Ep 90 - Becoming a Fire-Breathing Catholic with Dr. Dan Schneider

Speaker 1: 0:19

signing off. That's quick. Hello, all. Welcome to another episode of the Manly Catholic. This is James with Father Dom, and tonight we have a very special guest with us. We have Dr Dan Schneider. Dan, welcome to the Manly Catholic Podcast.

Speaker 2: 0:35

Thank you. Thank you for having me. I appreciate the invite.

Speaker 1: 0:39

Absolutely. It's our pleasure, and you know, dan wrote a new book coming out from Tan. It's called the Lieber Christo Method. It is a field manual for spiritual combat and this book, for all of you listening, is absolutely fantastic. I was telling Dan earlier before we started, and Father Dom earlier when we were talking. It's one of those books where it's definitely not something you can breeze through pretty much every page, every paragraph. I pretty much highlighted everything that I've read so far because it's just so in depth, it's so well researched and for those of you who are serious about your spiritual life, spiritual combat, that we know we're all in the spiritual warfare aspect, this is a book that you definitely need to get. So, dan, we are honored to have you on and to be a part of this podcast and to talk more about this book. But before we dive into it, father Dom, would you mind leading us in a world of prayer before we start?

Speaker 3: 1:32

Oh, I'd love to. Let's play that. Let's pray the Ave Maria, asking Mary, our holy mother, to cover us with her mantle of protection as we begin. Phenomeny. Patris et fulie et spirtus santiamen. Ave Maria, grazia plena, dom ministerium, benedictatum melleribus et benedictus fructus ventris tuiezus and nomini. Patris et fulie et spirtus santiamen. And nothing like calling on our holy mother before we go to war.

Speaker 2: 2:01

All right, I actually heard it in session about a month ago. The priest was calling was doing the litany to Loretto and the demon starts manifesting and says oh her, oh her. Every time you call her she comes. She wraps her mantle around you. And uh, it's fantastic. You must know that. Yeah, it's crazy. And and calling her the, the, oh, her, the spouse of God. You know, I mean of all the garbage that that when you're working in this particular apostle, that it's just you're like a cosmic garbage man. It's the dirty jobs of the Catholic church and that show dirty jobs.

Speaker 3: 2:45

you know you know with a pro right.

Speaker 2: 2:48

Yeah. So every once in a while you just get some gold like that. You know, we, we, we can't get um Catholics in the pew to understand the spousal relationship between the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit and a demon. Will, will, will in in all truth and under duress, she called her the spouse of God who wraps her mantle around you. You know yes. And uh anyway. So don't get me started on the blessed mother. We'll be here for a while.

Speaker 1: 3:14

Yeah, oh no, we got all night. We got all night. I love it yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:20

So, blue though it's more Notre Dame blue than Michigan, I can just say that right now We've got the right 10th of blue.

Speaker 1: 3:26

You know, dan, I thought we cleared this up that we weren't going to bring up the whole Ohio State, michigan thing in the middle of the podcast.

Speaker 2: 3:33

But you know, since the gloves are off, I was in California and I said and I wear my Notre Dame tie and I said you know why people down here go to UCLA rather than UC, rather than they go to UCLA rather than USC. And they're all these USC fans there. I said, because it's easier to spell, that's what they go to USC and said UCLA Anyway yeah, so that is true, though, so. I, I second that for sure. Yeah, so I'm a.

Speaker 3: 3:57

UCLA guy, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 3:59

So okay. So before we dive into the book and before we talk about the Ohio State Michigan rivalry question, I always like to ask If you could be the patron saint of anything, dan? What would it be and why?

Speaker 2: 4:10

I know I was thinking about that when you put that on your email. I don't know I was. I'm a Benedict and oblate and my, my, my religion, my, my oblate name is Sebastian Mary, because he was a patron of soldiers, the only saint to be martyred twice. So maybe the Patriots saying of guys who need a second chance, Guys that need to get picked up off the ground, knocked their dirt off, put the mouthpiece back in and get back in the fight Fantastic.

Speaker 3: 4:37

I like that. Yeah, that's beautiful. You've bartered twice.

Speaker 1: 4:41

Can you expand on that?

Speaker 2: 4:42

I don't think I know that story Well the first time you see the, you see the image of him, um, rife with arrows. It was back in the in the early, some of the early sporadic persecution, early church, and he was a and he was a um, he was a part of the Legion that they were. They would be kind of the equivalent of special forces. They would have been the Praetorian Guard, which were originally taken from the 10th Legion, which were the right wing, the Caesar's most coveted warriors, and the best of those best would be would be used in the Praetorian Guard as it developed from the 10th Legion, and so he would have been a really true stud, centurion, um, and so to be in this. And then he converted to Christianity and refused and refused to, to apostatize, and so he was tied to a tree and shot with arrows and left for dead. And then, um, some early, some of the Christian women found his body and nursed him back to life. And you'll see him, you know, strapped to a tree, uh, and shot with arrows, and that's kind of the. They used it, the, that story of Saint Sebastian. A lot of artists would use it to show the male body. That's why, you see, he's always yoked out and so he gets brought back to life by Saint uh uh, irene. Irene is the Greek word for peace. And so he gets resuscitated through holy peace, brought back to life and rather than just going in, slipping in the retirement and avoiding trouble, he went right back into the fight. He waited for the emperor, denounced him again for persecuting Christians and finally they they got him and cut his head off and threw him through his body into the sewage system. So he was technically martyred twice, and the second one they did him in for good. But he's the patriot state of soldiers and and and fighters and many other things, so athletes too, I think right, athletes, athletes, yeah yeah.

Speaker 3: 6:30

Behind me, behind me is is just obviously a small piece of the Eisenheim altarpiece, oh yeah, and my, my head, my head is covering it. But to the other side of the crucifix, there the Saint Sebastian is is is hanging from a pillar and he shot with arrows.

Speaker 2: 6:44

Yeah, so he's behind me. Yeah, he's right there watching. I've got mine over here. I've got a different one. It's, it's I forget the artist he's laying out. He's got his, all of his, his, his armaments, over here at his feet. He's stripped down and the holy women are pulling arrows out of him and nursing him back to life. He's a fantastic saint for men because you got to be able to take a punch. You know what I mean. You know manly, I mean. You guys got rocking beards, but but some guys think that being manly is about the beard and the cigar, the bourbon. You know what I mean? It's not about that. It's about being able to take a punch and keep driving forward and keep moving forward.

Speaker 3: 7:24

Get back up and get back up, just like Saint Sebastian, just like all the saints, yeah, yeah. You got to get back. Yeah, that's what we're called to be right. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:34

So so, dan, why don't you give our listeners just a little bit of background on yourself and then dive in? We'll transition that into your book, the Lieber-Cristow Method, and why you felt like it was a needed resource in this day and age today.

Speaker 2: 7:49

Yeah, so I'm originally from Columbus, ohio, as we discussed beforehand. Full disclosure for the, for the, the people that are living that, what we call the state TSU and the state up north. We can't even use the name, but I'll say it on the show this you know, this is Michigan. So we're the state to the south of Michigan. So I grew up in Ohio, went to, went to, went to my undergraduate, through the university of Notre Dame, went into the military, went through ROTC at Notre Dame, went into the military and I was a Cobra and Huey helicopter pilot. I went right out of the military I mean right out of college, commission, through ROTC, commission, airborne, went to airborne, went through Ranger Air Assault, then flight school and went straight over to Iraq and I think I turned 23, maybe 24 in Iraq, very young flying cobras and came back. Had a conversion experience over there, came back, kind of forgot about things for a while, put the gun on the side burner and over. After a couple of years I realized this doesn't, this doesn't work out too well, trying this life thing on my own. Finally fully surrendered my life to the Lord and and started studying theology and, and right around the time COVID was hit. I was finishing up my doctoral work. At the time we had a priest it was a good friend of mine was asked to start an exorcist team in our diocese and so I went through training with the Pope Leo. I went back and did some training of the lay track there and so I'm doing this in the morning, doing this super rational academic, scholastic work in the mornings, and then in the afternoons, in the evenings, working cases, seeing some of the most bizarre things you could possibly see that are completely irrational. And somehow, you know, over time I started working with Kyle Clement, who's father Ripperger's right hand man, and and, and then with father Ripperger, and so started working you know working cases with them and as they developed the protocol, we started fleshing out and working it out in practical time in the field working. This four phase protocol and then the second phase of that protocol is a catechetical piece where a mental copper takes the person through this book, and so I developed this book to be used both for our teams but also for the average Catholic to read it and go man, I I really probably need to work on that in my life. You know, I was sitting at for Mass one day and I was watching, I was waiting, I was going to breakfast with my pastor, my parish priest, and he's just cleaning, putting the altar back and cleaning his by himself. And I'm looking at him and I said that's who I want to really, really write the book for, for the average parish priest to go. This is a good resources resource for his parishioners. So it's kind of a multi use tool, a return to tradition, as it says in the book cover. We find an ancient enemy in the. Ancient weapons are best. So what I've tried to do is lay out, you know, a lot of the teachings of Father Ripperger from Dominion and psychology, of his mystic psych, his book on on what was it? The psychology of mental health and and and the practical experience of those guys, as well as my own experience, my own diocese, and and try to put together a manual for people to 12 step sequential, walk through this and start looking to help people to uncover where is the enemy hiding in my life. It's kind of a manual to show what the enemy is looking for. I mean, I could tell stories and probably sell a lot more books, but I'm not interested in doing that. What we're trying to do is put a practical field guide into somebody's hand and say this is how you fight this battle.

Speaker 1: 11:28

Dan I, I mean you mentioned this in the book too, and I've heard Father Ripperger mentioned it as well and he said you know the best, when people come to us or the people, the thing that people don't recognize is that the sacraments are our best defense against the devil and having a disciplined prayer life. Because you talk about that so much and I mentioned you're in the military, so thank you for your service, by the way, for that and you know the importance of spiritual discipline. I mean we, we practice discipline and so many other aspects of our life, and I think people neglect the spiritual life. They think, well, if I just say a half hazard prayer here and there, then that you know that's fine, versus actually having a practical set time every day that you take to prayer and I love to. You know, because you talk about it's basically a prescription, right, it's just like medicine. So it's medicine for your soul, if you will, and that you lay out exactly what. If people just follow this protocol, you know for 90% of people if they're feeling some sort of you know intense temptation or oppression, things like that, for most people that will resolve it just because you put order into your life and, as we know, satan is always trying to introduce chaos and try to divide us. So maybe talk about kind of leading into that the importance of that spiritual discipline aspect that a lot of people neglect now.

Speaker 2: 12:51

Yeah, there's a lot of, a lot of bad theology out there with the deliverance ministry and a lot of people think it's just a secret prayer and a special. You know, if you have the special, certain secret prayer, that will work and then you could be done. It's a grind and what we found over time is that the demon responds to the imposition of order as much as to the prayers themselves and that the bulk of people can clean up even oppression levels and even higher obsession levels can be cleaned up, just to the imposition of order and then going through a good deep dive, general confession. The sacraments are our protection. That's what provides our base shield of armor against the enemy and we neglect that. We treat it like a magic pill. But living a sacramental life, getting sacramental grace into the life which means also for married people, the grace of matrimony, getting order back in the home, but that discipline, prayer life, is very important. You know, I'll put on a nice sport coat and a collared shirt when I'm on an interview or I'm going to work, but then I go to Mass and I wear shorts and flip flops. Right, because Jesus doesn't care what I'm wearing to church today. But that's a feminine, that's an effeminate attitude. You know, we have to embrace who we are as men and we have to give God our very best, including our time. Here's what St Catherine of Siena, doctor of the church, says. She says everybody should pray for 30 minutes a day. She says, unless they're busy. Right, and you know the answer, father. If you're busy, she says you need to pray for an hour. Right, you got to double it, you got. I can tell you right now, when I, when I get out of prayer, when I, when I start slacking on my and I'm not talking about mystical Kung Fu prayer, I'm talking about grinding it out prayer when I get out, just set times for prayer, when I get out of that rhythm, I'm vulnerable. You know, I was during COVID. You guys will like this. It was during COVID and you know it's a scare, everybody's terrified and all this stuff. So I'm laying in bed with my wife and I and I lean over and I hand her this piece of paper and she says what is this? I said, well, it's a. She opens it up and it's. I said it's a litany of saints to be prayed during times of plague. And she said she just looked at me and we've been married 30 years. Now 31 years, she said you, my friend, practice smash mouth Catholicism and and really spiritual warfare is smash mouth Catholicism. This is a high state, michigan, in November, and it's snowing and it's freezing cold, and then it starts to rain and then people in the stands are throwing stuff at you, right, and this is just big on big, and you move the ball, you just grind it out and that's what? And it's Catholicism, living it out, including the harder parts of Catholicism, which includes suffering, learning how to use our bodies in the depth of suffering. This is, this is real spiritual warfare. And then we can get to some of the prayers, the specific prayers that need to be prayed. I worked those into the book, but you got to have a baseline of prayer. You got to have a baseline of daily prayer, discipline of life, order to prayer as a very basic, before you get into some of the other types of soldiery.

Speaker 3: 16:01

If I can just interject. I mean just coming from the perspective of the priesthood as well and being that persona Christi, capita's day, please, yeah, right. I mean I've only been a priest for three years now and what I've noticed in both forms of the mass, right that the missile, the 62 or the Novosorto, is when you open the missile, the first thing you see is the order of the mass, the order of the mass, and if you follow the rubrics of the missile, especially in the 62, I love praying the extraordinary form of the mass because it's so ordered, it brings order, it gets rid of the chaos, right. And if you said James, like Satan, is all about the chaos, he wants to bring in that chaos. He wants the confusion, right, he wants the disorder, and that's where men are today. I see it all the time. You know, dr Dan, you talked about being effeminate, right, Pursuing the pleasurable things and foregoing those things that are challenging and hard, that bring virtue, right. So when men bring order to their lives, and men are all about order. You know, dan, you were in the military. I had two brothers in the military as well and the army in the Marine Corps, and one was in 20, 22 years in right. It's all about the order. It's all about that, and men are gravitated towards that. They need that order, they need the brotherhood and they need the fraternity.

Speaker 2: 17:29

Yeah, they need brotherhood, order and ritual. That's what men need.

Speaker 3: 17:32

Yeah, yeah, they do. And Satan knows that if he can keep men from doing that, he's going to continue to cause chaos in the world. And so men are at the tip of the spear, right, we're at the tip of the spear and we do. We do have to grind it out, but we're built for that, we're meant for that. That's our masculinity to find the vice and root that out and to build virtue. I mean, there's strength and power and commitment into that. But when we do it together as a fraternity and a brotherhood, there's so much more power. That's why I love about band of brothers right, that HBO series, oh yeah, fantastic. I mean, there's so much power there in men, and that's what Catholicism is right. We are the church militant. Well, gosh man, that's soldierly language there, and that's what it means.

Speaker 2: 18:13

And the old ritual, father of confirmation, if you recall, the bishop would slap you. Oh yeah, I mean it's not like this, isn't it it was supposed to be? I mean, it was supposed to get your attention.

Speaker 3: 18:24

You're a soldier from Christ you know, yeah, when that would be confirmation retreats here at my church. You know there'd be 75 kids right With big church here that I'm a pastor of and I talked about that and I said so should I tap you or slap you and the parents give me a weird look? You know it is part of the right, the ritual of that too, and another part of the baptismal ritual that has kind of been. It's not necessarily in the ritual but it's part of the tradition and I've heard priests talk about it as well, and I'll do it in the beginning of the baptismal right. The family will be outside the church. They're pounding on the door.

Speaker 2: 19:04

What do you ask them at the church?

Speaker 3: 19:06

Yes, I open the door and I stick my hat out and I say what are you looking for? What are you asking for? What is baptism? What does baptism give you faith? And then I let them into the narthex. They're not in the sanctuary yet, but I let them into the narthex. And when the family comes in, right, the child that's about to be baptized is with them. When they're all in, I stick my head out and I spit Right. Who am I spitting on? Yeah, right, exactly.

Speaker 1: 19:33

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 19:34

And your spit is like fire to the. I can tell you your spit is like fire, right, and it's hard for people to grasp this, but to watch. During the old ritual of extra-sism, the priest does what's called ex-suflation, and now we even see the bishop will do this when he baptizes, when he blesses the water on Holy Week. But ex-suflation goes all the way back to a tortulian in the second century. He mentions this. When the priest, the priest during the ritual, breathes on the possessed person, you can see it's like. It's like. It's like they're like. The priest is a fire-breathing dragon. The demon respond in like pain. You know what I mean. That will purify your understanding. And when you could sit through some of these sessions and see the things that we see, it will purify your understanding of the priesthood. And what does, if you do the office of readings? Last week they were reading the mystical, mystical catechesis of St Ambrose and he was saying do not judge this priest by what you see with your eyes, judge him by his office he is. And if you don't like what you see, think of Peter, paul and Elijah who called down fire from heaven. And that's what the priesthood does and this is what we're trying to get people to understand is the power of holy priesthood and support guys like you. We're just hero support. You guys are the superheroes and to see that in the spiritual realm and tapping into that. But even as men, as fathers, we're the fire-breathing jaguars in our home. We're the ones that need to be being the priest in our home and leaving the home. But that's beautiful. That old written old father really shows you the combat elements that have been kind of washed out and ignored in a really kind of effeminate culture that we live in.

Speaker 3: 21:22

If men could know the power that they have, like the grace that they have just being masculine, my goodness.

Speaker 2: 21:30

Yeah, the two extremes were re-indriven to machismo and effeminism. Right Were re -indriven to these two extremes. And masculinity. St Joseph, right in the middle I've seen it in session where the priest puts his stole on the nirgon. In fact, on the nirgon they actually place on the neck, reminding the devil. This is the spot that he, she, with the redeemer, with the co-redemptrix, will crush the head, Genesis 315. And then when a husband who's in a state of grace lays his hands on his wife, it gets the same reaction from her body. As a priest, Mine don't do that. My PhD doesn't have one iota. It doesn't help me at all in the spiritual combat. It has nothing to do with that. It's the husband's holy hands, His hands having spiritual authority. It's extremely effective in spiritual combat.

Speaker 3: 22:20

Jimmy, you remember when we had Jesse Romero on and he was talking about that spiritual story of the priest was in traffic and his prayer team was there in the sanctuary and it was a son and his father was there and the priest said to the father put your hands on your son and pray. Remember that. Remember Jesse talking about that? Yeah, and the priest.

Speaker 1: 22:43

They told him what prayers to say over his son, and Jesse led him through it. And so the priest got there and he was okay where is he? Where is he? I'm sorry, he was throwing holy water on him no reaction. He did some prayers over him no reaction. And he came up to the dad and he shook his hands Congratulations, you just exercised the demon from your son. So that kind of leads into the importance of authority, dan and gosh. This is especially now when people are all about destroying the patriarchal society and eliminating order and authority and beating up against authority and things like that. So why is authority so important? I mean, you can talk from a traditional standpoint and then just why nowadays we've totally lost it and why we need to get back to the importance of authority and why it actually matters to us, not just this power struggle that people think it is, but it actually does matter to have that authority.

Speaker 2: 23:43

Yeah, it's a huge issue. In the book I use Rogers Rules for Rangers as kind of a to show that this is guerrilla warfare. And Rogers first rule for the and the Army Rangers still use Rogers rules. He still memorized them. I've got my Ranger handbook over here. I can probably still recite half of them. His first rule is every Ranger is bound by the rules and articles of war, the precepts and articles of war. So we're bound by the precepts and articles of war. We know this one. When I went to Iraq we knew this. There's certain precepts and articles that you have to abide by. I don't know why. We think it's spiritual combat. That doesn't matter. Suddenly we just have to come up with some sweet prayer to sugary Jesus and everything's going to be fine. There's three basic rules. A demon's going to yield or not yield according to these three rules. It isn't about your looks, your PhD, your beard, the type of cigar, your smoke. It's going to be this. Rule number one does this person have requisite authority over the person, the place or the object? And he's going to ask that he knows who has authority in the room. He scans the room. He knows who has rightful natural law authority in the home over this individual. So he tracks that he is bound by that because these are the laws that God established, and he's going to try to get us to not know the rules of engagement. He's going to want to try to get us to violate the rules and the system or the structure of authority. I spell it out in the book. It's very clear, and there's two ends to provide and to protect. And so if you're working under authority, you will be protected. If you go outside of authority, you could be retaliated against. But the rule number one is going to yield or not yield, based on the authority over the person, place or the object. Number two is what are the state of merit, the state of grace, the depth of holiness of the person who is petitioning? Because you could have complete authority, you could have 100% authority in the home. But if you're looking at pornography, you're compromised morally. The demon's not going to yield because you've been giving him permission to be there, you're opening the door and letting him in. You are the open door into your family. So if you're doing all that stuff and a lot of guys are struggling, I know I hear priests are telling me 80% of what they hear in the confession is based on the sixth commandment in pornography. But the target isn't you, your job. You have the position of authority in the home. You're there to protect and if you lower your shield, your family is not protected, not just your wife, but your children as well. That's the target the children. So you've got to stay in the state of grace and the depth of your holiness will help the effect of this. That's the plus P rounds, that's the armor piercing rounds that you load. And then the third one is specifically what is he asking? But specificity and combat is everything. I had gun rockets and missiles and 20 millimeter bullets.

Speaker 3: 26:35

And it doesn't help you.

Speaker 2: 26:36

You can make a lot of noise and you can scare the crap out of the enemy, but you've got to hit them. You got to be specific in your targeting to take out your enemy, and so being specific in your prayer is very important. We like to jump to the specific prayer part but we lose the other two, but ultimately it's holiness and thought word indeed that's going to help us draw that, draw down on our enemy and hit our target. But this is very, very critical. The authority structure is absolutely critical.

Speaker 1: 27:04

Would you say, dan, and forgive me if I'm jumping here, but would you say that, dan, can you hear us?

Speaker 2: 27:11

Yeah, yeah, I can hear you.

Speaker 1: 27:13

Okay Sorry, your video cut off. Okay Sorry, but anyways. So would you say then that I guess, especially in a family structure, the, the husband and the father, has more authority, even a Priest, I guess, in terms of this, the spiritual, because I mean obviously the husband, the father, is that the first line of defense. So would he be granted then, just based on natural law, more authority in essence, then even An exorcist or the bishop or things like that, or am I kind of Misconstruing?

Speaker 2: 27:47

the universal of the rights of authority by, by nature of the order, to universal authority In the home. The father, as head of household, has, has authority. It isn't more or less authority, it is authority, you know, and and and the military. You understand this. And it isn't. And the authority is, is not based on merit or charism, it's based. It's based on office, just like a Ambrose said don't look at his, don't look at the, at his appearance, look him, judge him by his office. And so the office of head of household bears carries with it authority. And so people, you know I give conferences and talk of parishes, they like Ephesians, chapter 6, and the armaments of God. You know it's, it's a lot of cool imagery there. But I always start in Ephesians, chapter 5, particular, st Paul says why? To be subordinate to your husbands, and we don't like that word. But the word subordinate to, to the Greek word, is upo Tosso, it's a military term to be ordered under right, it's, it's, it's a, it's a place of ordering. And so we would walk down the street on a military post and the senior rank and officer would always walk to the outside, and Then then then by rank, one step back to the left, one step back and to the left. So the senior rank and officer, his saluting arm, is to the outside. So everybody knows when you're walking down post, you know who's the senior rank and officer. And this group that's walking towards you, who salutes who first, has nothing to do with his merit, has everything to do with the rank on his chest or on his hat. And so that word upo Tosso to be ordered under to, to to To, to be subordinate to, also as a military terms, me means to be under the protection of, and men need to hear this, and so do women, because because the word means the imagery that the military imagery is you take your, your wife and your children or father, your parishioners, and you put them behind you and you hold up your shield and your first contact with the enemy. That's what that word means, and I don't know a woman alive today that wouldn't say, yeah, that's, that's not a bad thing that my husband gets shot at first. He's the first one to engage the enemy man. Nothing to do with whether I can match my jacket of my tie or what to wear for mass. I could sit there and I'm a successful guy and have no idea what clothes to wear. My wife will say where this, where this, this matches that don't wear. That has nothing to do with that. It's about. It's the way you engage the spiritual realm and how the enemy sees you and your family and how you engage the enemy as head of household and and sat. That authority piece is absolutely critical. Now, I was talking to a woman once after a conference and her husband was you know, he's addicted to prana I mean video games and he's just you know. She's describing the struggles she's having and she said I have no problem submitting to a man, but not to a boy. That's very hard. And if you're looking at pornography, you look at dirty magazines. You're, you're you're playing video games as a grown-up for hours at a time. You're you're not making your bed, you don't stay physically fit, you're not healthy, you're not a leader in your family, you're not a child, you're a boy and there's a lot of, there's a lot of Boyish men out there, right, and that, that has to engage to who they are and their core identity and say Paul says, by the way, in Ephesians 5, husbands, love your wife. She didn't say that husbands loved your wives and open the door for them, right, he says loved your wives, as Christ loved the church, and we should open the door for them. By the way, love your wife, dying for her. We're called father, you're called to die for your flock and and and and you and I are called to die for our wives and our children. That's, that is the type of love that we're called to deep agape, love that dies to self, that dies and puts themselves on the line and to protect their family to the end. That's, that's embedded into that language in Ephesians 5 and it's attractive.

Speaker 3: 31:36

So it is what. What woman Would not want to be submissive to a man like that?

Speaker 2: 31:42

right yeah it's very attractive.

Speaker 3: 31:44

I know that when I came back into the Catholic faith and I started Entering more into a deep life with Jesus Christ and I'm packing my masculinity and manliness and in and going places where I would find, you know, uh, holy women, is like they were attracted to that kind of masculinity, right. Yeah. Then God calling me to be a priest and then, like you said, my parishioners behind me, I'm in front with my shield, I'm the tip of the spear. They're, they're attracted to that. Yeah, they want to follow a priest like that because that's a priest who is holy, that's a priest who will, who will bring the sacraments right there. There there is a priest, there's someone who will die like Christ for us. Yes, I want to follow that. It's attractive.

Speaker 2: 32:28

And I don't, and I may not necessarily agree with everything you say. I'll follow you because you're my, because you're my priest. Yeah, you're first, you're first engaging you know, and and and it isn't merit, it isn't because you're handsome and you're a good-looking guy, father. It isn't hand, it isn't merit, it's office, it's the office of priesthood right, your conformity to Christ, how we're ordered to Christ, and it's beautiful imagery when you see that, you know and you Under that authority is is the word sacrifice right and compassion, and I love break, I love the etymology of words right.

Speaker 3: 33:05

So if you look at sacrifice, it's made of two Latin words society and Fitchery. Right, so said, it means holiness or sacredness. Fitchery means to make right. So when we laid on our lives as priests or or or as men, husbands, fathers, right, we sacrifice. And so as we do that, in that sacrificial act, we're making something holy, right. And in the midst of that we're also bringing compassion, which is kumpatsu, which means to suffer with yeah, yeah, so you become a alter, you know, alter, christus, right? I mean it's, it's amazing, it's that's how we live and move and have our being, as Saint Paul says, with, with our, with our savior, right. People are attracted to that. Men want that, yeah, you know, even though they may not know where to find it or look for it, right. So yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:48

That's why we're here everything that a priest does. Your entire ontological being is ordered to the sacrifice, specifically the Eucharistic sacrifice. But to sacrifice. And what we share in common. And there's a mist, there's a lot of misunderstanding between the, the, and there's a collapse in the modern church between the Hierarchal sacerdotal priesthood of the ordained and the universal priests of the laity. But the second Vatican council says that those two priesthoods differ in essence and degree. The commonality between your priesthood and our priesthood is sacrifice, yours to the sacrifice of the holy Eucharist, to the mass, to the Sacrament. Ours is to the sacrifice of self for the sake of our family. That's what we share in common and this is why it's hard, because we don't like that Suffering goes against our nature and it's, it's part of the concupiscence. If you look at the fall of the angels, the very essence of the, of the rejection of the angels, the fallen angels that became demons, the essence of the fall was a rejection Of, of God's asking them to suffer. Will you be Assigned to Jimmy? I know that, that you're a, you're a creature Light years superior to him, but this is your assignment, jimmy and Dan. No, I want to be in charge of a bishop, I want to be in charge of a, of a diocese or a state, or I want to be the guardian angel, fatima. No, I want you to be in charge of Jimmy. Well, you do that, you know, and that rejection of accepting a little sacrifice is the essence of the diabolic. And this is part of the reason that our art, when we tap into the redemptive value of suffering, we break the enemy. This is, this is. This is how we beat the enemy. It's conformity of our will and and offering up little sacrifices and suffering.

Speaker 1: 35:40

Let's talk about that. So let's talk about redemptive suffering, because I grew up proud of them and you know, I remember when I was slowly getting into the Catholic faith and you know, my, my, um, my mother-in-law god bless her would always tell my wife, you know, if she was struggling with something, it's like, oh, offer it up, offer it up.

Speaker 3: 35:59

Yeah right, I was like what does that?

Speaker 1: 36:01

mean.

Speaker 2: 36:02

Like what Offer it up, what's?

Speaker 1: 36:04

the suffering, you know, like what do you mean? You could offer suffering up. Like offer up for what? So no, this is totally. It's like a foreign cotton. I'm still, you know, processing it, because it's not something I'm familiar with. But let's, let's talk about the, the suffering and the importance of it, because here are all these stories, too, of, you know, of saints, when they they realize that all the suffering that they're going through and some of these saints, the stuff they went through is just absolutely incredible. But then, you know, they realize that their suffering is it's the impact that we can actually have that we don't even realize we truly are one body with Christ when we we recognize what we can do actually affects other members. What I can do today affects you all the way over in New Mexico, dan and and father Dom, up and up at OLC and Rockford. And so what can we do? As, because we all go through suffering, whether it's big or small, we always have little things throughout the day that really bother us. So what can we do To offer it up? What does that actually mean and what is the impact that that actually has, even in the spiritual realm?

Speaker 2: 37:05

as well. Yeah, when I was in the military you know I'm a Yankee through and through and all these military posts were down in the south and you get in line for chow and you would see this white glove and and I would always, and I would always mess with the cooks. I'm like what's that? I don't want any cream of wheat. And they'll say it ain't cream of wheat, it's grit. And I said I really don't want any grits. And they say, oh, it just comes with it. And they'll just give me a double portion of grits because grits are gross unless you're from the south. Suffering in the human condition, post fall and An original sin man is like grits, it just comes with it. Um, like grits in the southern breakfast. And so part of our part of our existence is suffering. You know, I had a guy come see me not long ago. Oh, I want to see you and I got a seafall riprager and and I go to latin mass and and I'm like that's great. He said, yeah, and and, but I know that that I'm supposed to be. You know my wife supposed to listen to me. She doesn't listen to me. I'm like, okay, when's the last time you looked at porn? Oh well, I quit that At least 30 days ago I, okay. When's the last time you smoked marijuana? Oh, I don't I, I gave that up to like three weeks ago. I'm like dude, I don't you know that there's some expiation needed. Just because you said you know, if a guy has an affair on his wife today, comes back and says I'm sorry, yeah, sure, no problem, she may forgive him, but he might be sleeping on the couch for a while. There, there, there, there is the temporal satisfaction for our sins needs. The cup of gods, the cup of Satisfaction, is oftentimes need to be remedied. But at the same time we we Faustina, for example, and I think I quoted her in the book she said that the angels could envy us. They would envy us for two things. One, for our ability to receive communion, and that's kind of obvious, that we can receive the lord bodily. Imagine I envy him, and a holy envy, that that he could consecrate in his hands and bring our, make our lord present with his hands, unbelievable. But they could envy us so that, because we can receive communion. But the second thing she said, if they were capable of envy the, the angel that envies for our ability to suffer, um, the envy of the angels. And so how can that be? But in, in that suffering, we are most conformed to christ. You know those scripture verse that you don't hear, that we don't like to hear. Colossians 124. I rejoice in my suffering, for in my body I make up what's lacking in the suffering of christ's body, which is the church. What could be lacking if jesus said it is finished Christ. What is lacking except, if not our own participation in the distribution of graces that christ Objectively won for us on calvary? He wants our participation in the distribution of graces. There's power in in that. Uh, when I was teaching the priest in germany last month, earlier this month, um, I was at maria trost house where edis stein would stay and go. She went 16 times to the diron abbey for spiritual direction. She took the name benedicta from the influence of the abbot there and the benediction spirituality. And and I know everybody over there's ringing their hands about the church in germany and I said look and here's. You want to be a priest of god, you want to help the german church. Let me tell you edis stein's last recorded words as she was being taken away to alshwiz with her sister rosa come, rosa, let us die for our country, let us die for our people, let's go born on the day of atonement. Edis stein Offered herself in atonement for her people. That that that is redemptive, the redemptive value of suffering. We can rain down grace from heaven through small acts. And the first, the first uh, uh version of the book, father rippegard did a peer review and I used the word surrender and he, he reminded me. He said in tradition, it's not surrender, it's conformity. And and then I was meeting with the guys at tan and they just happened to give me Um blessed, or st Claude, they columbiae's um, trustful surrender to divine providence. Have you heard of this book? It's a little treatise every catholic's got on his bookshelf. I've got it sitting over here, trustful surrender to divine providence. But when you read it it's all about conformity of wills, offering every small little thing up Uh to god. How could it be, for example, that teres, a little flower who entered caramel age 14 or 15? She was homeschooled, lived in a holy house, died at age 23, never left caramel and was made co-patroness of foreign missions with francis Xavier, through the little way we like to write her off as all that's a cute little girly way of loving jesus. You want to talk about pow. I teach caramelize every thursday in our diocese and I go in and you're talking about pure virginal power. B52 strikes in the mystical body in the cosmic realm, snipers in the cosmic realm. That's caramelize spirituality and there's nothing sugary about it. So co-patron of foreign missions by conformity of all things to the will of god and making everything a spiritual sacrifice.

Speaker 3: 42:15

That's right. There's ultimate love, isn't it, though it is. There's no greater love than this than to lay down your life for your friends. Yeah Right, st Augustine. I always have to remind myself of this when I feel like I'm suffering with pride and I need humility. St Augustine talked about it as kivatus and say it's caved in on oneself Like the weight of pride is so heavy, it forces you to, it curves your spine. The only person you're looking at is yourself, and that's sad, right, yeah. And so to be not kivatus and say is to be able to look at the other in a selfless way of giving yourself unloved. Right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 42:57

Yeah, we're either and I use this phrase theology in the book. We're either ad orientum or ad hominem. Ad hominem is what is a developed theological term, pointing to what Augustine said. It's turning inward on the self, inward on the emotions.

Speaker 3: 43:12

We have to give in our emotions.

Speaker 2: 43:14

Nowhere in our life if we go by emotions. Nobody stays married, nobody stays a priest, because I know by Sunday night you'd be dead or in prison?

Speaker 3: 43:22

Yeah, or in prison.

Speaker 2: 43:23

Sure For sure, if we only emotions have, we have to learn to rule the emotions and keep them in right order. And so, understanding that the emotions come and go, but grind, that slow grind, is absolutely critical. So we get to get people turning away from themselves and their wounds and their trauma and their sins and looking to God, to the East, you know, the resurrection in hope. Renzi is the founder of the, our native sorrow sisters. I gave a retreat for them and she has a famous saying. She said look for the alleluia on the other side of the cross. That's hope enduring through the cross, because we know an alleluia waits us. That might sound, that might sound sugary, jesus, but we're going to pound it out between now and then.

Speaker 3: 44:06

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:08

And this is not a whole, we're a pilgrim people.

Speaker 3: 44:11

We're a pilgrim people. And if you've ever been in an authentic pilgrimage, that process of point A to point B, that pilgrimage, there's a transformation that takes place. You're different on the other side of that pilgrimage. If you've gone to the Holy land for a pilgrimage or anything like that, there's always a transformation that takes place and you're changed, right, and that's like a microcosm of our life, from birth to death. Right, we are a pilgrim people and this isn't our home. We have to open that transformation as well. So, yeah, that's what I like about your book and the way that you bring it and the way you present it. Right, it's good not only for the laity but for us priests as well. And then it provides that groundwork. Right, you said just enter into it, follow these, just follow these rules. If you will, and more than likely you will be able to move out of severe temptation or even oppression. In itself, right, yeah.

Speaker 2: 45:03

I've just this week I've got three or four different emails on cases that I'm consulting with, and one's a religious brother, two different vocations, and they're saying things like I did this 30 day discipline protocol and we just put an app up in the app store. It's kind of like PX 90 for the soul. And the hardest part is you pray 6, 12 and 6, the exilling Christian orm prayers in the Angeles. You're announcing into the cosmos three times a day with the church, the incarnation of God. You know, and people have said, hey, I've started this and I've stopped. I've been able to overcome all sexual temptation let's just put it that way Just by having this discipline, because recall that the demon responds to the imposition of order as much as to the prayers themselves. So imposing order is very, very important in spiritual combat, not just ordering the home, but interior order, so that you can start getting a baseline from which to pray. And over time we have to learn how to do meditation. Lectio Divina we call it in the Benedictine tradition, holy reading of scripture that the memories and the imagination are now washed right, not with our emotions and our traumas, but washed with the words and deeds of Christ.

Speaker 3: 46:23

So, dr Dan, I have a question. I don't want to get off topic, but so, as a pastor of many souls, here at my church we have a lot of young men, right, a lot of families. What can I do to help empower the men here at my parish to begin to enter into the authority that we've talked about, to begin to enter, help them enter into the realization that they are the priests of their domestic church? How can I help them enter into that authentic masculinity where they can lead and die for the bride?

Speaker 2: 47:02

Yeah, I think they say values are caught and not taught. So at the first point, it's you being that man, you being that masculine man in the parish, so they see what authentic masculinity looks like. And then teaching, coaching, preaching, all the things that you do as part of your sacerdotum ministry being Christ, being Christ to them, preaching the value of masculinity, devotion to the Blessed Mother and the saints, living their faith fully. Another thing that I've had priests comment over time they're starting to various priests that are like hey, I didn't realize that I can do binding prayers as a priest, you know. So one priest told me I started doing a quiet binding prayer before Mass. I bind any demon that would block, that would try to block anyone that comes to this mass from receiving all the graces that God would want them to receive. And he said people are saying to me Father, you're preaching, I don't know what's going on, it's incredible. And so he's done nothing different, but he's just blocking. He's stepping in and standing in the gap and saying, no, these are my sheep. You kiddo you back off. Another guy said he started praying binding prayers before confession. I bind any demon that would try to block the memory of anyone who's going to confess, to keep them from making a good and thorough and holy confession. He said the quality and the quantity of confessions is skyrocketing. And then he'll do small little binding prayers in the confessional, small little severing prayers after absolution. Hey, can I pray for you? So he'll do the small little quiet. Nobody needs to hear, but you and the demon. You pray and the demon hears it, that's it. So he prays a quiet, binding prayer, he told me not long ago. He said so I picked up on something, so I prayed this little binding prayer. I bind the demon of this or that. He said. All of a sudden I hear this thing on the other side of the veil of the screen and the guy starts screaming thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus. And he runs off. Father, I don't know what it is, but it's gone, it's gone. He starts running out of ears and running through the church screaming thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus. You know, normally you're not going to get that reaction. That was mostly for the priest or God to say, or our lady saying you're on the right track. So, so helping them through prayer as well, so being the example and not being afraid to engage your rightful authority. As a priest, you know your rightful authority and wield that correctly. You'll teach men how to do that in the same in their home. I appreciate that yeah. Thanks.

Speaker 1: 49:33

Yeah, I think I mean gosh, I don't think it's an accident we're called the church militant here on earth. I mean I think too, I mean, dan, just obviously with your background in the military, I think you know it kind of leads perfectly into you know, the spiritual combat. And I want to step back just briefly here because you talked about the importance of men hearing, the importance of back on. Can you hear me? No, I there he is. He's coming on this is getting ridiculous.

Speaker 2: 50:04

We love it, man. That's what it is. It is. It is, yeah, we have to.

Speaker 3: 50:09

We have to walk the talk right.

Speaker 2: 50:14

You know, it's like I hear people say I'm not afraid of the devil. You need to be. You need to have respect for your enemy. The first time the only time that I ever was that I was ever knocked down is I got into a ring with a guy and I was feeling pretty good and this guy was. I was like this guy's got nothing and I walked right into a right hand and he put me on my backside and that's what I realized. You know what. They hit back. They shoot back. The Iraqis shot back at us. They had bullets and tanks too, you know. So you got to respect your enemy. You still do the work, and next time we'll do better perimeter prayers beforehand. But you know but. But this is, this is just part of it. You know, it's just part of it.

Speaker 3: 50:59

Yeah, yeah, knowing, knowing your enemy man, that's key. You know you talk about boxing. I was into mixed martial arts for a little while and I remember one of my, one of my, competitions. I didn't, I didn't prepare for my opponent Right, I didn't study my opponent, I didn't know anything about him. I was pretty cocky. He was smaller than I was and I was like I'm bigger, I'm going to take this guy Right. And so we, we, we, we begin and he immediately starts shooting on me like fast, super fast, and I'm like, holy crap, this guy's a wrestler, this guy's a wrestler and I know he's an ex-collegiate wrestler, and if I would have studied my opponent, if I would have wait a minute, wait a minute. But eventually he finally got in on me. He sweet me. He picked me up body, slammed me, dislocated my jaw I'm broke a rib. Tap out, tap, tap, tap, right. Yeah, I did not study my enemy, I didn't know my enemy and then when I went into combat I got, I got annihilated. Yeah, I got annihilated and I said there's there's just a really good, cool correlation with that in our spiritual, our spiritual lives as well. Knowing yourself is key too, right, being in a state of grace, entering the sacraments, but also knowing who Satan is and what, what he desires. Right, he wants absolute chaos and destruction.

Speaker 2: 52:17

He wants that, a complete distrust of self. You know because? Because Father Dominic could easily fall back into Dominic and Jimmy can fall back into old Jimmy and Dan can fall back into old Dan at any time. We have to, we have to, we have to respect our enemy. We have to not trust ourselves completely. Trust the Lord and again, if I could plug my official sponsor, the Holy Virgin Mary, do marry in consecration. That is one element of spiritual combat that is that is ignored and let her help you fight this battle.

Speaker 3: 52:58

Yeah, she crushed the head of the serpent right. Yeah, Jimmy, Jimmy, do you have that picture?

Speaker 1: 53:02

Oh yeah, let's see, let me see if I can follow up for you guys there. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 53:08

So I love this picture. So you say you have St Joseph and he cut the snake in half right and the axe is bloody. And he's looking at his woman, he's looking at Mary. He's like, hey, look what I did, isn't this nice? And she's looking at him, all sweet and cuddly yes, that is nice. And she's crushing the head of the serpent. There's the kill. There's the kill. Move right there. That's Mary. I love it. I love it. I love it.

Speaker 2: 53:29

We need to bring the full armor of God and the full weight of the church. This is what it recognized immediately getting involved and when I started working with exorcists and watching and praying at the priest praying the ritual, you feel the weight of the church. You feel the power of the saints, and particularly the Holy Virgin Mary. She has total coercive power over the demon. St Brigid of Sweden says that when you say the name of Mary, it's like lightning that strikes in the demon's flea. It's powerful just to invoke her name. So we have to use all the weapons at our arsenal. Be just trustful of ourselves. Don't obsess about what the enemy does, but you got to know that he's out there. One time, father, you'll like this. I was working with a priest and he had a prisoner that was afflicted and he said you guys take care of it, I don't want to target on my back. I don't want to go there. I don't want to target on my back, I'm not into that stuff. So that day or the next day, we have a fraternity of St Peter perished about an hour away. So I go there as often as I can for Latin Mass, and so I was at Daily Mass and the priest had his fiddle back on and it had a big red chi, the first word for Christ, the X, which it looks like an X, but it's a Greek chi. And so he's praying, he does the elevation and the bells are ringing and all you see is this huge red X on his back. And I said, I thought to myself, there it is. You want to be a target, be a priest. You became a target when you prostrated yourself before the bishop and you gave your life as a priest of the living God. You became a target, jimmy and I became a target when we said, for better or for worse, when we're going to live this marriage to death, do us part. We're going to die for our family, we're going to put everything to death for our family, we're going to kill for our family in that sense. And we became a target. And this is the temptation that you're going to get If you back off, I'll back off. Right, just stop this family podcast stuff. Father, stop preaching these homilies, stop doing this stuff. You back off, I back off. He's not going to back off. It's like that wrestler he might give you a little breather, but he's just setting you up for the next one. Yeah, it's cat and mouse. So if you stay passive in the spiritual life and the spiritual warfare, if you stay passive, you'll get taken to the woodshed. Like you know, father, an MMA. If you try to be passive in MMA, you're going to get blasted. If you try to stay passive in the boxing ring, they're going to push you into a corner and they're going to pound you.

Speaker 3: 56:10

Yeah, and we are attacking. Right, matthew, chapter 16 versus 18,. Right, the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. The gates are stationary. Right, we're attacking. And men need to know this You're built to attack, we're hardwired to attack, we're hardwired to lay it on our lives and defend. That's what we're supposed to do and that's what unlocks this masculinity and that's where it brings like purpose in our life, right Purpose in our life. I love this conversation. I love being a priest, I love being a man, I love fighting, I love this combat. It brings life. It brings life. My fatherhood, my fatherhood and laying down my life, it brings life to me and that's why you know, jimmy, and I started this podcast is we want to unlock that. And men, we want them to be on fire. We want them to be on fire for God and their vocation. They'll change. We'll change the world, right. We'll change the family and the church. And Satan. Satan knows, and that's what he did to Adam right In the garden. I love going back to Genesis. I love going back to the garden, right and Satan. Satan got into the garden because Adam wasn't standing at the front door, adam was gone. He wasn't present. We, as men and fathers. We need to be present. So he wasn't present. So when Satan entered in, he didn't go looking for Adam he didn't care where Adam was right. He went to the most important, important thing at the center of the home, center of the garden, and that was. That was Eve, because Eve has a womb. Satan doesn't, yeah, right.

Speaker 2: 57:41

So the husband. Is that at that Adam response of silence, of not engaging? You know it's it's twice. Twice. Twice and then there was the woman you gave me God. You gave me her sleep.

Speaker 3: 57:56

That's weak, that's a man, that's a man boy, that's a man boy, right there, you know it is.

Speaker 2: 58:02

Adam was the first man boy.

Speaker 1: 58:03

Yeah, that's not well. Dan, you know you brought. You mentioned, you know, dividing the husband and wife. I don't know if this applies or you have noticed this too in your spiritual life. I noticed when I again, I'm not, I'm not disciplined, I'm not attacking, I'm more passive. The first, satan is the same, does the same thing. Every single time he tries to divide my wife and me. Every single time, if I am not, if I'm not on my guard, I mean, he's like we mentioned in 1 Peter, he's that prowling line, you know, looking about the world, right. And so every single time he, he plants these seeds of doubt and just like well, you know, she didn't, she didn't compliment you when you did something that you didn't ask her, that she didn't ask you to do, or, blah, blah, blah, she. She said that in a in a different tone, are you sure? You know? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like all this stuff is just popping in my head and I go yep, you know, I got to get back to you. It's either, you see, I got a confession or I'm slacking in my prayer life. It's always those two things, and it's you know, he, you know as, as Father Dom said when we talked about this on a previous podcast episode, he runs the same play. We were talking about football a lot. He runs the same dang play every single time and he doesn't change tactics. It's the same thing. But because it works so often and you know it's not knowing yourself, not knowing where your weaknesses are, but I just know for me, and I want to kind of kick that to you If you've noticed that or there's something in particular that but it's always my wife and me, if, if my defenses are down, he always goes after that every single time.

Speaker 2: 59:29

Yeah, yeah. Father Ripper once beat out of a demon and asked him why do you keep doing the same things? He says because it works. The devil and the demons because it works. It's quite boring. He does the same things because they work against us and the family, the, the, the target is always the children. But he starts by by changing perceptions. He'll start changing and putting spins on our perceptions of our spouses, and so we have to watch that. We have to always be aware of the cat catch that in those movements, and particularly if you, if you look at, it's like Catechism 4475 to 84 right around there. It's offenses against the truth, and one of the one of the offenses against the truth is rash judgment. It's, it's this I think father was thinking this, or I think my wife was saying that, or I bet she was thinking this when I didn't do that, or you know. And so projecting once you start thinking what other people might be thinking, that's rash judgment and the demons all over that. So the first thing he does is change, change our perceptions of each other. And so we have to have clean perceptions we have, and before he even gets to that, he gets us to stop praying together. So, even if it's just grace, praying the rosary, praying night prayer together, doing the praying the divine praises before you go to bed which is a great spiritual warfare prayer you just pray this divine praises. The last thing you say is praising the divine praises into the cosmos before you roll over and go to sleep. You know, praying together in small little vocal prayers of the church, the litanies, these things keep us united. And so the minute, the first thing, he gets us to stop praying together and then he starts getting us to change our perceptions and we start thinking you know, things that were, things that were cute at the beginning of our marriage are suddenly now annoying. You know, well, what's changed? Nothing's changed. You know, father mentions this, father Rippiger mentions he used the analogy of the pig laugh. You know, your wife has this cute little piglet laugh. When you first get married it's the cutest thing ever. And after about five years, when she laughs you want to jump off a bridge. Well, it's changed Nothing. She's the same woman you're married. She's a fantastic Christian woman, only thing that changes your perception. So watch that perception. That's one of the key things. And the demon will constantly chisel away at marriages and perceptions. And so praying together is very, very critical in catching those temptations and before they grow, you know, into something greater. You got to catch them when they're small, before they grow into your deeper thought. This is why in the Benedictine tradition, father, you remember the imprecatory Psalms. You know they're not in the office now, the imprecatory Psalms. You go to a Benedictine monastery and you'll pray the Psalm. May the Lord punch my enemy in the mouth and knock out his teeth. May the Lord crush the skulls of the babies of my enemies. You know and if scripture scholars are constantly trying to, well, you know this, and that one, david, may have meant that, okay, but the monks always see this as a call to the spiritual life. They spiritualize it. Who is my enemy? The devil, impurity, anger, loss, whatever. What are the babies, these movements of these emotions, of these temptations, before they gain and get big? You got to stop them before they get big. This is why you crush them against the rock. Who is the rock? Christ is the rock. So, crushing these temptations early, so before they grow into something and cause greater division in the family, particularly in the couple, no go ahead, go ahead Jimmy.

Speaker 1: 1:03:11

No, I was going to say I think it was Father Rippker too, if I think it was him. But he said if you ever receive or you think something negative about another person, automatically assume it's the devil or the demon coming after you, like every single time. If there's some distorted perception going on about another person gossiping and things like it, it's always a demon. It's never you know what the other person did or said. It's always something that's just again just trying to do that divider, that division, that chaos, you know, and especially with the husband and the wife and again, like you said, the you know the piglet laugh. You know, nothing has changed in five years. It's literally your own perception of your wife, who you adore, who you love, who is your partner for life, and it's just so. Something clearly is going on with your own perception of her, because she hasn't she hasn't changed.

Speaker 3: 1:04:01

Yeah, there's a connection that between you and your wives, and then me and my wife, right, the bride of Christ, the church. I have to stay. I have to stay promised to the oath of my liturgy. The hours, right, I got to pray my breviary. I have to, I can't stop doing that. If I stop doing that, then Satan will get into my relationship and begin to separate that as well. You know, bishop, I don't want to be a priest anymore. The Bishop usually will ask when did you stop praying your liturgy hours? Exactly, I stopped praying five years ago. Okay, all right. Well, there it is. There's that separation. When I do marriage prep with couples, I'll specifically target the man as as being right, that authority of prayer, and I'll say do you guys pray together? Well, no, father, we don't, we don't pray together. And then and then and then I'll say well, you guys are going to work on sex, right? You're going to, you're going to get that down, right? Oh, well, of course, father of course somebody will get that down, of course, and I say, well, but you're not going to work on prayer? Well, no, we don't know how to pray together. And I say, prayer is the most intimate thing you guys will do together. And so we have six to eight months to work on this, otherwise I won't marry you.

Speaker 2: 1:05:13

I won't.

Speaker 3: 1:05:14

I won't put my stamp of certification on this sacrament between. But let's work on this. Let's work, let's work on on praying together and that's what I focus on, and a lot of couples because they'll come in not knowing how to pray. Let's, let's work on this. You guys have to work on praying together. Let's lay the foundation. Let's get this going Right, it's so important to pray together. It's the most intimate thing they'll do together.

Speaker 2: 1:05:34

Yeah, and it doesn't. It doesn't have to be. I was visiting some folks and the husband was a little nervous. A lot of people there, and everybody there was like hey, we got to say, grace, you're the head of household, pray. He was nervous, you know, because he he's still not quite engaging. And I said I said, look, I'll show you how to do it. Let me show you how to pray. He said, all right, and everybody's watching and they're all expecting you know some great theological, inspired prayer. And I said here's how you do it, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen, bless us, o Lord. And he's like this. And he just started saying it. Everybody said it. I made the sign of the cross, that's it. That's a prayer and you lead it. You don't have to impress anybody, it's just pray together. You don't have to. Well, lord, this and and and and, father, god, this, and, and you know. You just, just, just pray anything together, just pray together. Pray before you go, husband, bless your wife before they go.

Speaker 3: 1:06:35

Bless your wife. Holy water, yeah, holy water in the house. Have exercise, holy water. Oh, and your home? It's a domestic church. Get it blessed, get the homes blessed.

Speaker 2: 1:06:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get your homes blessed. Get rid of part of our protocol as you get rid of all the garbage. You know any pagan stuff, dream catchers, cocoa, helly crystals Get rid of this stuff. This stuff is not holy. Make your home a Catholic home and every aspect of it and your marital bed needs to be Catholic. Yes, your walls need to be filled with Catholic art.

Speaker 3: 1:07:15

Have a prayer nook, have a prayer corner. Yeah, fathers, let your children see you pray, let them see you pray with your wife. You know those are important.

Speaker 2: 1:07:26

And if you're like Jimmy, with young family, your, your, your wife would, would is getting no prayer time because of kids. So sometimes your prayer is picking up the kids so that your wife can have some primary prayer time. Your prayer is the sacrifice. Is that sacrifice for her so she can get prayer time? These, these are all things. You know that that young couples they don't teach us this stuff, we just run at it and we think you know we don't get. These are little basic stuff. But praying together get, getting other, each other free time so we can have our own quiet time for prayer, away from retreats if possible, these things are all really important for married couples to do 100%.

Speaker 1: 1:08:09

Yeah, yeah, I have a a dream catcher story, so this was early on in our marriage and we went to a wedding out of town and we were staying in Airbnb and we were staying in a room that had like dream I think there's two or three dream catchers in there, and I kid you not at like three or three, three in the morning we both woke up and there was just like this heavy tree, this heavy darkness in the room and I said we're gone, like we are leaving. So we got up at three in the morning and we left, like it was like the creepiest feeling and I wasn't Catholic at the time, I converted like two years after we were married. But it was just this, you know, as you mentioned, you know having pagan things in the home like a dream catcher or you know any masonry things and stuff along that. Yeah, just just get rid of it as soon as possible Because, like you said, it's you're just opening. You're just opening the doorway, you know. And and, dan, I did want to ask and I mean, if you want to share a story, obviously you can. But I spoke with with Father Lambert, who's an exorcist in the, the Diocese of Indianapolis and Archdiocese of Indianapolis, and I kind of asked him, which I always like to get this perception. Is there anything along your line of work, especially working with Father Rippiger and Kyle, that has, I guess, surprised you in in this line of because it's not your, your typical job that you go into right so you see bizarre things. But no like for him. I know Father Lambert mentioned he he became really close with St Pope John Paul II. You know he found when he invoked him during his exorcism it would be either overwhelming sense of peace or he just realized that he was kind of right there by his side. So I kind of wanted to kick that to you. You know, in your line of work you've you've seen a thing or two, to say the least, but has written anything that has, I guess, surprised you or been something that's unexpected that you've kind of kind of drawn out from from all the cases that you've seen.

Speaker 2: 1:10:07

Yeah, I mean, it seems like every time I'm working on a concept to try to understand it, to teach it to, to, to work it into my life, the case will come along and, kind of, you know, highlight a certain element. You know I've been, you know I've given a scouting report to a priest on the on on. This is what we're dealing with, father, and it's this and it's this and I didn't use when I explained it to him, I didn't use the Hebrew correctly and during session the demon would correct the Hebrew. So he's reading the emails knowing. Yeah, he didn't pronounce my name correctly and Dan didn't tell him my correct name. This is my correct name and he gives me a look like I'm correct in your name. But the very first case we had and this was we're learning about specificity and prayer and the importance of being specific, this principle that the angels go where they're asked, the demons go where they're not resisted, and so we're praying, the priest is praying and now we don't do restraint. But back then we still did kind of the Roman model. But now by the time they get through and go to prayer, they're ready, you don't need restraining because they're ready for liberation. But back then we weren't doing that, and so it took eight guys and tie down straps to hold this person down. And so I was just trying to hold this poor young girl. She was probably 15 years old and I was holding her left arm. So I'm holding her left arm and I am struggling and getting punched. I mean it was bad and it was a disaster. And so I'm just praying. The priest is praying, I'm just praying quietly. I'm like, hey, st Michael, they told us pray to you, be specific, so I need help with this. I'm in charge of the left arm and I'm losing this battle. And all this is happening quietly in my head. I'm like help me, st Michael, subduer her left arm for me. And so I'm just quietly praying this. I'm not out loud at all because in the Catholic ecosystem there's one guy in charge and he's the guy with the collar. It's not me and there's nobody else. The priest is in charge. We're just there to help him, protect him. And as soon as I prayed this quiet prayer of projecting, asking St Michael, please subdue her left arm, her left arm completely just locked, completely locked, and I was like, wow, quiet, nobody knows, I'm just quietly praying. And then I kind of late, kick back a second. And I did that just happen. And then all of a sudden, two or three seconds later, I get this Her arm is completely locked, but her arm, but her hand is moving. And so I said, ah, okay, I get it, st Michael, subdue her left arm for me, but also her left wrist. And then everything just stopped. I was like, wow, st Michael, thank you, thank you. I was sweating, man, this was hot shirts been in there for hours and all of a sudden I see this. I said, yes, I'm a PhD student. I finally figured it out St Michael, pursue, subdue her left arm, her left wrist, her left hand and her fingers on her left hand. And as soon as I prayed that prayer, her entire left arm and hand completely relaxed. And it was, it was St Michael's way to show me the power of prayer. We don't need to feel it and sometimes we praying and God says no, but they're answering those prayers. They're answering those prayers we just have. We just have to keep praying and be specific in what we're asking in those prayers. That, really, that was one day that really made me realize the power of prayer. And theologically, blaise Pascal said this God bestowed on man the power of prayer to bestow on him. God gave man the ability to pray, to bestow on him the dignity of being causes and so being causes that we become causality for grace pouring into the world, and so being specific in prayer was very important. That one blew me away, among others.

Speaker 3: 1:14:18

Yeah, that's it, that's what I'll tell people in confession. To being specific in prayer, right, especially those binding prayers. Like naming it like the spirit of lust or the spirit of anger I bind you in the name of Jesus and I cast you to the foot of the cross for judgment. That's a very specific prayer in three different ways. Right, there's three ingredients there Naming the evil spirit, the authority of Christ to the cross, which conquered Satan's kingdom, for judgment. Right, right, very, very.

Speaker 1: 1:14:47

That's the one in three.

Speaker 3: 1:14:49

Yeah, it's a laser guided missile. Right, it's a laser guided missile.

Speaker 2: 1:14:52

Yeah, perfect strength. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And learning when and how to pray. That prayer is very important. In being specific, I quoted in the book a modern psychologist who uses this phrase with the emotions and if you can name it, you can tame it. And so I use it by analogy If you can name not just the emotion but the defect, the vice you contain, the demon that's fueling it, that's empowering it, you've got to first name it. I remember one time I was in I mean, when you're dealing with the diabolic, you just get hit a lot and you start getting. It's a quick path to figure out what your vices are, and so I couldn't put my finger on that. I was in the confessional and I was like, father, I'm feeling, I'm experiencing this and it's like I don't feel like praying. I'm still praying, but I don't feel like it and I'm just kind of going through the motions and I'm distracted. And I started describing all the stuff and the priest just said well, it sounds to me like you have a Sadia. And I said that's it, father, I want to confess spiritual sloth. He said, okay, very good, and the minute I confessed it it lifted. So we have to be specific and name these things. You know, it is Father. You hear this. Well, I took something that didn't belong to me. Okay, what was it? Well, I robbed a bank, you know, but that's a little significant, you know. So being specific helps break it, because the demon always wants to keep everything in secret. So, but learning how to pray and being specific in prayer is very important.

Speaker 3: 1:16:32

Yeah, learning how to pray and examination of conscience as well too, preparing yourself for confession and also realizing that confession is not, you know, a place of counsel and therapy, and there's some teaching there that needs to be done with confession as well, too. It's very powerful sacrament, right. Ultimate exorcism in itself? Yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:16:54

But the prayer, what I tell people, the demon will try to block. Write them down, be specific, you know a number. Don't be detailed, don't be a scandal to the father. Be specific but be brief. It's sufficient. And this is not a spiritual direction, this is not counseling, this is. It's not here to talk about what your sister's, what's wrong with her or what's wrong with your wife, you know. Accuse yourself deeply and trust in the mercy of God.

Speaker 3: 1:17:26

And I had a guy come in and talk to me and there wasn't anybody left and I just wanted to see how far he'd take it. And he was talking about you know his furnace and how it went out and how he had to change the filter and how he tried to call someone and they wouldn't come. And you know his brother's off fishing and Wow.

Speaker 2: 1:17:45

Yeah, I had to reinvent.

Speaker 3: 1:17:47

I had to reinvent.

Speaker 2: 1:17:47

Yeah, no, for sure, and we what? We do that though? We avoid it. We like to tell the story and this is why we encourage people. Don't tell the story. You got to tell it upfront. Tell it to your counselor, confess it. But don't keep rehashing the story, because it just creates, you're just putting, you're embedding it more into your memory and distorted versions of it into your memory, you know. So working on purifying the memory is very, is very, very important.

Speaker 1: 1:18:16

Dan, how are you doing on time? We're coming up on two hours here.

Speaker 2: 1:18:19

Wow, wow, that went fast. Yeah, it did.

Speaker 1: 1:18:24

Yeah, Are you? Are you good on time or? We can wrap up too. Okay, we can wrap up.

Speaker 2: 1:18:30

We can keep going. Whatever you want to do, we can come back and do it another time.

Speaker 1: 1:18:34

Do a follow up. We could definitely do a follow up. I know I'm just getting up, really, and going fishing.

Speaker 3: 1:18:39

Speaking of fishing, Perishers taking me out on the big lake to do some salmon fishing.

Speaker 2: 1:18:43

So oh, good, yeah, Good. Well, if you catch a walleye, make sure you fry it up for me.

Speaker 1: 1:18:50

You guys don't call them walleyes.

Speaker 2: 1:18:51

You guys call them Northern Pike. I think right On this side of Lake Michigan it's walleye, on that side I think it's Northern Pike, but it's the same fish. Fish again, there's fish. Yeah, there you go, there you go Fish.

Speaker 1: 1:19:06

Just kind of wrap up with kind of a resounding charge for the men and women listening out there and then where we can find more information about you, where we can get this new book that you created, and then we'll wrap up.

Speaker 2: 1:19:22

Yeah, I think if I had an elevator speech to any Catholic, I would quote St Paul of Romans, chapter 12, do not be conformed to the spirit of this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds. Know what is good and pleasing. Holy and pleasing. How's it go, father? Holy and pleasing.

Speaker 3: 1:19:40

Yeah, yeah, so you may discern what is holy and good and what is good and holy and pleasing.

Speaker 2: 1:19:47

Because things are getting really radically weird. I mean, look at the Dodgers, which didn't hurt my feelings because I was a red fan. You know what I mean. So I was glad the Dodgers were always a little aberrant for me anyway. But what is going on? The world's going mad. Target Bud Light. The world is going absolutely mad. We're seeing the resurgence of ancient evil, ancient, ancient defense paganism, as we're becoming post-Christian, neo-paganism is on the rise. We're becoming neo-pagan. The old gods are coming back and so we have to live a Catholic faith. We fight an ancient enemy and the ancient weapons are best. And what are those? Prayer sacrament, staying in the state of grace. We learned through COVID the importance of staying holy in the state of grace because we don't know when the sacraments would come back. So learning to grow in holiness of thought word indeed is absolutely critical. So the book I wrote it to help people to grow in their Catholic faith, to grow in holiness and learn some techniques of spiritual weapons to take with them on the battle. And so you can get the book at tanbookscom and it's the Levercresto Method, a manual for spiritual combat. On tan books. I think Amazon has it as well, but tan gets the better support the good Catholic organization. That's my recommendation, and also Father Ripper's book Deliverance Pairs for Use by the Laity. That's another great book for the Laity Father. Do you have this book? Deliverance Pairs for Priest? Ah good.

Speaker 3: 1:21:20

There it is. I use it all the time, man, yeah, that's fantastic All the time.

Speaker 2: 1:21:26

Yeah, that's a great weapon and all those prayers are prayers that any priest can pray. Learn how to use those for blessings. That's fantastic, but our version of that is this one Deliverance Pairs for Use by the Laity. That's a very great book for the Laity to learn how to pray spiritual combat. Don't be afraid, you already got a target on your back, so you might as well fight back.

Speaker 3: 1:21:46

Yeah, yeah, punch back.

Speaker 1: 1:21:48

I feel like I have to flash a book too. I might as well flash your book here.

Speaker 3: 1:21:51

Dan Yay, it's all flashing books here. Deliverance.

Speaker 2: 1:21:54

Pairs for Use by the Laity.

Speaker 1: 1:21:57

We're all on the same page here. Yeah, exactly, well, dan, thank you so much Again. We are definitely going to have to have you on again, but before we wrap up, father Dom, can you give us a final blessing, please?

Speaker 3: 1:22:08

Yeah, absolutely. Let's end with speaking of ancient prayers. Let's pray the prayer that our Father taught us long ago, and then I'll give you a blessing Name the Father and Son and the Holy Spirit, our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. Let's forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen, benedict God, vos son, nepotence, deus, pater ethius, espiritus santus, amen Varean pache deo grazie.

Speaker 2: 1:22:54

Thank you Father. Thank you Jim. I sure appreciate it. I love you a lot. God Fantastic.

Speaker 1: 1:22:59

Thank you so much, Dan. Actually hold on, Let me in oh.