going tobe studying case history right
in law and who knows what'sgoing to happen.
It's a crazy world out there.
We know that and I'll justmention this to you, as I did in
the introduction.
We've been working with a lotof younger people, especially
young men.
That's what that sword is.
(06:19):
We have an apostolate withinour apostolate, called Claymore
Miletus Christi, and these areyoung guys that came out and
they started to vote for Trump,not because they think he's God
or Jesus Christ, but they justsensed something's wrong and
they were looking for a model, arole model that would seem to
be on their side, and now it's agreat time to evangelize.
(06:40):
Many of them, dr Kiriati, arehurting, the men and the women,
obviously right from a verytoxic culture.
So you mentioned in yourarticle you know this hurting in
our hearts, but there's allkinds of hurting going on there,
so trying to make sense of thatis a very interesting angle,
(07:01):
and you wrote what moved you andthe meaning of suffering itself
, right.
So you wrote and I wanted toask you what moved you to write
that.
Of course, you know, I justunpacked it.
I think that's why I kind ofstopped there for a second.
But you wrote during this pastlent a series that can be found
on catholic exchange, themeaning of suffering.
Of course we'll link that inthe show notes, but give us a
(07:22):
little background on that andwhat prompted you, what moved
you to write that?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Sure.
So I was really inspired towrite this series on the
Christian meaning of sufferingand the cross, which you
mentioned, which was publishedin Catholic Exchange during Lent
.
I think I was inspired byworking with my patients,
especially, and by things that Ihad learned from my patients in
terms of how they were tryingto contend with their suffering
and anguish.
And if there's one thing thatI've learned as a psychiatrist
(07:49):
is what you mentioned in theintro to this episode, which is
that everyone suffers, numberone and number two we very often
don't really know what anotherperson is suffering, either
exteriorly or interiorly.
A lot of the suffering thatpeople endure remains hidden.
Actually, I have a very commonexperience as a psychiatrist of
(08:09):
having patients disclose to meforms of suffering, whether it's
childhood abuse or other thingsthat they've endured in life,
that they have not everdisclosed to anyone else,
including a spouse, includingtheir close friends.
And so you know, I becameconvinced that not only is
everyone suffering, but veryoften their suffering is hidden.
(08:31):
It's very hard for them toshare it.
So people are bearing theseburdens and looking for answers.
Patients often raise in theclinical context with me, raise
the philosophical problem ofevil, the problem of why would
an all-good, all-powerful,all-knowing God allow so much
(08:51):
pain and suffering in the world,and for my patients and for
myself, when I endured almostfive years of a severe,
debilitating chronic paincondition, personally you know
this was not an abstractphilosophical question.
Personally, you know this wasnot an abstract philosophical
question and it couldn't beanswered by a philosophical
treatise.
This was a very personal, youmight say existential question
(09:13):
that has to do with myrelationship with God and this
question is perfectly naturalfor us to ask.
It's natural to ask why did Godallow my wife to get cancer?
Why did God allow my child tobe afflicted by this injury?
Why did God allow my family tohave our good name unjustly
(09:35):
slandered?
It's not any sort of mysterywhy we would go to God in prayer
and ask those questions.
A sort of mystery why we wouldgo to God in prayer and ask
those questions.
But one of the things that Idiscovered and I learned both
from my patients and my ownexperience, and what I tried to
convey in this series ofarticles, is that while asking
(09:57):
those questions are perfectlynatural, and while I sometimes
try to help patients in theclinical context to reconcile
these questions, it's importantto notice that all of these
questions tend to focus on myown suffering.
We want God to explain ouranguish to us, but the fact is,
this side of eternity, we'reusually not given the answers to
(10:19):
those questions by God.
Our finite intellects are notreally capable of comprehending
the reasons behind God'sprovidential designs and if you
look in the Bible, for examplein the book of Job, job has 37
chapters of basically Job'ssuffering and Job's and his
friends' questions that they putto God.
Why is this happening?
Did I do something wrong tocause this?
(10:41):
And finally, god shows up inchapter 38.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
It's interesting, which is I just say to people
that haven't read that for awhile.
You have to go back and readthat, but I'm sorry to interrupt
you.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
No, not at all, absolutely.
Yeah, it's one of the mostbeautiful, powerful books in the
Bible and of course it speaksto this question of human
suffering.
But when God shows up, hedoesn't actually answer Job's
questions.
He poses a question to Job.
He says where were you when Ilaid the foundations of the
earth?
In other words, look, whateverI would explain to you regarding
your suffering is beyond youror your friend's ability to
(11:17):
comprehend.
But God does not leave us there.
And the Bible, the biblicalrevelation, does not leave us
there.
And the Bible, the biblicalrevelation, does not leave us
there, because the fullness ofrevelation, of course, comes in
the Gospels in the New Testament.
If we look to the New Testament,we see that the real answer to
the age-old problem of evil isnot found in some philosophical
(11:39):
treatise or even in someabstract theological explanation
.
The answer to the question ofsuffering is found in the cross
of Jesus Christ, and that's atthe center of this series that I
wrote.
Our job as Christians and whatwe need to do when we suffer is
to turn our attention from ourown sufferings to the sufferings
(12:02):
of Christ.
That's where we're going tofind liberation.
That's where we're going tofind a peace that the world
cannot give.
We have to turn to the cross,and in fact, I think this is an
important message for our day,because the world and even many
in the church today haveforgotten the cross.
Right, everyone loves themiracle-working Christ, who
(12:25):
heals the blind and the lame andthe lepers, who turns water
into wine and multiplies theloaves and the fish.
Right, everyone loves Christ,the wise teacher and the
brilliant preacher.
Even Thomas Jefferson and theold deists liked the teachings
of Jesus, even if they discardedthe miracles.
(12:45):
The prosperity gospel huh theprosperity gospel, which is a
distortion because it saysessentially that Christ suffers
so that we don't have to.
But that's not the message ofthe New Testament.
The message of the NewTestament is that Christ
suffered so that we could beunited with him on the cross
when we suffer, so that we canbe liberated from the burdens of
(13:07):
our suffering because of whathe has done for us, because of
his love, so that we candiscover that which transcends
our suffering, which is the lovethat he expressed for us in his
own passion.
Right.
So we need to turn ourattention to the crucified
Christ, even though we preferthe resurrected Christ, christ
(13:28):
the teacher, christ the preacher.
But we cannot, and those areobviously important, we need the
whole Christ.
But that includes the crucifiedChrist, that includes Good
Friday, without which there isno Easter Sunday.
And so you know, I think thetendency today is to sort of try
to sanitize our Lord's passion.
(13:50):
Protestants have removed thecorpus, the body, from the cross
, and even Catholics haverendered the body very often
sort of bloodless.
You know, we have this sort ofresurrected Christ gazing out at
us, you know, with serene eyeson many of our crucifixes.
And you know, occasionallywe'll encounter an old, bloody
(14:10):
Spanish crucifix from days ofold, you know, with a more
accurate and realistic depictionof what Christ would have
looked like when he was nailedto the cross, and it sort of
arrests our sensibilities, it'ssort of shocking to us, right,
and I think that's actually agood thing, because the cross is
scandalous.
(14:31):
The reality of the bruised andbloodied and beaten and gritty
blood, sweat, tears crucifixionis a more accurate depiction of
what actually happened on GoodFriday and in fact our Lord's
suffering was not even justlimited to Good Friday.
(14:54):
This is another theme of thearticles that I wrote.
One of them I think it's partfour in the series of seven
articles is entitled Christ'sSuffering from the Incarnation
to the Ascension.
Right so, just becoming a manin Our Lady's womb, just
divesting of his glory andbecoming a human embryo, the
(15:18):
second person of the BlessedTrinity is taking on.
I mean that's a form ofsuffering, right.
Being born in a cave with noroom, in the end having to flee
to Egypt because the king wantsto murder you as a little infant
, all of these things that ourLord endured throughout his
whole life.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
And do we have to remember?
Yeah, right there we have theannihilation or destruction of
the innocents.
Exactly, I mean right at thattime, and he didn't try to stop
that.
Nobody tried to stop it.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
The cross was imprinted upon our Lord's life
from the very beginning.
And you know we tend toromanticize the story of the
nativity, you know Christmascheer and so forth.
But again, you know, we've grownso used to these things that we
often forget.
When you stop and think aboutwhat actually happened on that
Christmas night, and thenshortly thereafter, as you said,
(16:07):
with the slaughter of theinnocents and the flight into
Egypt and all the rest of it,you see that Our Lady and St
Joseph and Our Lord, even as aninfant, took on the sufferings
of the human race, and that'swhere the love of Christ is most
(16:28):
fully manifest.
So what I'm attempting to do inthis series of articles is move
our attention from oursufferings to his, not because
our sufferings don't matter, butwhen we place them in that
broader context, we see thatsuffering is not necessarily a
tragedy, because it's there thatwe find the cross and in the
(16:50):
cross we find the fullestmanifestation of God's love for
us.
So to turn our attention backto the Gospels, which we've
gotten so used to right thatthey often maybe lose their
shock value, shock value and towake us up again, put us there
(17:13):
in those scenes where our Lordis suffering for us is kind of
at the center of what I'm tryingto do here.
The tendency is to want to fleesuffering, to avoid it right.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
When we hear that you know, pick up your cross and
follow me, we're hoping that youmean he's carrying most of the
cross and I got a little pieceof it.
Maybe right, but for somereason he doesn't allow us to
totally escape this, does he?
No, he doesn't.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
He wants to unite somehow.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
And I know that's what you're getting at with your
articles, right?
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, and by turning our attention to him and being
totally fixed on him we candevelop the fortitude to do that
.
And in fact, it's not evenprimarily fortitude or courage
that is at work there, it's love, right.
So you think about the martyrs,which is the preeminent example
of what we're talking abouthere, among Christ's disciples
(18:08):
taking up your cross andfollowing him.
These people did it all the wayto the bitter end.
I think about St Lawrence,deacon of the early church, who
was martyred by literally beingbarbecued.
He was roasted on a gridironright and somehow, in the middle
of that horrifying—.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Who famously probably didn't say but we know, you
know I'm done on this side, turnme over, turn me over, right.
It's amazing actually.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Whether that story is sort of apocryphal and
legendary or not, it does get atsomething that really happened
there, which was his enormouskind of courage.
And in fact what I argue isthat St Lawrence was not
necessarily braver than the restof us.
He was just madly in love withJesus Christ, right, which is
(18:57):
what allowed him to live thecross, to be united to our
Lord's crucifixion in that way.
So that's a little bit of thetheory in practice and in fact,
what is really at the center ofwhat I was trying to do and I
just want to stop people hereagain just to recognize that I
mean you're a psychiatrist witha clinical practice, I mean
you're meeting real people.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
No, this isn't like somebody that just says, hey,
I'm going, I kind of feel thisway, you're experiencing it.
Like you said, did you have aback injury?
Is that what it was, that youhad for five years I did yeah,
and then also with your patients.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, I ruptured a disc, I had two failed spine
surgeries, I had some scartissue tethering the nerve root,
so I was essentially on my backfor the better part of almost
five years.
So I experienced severe,chronic physical pain for a long
period of time and I, you knowI needed something at that point
(19:51):
that would help me again toturn my attention away from my
own suffering and to thesuffering of Christ.
And so the other thing that Ioffer in this series and in fact
, if people remember nothingelse from this podcast episode,
I want them to learn andremember this little prayer,
this little aspiration.
(20:11):
It's four words and I like itin Latin Doce me passionum tuum
is this prayer that I taught andkept repeating in the course of
this series, which translatesteach me your suffering or, more
literally, teach me yourpassion.
I like the Latin docimepassionum tuum, because the word
passionum has both of thoseconnotations which the English
(20:35):
words do not.
So, teach me your suffering orteach me your passion, is a
simple prayer, a simpleaspiration that we can repeat
literally a hundred times a day,right when we're bearing up
under the burdens of the day.
That will help us turn ourattention from whatever we're
dealing with, to what our Lordhas done for us.
(20:57):
So you know, if folks takenothing away from this episode,
at least take away those fourwords.
It's a beautiful little prayerwhich, again, doesn't ask God to
help us avoid suffering, asmuch as we might want that.
It doesn't even ask God toexplain to us why we're
suffering, which was probablybeyond our comprehension, this
(21:19):
side of eternity but instead ittakes us more deeply into
Christ's suffering.
It draws us into the depths ofhis love, and that's where we
encounter the love and wedevelop the fortitude to bear
the cross with Jesus.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
It's interesting to me as I think about a patient
coming into you, Dr Curiati.
And of course they want relieffrom suffering, and so how do
you?
Balance, that between prayer,faith, psychology, uh, and maybe
even, you know, not only uh,you know, a mental illness of
maybe of some sorts, uh, butphysical also.
(21:56):
You know, this is a hardbalance for someone like you.
When somebody's at least comingin, it probably takes a while
to massage this absolutely no.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
That's a very good question.
Thank you for asking that,because I do want to reiterate
I'm not suggesting here that welove suffering.
I'm suggesting that we love thelives that God has given to us,
which entails suffering, andthe person that we have become
is only the person that we havebecome, in part because of what
(22:25):
we have suffered.
Now, obviously, I'm a physician, I'm a psychiatrist.
So whenever possible, using thetools of modern psychiatry, of
modern medicine, whether that'smedications or psychotherapy, or
diet and exercise or otherinterventions that I do to try
to help treat mental illness andpsychological pain, I'm going
(22:46):
to intervene and I'm going totry to help you mitigate your
suffering, right?
So this is not a counsel ofpassivity, this is not a counsel
of like in the face of illness.
Don't go seek help and don't goseek treatment.
No, obviously do those things.
Christianity is a religion ofhealing.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
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(23:27):
A couple things to share withpeople Love Ed.
Love Ed is just such animportant apostolate, so it's
within our apostolate, the JohnPaul II Renewal Center.
This helps parents give thetalk to their children.
We're trying to push back onall these gender ideologies and
the porn culture and givechildren the truth and do it
(23:51):
through their parents, and wehelp them do that.
The other one is really takenoff too.
It's Claymore Miletus Christi,Soldiers for Christ.
That's where you see the swordbehind me.
That's the big sword.
That's our logo for Claymore.
That's a Claymore sword.
And this is for young people,especially young men, Gen Z,
(24:15):
high school, all the way through, let's call it till they're 30
years old or so.
They're starting to reallyunderstand that something
nefarious, very toxic, is goingon in the culture, and so
they're stepping into the churchand we're discipling them.
So we want to help get the wordout about those things and,
lastly, try to consider at leastconsider financially supporting
us.
Everything's in the show notes.
Hey, God bless you.
(24:36):
Thanks again.
We'll be right back to today'sshow.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Christians invented the modern hospital back in the
Middle Ages.
Christians have been in thebusiness of health care from the
very beginning because our Lordwas a healer, among other
things.
Many of his works, hismiraculous works, were miracles
of healing, so that's deeplyembedded within the Christian
tradition.
So we should do what we can,obviously, to mitigate the
(25:03):
misery in the world.
Right To deal with poverty.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
I could see right here, yeah, and right here,
though, this would be the timeto interject with somebody,
because, even in the healingprocess, even if I think I'm on
a road or you think yourpatient's on the road to healing
, you still have this interim,this period where they're still
going to suffer, and so,regardless of what journey
you're on, there's a time rightto get deeper with our Lord.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
That's exactly right, and sometimes the healing
interventions themselves aredifficult and arduous, right?
The surgeon takes out thescalpel to lance the abscess and
he says this is going to hurt alittle bit, right?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And medication has many side effects, right, I mean
, these things aren't.
They don't come without anyside effects.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So all that to say, yes, we try to mitigate
suffering.
At the same time we recognizethat in a fallen world, not all
illness is treatable.
Sometimes the treatment itselfcan be difficult or painful or
arduous and at the end of theday, try as we might, we will
never fully eliminate all thesuffering in the world.
It's very important for us toaccept that right.
(26:09):
Attempts in medicine to ignorethat reality end up with
proposals like well, if we can'ttreat someone's suffering, then
if we can't eliminate thesuffering, we'll eliminate the
sufferer through doctor-assistedsuicide or euthanasia or
aborting the baby who has fetalanomalies or a diagnosis of a
(26:32):
serious health condition ordreams of transhuman right?
Yeah, the transhumanist dream oftrying to use science and
technology to live forever andso forth.
This is a substitute religion,I would argue, an attempt to
redeem ourselves through scienceand technology and medicine
(26:52):
that is doomed to failure.
In fact, in the end it's goingto cause more suffering than it
mitigates.
It's going to end up beingdehumanizing.
So recognizing the limits ofscience and medicine,
recognizing the limits ofpolitical efforts to eliminate
forms of suffering like povertyand so forth.
(27:12):
Obviously, we do everythingreasonable that we can in that
regard, but at the same time welive in a fallen world and we're
never going to completelyescape suffering and just age.
I have a father, dr.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Curiati, that's almost 100 years old, old World
War II vet, and he's blind now.
He's almost deaf, and you knowmy wife always kids with him and
says you know, getting old isnot for sissies, you know, but
he does, and I don't want to putwords in your mouth, but he
does what you're suggesting inthese articles.
That's why they resonated withme, Because I see him at 3
(27:52):
o'clock praying the chaplet andoffer up his suffering for his
kids and grandkids and all thisstuff.
And so it's inevitable, thebest-case scenario we get old
and die right, that's thebest-case scenario.
So this becomes veryinteresting.
So how do we in the now getused to this right?
And that's where the beauty ofyour articles, I think, come in,
(28:14):
Like, let's just do thisbecause there is suffering, and
if I'm not suffering, myneighbor is or my child is or my
grandchild is, and we bringthat suffering as part of us
also, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (28:26):
And what the incarnation should teach us, and
especially us, and especiallyour Lord's entire life, but
especially his passion and deathon Good Friday, is that God is
not far from our suffering.
So whatever we're experiencing,whether physical or
psychological or spiritual formsof suffering and anguish, every
(28:47):
pain, every agony, every horror, even the kind of unspeakable
forms of suffering and anguish,every pain, every agony, every
horror, even the kind ofunspeakable forms of suffering
that people are reluctant todisclose to anyone.
Our Lord experienced that aswell.
He took that upon himself inhis passion and experienced it
in the very marrow of his bones,and he redeemed it.
(29:12):
He went to the very depths ofhuman misery in order to find us
there and to draw us up withhim.
In fact, he went to deeperdepths than any of us could
possibly imagine and any of ushave been to, no matter how
difficult our lives have been,and he invites us into his love
(29:33):
precisely there, at the centerof the Christian revelation is a
man hanging on a cross, andwe're being invited to
participate at some level,aren't we in this?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
So how do you explain ?
This to someone that's cominginto the faith now.
And now we're following whatyou said, right, and we're
saying, yeah, and I do havethese hurts, these pains.
Look, we have 60 million adultsrunning around today in the
United States alone that havebeen sexually abused as children
.
I mean, talk about that right.
But now and I'm speaking tothese people all the time, so
I'm very interested in youranswer here.
How might I start to learnmyself and also to maybe share
(30:22):
the essence of what this lookslike you?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
know.
Yeah, thank you for askingabout that.
Of course these you know, thesehorrors of childhood sexual
abuse, any form of sexual abuse.
But especially when we thinkabout innocent and defenseless
children, these horrifying sinswhich infect the world and even
the church, I have to say thatwound our lady's immaculate
(30:47):
heart, the harm of her childrenin that way.
How do we even help someonewho's endured something like
that?
I think we begin byacknowledging their pain and
also by acknowledging that if wehaven't personally experienced
that, we can't possiblyunderstand what they have been
through, but that our Lord hasunderstood it.
And in fact it may soundstrange to say this, but the
(31:11):
effects of what they endured.
Christ also endured that on thecross.
It may sound strange to saythat, but our faith teaches that
he took on all the effects ofsins, including those sins.
He felt it in the very marrowof his bones, in his soul.
He has been there with them inthat.
(31:31):
And to go deeper into that isnot primarily an intellectual
exercise, and that's why I wouldsay again, I return to the four
simple words of this prayerLearn this prayer.
Doce me passionum tuum, teachme your suffering.
Repeat it, meditate upon it,open the Gospels and read the
(31:53):
accounts of our Lord'ssufferings.
Place yourself there in thescene, as St Ignatius, loyola
and so many other saints haverecommended.
Become another character inthat scene in the Gospels where
our Lord takes up his cross orwhere he's nailed to the cross.
Take in all the sights, thesounds the smells.
Be one among the crowd, right,place yourself there in your
(32:15):
imagination in order to go moredeeply into that moment in
Christ's life.
And Christ, you know, we don'tneed a complicated scholarly
exegesis or explanation of theGospels.
If we pray this simple prayerin our hearts Lord, teach me
(32:35):
your suffering, don't you makepass the enemy to him.
If we go deeper into thosemoments in Christ's life where
he suffered, he will do theexegesis for us, he'll explain
to us what does this mean for mepersonally?
So I would also counsel thatpeople get away from an overly
intellectualized approach tothis.
And look, I mean I love theology, I studied philosophy, I love
(32:58):
diving deep into, you know, theintellectual aspects of the
faith, but when you're talkingabout something like suffering,
the answer is not going to befound in a philosophical or
theological treatise.
The answer is going to be foundin with our heart treatise.
The answer is going to be foundin with our heart, with our
(33:20):
imagination, with our will, withour affections and emotions,
entering more deeply into thesuffering of Jesus.
And again, that's why, insteadof recommending or writing, you
know, a theological treatise onthe Christian meaning of
suffering, really I'mrecommending a simple prayer,
four words.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
But again, you're inviting, but you could see in
your words, and you're invitingthem into an encounter with
Christ, and that's a personalthing, that's right, that's
right, that encounter, that canonly happen in prayer.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
So one of the other things that I did in the series
in part three of the series, Idescribe how to make a
preparation for a consecrationof the Holy Cross of Jesus,
which is a longer prayer that Iincluded at the end of this
series as a way to go moredeeply into our Lord's suffering
, and you know people like beinggiven things to do.
(34:14):
How can I actually enrich myspiritual life?
And so this practice of makinga consecration, I think, can be
very helpful, and so I have someideas there in part three,
meditating on the passion.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
What would?
Somebody listening for thefirst time, maybe you know we
have some new young peoplecoming in.
When I say young people,they're in their 20s and 30s,
right, so they're not kids,young people coming in.
When I say young people,they're in their 20s and 30s,
right, so they're not kids.
But trying to understandCatholicism, trying to look at
the cross, maybe they weren'tgiven anything, you know, and we
have an encounter with Christis what we're really, really.
(34:48):
I mean, that's the importantthing.
You know.
I remember Pope Benedict XVIsaying something like your faith
will never be an ethicaldecision to your point or some
lofty philosophical idea.
It's going to be an encounterwith an event, an encounter with
a person, and then he said thatencounter will give you a new
horizon, a way to look at theworld and a decisive direction
for your life.
That's what you're calling theminto.
(35:09):
So if I'm going to try thisright and we'll put those words
across the screen a number oftimes when we edit this, for
people to see it, it'll be inthe show notes, your articles
will be in the show notes.
But what do I expect?
What do I expect?
Maybe I'm a young person, I knowsomething's wrong, but I don't
really feel a personal pain,pain.
(35:29):
I feel like something's wrong,pain, right, which is bad enough
sometimes.
But what can I expect?
And how would I massage?
So I'm going to say theseprayers.
Should I do it at home?
Should I go to mass to do it,you know, and what can?
What is there a way to say?
(35:49):
Because we just said this is apersonal encounter, so he's not
going to woo me like he wooedyou, dr Kiriati, but so he's
going to woo them differently.
But what could they look for?
What could they sense?
Speaker 1 (35:57):
So a little aspiration like this can be said
anytime, anywhere, while you'reworking, while you're driving
in a car, every time you walk upand down a flight of stairs,
when you flip a light switch on.
That's the value of thesesimple aspirations From the
Jesus prayer, which is verypopular among Eastern right
Christians.
Lord Jesus, son of God, havemercy on me, a sinner.
(36:20):
The idea of just repeating thesame simple prayer over and over
until it's written on yourheart is deeply embedded within
the Christian tradition, both inthe East and in the West, and
this prayer that I'mrecommending should be prayed in
the same way.
Right, it can become like thebeating of our heart.
Now, with that said, also,besides, when we're just walking
(36:40):
down the street and we say abrief prayer or a brief
aspiration, we should set asidesome time every day devoted only
to prayer 20 minutes, 30minutes in the morning, ideally
in front of the BlessedSacrament in a church.
And this is where you know whenI recommended some ideas for
preparing for the consecrationof the Holy Cross of Jesus, you
(37:02):
know I described some ways thatyou could do this in your prayer
and some methods that you cantake to your prayer.
But in those moments you canlook at an image of the
crucified Lord and just look atit and take it in right.
One of the strange things aboutthe crucifix is the central
(37:22):
symbol of Christianity.
Is that Christianity, theparadox of Christ's love
expressed on the cross, is thatit took a symbol that in the
ancient world was so horrifyingthat the early Christians didn't
use it.
They were very close to it andit was like this is like the
electric chair of the day,except it was an electric chair
(37:44):
that was designed to inflict themaximum amount of pain before
it actually killed you.
So the idea of wearing somethinglike that, you know gazing upon
that.
But over time Christians cameto realize that, no, the
crucifixion is not just an imageof horror which scandalizes us,
it's an image of love andsomehow, they had to feel that
(38:08):
right Because they had in manycases they could volunteer to
walk away.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
You know right.
You know I don't give, you know, I give a little incense to
Caesar and I can walk away.
And they didn't do it.
I always wonder, dr Curiati,what I have to right.
I think we all wonder, do wehave the courage to do that?
But they must have sensed whatyou're talking about here.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Well, I think they did, because they were closer to
the event too, and somehow youknow the early Christians.
If you look at the accounts ofthe martyrs, you know their
sufferings are almost mentionedas a footnote, almost as an
afterthought, and the focus verymuch is on the crucified Christ
and on the Eucharistic Christ.
You look at the accounts of themartyrs of the first century or
(38:51):
two of Christianity.
It's extraordinary, whetherit's the death of St Ignatius or
the death of St Polycarp.
Many of these you knowwell-known early Christian
martyrs.
What you see is that Christ isat the center and not their own
suffering.
And I think they almost sort oftook it for granted that they
would follow our Lord to Calvaryright as part of being a
(39:15):
Christian right.
They weren't shocked orsurprised that the disciple is
not greater than his master, asour Lord told us, and that, you
know, this is for them.
Literally taking up their crossand following him may have
meant that they had to givetheir blood, they had to shed
their blood rather than betraytheir faith in Christ.
(39:36):
And I think there's somethingin that attitude of the early
church that's totally focused onour Lord and you know, it's not
that their own sufferings don'tmatter, but it's that they were
secondary and that they wereable again to do what they did
to be thrown to wild beasts inthe arena.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah, I remember St Ignatius of Antioch just saying
don't even come rescue me.
And he wrote these beautifulletters yeah that's right.
And he was looking forward.
Are we being called all of us,do you think, Dr Cariotti?
Are we all being called toparticipate in some way in the
suffering of Jesus Christ, asChristians?
Speaker 1 (40:15):
I think so.
I think all of us need to tryto learn from the martyrs, not
that we're going to sufferwhat's sometimes called a red
martyrdom, the literal sheddingof our blood.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
But I mean even in the suffering that you and I
were talking about earlier, justin our physical pain and mental
illnesses and all those thingsand you know, mental illnesses
and all those things Are wealways called, you know, in this
life, to carry our cross andactually participate.
Is that what Christ, you know?
(40:46):
Does he want us to become intothis and actually experience
some of what he's going through?
You know, as I'm trying to workthrough my pain and suffering
and I'm trying to say, okay,what does Jesus, what does he
want me, what does God want meto do in this action of saying
this prayer and moving andopening my heart to him?
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Well, I think that's exactly what he wants, and I
wouldn't dare say that unless hehad said it first.
I don't know how else tointerpret.
Take up your cross daily, youknow.
Deny yourself three things.
How else to interpret?
Take up your cross daily, youknow.
Deny yourself three things.
Deny yourself, take up yourcross daily and follow me, okay,
so.
So this is not me.
(41:23):
I would not have invented thisreligion, right?
I?
Speaker 2 (41:26):
you know, if, if I, if I were to dream up still
around how this was gonna go,yeah this is.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
You know, no human being would have been born in a
you know who.
Who, who was pretending to beGod, would have been born in a
manger, would have been scourgedat the pillar and crowned with
thorns and crucified.
So again, I'm saying this thingonly because our Lord said it
and St Paul understood this.
Again, you dive deeply into theletters of the New Testament,
(41:54):
not just the Gospels.
Paul understood this Again.
You dive deeply into theletters of the New Testament,
not just the Gospels.
St Paul has this very peculiarpassage where he says I make up
in my sufferings.
What is lacking in thesufferings of Christ?
That can be difficult tointerpret, because on the one
(42:19):
hand he says elsewhere thatnothing was lacking in the
sufferings of Christ, weresufficient to redeem everyone
right who accepted the grace ofChrist's redemption.
So what does he mean there?
What he means there is that allof us have to come more fully
into participation and unionwith Christ, so that every
member of his mystical bodyshares in his suffering, shares
in his passion.
That's what needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
So it's our own participation in the cross that
is still waiting to happen andto make it present in today's
world in our families.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
So, Christ, yes, 100% St saint paul.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Everything is there on the cross, everything we need
, but but we need it forourselves and we need to.
We need to bring this down,just like in and before I.
I let you go.
We have to talk about the massjust a little bit, because this
is the idea that we're we'reentering into and making present
that one-time historicalsacrifice, and then taking our
suffering and saying this is theway I'm dealing with you.
(43:19):
I mean, it's a profound thing.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yeah, thank you for bringing up the Mass, and I have
an article in the seriesprecisely about the Mass because
the Mass is the prayer of allprayers and it is the place that
we go to be most fully unitedto our Lord's sufferings.
Because what the Mass is, asthe Council of Trent taught, is
the sacramental representationof the sacrifice of Calvary.
(43:46):
Protestants sometimes objectedto Catholics claiming that the
Mass was a sacrifice becausethey said, well, jesus'
sacrifice on the cross happenedonce and for all and we don't
need additional sacrifices, likeall the other sacrifices of the
Old Testament, animalsacrifices and so forth,
repeated over and over and overagain.
Well, they were right on onepoint, but they were wrong on
(44:08):
another point.
They were right that no othersacrifices are necessary after
Christ's sacrifice on the crossin order to redeem us, but they
were wrong in denying that theMass was a sacrifice, because
the Mass is not anothersacrifice.
The Mass is the same sacrificeof Calvary, made present to us
today.
So, literally, at the Mass, weare with St John and Mary
(44:32):
Magdalene and Our Lady standingat the foot of the cross, able
to receive the graces thatflowed from Christ's pierced
side, the blood and water whichthe Church Fathers always
interpreted as representing thesacraments, baptism and the
Eucharist.
We are there at every Mass,literally as though we were
(44:54):
contemporaries 2,000 years ago,standing at the foot of the
cross, able to partake of andparticipate in the sacrifice of
Christ on the cross through thecross the body and blood that is
offered there and that is givento us as our food and drink in
the Eucharist.
So you said, what can people dobesides praying this simple
(45:17):
prayer?
Well, the way to go more deeplyinto this simple prayer is to
participate more frequently,daily if possible, more
attentively and more fully inthe sacrifice of the Mass.
Attentively and more fully inthe sacrifice of the Mass, and I
would recommend, just as a goodpractice that many Catholics
are not in the habit of, afteryou receive communion, our
(45:43):
Lord's Eucharistic presenceremains there inside, until the
species of bread and wine arebroken down by our body, which
is about 15 minutes.
Our Lord's Eucharistic presenceis literally right there inside
us, right underneath our heart,in our stomach, as it were.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
It's amazing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Stay for 10 minutes after Mass and give thanks for
what you have just received.
Stay for 10 minutes after Massand converse intimately with our
Lord in that moment.
Tell him your troubles right,bring your difficulties to him,
bring your conditions to him.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
But when I do that now, I have a different
perspective after reading yourmaterial.
So while I'm bringing him mytroubles, I am going to make a
conscious effort to say, but I'mgoing to concentrate on your
suffering right now yoursuffering.
You know, I have the divinemercy picture behind me.
You mentioned baptism and theEucharist right Flowing out of
the heart of Christ.
(46:31):
Sister Faustina, one of thethings that these young guys do,
dr Curiati, in the morning isthey fall to their knees before
they look at their phone.
They open up their hearts.
Be it done to me, according toyour word.
The second thing they say andthis is where I'm going to use
your prayer and I'm going tostart to get this out to these
guys is that temptation is not asin.
They're flooded withtemptations, these guys.
(46:53):
Their innocence was stolen fromthem, their moral imaginations
have been obliterated in manycases, and so we're teaching
them and just walking with themto open up those temptations.
This is the time to say thatprayer.
I feel this pain, but I alsowant to unite this pain with
your suffering.
I acknowledge your suffering.
(47:13):
Teach me now.
And, man, I just got goosebumps.
Something positive, I think cancome out of that.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
No, that's very good.
We need, you know, so manypeople need a healing of the
imagination and the healing oftheir memory from what they've
taken in from their senses, fromwhat they've experienced, and
meditating on our Lord, on hissufferings, and in a very
tangible way, st Teresa of Avilasays we should never try to get
beyond the humanity of Christin our prayer into some abstract
(47:45):
realm where we're onlycommuning with the divinity of
Christ.
The humanity of Christ and thedivinity of Christ are united
inextricably, and so toencounter him visually, you know
, using our senses, is such abeautiful and powerful way of
healing the imagination andhealing the memory.
(48:06):
If people want to go deeperinto this prayer, there's a
website passionumtuumorgP-A-S-S-I-O-N-E-M-T-U-A-M, and
maybe you could link to that inthe show notes that has this
prayer.
It has this series of articlesthat I mentioned.
It has the consecration of theHoly Cross of Jesus.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Is that your website?
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Yeah, I set this up recently just to help spread
devotion to this prayer and helppeople kind of have a place
they can go to dig into it alittle bit.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah, and where else?
I mean, is that the mainconnection to you?
If they wanted to see your work, are all the articles linked
there?
You said, yeah, the articles.
I'm thinking what's the bestway for us?
Speaker 1 (48:49):
to link to you.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Yeah, the articles I'm thinking what's the best way
for us to link to you?
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yeah, so the article series on this prayer that we've
talked about is on that website, passionumtumorg, if people
want to see my other work thatI've done on depression and on
bioethics.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
I have your book, by the way, very good Other topics.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
I have a personal website, aaroncariotticom, and I
also have a Substack newsletterthat people can sign up for.
The Substack is called HumanFlourishing, so that's another
way to get connected up with mywork.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
All right, and we'd love to send you a copy of this
outline for Claymore MiletusChristi, just to take a quick
look at that.
It's a wonderful way todisciple and again I want to use
that prayer in that instance.
The last point I'll make, justbecause my mind is moving now
with everything you've unpacked,is Sister Faustina and many of
(49:48):
the other mystics.
You know there was a certainjoy you brought to the heart of
Christ.
It reminds me John Paul saidthat in a sense Christ unites
all our humanity with him on thecross and unites it to divinity
.
So everything at the Mass, wehave it there.
But there's a joy.
There's a joy that we can bringto God.
He expresses it in the diary.
You know that you've brought methis joy, that other people
(50:13):
just bring me this cold, likeI'm just paraphrasing, but this
coldness to them even when theypray or whatever.
But you bring a depth, a warmth.
I think that's what you'regetting at with all these
articles.
I mean, you know, we're goingdeep.
We're going deep witheverything.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Well, this is the strange paradox of Christianity.
You'd think an article serieson suffering and the cross might
be sort of, you know, dour,pessimistic or kind of a downer.
But the beautiful thing aboutthis prayer is precisely that it
leads to joy, that it leads toliberation and to interior peace
(50:48):
.
And you know, to go to thecross to find that might strike
people initially as kind of odd,but this is the great mystery
of our faith that in the depthsof Christ's suffering is
precisely where we find joy.
So Christians are not called togo around with a long-drawn
(51:08):
face or a pessimistic attitude.
Actually, the cross alwaysleads to the resurrection and
the deeper we go into themystery of Christ crucified, the
more we can participate in andlive, even in this life, the joy
and the peace of theresurrection.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Well, that's how we're going to end this.
That was beautiful and what apleasure again, what an honor.
Like I said, I know you as aman of conviction and courage
and faith, and so this was verymeaningful for us and, I hope,
for our whole audience.
So thank you very much, thankseveryone.
Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Thanks, bye-bye.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Thank you.
Learn this prayer doce me passionum tuum, teach me
your suffering, repeat it,meditate upon it.
Open the Gospels and read theaccounts of our Lord's
sufferings.
Place yourself there in thescene, as St Ignatius, loyola
and so many other saints haverecommended.
Become another character inthat scene in the Gospels where
our Lord takes up his cross, orwhere he's nailed to the cross.
(00:22):
Take in all the sights, thesounds, the smells.
We don't need a complicatedscholarly exegesis or
explanation of the Gospels.
If we pray this simple prayerin our hearts Lord, teach me
your suffering, don't you makepass the unknown to me.
If we go deeper into thosemoments in Christ's life where
(00:43):
he suffered, he will do theexegesis for us.
He'll explain to us.
What does this mean for mepersonally?
Yeah, thank you for bringing upthe Mass, and I have an article
in the series precisely aboutthe Mass Because the Mass is the
prayer of all prayers, and itis the place that we go to be
most fully united to our Lord'ssufferings, because what the
(01:06):
mass is, as the Council of Trenttaught, is their sacramental
representation of the sacrificeof Calvary.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Welcome to the Become who you Are podcast, a
production of the John Paul IIRenewal Center.
I'm Jack Riggins, your host.
You know being human's not easy, is it?
It seems that we all suffer.
Most of us want to avoidsuffering, go into the doctor
for a remedy at the slightestpain.
But since we can't avoid itwe're Christians.
We look up to Jesus Christ onthe cross.
(01:49):
We wonder why did he acceptsuffering?
And does our suffering have anydeeper meaning?
Can we make sense of it?
So today with us is AaronCuriati, md, a physician
specializing in psychiatry.
He's the author of three books,including the Catholic Guide to
Depression.
He is a fellow and director ofthe program in bioethics and
(02:09):
American democracy at the Ethicsand Public Policy Center.
For many years he was professorof psychiatry at the University
of California Irvine School ofMedicine and also the director
of the medical ethics program atUCI Health, where he chaired
the ethics committee.
Dr Curiati has publishedarticles in the Wall Street
Journal, the Washington Post,newsweek, the Federalist and
(02:32):
First Things and on matters ofpublic policy and health care.
He has testified at theCalifornia Senate and the United
States Senate.
And finally, dr Curiati is aplaintiff in the landmark free
speech case Missouri v Biden,which is currently before the US
Supreme Court and I'm wonderingif it's still in front of there
.
We've got to hear just a littlebit about that.
(02:53):
For his work challenginggovernment censorship, the
journalist Matt Taibbi hascalled him the most ambitious
theorist of the censorshipindustrial age.
Aaron welcome.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Thanks, Jack.
It's great to be with you.
Thank you for that kindintroduction.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Yes, you know I was saying right before we came out
and I want to repeat it to ouraudience who may not know you
that I've been following you fora long time, well before COVID,
and we work with a lot of youngpeople and I was using your
research, your referencematerial, where you reference
anxiety, depression, evensuicide among them, and really
(03:30):
brought some answers, you know,trying to connect them to a
deeper meaning.
But it was during COVID that Ireally saw your convictions and
your courage come out.
You got yourself in a littlebit of trouble there, pushing
back on the censorship of freespeech, Obvious what was going
on to us, but there weren't manyvoices at that time, Dr Aaron,
(03:53):
speaking about these things.
But you did.
What gave you the courage to dothat?
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Well, I think it was my faith.
It was trying to live a life ofprayer and the sacraments and
my conscience while I was at theUniversity of California,
irvine.
My conscience just convicted meto try to challenge the
university's vaccine mandatebecause it contradicted, it
undermined, a core principle ofmedical ethics, the principle of
informed consent that I hadtaught to students in the
(04:19):
required ethics course medicalstudents every year and I
couldn't imagine getting up infront of those students with a
clear conscience and trying toteach and explain that principle
if I hadn't stood up and triedto defend that principle in the
real world when push came toshove.
So I ended up challenging theuniversity's vaccine mandate in
federal court.
I didn't prevail in that caseand the university ended up
(04:43):
firing me as a consequence ofthat in retaliation.
But I have you mentioned anotherfree speech case that I filed,
along with four other privateplaintiffs in the state of
Missouri and the state ofLouisiana against the federal
government and that's a casecalled Missouri v Biden.
We had alleged that the federalgovernment was pressuring
(05:05):
social media companies duringCOVID, but now we know it began
even before COVID and continuedafterwards pressuring these
companies to censorconstitutionally protected
speech and the plaintiffs, amongmany, many other people, were
victims of that governmentcensorship, which is a clear
violation of the First Amendment.
And just a very quick update onthat case yes, yes please.
(05:28):
The government is now sittingdown to negotiate with us a
settlement in that case.
So essentially you know thatsettlement will be a binding
precedent once it's approved bythe court, which we are hoping
will put a stop to a lot of thisgovernment-mandated censorship.
So I don't have the details ofthat yet because they haven't
been hammered out with thedefendants, with the federal
(05:51):
government and the agenciesnamed as defendants, but I
should have updates on that soonthat I'll post on my sub stack.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Well, thank you for that, and so you might have a
legacy there that we're going tobe studying case history right
in law and who knows what'sgoing to happen.
It's a crazy world out there.
We know that and I'll justmention this to you, as I did in
the introduction.
We've been working with a lotof younger people, especially
young men.
That's what that sword is.
(06:19):
We have an apostolate withinour apostolate, called Claymore
Miletus Christi, and these areyoung guys that came out and
they started to vote for Trump,not because they think he's God
or Jesus Christ, but they justsensed something's wrong and
they were looking for a model, arole model that would seem to
be on their side, and now it's agreat time to evangelize.
(06:40):
Many of them, dr Kiriati, arehurting, the men and the women,
obviously right from a verytoxic culture.
So you mentioned in yourarticle you know this hurting in
our hearts, but there's allkinds of hurting going on there,
so trying to make sense of thatis a very interesting angle,
(07:01):
and you wrote what moved you andthe meaning of suffering itself
, right.
So you wrote and I wanted toask you what moved you to write
that.
Of course, you know, I justunpacked it.
I think that's why I kind ofstopped there for a second.
But you wrote during this pastlent a series that can be found
on catholic exchange, themeaning of suffering.
Of course we'll link that inthe show notes, but give us a
(07:22):
little background on that andwhat prompted you, what moved
you to write that?
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Sure.
So I was really inspired towrite this series on the
Christian meaning of sufferingand the cross, which you
mentioned, which was publishedin Catholic Exchange during Lent
.
I think I was inspired byworking with my patients,
especially, and by things that Ihad learned from my patients in
terms of how they were tryingto contend with their suffering
and anguish.
And if there's one thing thatI've learned as a psychiatrist
(07:49):
is what you mentioned in theintro to this episode, which is
that everyone suffers, numberone and number two we very often
don't really know what anotherperson is suffering, either
exteriorly or interiorly.
A lot of the suffering thatpeople endure remains hidden.
Actually, I have a very commonexperience as a psychiatrist of
(08:09):
having patients disclose to meforms of suffering, whether it's
childhood abuse or other thingsthat they've endured in life,
that they have not everdisclosed to anyone else,
including a spouse, includingtheir close friends.
And so you know, I becameconvinced that not only is
everyone suffering, but veryoften their suffering is hidden.
(08:31):
It's very hard for them toshare it.
So people are bearing theseburdens and looking for answers.
Patients often raise in theclinical context with me, raise
the philosophical problem ofevil, the problem of why would
an all-good, all-powerful,all-knowing God allow so much
(08:51):
pain and suffering in the world,and for my patients and for
myself, when I endured almostfive years of a severe,
debilitating chronic paincondition, personally you know
this was not an abstractphilosophical question.
Personally, you know this wasnot an abstract philosophical
question and it couldn't beanswered by a philosophical
treatise.
This was a very personal, youmight say existential question
(09:13):
that has to do with myrelationship with God and this
question is perfectly naturalfor us to ask.
It's natural to ask why did Godallow my wife to get cancer?
Why did God allow my child tobe afflicted by this injury?
Why did God allow my family tohave our good name unjustly
(09:35):
slandered?
It's not any sort of mysterywhy we would go to God in prayer
and ask those questions.
A sort of mystery why we wouldgo to God in prayer and ask
those questions.
But one of the things that Idiscovered and I learned both
from my patients and my ownexperience, and what I tried to
convey in this series ofarticles, is that while asking
(09:57):
those questions are perfectlynatural, and while I sometimes
try to help patients in theclinical context to reconcile
these questions, it's importantto notice that all of these
questions tend to focus on myown suffering.
We want God to explain ouranguish to us, but the fact is,
this side of eternity, we'reusually not given the answers to
(10:19):
those questions by God.
Our finite intellects are notreally capable of comprehending
the reasons behind God'sprovidential designs and if you
look in the Bible, for examplein the book of Job, job has 37
chapters of basically Job'ssuffering and Job's and his
friends' questions that they putto God.
Why is this happening?
Did I do something wrong tocause this?
(10:41):
And finally, god shows up inchapter 38.
Speaker 2 (10:44):
It's interesting, which is I just say to people
that haven't read that for awhile.
You have to go back and readthat, but I'm sorry to interrupt
you.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
No, not at all, absolutely.
Yeah, it's one of the mostbeautiful, powerful books in the
Bible and of course it speaksto this question of human
suffering.
But when God shows up, hedoesn't actually answer Job's
questions.
He poses a question to Job.
He says where were you when Ilaid the foundations of the
earth?
In other words, look, whateverI would explain to you regarding
your suffering is beyond youror your friend's ability to
(11:17):
comprehend.
But God does not leave us there.
And the Bible, the biblicalrevelation, does not leave us
there.
And the Bible, the biblicalrevelation, does not leave us
there, because the fullness ofrevelation, of course, comes in
the Gospels in the New Testament.
If we look to the New Testament,we see that the real answer to
the age-old problem of evil isnot found in some philosophical
(11:39):
treatise or even in someabstract theological explanation
.
The answer to the question ofsuffering is found in the cross
of Jesus Christ, and that's atthe center of this series that I
wrote.
Our job as Christians and whatwe need to do when we suffer is
to turn our attention from ourown sufferings to the sufferings
(12:02):
of Christ.
That's where we're going tofind liberation.
That's where we're going tofind a peace that the world
cannot give.
We have to turn to the cross,and in fact, I think this is an
important message for our day,because the world and even many
in the church today haveforgotten the cross.
Right, everyone loves themiracle-working Christ, who
(12:25):
heals the blind and the lame andthe lepers, who turns water
into wine and multiplies theloaves and the fish.
Right, everyone loves Christ,the wise teacher and the
brilliant preacher.
Even Thomas Jefferson and theold deists liked the teachings
of Jesus, even if they discardedthe miracles.
(12:45):
The prosperity gospel huh theprosperity gospel, which is a
distortion because it saysessentially that Christ suffers
so that we don't have to.
But that's not the message ofthe New Testament.
The message of the NewTestament is that Christ
suffered so that we could beunited with him on the cross
when we suffer, so that we canbe liberated from the burdens of
(13:07):
our suffering because of whathe has done for us, because of
his love, so that we candiscover that which transcends
our suffering, which is the lovethat he expressed for us in his
own passion.
Right.
So we need to turn ourattention to the crucified
Christ, even though we preferthe resurrected Christ, christ
(13:28):
the teacher, christ the preacher.
But we cannot, and those areobviously important, we need the
whole Christ.
But that includes the crucifiedChrist, that includes Good
Friday, without which there isno Easter Sunday.
And so you know, I think thetendency today is to sort of try
to sanitize our Lord's passion.
(13:50):
Protestants have removed thecorpus, the body, from the cross
, and even Catholics haverendered the body very often
sort of bloodless.
You know, we have this sort ofresurrected Christ gazing out at
us, you know, with serene eyeson many of our crucifixes.
And you know, occasionallywe'll encounter an old, bloody
(14:10):
Spanish crucifix from days ofold, you know, with a more
accurate and realistic depictionof what Christ would have
looked like when he was nailedto the cross, and it sort of
arrests our sensibilities, it'ssort of shocking to us, right,
and I think that's actually agood thing, because the cross is
scandalous.
(14:31):
The reality of the bruised andbloodied and beaten and gritty
blood, sweat, tears crucifixionis a more accurate depiction of
what actually happened on GoodFriday and in fact our Lord's
suffering was not even justlimited to Good Friday.
(14:54):
This is another theme of thearticles that I wrote.
One of them I think it's partfour in the series of seven
articles is entitled Christ'sSuffering from the Incarnation
to the Ascension.
Right so, just becoming a manin Our Lady's womb, just
divesting of his glory andbecoming a human embryo, the
(15:18):
second person of the BlessedTrinity is taking on.
I mean that's a form ofsuffering, right.
Being born in a cave with noroom, in the end having to flee
to Egypt because the king wantsto murder you as a little infant
, all of these things that ourLord endured throughout his
whole life.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
And do we have to remember?
Yeah, right there we have theannihilation or destruction of
the innocents.
Exactly, I mean right at thattime, and he didn't try to stop
that.
Nobody tried to stop it.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
The cross was imprinted upon our Lord's life
from the very beginning.
And you know we tend toromanticize the story of the
nativity, you know Christmascheer and so forth.
But again, you know, we've grownso used to these things that we
often forget.
When you stop and think aboutwhat actually happened on that
Christmas night, and thenshortly thereafter, as you said,
(16:07):
with the slaughter of theinnocents and the flight into
Egypt and all the rest of it,you see that Our Lady and St
Joseph and Our Lord, even as aninfant, took on the sufferings
of the human race, and that'swhere the love of Christ is most
(16:28):
fully manifest.
So what I'm attempting to do inthis series of articles is move
our attention from oursufferings to his, not because
our sufferings don't matter, butwhen we place them in that
broader context, we see thatsuffering is not necessarily a
tragedy, because it's there thatwe find the cross and in the
(16:50):
cross we find the fullestmanifestation of God's love for
us.
So to turn our attention backto the Gospels, which we've
gotten so used to right thatthey often maybe lose their
shock value, shock value and towake us up again, put us there
(17:13):
in those scenes where our Lordis suffering for us is kind of
at the center of what I'm tryingto do here.
The tendency is to want to fleesuffering, to avoid it right.
Speaker 2 (17:25):
When we hear that you know, pick up your cross and
follow me, we're hoping that youmean he's carrying most of the
cross and I got a little pieceof it.
Maybe right, but for somereason he doesn't allow us to
totally escape this, does he?
No, he doesn't.
Speaker 1 (17:42):
He wants to unite somehow.
Speaker 2 (17:43):
And I know that's what you're getting at with your
articles, right?
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Yeah, and by turning our attention to him and being
totally fixed on him we candevelop the fortitude to do that
.
And in fact, it's not evenprimarily fortitude or courage
that is at work there, it's love, right.
So you think about the martyrs,which is the preeminent example
of what we're talking abouthere, among Christ's disciples
(18:08):
taking up your cross andfollowing him.
These people did it all the wayto the bitter end.
I think about St Lawrence,deacon of the early church, who
was martyred by literally beingbarbecued.
He was roasted on a gridironright and somehow, in the middle
of that horrifying—.
Speaker 2 (18:23):
Who famously probably didn't say but we know, you
know I'm done on this side, turnme over, turn me over, right.
It's amazing actually.
Speaker 1 (18:30):
Whether that story is sort of apocryphal and
legendary or not, it does get atsomething that really happened
there, which was his enormouskind of courage.
And in fact what I argue isthat St Lawrence was not
necessarily braver than the restof us.
He was just madly in love withJesus Christ, right, which is
(18:57):
what allowed him to live thecross, to be united to our
Lord's crucifixion in that way.
So that's a little bit of thetheory in practice and in fact,
what is really at the center ofwhat I was trying to do and I
just want to stop people hereagain just to recognize that I
mean you're a psychiatrist witha clinical practice, I mean
you're meeting real people.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
No, this isn't like somebody that just says, hey,
I'm going, I kind of feel thisway, you're experiencing it.
Like you said, did you have aback injury?
Is that what it was, that youhad for five years I did yeah,
and then also with your patients.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Yeah, I ruptured a disc, I had two failed spine
surgeries, I had some scartissue tethering the nerve root,
so I was essentially on my backfor the better part of almost
five years.
So I experienced severe,chronic physical pain for a long
period of time and I, you knowI needed something at that point
(19:51):
that would help me again toturn my attention away from my
own suffering and to thesuffering of Christ.
And so the other thing that Ioffer in this series and in fact
, if people remember nothingelse from this podcast episode,
I want them to learn andremember this little prayer,
this little aspiration.
(20:11):
It's four words and I like itin Latin Doce me passionum tuum
is this prayer that I taught andkept repeating in the course of
this series, which translatesteach me your suffering or, more
literally, teach me yourpassion.
I like the Latin docimepassionum tuum, because the word
passionum has both of thoseconnotations which the English
(20:35):
words do not.
So, teach me your suffering orteach me your passion, is a
simple prayer, a simpleaspiration that we can repeat
literally a hundred times a day,right when we're bearing up
under the burdens of the day.
That will help us turn ourattention from whatever we're
dealing with, to what our Lordhas done for us.
(20:57):
So you know, if folks takenothing away from this episode,
at least take away those fourwords.
It's a beautiful little prayerwhich, again, doesn't ask God to
help us avoid suffering, asmuch as we might want that.
It doesn't even ask God toexplain to us why we're
suffering, which was probablybeyond our comprehension, this
(21:19):
side of eternity but instead ittakes us more deeply into
Christ's suffering.
It draws us into the depths ofhis love, and that's where we
encounter the love and wedevelop the fortitude to bear
the cross with Jesus.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
It's interesting to me as I think about a patient
coming into you, Dr Curiati.
And of course they want relieffrom suffering, and so how do
you?
Balance, that between prayer,faith, psychology, uh, and maybe
even, you know, not only uh,you know, a mental illness of
maybe of some sorts, uh, butphysical also.
(21:56):
You know, this is a hardbalance for someone like you.
When somebody's at least comingin, it probably takes a while
to massage this absolutely no.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
That's a very good question.
Thank you for asking that,because I do want to reiterate
I'm not suggesting here that welove suffering.
I'm suggesting that we love thelives that God has given to us,
which entails suffering, andthe person that we have become
is only the person that we havebecome, in part because of what
(22:25):
we have suffered.
Now, obviously, I'm a physician, I'm a psychiatrist.
So whenever possible, using thetools of modern psychiatry, of
modern medicine, whether that'smedications or psychotherapy, or
diet and exercise or otherinterventions that I do to try
to help treat mental illness andpsychological pain, I'm going
(22:46):
to intervene and I'm going totry to help you mitigate your
suffering, right?
So this is not a counsel ofpassivity, this is not a counsel
of like in the face of illness.
Don't go seek help and don't goseek treatment.
No, obviously do those things.
Christianity is a religion ofhealing.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
We're going to ask you to join us by helping us get
the word out.
So if you could make sure yousubscribe and then hit like.
No matter which platform you'reon, Remember that the Become
who you Are podcast is on audioon any music or podcast app.
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You can find us on X.
When you do subscribe, hit thelike button.
(23:27):
A couple things to share withpeople Love Ed.
Love Ed is just such animportant apostolate, so it's
within our apostolate, the JohnPaul II Renewal Center.
This helps parents give thetalk to their children.
We're trying to push back onall these gender ideologies and
the porn culture and givechildren the truth and do it
(23:51):
through their parents, and wehelp them do that.
The other one is really takenoff too.
It's Claymore Miletus Christi,Soldiers for Christ.
That's where you see the swordbehind me.
That's the big sword.
That's our logo for Claymore.
That's a Claymore sword.
And this is for young people,especially young men, Gen Z,
(24:15):
high school, all the way through, let's call it till they're 30
years old or so.
They're starting to reallyunderstand that something
nefarious, very toxic, is goingon in the culture, and so
they're stepping into the churchand we're discipling them.
So we want to help get the wordout about those things and,
lastly, try to consider at leastconsider financially supporting
us.
Everything's in the show notes.
Hey, God bless you.
(24:36):
Thanks again.
We'll be right back to today'sshow.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
Christians invented the modern hospital back in the
Middle Ages.
Christians have been in thebusiness of health care from the
very beginning because our Lordwas a healer, among other
things.
Many of his works, hismiraculous works, were miracles
of healing, so that's deeplyembedded within the Christian
tradition.
So we should do what we can,obviously, to mitigate the
(25:03):
misery in the world.
Right To deal with poverty.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
I could see right here, yeah, and right here,
though, this would be the timeto interject with somebody,
because, even in the healingprocess, even if I think I'm on
a road or you think yourpatient's on the road to healing
, you still have this interim,this period where they're still
going to suffer, and so,regardless of what journey
you're on, there's a time rightto get deeper with our Lord.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
That's exactly right, and sometimes the healing
interventions themselves aredifficult and arduous, right?
The surgeon takes out thescalpel to lance the abscess and
he says this is going to hurt alittle bit, right?
Speaker 2 (25:41):
And medication has many side effects, right, I mean
, these things aren't.
They don't come without anyside effects.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So all that to say, yes, we try to mitigate
suffering.
At the same time we recognizethat in a fallen world, not all
illness is treatable.
Sometimes the treatment itselfcan be difficult or painful or
arduous and at the end of theday, try as we might, we will
never fully eliminate all thesuffering in the world.
It's very important for us toaccept that right.
(26:09):
Attempts in medicine to ignorethat reality end up with
proposals like well, if we can'ttreat someone's suffering, then
if we can't eliminate thesuffering, we'll eliminate the
sufferer through doctor-assistedsuicide or euthanasia or
aborting the baby who has fetalanomalies or a diagnosis of a
(26:32):
serious health condition ordreams of transhuman right?
Yeah, the transhumanist dream oftrying to use science and
technology to live forever andso forth.
This is a substitute religion,I would argue, an attempt to
redeem ourselves through scienceand technology and medicine
(26:52):
that is doomed to failure.
In fact, in the end it's goingto cause more suffering than it
mitigates.
It's going to end up beingdehumanizing.
So recognizing the limits ofscience and medicine,
recognizing the limits ofpolitical efforts to eliminate
forms of suffering like povertyand so forth.
(27:12):
Obviously, we do everythingreasonable that we can in that
regard, but at the same time welive in a fallen world and we're
never going to completelyescape suffering and just age.
I have a father, dr.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Curiati, that's almost 100 years old, old World
War II vet, and he's blind now.
He's almost deaf, and you knowmy wife always kids with him and
says you know, getting old isnot for sissies, you know, but
he does, and I don't want to putwords in your mouth, but he
does what you're suggesting inthese articles.
That's why they resonated withme, Because I see him at 3
(27:52):
o'clock praying the chaplet andoffer up his suffering for his
kids and grandkids and all thisstuff.
And so it's inevitable, thebest-case scenario we get old
and die right, that's thebest-case scenario.
So this becomes veryinteresting.
So how do we in the now getused to this right?
And that's where the beauty ofyour articles, I think, come in,
(28:14):
Like, let's just do thisbecause there is suffering, and
if I'm not suffering, myneighbor is or my child is or my
grandchild is, and we bringthat suffering as part of us
also, isn't it?
Speaker 1 (28:26):
And what the incarnation should teach us, and
especially us, and especiallyour Lord's entire life, but
especially his passion and deathon Good Friday, is that God is
not far from our suffering.
So whatever we're experiencing,whether physical or
psychological or spiritual formsof suffering and anguish, every
(28:47):
pain, every agony, every horror, even the kind of unspeakable
forms of suffering and anguish,every pain, every agony, every
horror, even the kind ofunspeakable forms of suffering
that people are reluctant todisclose to anyone.
Our Lord experienced that aswell.
He took that upon himself inhis passion and experienced it
in the very marrow of his bones,and he redeemed it.
(29:12):
He went to the very depths ofhuman misery in order to find us
there and to draw us up withhim.
In fact, he went to deeperdepths than any of us could
possibly imagine and any of ushave been to, no matter how
difficult our lives have been,and he invites us into his love
(29:33):
precisely there, at the centerof the Christian revelation is a
man hanging on a cross, andwe're being invited to
participate at some level,aren't we in this?
Speaker 2 (29:58):
So how do you explain ?
This to someone that's cominginto the faith now.
And now we're following whatyou said, right, and we're
saying, yeah, and I do havethese hurts, these pains.
Look, we have 60 million adultsrunning around today in the
United States alone that havebeen sexually abused as children
.
I mean, talk about that right.
But now and I'm speaking tothese people all the time, so
I'm very interested in youranswer here.
How might I start to learnmyself and also to maybe share
(30:22):
the essence of what this lookslike you?
Speaker 1 (30:25):
know.
Yeah, thank you for askingabout that.
Of course these you know, thesehorrors of childhood sexual
abuse, any form of sexual abuse.
But especially when we thinkabout innocent and defenseless
children, these horrifying sinswhich infect the world and even
the church, I have to say thatwound our lady's immaculate
(30:47):
heart, the harm of her childrenin that way.
How do we even help someonewho's endured something like
that?
I think we begin byacknowledging their pain and
also by acknowledging that if wehaven't personally experienced
that, we can't possiblyunderstand what they have been
through, but that our Lord hasunderstood it.
And in fact it may soundstrange to say this, but the
(31:11):
effects of what they endured.
Christ also endured that on thecross.
It may sound strange to saythat, but our faith teaches that
he took on all the effects ofsins, including those sins.
He felt it in the very marrowof his bones, in his soul.
He has been there with them inthat.
(31:31):
And to go deeper into that isnot primarily an intellectual
exercise, and that's why I wouldsay again, I return to the four
simple words of this prayerLearn this prayer.
Doce me passionum tuum, teachme your suffering.
Repeat it, meditate upon it,open the Gospels and read the
(31:53):
accounts of our Lord'ssufferings.
Place yourself there in thescene, as St Ignatius, loyola
and so many other saints haverecommended.
Become another character inthat scene in the Gospels where
our Lord takes up his cross orwhere he's nailed to the cross.
Take in all the sights, thesounds the smells.
Be one among the crowd, right,place yourself there in your
(32:15):
imagination in order to go moredeeply into that moment in
Christ's life.
And Christ, you know, we don'tneed a complicated scholarly
exegesis or explanation of theGospels.
If we pray this simple prayerin our hearts Lord, teach me
(32:35):
your suffering, don't you makepass the enemy to him.
If we go deeper into thosemoments in Christ's life where
he suffered, he will do theexegesis for us, he'll explain
to us what does this mean for mepersonally?
So I would also counsel thatpeople get away from an overly
intellectualized approach tothis.
And look, I mean I love theology, I studied philosophy, I love
(32:58):
diving deep into, you know, theintellectual aspects of the
faith, but when you're talkingabout something like suffering,
the answer is not going to befound in a philosophical or
theological treatise.
The answer is going to be foundin with our heart treatise.
The answer is going to be foundin with our heart, with our
(33:20):
imagination, with our will, withour affections and emotions,
entering more deeply into thesuffering of Jesus.
And again, that's why, insteadof recommending or writing, you
know, a theological treatise onthe Christian meaning of
suffering, really I'mrecommending a simple prayer,
four words.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
But again, you're inviting, but you could see in
your words, and you're invitingthem into an encounter with
Christ, and that's a personalthing, that's right, that's
right, that encounter, that canonly happen in prayer.
Speaker 1 (33:53):
So one of the other things that I did in the series
in part three of the series, Idescribe how to make a
preparation for a consecrationof the Holy Cross of Jesus,
which is a longer prayer that Iincluded at the end of this
series as a way to go moredeeply into our Lord's suffering
, and you know people like beinggiven things to do.
(34:14):
How can I actually enrich myspiritual life?
And so this practice of makinga consecration, I think, can be
very helpful, and so I have someideas there in part three,
meditating on the passion.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
What would?
Somebody listening for thefirst time, maybe you know we
have some new young peoplecoming in.
When I say young people,they're in their 20s and 30s,
right, so they're not kids,young people coming in.
When I say young people,they're in their 20s and 30s,
right, so they're not kids.
But trying to understandCatholicism, trying to look at
the cross, maybe they weren'tgiven anything, you know, and we
have an encounter with Christis what we're really, really.
(34:48):
I mean, that's the importantthing.
You know.
I remember Pope Benedict XVIsaying something like your faith
will never be an ethicaldecision to your point or some
lofty philosophical idea.
It's going to be an encounterwith an event, an encounter with
a person, and then he said thatencounter will give you a new
horizon, a way to look at theworld and a decisive direction
for your life.
That's what you're calling theminto.
(35:09):
So if I'm going to try thisright and we'll put those words
across the screen a number oftimes when we edit this, for
people to see it, it'll be inthe show notes, your articles
will be in the show notes.
But what do I expect?
What do I expect?
Maybe I'm a young person, I knowsomething's wrong, but I don't
really feel a personal pain,pain.
(35:29):
I feel like something's wrong,pain, right, which is bad enough
sometimes.
But what can I expect?
And how would I massage?
So I'm going to say theseprayers.
Should I do it at home?
Should I go to mass to do it,you know, and what can?
What is there a way to say?
(35:49):
Because we just said this is apersonal encounter, so he's not
going to woo me like he wooedyou, dr Kiriati, but so he's
going to woo them differently.
But what could they look for?
What could they sense?
Speaker 1 (35:57):
So a little aspiration like this can be said
anytime, anywhere, while you'reworking, while you're driving
in a car, every time you walk upand down a flight of stairs,
when you flip a light switch on.
That's the value of thesesimple aspirations From the
Jesus prayer, which is verypopular among Eastern right
Christians.
Lord Jesus, son of God, havemercy on me, a sinner.
(36:20):
The idea of just repeating thesame simple prayer over and over
until it's written on yourheart is deeply embedded within
the Christian tradition, both inthe East and in the West, and
this prayer that I'mrecommending should be prayed in
the same way.
Right, it can become like thebeating of our heart.
Now, with that said, also,besides, when we're just walking
(36:40):
down the street and we say abrief prayer or a brief
aspiration, we should set asidesome time every day devoted only
to prayer 20 minutes, 30minutes in the morning, ideally
in front of the BlessedSacrament in a church.
And this is where you know whenI recommended some ideas for
preparing for the consecrationof the Holy Cross of Jesus, you
(37:02):
know I described some ways thatyou could do this in your prayer
and some methods that you cantake to your prayer.
But in those moments you canlook at an image of the
crucified Lord and just look atit and take it in right.
One of the strange things aboutthe crucifix is the central
(37:22):
symbol of Christianity.
Is that Christianity, theparadox of Christ's love
expressed on the cross, is thatit took a symbol that in the
ancient world was so horrifyingthat the early Christians didn't
use it.
They were very close to it andit was like this is like the
electric chair of the day,except it was an electric chair
(37:44):
that was designed to inflict themaximum amount of pain before
it actually killed you.
So the idea of wearing somethinglike that, you know gazing upon
that.
But over time Christians cameto realize that, no, the
crucifixion is not just an imageof horror which scandalizes us,
it's an image of love andsomehow, they had to feel that
(38:08):
right Because they had in manycases they could volunteer to
walk away.
Speaker 2 (38:14):
You know right.
You know I don't give, you know, I give a little incense to
Caesar and I can walk away.
And they didn't do it.
I always wonder, dr Curiati,what I have to right.
I think we all wonder, do wehave the courage to do that?
But they must have sensed whatyou're talking about here.
Speaker 1 (38:29):
Well, I think they did, because they were closer to
the event too, and somehow youknow the early Christians.
If you look at the accounts ofthe martyrs, you know their
sufferings are almost mentionedas a footnote, almost as an
afterthought, and the focus verymuch is on the crucified Christ
and on the Eucharistic Christ.
You look at the accounts of themartyrs of the first century or
(38:51):
two of Christianity.
It's extraordinary, whetherit's the death of St Ignatius or
the death of St Polycarp.
Many of these you knowwell-known early Christian
martyrs.
What you see is that Christ isat the center and not their own
suffering.
And I think they almost sort oftook it for granted that they
would follow our Lord to Calvaryright as part of being a
(39:15):
Christian right.
They weren't shocked orsurprised that the disciple is
not greater than his master, asour Lord told us, and that, you
know, this is for them.
Literally taking up their crossand following him may have
meant that they had to givetheir blood, they had to shed
their blood rather than betraytheir faith in Christ.
(39:36):
And I think there's somethingin that attitude of the early
church that's totally focused onour Lord and you know, it's not
that their own sufferings don'tmatter, but it's that they were
secondary and that they wereable again to do what they did
to be thrown to wild beasts inthe arena.
Speaker 2 (39:57):
Yeah, I remember St Ignatius of Antioch just saying
don't even come rescue me.
And he wrote these beautifulletters yeah that's right.
And he was looking forward.
Are we being called all of us,do you think, Dr Cariotti?
Are we all being called toparticipate in some way in the
suffering of Jesus Christ, asChristians?
Speaker 1 (40:15):
I think so.
I think all of us need to tryto learn from the martyrs, not
that we're going to sufferwhat's sometimes called a red
martyrdom, the literal sheddingof our blood.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
But I mean even in the suffering that you and I
were talking about earlier, justin our physical pain and mental
illnesses and all those thingsand you know, mental illnesses
and all those things Are wealways called, you know, in this
life, to carry our cross andactually participate.
Is that what Christ, you know?
(40:46):
Does he want us to become intothis and actually experience
some of what he's going through?
You know, as I'm trying to workthrough my pain and suffering
and I'm trying to say, okay,what does Jesus, what does he
want me, what does God want meto do in this action of saying
this prayer and moving andopening my heart to him?
Speaker 1 (41:03):
Well, I think that's exactly what he wants, and I
wouldn't dare say that unless hehad said it first.
I don't know how else tointerpret.
Take up your cross daily, youknow.
Deny yourself three things.
How else to interpret?
Take up your cross daily, youknow.
Deny yourself three things.
Deny yourself, take up yourcross daily and follow me, okay,
so.
So this is not me.
(41:23):
I would not have invented thisreligion, right?
I?
Speaker 2 (41:26):
you know, if, if I, if I were to dream up still
around how this was gonna go,yeah this is.
Speaker 1 (41:31):
You know, no human being would have been born in a
you know who.
Who, who was pretending to beGod, would have been born in a
manger, would have been scourgedat the pillar and crowned with
thorns and crucified.
So again, I'm saying this thingonly because our Lord said it
and St Paul understood this.
Again, you dive deeply into theletters of the New Testament,
(41:54):
not just the Gospels.
Paul understood this Again.
You dive deeply into theletters of the New Testament,
not just the Gospels.
St Paul has this very peculiarpassage where he says I make up
in my sufferings.
What is lacking in thesufferings of Christ?
That can be difficult tointerpret, because on the one
(42:19):
hand he says elsewhere thatnothing was lacking in the
sufferings of Christ, weresufficient to redeem everyone
right who accepted the grace ofChrist's redemption.
So what does he mean there?
What he means there is that allof us have to come more fully
into participation and unionwith Christ, so that every
member of his mystical bodyshares in his suffering, shares
in his passion.
That's what needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (42:40):
So it's our own participation in the cross that
is still waiting to happen andto make it present in today's
world in our families.
Speaker 1 (42:52):
So, Christ, yes, 100% St saint paul.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
Everything is there on the cross, everything we need
, but but we need it forourselves and we need to.
We need to bring this down,just like in and before I.
I let you go.
We have to talk about the massjust a little bit, because this
is the idea that we're we'reentering into and making present
that one-time historicalsacrifice, and then taking our
suffering and saying this is theway I'm dealing with you.
(43:19):
I mean, it's a profound thing.
Speaker 1 (43:21):
Yeah, thank you for bringing up the Mass, and I have
an article in the seriesprecisely about the Mass because
the Mass is the prayer of allprayers and it is the place that
we go to be most fully unitedto our Lord's sufferings.
Because what the Mass is, asthe Council of Trent taught, is
the sacramental representationof the sacrifice of Calvary.
(43:46):
Protestants sometimes objectedto Catholics claiming that the
Mass was a sacrifice becausethey said, well, jesus'
sacrifice on the cross happenedonce and for all and we don't
need additional sacrifices, likeall the other sacrifices of the
Old Testament, animalsacrifices and so forth,
repeated over and over and overagain.
Well, they were right on onepoint, but they were wrong on
(44:08):
another point.
They were right that no othersacrifices are necessary after
Christ's sacrifice on the crossin order to redeem us, but they
were wrong in denying that theMass was a sacrifice, because
the Mass is not anothersacrifice.
The Mass is the same sacrificeof Calvary, made present to us
today.
So, literally, at the Mass, weare with St John and Mary
(44:32):
Magdalene and Our Lady standingat the foot of the cross, able
to receive the graces thatflowed from Christ's pierced
side, the blood and water whichthe Church Fathers always
interpreted as representing thesacraments, baptism and the
Eucharist.
We are there at every Mass,literally as though we were
(44:54):
contemporaries 2,000 years ago,standing at the foot of the
cross, able to partake of andparticipate in the sacrifice of
Christ on the cross through thecross the body and blood that is
offered there and that is givento us as our food and drink in
the Eucharist.
So you said, what can people dobesides praying this simple
(45:17):
prayer?
Well, the way to go more deeplyinto this simple prayer is to
participate more frequently,daily if possible, more
attentively and more fully inthe sacrifice of the Mass.
Attentively and more fully inthe sacrifice of the Mass, and I
would recommend, just as a goodpractice that many Catholics
are not in the habit of, afteryou receive communion, our
(45:43):
Lord's Eucharistic presenceremains there inside, until the
species of bread and wine arebroken down by our body, which
is about 15 minutes.
Our Lord's Eucharistic presenceis literally right there inside
us, right underneath our heart,in our stomach, as it were.
Speaker 2 (45:54):
It's amazing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (45:55):
Stay for 10 minutes after Mass and give thanks for
what you have just received.
Stay for 10 minutes after Massand converse intimately with our
Lord in that moment.
Tell him your troubles right,bring your difficulties to him,
bring your conditions to him.
Speaker 2 (46:11):
But when I do that now, I have a different
perspective after reading yourmaterial.
So while I'm bringing him mytroubles, I am going to make a
conscious effort to say, but I'mgoing to concentrate on your
suffering right now yoursuffering.
You know, I have the divinemercy picture behind me.
You mentioned baptism and theEucharist right Flowing out of
the heart of Christ.
(46:31):
Sister Faustina, one of thethings that these young guys do,
dr Curiati, in the morning isthey fall to their knees before
they look at their phone.
They open up their hearts.
Be it done to me, according toyour word.
The second thing they say andthis is where I'm going to use
your prayer and I'm going tostart to get this out to these
guys is that temptation is not asin.
They're flooded withtemptations, these guys.
(46:53):
Their innocence was stolen fromthem, their moral imaginations
have been obliterated in manycases, and so we're teaching
them and just walking with themto open up those temptations.
This is the time to say thatprayer.
I feel this pain, but I alsowant to unite this pain with
your suffering.
I acknowledge your suffering.
(47:13):
Teach me now.
And, man, I just got goosebumps.
Something positive, I think cancome out of that.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
No, that's very good.
We need, you know, so manypeople need a healing of the
imagination and the healing oftheir memory from what they've
taken in from their senses, fromwhat they've experienced, and
meditating on our Lord, on hissufferings, and in a very
tangible way, st Teresa of Avilasays we should never try to get
beyond the humanity of Christin our prayer into some abstract
(47:45):
realm where we're onlycommuning with the divinity of
Christ.
The humanity of Christ and thedivinity of Christ are united
inextricably, and so toencounter him visually, you know
, using our senses, is such abeautiful and powerful way of
healing the imagination andhealing the memory.
(48:06):
If people want to go deeperinto this prayer, there's a
website passionumtuumorgP-A-S-S-I-O-N-E-M-T-U-A-M, and
maybe you could link to that inthe show notes that has this
prayer.
It has this series of articlesthat I mentioned.
It has the consecration of theHoly Cross of Jesus.
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Is that your website?
Speaker 1 (48:29):
Yeah, I set this up recently just to help spread
devotion to this prayer and helppeople kind of have a place
they can go to dig into it alittle bit.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah, and where else?
I mean, is that the mainconnection to you?
If they wanted to see your work, are all the articles linked
there?
You said, yeah, the articles.
I'm thinking what's the bestway for us?
Speaker 1 (48:49):
to link to you.
Speaker 2 (48:49):
Yeah, the articles I'm thinking what's the best way
for us to link to you?
Speaker 1 (48:53):
Yeah, so the article series on this prayer that we've
talked about is on that website, passionumtumorg, if people
want to see my other work thatI've done on depression and on
bioethics.
Speaker 2 (49:05):
I have your book, by the way, very good Other topics.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
I have a personal website, aaroncariotticom, and I
also have a Substack newsletterthat people can sign up for.
The Substack is called HumanFlourishing, so that's another
way to get connected up with mywork.
Speaker 2 (49:25):
All right, and we'd love to send you a copy of this
outline for Claymore MiletusChristi, just to take a quick
look at that.
It's a wonderful way todisciple and again I want to use
that prayer in that instance.
The last point I'll make, justbecause my mind is moving now
with everything you've unpacked,is Sister Faustina and many of
(49:48):
the other mystics.
You know there was a certainjoy you brought to the heart of
Christ.
It reminds me John Paul saidthat in a sense Christ unites
all our humanity with him on thecross and unites it to divinity
.
So everything at the Mass, wehave it there.
But there's a joy.
There's a joy that we can bringto God.
He expresses it in the diary.
You know that you've brought methis joy, that other people
(50:13):
just bring me this cold, likeI'm just paraphrasing, but this
coldness to them even when theypray or whatever.
But you bring a depth, a warmth.
I think that's what you'regetting at with all these
articles.
I mean, you know, we're goingdeep.
We're going deep witheverything.
Speaker 1 (50:27):
Well, this is the strange paradox of Christianity.
You'd think an article serieson suffering and the cross might
be sort of, you know, dour,pessimistic or kind of a downer.
But the beautiful thing aboutthis prayer is precisely that it
leads to joy, that it leads toliberation and to interior peace
(50:48):
.
And you know, to go to thecross to find that might strike
people initially as kind of odd,but this is the great mystery
of our faith that in the depthsof Christ's suffering is
precisely where we find joy.
So Christians are not called togo around with a long-drawn
(51:08):
face or a pessimistic attitude.
Actually, the cross alwaysleads to the resurrection and
the deeper we go into themystery of Christ crucified, the
more we can participate in andlive, even in this life, the joy
and the peace of theresurrection.
Speaker 2 (51:27):
Well, that's how we're going to end this.
That was beautiful and what apleasure again, what an honor.
Like I said, I know you as aman of conviction and courage
and faith, and so this was verymeaningful for us and, I hope,
for our whole audience.
So thank you very much, thankseveryone.
Thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 1 (51:45):
Thanks, bye-bye.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
Thank you.
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