Ep 93 - Combatting the Roaring Lion: A Conversation with Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers

Started. Hello, all. Welcome to another episode of the Manly Catholic. This is James, your host, and with me we have Father Dom. Father Dom, how you doing, doing?

good.

How are you Doing? Well, and tonight, ladies and gentlemen, we have a very special guest with us. We have a Deacon Harold Burke Sivers. Deacon Harold, welcome to the Manly Catholic Podcast. Thank you, it's great to be with you. Yes, we are honored and blessed to have you on and we'll dive into your background a little bit. But before we start, Father Dom, do you mind leading us off in a word of prayer, please?

Absolutely Name the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Lord, god, we give you great things. Enjoy for all the gifts that you have given us, lord, most especially the gift of this day. Lord, I ask a special spirit of blessing upon us as we enter into this podcast. Lord, open up our hearts and our minds to your will, fill us with counsel and wisdom and guidance. Above all, just send us your spirit of thanksgiving and gratitude. Mary, mother of God, we ask that you cover us with your mantle of protection as we pray. Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen, name the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, amen.

Amen, thank you, father. Well, for those of you out there, I'm sure in one sense or another you've heard of Deacon Harold. The dynamic Deacon author speaker, travels all over the world Giving amazing talks. I've heard a bunch of your talks on YouTube, deacon Harold. But for those of you who have not heard of Deacon Harold, can you please just give our audience a bit of a background on yourself?

Sure, sure Again. Thank you so much for having me on the podcast today. So I was born in Barbados, in the West Indies and in the Southern Caribbean, in an island not too far off the coast of Venezuela, and we're first generation to come to the United States. So my mother was the first Catholic in our family. She was a Methodist who converted to the Catholic faith as a teenager, and my father, unfortunately, was not a man of faith at all. So when we came to the United States and when I was born in Barbados, I was the first baptized Catholic. So my mom was the first Catholic. I was the first baptized as Catholic. About three weeks after I was born we came to the United States. It was extremely important to my mother that we have a Catholic education me and my two brothers and my sister and so Catholic grade school, catholic high school, catholic college and graduate school all wonderful Catholic institutions. And so I remember when I was younger loving going to Mass. I know that sounds strange for kids today Most women say that they're bored at Mass but I remember in fact it was to the point where my mom would sit me at the end of the pew by the aisle and she would stand next to me and on the other side of her would be my brothers and my sister, who are typical kids, throwing Cheerios at each other and stuff. But she separated us because I was so laser focused on what was going on at the altar. That was about nine years old and I remember thinking I don't know exactly what's going on up there, but I really like it. And when I got old enough to serve Mass, oh, I thought I died in with the heaven. I loved being on the altar. In fact, it's wonderful. God is so good. I still, when I stand in the back ready to process forward, even today as a deacon, so many years later, I still get excited, just like I did when I was serving Mass when I was 11 and 12 years old. And I remember one time in particular it was so my Catholic school was across the street from the church and several of us boys, would you know, we'd be late for school because we were serving Mass. And I remember I had my. It was my turn to ring the bells. I had my hand on the bells and I remember thinking, as the priest was about to elevate the host, I could totally see myself doing that. You know that was the first time I ever thought about a vocation to the priesthood, and so I went to high school. I went to St Benedict's Prep in Newark, new Jersey, run by Benedict and Monks. They had a come and see program which I did all four years of high school, so I felt okay. After that I know God wants me to be a monk. So I went off to college, graduated, worked for a year and then joined the monastery and I thought I'm going to die here. You know I'm not going to. This is this, is it? This is what God wants. My parents got divorced a number of years before that, and so when I was in the monastery, my mom got sick and almost died, and when my dad left, I helped my mom take care of the family, and so the abbot gave me three months out of the monastery to take care of my mom until she was able to go back to work, because my sister was still in high school and she had to eat and get to school and all that. And so I took care of all that and I went to a wedding of a college friend of mine and I. At that wedding I met the woman who ended up being my wife. So God had another plan and she was from Oregon, which is how I got from New Jersey to Oregon, because normally someone from the East Coast would not even think about coming to Oregon because for us Philadelphia is the West Coast. So when I got to Oregon, discovered my vocation to the Diaconate. That's kind of a longer story, but suffice it to say I was at Mass. I felt a very strong calling, literally calling by the Lord toward the Diaconate, entered the program at 30. So I was very young In fact I was the youngest deacon ever ordained in the history of the Archdiocese. I started the program, entered the program at 30, started the program at 31 because there was no class that year, at the wait for the next cohort to start Five years of training, including a master's degree in theology, which I received from the University of Dallas, and then was ordained in November 23, 2002. And during that time I had a law enforcement career, which I was very good at, and I became police chief at the University of Portland, which I did for the last 11 years of my career, before leaving all of that in 2012 and speaking and started speaking and writing full time. I've been doing part time up until that point, but I felt a very strong calling from God to leave and to do it full time, which I've been doing now since 2012.

Hey, man, just an incredible story. I mean since nine years old Deacon, that's incredible, that laser focus. I was telling Father Dom, my son, my oldest, is four and he was baptizing his toys in the bathtub. So I go hey, maybe he's on his way to be in a priest one day as well. So you never know. They start on the line. It's a sign. It's a sign right.

That's right.

But no, I mean, deacon, clearly in the talks that you give, you have this fire that I think a lot of Catholics are, to be frank, are missing in their life too. And clearly you have a love for Jesus, and I don't mean by any means to undermine what the message that you bring, but you bring a message that, on the surface, is very simple, right, you teach about the gospel, you teach about Jesus and Father Dom. You talk about all the time that Jesus is the epitome of what it means to be a man, right, he's the epitome of Catholic masculinity and in the flesh, right. And so, I guess, tell me, you've traveled all of the world and you speak to men, both you know our age and younger as well, especially in the youth. Do you see a trend over the years that you've noticed that you know, especially if it can be Catholics or non-Catholics as well that there's something that's just that fire is missing in them. And if so, then how do we reclaim that and get their souls lit on fire again for Jesus?

Yeah. So let's just talk about the fire for a second. When people hear me speak, they say oh man, you know you're a convert. Well, I'm not a convert. I've never been proud of something Catholic my entire life. But they say you sound like a Baptist preacher. No, I sound like a Catholic who's in love with Jesus. That's what I sound like. So what did that style develop? I think part of it was because I was teaching a class at the police academy. I was teaching a class called Contemporary Threat Assessment Methodology. I was teaching police officers and first responders how to identify and respond to threats of terrorism. And it was one thing you know about cops they hate sitting in class, you know. So here I am, I'm teaching this class, teaching techniques that are literally going to save lives, and I thought how do I get this material across in a way that's interesting and engaging, but yet still very informative? And so I think my style developed from. You know what, if I were sitting out there, how would I want to hear this information? How would I, how would I want to receive this knowledge? And so I think the Lord took that style and, you know, connected it with my theological education. And then, you know, that's where the fire and the passion comes from. I just love what I do because the truth sets you on fire. You know, the truth sets you free, jesus says, to do what, to become the person who God created you to be. And yes, I've been to 31 countries around the world and I've spoken to men from different nationalities and groups all over the world. I was just in Australia a few months ago, and I spoke to a group of Croatian men, which was absolutely fantastic. And I've just been to Eastern Europe. You know, I've been to Croatia, dubrovnik, and that area, so to speak to those men, was absolutely fantastic. And but what I'm seeing is the same kind of pattern, no matter where I'm speaking to men with the United States or outside the United States, there's a kind of a commonality that's happening with men. You know, st Peter says that the devil is like a roaring lion, prowling around looking for souls right to destroy, and that's what's happening with men. The devil knows that in order to break a man down, you have to attack the mind and the heart, because he knows where body and soul composites, and so he has to attack both the mind and the heart. So he's attacking the mind with this moral relativism, right with this, the culture where truth is. Whatever I decided to be, we even have cultural affirmations for that right. That may be true for you, that's not true for me. That may be your truth, that's not my truth. I'm not religious, I'm spiritual and so on. And, of course, with the castle culture and the redefinition so-called redefinition of marriage and gender and all these other things is really planting the seeds of doubt and confusion in the mind of many men. Because we're so comfortable with the mantra we're receiving from the culture, we become uncomfortable with the teachings of Jesus Christ, our own Catholic faith, because it seems like a juggernaut, this overwhelming force, like this Goliath, is raining upon us and you know, if we, if we, you know speak out against that, then we're in. We're in the minority right and not a man that want to be in that position. The second thing that's being attacked is the heart right pornography, especially human trafficking, other sins against the flesh, gluttony and those kinds of laziness, lethargy in our spiritual life, not willing to pray. A man can tell you the name of every person on his favorite football team, but can't tell you to take commandments. You know a man that's not leading his family to heaven by not, you know being the priest in the home, you know, and leading that family in prayer and being that witness of that, the fathered love of God, in that home. When men don't do that, then they wonder why kids leave the church, you know. They wonder why we're living in a culture that's completely lost its mind. You know we need men to step up and continue to lead it. And I see that struggle again, not just in the United States but but everywhere around the world happening, of course in different ways. And you know, the only difference I see from what I just said is in countries like on the continent of Africa, where the additional pieces being added, where Christian, particularly men, but all Christians, are being persecuted for their faith and dying rather than denying Jesus. They're dying rather than deny Jesus. So you put all that together, you have a recipe that Satan is using to really destroy the hearts of men, the minds of the hearts of men, so they become not followers of Christ but followers of the voice of the culture.

Yeah, I think too, deacon gosh, touch on so many good points there, but we have these figures too, like, like you know, the, the andretates of the world, and you know Jordan Peterson, and there's so many young men that are flocking to these guys and it's clearly Men are searching for this right and obviously we know that as Catholics, you know the Catholic Church has all the answers that they're searching for. But there's a reason these men, especially these young men, are being drawn to these figures, because they're actually giving them a sense of purpose and a sense of direction. You know, because, like you mentioned, some of these so many of men, not only young men, but even just men in their middle-aged to, they're just lost. It's like, what is my purpose, you know, and these, these figures have seemed to Identify that, and I I actually today I was listening to one of the your talks that you gave and you talked about in Genesis, the roles that add, or that God assigned Adam to till, and what was it? Oh gosh to keep. Yeah yes, thank you, to kill and to keep. And then you mentioned because in English, the English translation doesn't really give it justice, so I really wanted you to dive into that because that blew my mind the way you you broke that down into the Hebrew the wording that was used and the actual purpose that God assigned Adam to do, because we think, oh yeah, to serve to, to till and to keep. Okay, what does that actually mean? We just kind of skip over it. But no, when you broke that down there was really profound for me as well. Good, do you mind touching on that a little bit for our listeners as well?

Yeah, sure, and the Greek and Hebrew is just something. I mean. I learned that in graduate school. You know, studying theology at that level. You know you learned the biblical languages. But the word till is Abad in Hebrew it means a work, that's in the form of service, and to keep a shamar means to protect and defend. So what God's doing, he's putting man into the garden and he's giving him his mission, his purpose, his vocation and his calling serve, protect and defend. Everything I am entrusting to you, that's what God is doing there. See, hebrew is a very visual language. You know one word just doesn't mean one thing. You know it's a very rich, very deep language and so. So if you, if you read it in English, it's really not getting the sense, the particularly the spiritual sense, of what God is doing there. So the his, the man's job is to serve, protect and defend. Now, how does that work within the life of God? Just make it a little bit deep. I'll try my best to explain this. So and I bring this up because women often ask where am I in? A trinity? You know it's father, son and Holy Spirit. So so where am I in there? It's in. Some liberal theologians will say well, the woman is the Holy Spirit. Well, that's impossible. Because when we see in Luke's gospel, where the Blessed Virgin Mary was overshadowed Episcopso in Greek she was overshadowed by the, the Holy Spirit, which is actually that the parallel is in the book of Exodus. And book of Exodus, she cannot the glory cloud that that hovered and Overshadowed the Ark of the Covenant. It's the same word for the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and she became pregnant, right, so, duh so, but the, the, the pieces this, but in Genesis also says that we are made in the image and likeness of God, male and female. He created them. So God doesn't have sex, doesn't have, god doesn't have gender. God is God. But these two beautiful aspects of God, but I think, reflect the inner life of God and the outer life of God. So the church uses fancy language, theological language, for describing this inner life of God, is called the circumambulation or, in the Eastern church, divine parichoresis. All that means is the relationship with, between the father, son and the Holy Spirit. So, for example, in John's gospel, where, where Jesus says the father and I are one. Well, yes, they share the one same divine nature, but they're not the same person. There's three different persons within the one God. So, but? But? Yet the father is in the son and the son is in the father, and the love between the father, son, to generate the Holy Spirit, who give love, life, intimacy, communion back to the father, the son, that beautiful relationship of love and life and intimacy and communion, I think you know, and that the Jewish people call that God's heart, leb in Hebrew. God's heart, that's the seat of the will and God pulled from his heart, if you will, in order to create woman. Right, because, look, women are very interior, they're in touch with their emotions, more so than men. I'm not saying all, you know, men are not in touch with their emotions, but in general, women are much more in touch with their emotions, they're much more feeling, they're much more interior, they're much more emotional. Their reproductive organs are the inside of their body, so they're designed to receive huh, they're designed to be receptors. That beautiful inner life of God, in fact, the, I would say the woman is the very heart of God's love. Even the secular culture recognizes this fact. The woman is the heart of the home, she's the heart of the family, right? Meanwhile, the man I think represents the outer life of God was called the oikonamiah in Greek, or the workings of God. So God has this beautiful inner life, but this is also this outer life of God. How does God interact with in within humanity? Within within human became human culture and that's when the word became flesh and dwelt among us. So God enters into the human experience, enters into human history. The apex, the high point of that is in the purse of our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ, who's who came to what serve, protect and defend right. And he had to die because death is the worst effect of sin. And he had this the Sacrifice his life and to die. That showed out even the worst effect of sin. This complete separation of God forever is more powerful than God's love. And it was a man, jesus Christ, the, the son of God, who led the way for us and is therefore the archetype and the model of how we are supposed to live as Men of God. We supposed to live our life from the cross of Jesus Christ. Remember Paul. I preach Christ and Christ Crucified. I want to know nothing, paul says, except the cross of Jesus Christ. Of course. He says I in the Galatians, I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. That's the model for how we're supposed to serve, protect the Fennin, and Paul drives that home very beautifully in Ephesians, chapter 5 deacon.

When we're talking, when we're looking at Adam in the garden, you know we're looking at how he he serves, he protects, he defends. How can, how can we relate husbands More, in a more deeper way, towards Adam? When you touched on that briefly, when you said you know priests of their domestic church and I'm hearing priests use this language more and more. I've used it for a very long time. I'm especially when you know I read, read your book. Behold a man. I really started embracing that and I seen you speak here in Grand Rapids in 2018 at a Kafa men's conference. Actually, in the book, you put First Kings, chapter 2, verses 1 through 5 be strong and be a man, right, but? But you talked about that the man being the priest of his domestic church. How does that relate to Adam and how can, how can we, how can we create that, that desire for for men to want to follow that example?

so His job was to serve, protect and defend, right, so so he's the inaugural priest, if you will, and remember, the priesthood is familial, okay, well, there were two types of priests. After what happened at the Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments, and he, moses, came down and broke the Ten Commandments, and then you know who's gonna follow the Lord. And then that's the rise of the, of the Levitical priesthood right, the, the high priest, the priest, and the, the Levi, to where the deacons? Right, so, but, but, but a mission. But Christ came to restore the priesthood as it was originally intended to be familial, right. So you have the the high priest is like the grandfather, the priest is the father, and then the deacons were the sons, but it was is all the family, because originally had to be co-hane, you had to be a son in order to be a priest, right, and so. So the idea initially is Adam is is the priest, he's the one who, who gives his life and dies. We have to have someone to do that with, right. And so God brought all the animals to him and it said amongst those animals, it was not one that was compatible with him, right, it was not a helper fit for him. So God wanted to create this and he was a zeta. Connecto is actually help, mate. It's a compound word. Is that a connecto? And it's interesting as that, or when you see that word used in Throughout the Old Testament. It means help, and there's other words in Hebrew for help. But as that is specific in the fact that it's the, whenever they use that word, it's help that comes from either God or a king. So it's help that comes from above, right. So God want to provide something, someone with the man. He can be a relationship with that, but that help comes from God, that help comes from above. And what? How do you what? He create? A woman, right, who came from his side, right, beautiful. Now think about this for this analogy here. So, so the bride comes forth from the side of the bridegroom. Now, why did he come? Why did she come from his side, right? And the is that connecto means someone who stands opposite of, parallel to you, who helps, aides, assists arounds, protects and defends in battle. So God want to create a battle partner for the man. The battle is going to be against sin and death. They fight together. And so he creates from aside, because you would think well if you're going to create this battle partner to fight against the force of sin and death, let me use a big bone like a femur or a tibia or fibula or something, something big. But he uses a rib. Actually, again, hebrew the word rib is actually not there in Hebrew. In English it says rib, but in Hebrew it's say la. Again, say la has different meanings. For example, in the Psalms, in the, in the prescripts of the Psalms, you often see the word say la in there, but the way say laws being used here it means side, like literally the side. So it literally says he took his side and created her. The reason why we have rib in English, because in English side can mean a lot of different things right, left side, right side side of fries, right.

It can mean a lot of things.

But so they want to make the very clear in English that when he said side, I meant rib, the middle, right. It's not from above, it's not from, so she's greater to him. It's not from below, she's less than him. She comes from a side of choice. He's equal to him, equal and dignity before God, but he's still the head. Why, cuz headship and leadership and authority? The priesthood is rooted in service, right he? The reason why a man is the head of the family, the priest is the head of his parish, the Pope on earth is the head of the church. He's because he's. He's the chief Servant of his bride, not the boss, but the servant. Jesus gives us the model. I've not come to be served, but to serve. The greatest among you is the least, is the Servant of all. That's the model for how we're supposed to lead and how it's supposed to serve. And that's where the, the very root of the priesthood comes from. Because what's the priest doing at mass? He's. He's there Offering the sacrifice for our Lord and Savior, jesus Christ, both impersonal Christy in the person of Christ, but also he's leading the people in prayer before God, right, so it's a beautiful relationship of both and in a priesthood, representing in that male why? Because he's the serve, protect and defend, giving love and life communion to bribe the church so that the church can give life Union back to Christ himself, which is going to be consummated in Revelation 19, verse 9. Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the lamb. So, at the holy sacrifice of the mass, jesus did his part. He died, he rose from the dead. He's willing to give himself to us and then the, the relationship of covenant we give ourselves to him right in that sacrifice we bring ourselves, we bring everything that we are. If again, we're in a the right Disposition to receive, if we're in a state of grace, then then we are ready to receive the Lord and then we're supposed to go out and be Eucharist to the world, to share that witness of God's love with every single person that we meet. And we are the ones that supposed to be, particularly as men the, the, the, the examples, exemplars of how that's supposed to look within the culture.

Yeah, amen.

Yeah, and you know I want to go back to the garden because you know, I know Father Dom talks about this all the time and the more I dive into this it always goes back to the garden. So I mean, we talked about this already. One of his Adam's missions was to defend obviously, at the fall Adam did not defend Eve and I know you talk about the armor of God, which I want to get to as well In a little bit, especially for us as men. But let's talk about what, what actually happened there, because I think there's a lot of kind of misconceptions. What actually happened where, like Adam wasn't there and you know Eve went up to him later and like, hey, look what I got, but no, like Adam was actually there During this whole interaction with the serpent and Eve. So can you, can you expand on that, that scenario, a little bit, and really dive deep into the theological significance of what actually happened and how Adam actually failed To fulfill one of his duties that God assigned him to do?

Yeah, so let's just just finish up a quick exegesis on Genesis 2 so we can understand Genesis 3 even better. So he creates the woman out of the side, out of the rib, from Adam, and he brings her to him, the father brings her to and we recognize this as Catholics in the wedding, right? Doesn't? The father walk the bride up and give her to the man who's gonna be her husband in just a few minutes, right? So the idea of God, the Father, giving His the greatest of all His creation, that's what a woman is, by the way. She's the greatest of all God's creation, she's the high point, she's the pinnacle. Why? Because she's a life giver and a life bearer. Huh, that's the whole key. What is he serving? Protecting, defending LIFE? He's of her. There was a priest of certain protect, defending the Church, the bride of Christ. It's a beautiful analogy. And look at the side. So the woman comes forth from the side of Eve. What's that archetype of the crucifixion, calvary? Jesus is on the cross, right? He's in what they call the Tadr Deimad, the sleep of death, because Jesus always refers to death as sleep. By the way, remember, in Genesis 2 is he put him into a deep sleep as Tadr Deimad. That means a deep sleep without consciousness or dreams, and on the cross Jesus is in the sleep of death. Remember he went to raise a little 12 year old girl to leave Takum little girl arise Because he thought referred to death as sleep. When he was His best friend, lazarus died. He said let us go wake our brother right, because he was only asleep. So while Jesus is in the Tadr Deimad, a sleep of death, long giant spears Him in the side and what comes out? Blood and water. Right, st John, chrysostom and other fathers of the church will say blood for the Eucharist, water for the sacrament of baptism. The church is born from the side of Christ. The bride comes forth from the side of the bridegroom on the cross right. And look at that beautiful parallel of Genesis 2. The woman comes from the side of her husband and the church comes from the side of her husband, christ, who for which the priest stands in the person of Christ at the altar, in the holy sacrifice of the mass and in the gift of His life to Christ, bride the church. So it's no different. The fatherhood yes, there's a ministerial priesthood, fatherhood and there's a biological right, but they're both the same because they're both pointing us toward the ultimate priesthood. There's two different ways of getting there, you know. And then it says therefore, a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife. Now, the word there in Hebrew is Daubach. It means literally to pursue, as to overtake. So he just doesn't cleave to her, he pursues her. Why? In a sense, again, just by, only by analogy, using earthly language. But in a sense he pursues she who, in an earthly way, completes him and perfects him and perfectly complements him. And when he reaches her, what is what he's supposed to do? Put her behind him and say if you want to get to her, you have to come through me. Right, that was his job. But then what happens in Genesis three? The devil shows up and we know from from Revelation 12, he's a fallen angel and very clear that after he was defeated by Michael, the archangel was interesting, I think devil was Satan was a higher angel than Michael. The higher angel, the archangel, because of his name, lucifer, which means light bearer. So he was probably a cherubim or a seraphim. We know what is nine, nine higher arcies of angels, and the ones that serve closest to the throne of God are the cherubim and seraphim. So the archangels are lower. But yet it was Michael and the other archangels who defeated Satan. And it says in Revelation 12 that they were cast out exorchizo in Greek. That's where we get the word exorcism comes from. They were cast out, exorchizo means to cast out, and where they were cast out to earth, it says and they're still here. So now we have the devil. What's this whole job is to, even to this very day, to destroy covenant relationship with God. And what's the best way for him to do that? By destroying the family. There's no, there's no coincidence that all the attacks we're seeing again the culture today are family based marriage, gender, the roles of husbands and fathers and mothers. You see groups like, for example, the Black Lives Matter movement, which their whole agenda is to destroy the nuclear family Right. This is a cisgender privilege, and all these foolish things that are happening in our culture are attacks of contraception. Abortion, are attacks against the family. It is satanic, it is from the devil himself, because he's trying to do. The same thing he did in the garden was to destroy covenant relationship with God, and that's why it goes after the woman first. He goes after the one who's the greatest of all God's creation. Why? Because she's a life giver and a life bearer. Because in her very bodily potential, she can share in the life giving, power and intimacy with God in a way that no man can even imagine. Even if a woman never has a child, she becomes a nun by the very nature of how God created her. She's a life giver and a life bearer because she's built to receive life, love, intimacy, communion from God. That's why the devil goes after her first in the garden and he lies to her. He asks her questions that confuse her because he wants to plant the seed of confusion and doubt. And when that? When that happened, what should her husband have done? Remember, his job was to dow-box, to pursue as to overtake and then put her behind him. He didn't do that because he was listening. He was lulled into complacency by the temptations of the devil himself. Remember the temptation. You will be like God. You don't need God, you're your own God. Now it says in Genesis 3 that when the woman saw the tree was good for food, it was the light to the eyes. It was a desire to make one wise. She took of his fruit and ate and she gave some to her husband and he ate Period. Now in the Greek I mean sorry, in the Hebrew it doesn't say that he was there. In fact, in the English translation, the NAB, new American Bible, it adds who was with her. It says she gave some to her husband who was with her. It doesn't say that in the Hebrew. How do we know that he was actually there? If I were to say, hey, you, who am I talking to? I could be talking to you, or I could be talking to both of you, you and father. Right, the collective, you right, because in English it's the same word. In other languages it's a different word for the different us. So, for example, in Spanish, if I say to, that's you individual. If I say Ustedes, that's you, all of you. Same thing in Hebrew where it says in Genesis 3, you will not die, for God knows when you eat of it, your eyes will open. You will be like God. It's plural in Hebrew. That means he's talking to both of them. Yes, he's addressing the woman because it says clearly that he's talking to the woman, but he was right there because it's in the plural. He was right there Instead of serving, protecting and defending, which he should have done. Right. What happens? He allows that to happen. That's why it says in the exalted right that we sing every Easter vigil. It says Felix Kupa, oh, happy fault. But it's always Adam's fault. It's the sin of Adam, right? Why? Well, it's Eve's fault. No, it's not Eve's fault. He was the one that was put there to serve, protect, defend. When she took the fruit of the tree, what he should have done was like no, put that back, throw that away. You know we have to follow God, not our own desires and temptations to set ourselves apart from God. But no, it sounded good to him too. Now notice this it wasn't until they both ate that they both fell, right. Verse 7 says then the eyes of both were opened. So it wasn't like she ate, then she fell. Then she went and found her husband and used her feminine wiles to deceive him and to lure him into sin and seduce him. No, she ate, then he ate, then they both fell. Why? Because they were one flesh. And again that pattern has repeated itself over and over again, when we men don't stand up to serve, protect, defend. And you mentioned Father, 1 Kings 2. This is what David tried to do. There's Solomon. David is dying. His son, psalm, is before him. He says be strong and show yourself for man. But he goes on to say how he's supposed to be They'll follow the Lord's ways, the Lord's commandments, the Lord's ordinances, the Lord's statutes, you know as they come to us in the book of the law. He goes if you do all of these things, there will not fail you a man on the throne of Israel. Whenever we don't follow God and we follow the thinking in ways of the culture, we will fail as men, and that's what we've been seeing in our culture today.

Hmm.

Yeah, I mean.

Just talking about the fall. And then you, you mentioned to deacon, the Obviously is Satan when he fell. You know the original battle, the same Michael, and then the exorcism. You know the the same word is used for for exorcism, and I kind of want to segue into that. You know, because I know you talked about the armor of God. Even in your book you have a whole chapter on the armor of God. And so I really want because obviously you talk to any exorcist, I'm sure you've seen it too with all your travels the rise of Satanism, of occultism, exorcisms themselves are, as they're just skyrocketing, which is it's sad to have to say that, but it's, it's very true, and so for, for men out there, especially in our culture, who, especially in the West, in the United States in particular, where you know there, the, the rise of, you know, non religious or spiritual but not religious people is is at an all-time high. You know where there seems to be this, you know God, it might be there, but it's almost like an indifference, more so than anything else, which I think is kind of worse than just being flat out atheists, because they're just like, yeah, you know whatever. But anyways, beyond all that, you know, with the rise of everything that's going on, how can men you know especially listening to this podcast, you know who have maybe a family? Like me, I'm a father, husband and father, and father Dom's obviously ordained, and you're you are a husband and a deacon, and a father as well. How can we arm ourselves in this, this battle? Whether we want to believe it or not, it's happening every single day. Satan is a prowling lion, like you mentioned earlier in the in the show. He's, he's trying to devour us and he's coming after our families and our children. For those of us who are married and have kids and we are the first line of defense and sadly, just like Adam did, we are not Pursuing the woman and our family and putting them behind us and saying get behind me, I will protect you. So how can us, how can we as men, protect our women and our children and, for father too, all of his parishioners as well?

Well, remember, you said something that was important, where the men are the first line of defense, the fathers, no different for father Dom and the other priests In the parish. They are the first line of defense Against the, the, the culture is trying to destroy Christ's bride, the church. So he has to preach, he has to live. His priest, it has to be a Strong devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. All of that has to be in place in order for him to be effective husband and father In the parents family. It's again, no different than you or I trying to protect our children, then you or I trying to protect our, our physical, biological children. But let me just make a quick point about, uh, the devil thing. You're absolutely right, I talk to exorcists quite often and in fact they said there's a shortage of exorcists now and the rise of actual Possessions, not just, you know, uh, depression or oppression or some other thing, but the actual possession. Things are definitely going up. And and we see a cultural interest In this too. Look how many movies are coming out about Possession, demon possession or possession by Satan himself. Right, if you have the pope's exorcist, you have, I mean, all these movies. You have that. Uh, they're redoing the exorcist, the original exorcists from the 1970s. They're doing another version of that movie, which, which someone just told me the other day, is going to be coming out soon. Um, there was, uh, what's that one? That uh all the Father Mitch Pacquan, other great cathedra, saying is very, very well done um.

I.

Nefarious right because I the only things. I ever see are on planes, right, because I traveled 250,000 miles a year, so I'm on planes all the time. So when it comes down to plane, I'll see it, um, but but see, there's, there's even this cultural interest in this phenomena and the things we have to be careful of is not like the in most movies, where you're walking down the street a devil jumps in you. That's not how it works. You have to invite and give permission for the demons to enter your life. How do they do that? Seances, right, tarot cards, um, pornography, right again, not just dig her out. This is what the exorcists are telling me how the demons make their way into your life. Uh, you know, charlie, charlie, bloody mary, all these supposed games, weegee boards, right, all these games that, that, um, that the young people think are harmless. No, you're inviting Evil to come into your life and they will come because you're inviting them to, you're asking them to. That's dangerous, that's very, very dangerous. So, because, after that, we need to make sure that we're speaking to our young people particularly Uh, speak out, speak boldly, uh, so that they don't be um, uh, open themselves to these kind of evil forces. But how do we protect ourselves? Okay, so we have to do two things right. The devil's trying to destroy our minds and our hearts. We have to make sure we're doing things to strengthen our minds and our hearts, right. So, and and what I do in the book is the very last chapter of the book. It's based on Ephesians, chapter 6, where saint, or where paul, talks about the armor of god. Now, remember, paul was a roman citizen. So he does this beautiful analogy where he takes a, a piece of each of a roman soldiers, uh, uniform and uh, and, and applies a spiritual attribute to it. Right, so he talks about, um, girding your loins, right, so We've we've heard that expression so many times in the scripture you, a man, girds his loins. So what does that mean? That's how a man prepared for battle. So when a man is about to fight, you know, back then they wore those long tunics and you can't fight in that Because you trip over yourself, right? Uh? So what they do is they? They would, um, pull the tunic up, put the excess tunic between their legs and tie it around, cinch it around their waist, and then their legs will be free. And because now their loins were girded, and they were, and they were ready for battle, you know, um. So paul says we have to gird our loins. How do we gird our loins? Um, by being men of prayer, right, it's prayer that prepares us for the battle, you know. And we have to become men of prayer, and that's what a priest does. A priest's job is to offer sacrifice, and he offers that sacrifice through prayer. We must, first and foremost, be men of prayer, and a lot of men have a hard time praying, right? So? So, one of the things that we did on part of the catholic men's leadership alliance, we have a, a wonderful initiative called heroic men Dot com. Father larry riches and I serve as spiritual directors for this, for this men's organization. It's, it's heroic mencom is the best Resources from men, catholic men in the world. I mean, I'm I'm not just saying that because I'm on the board, I mean, go look for yourself incredible, incredible resources for men. One of the things that we did, we put together a prayer book for men, you know, just so we take all the excuses away. Well, I don't know how to pray, I don't know what to pray, I don't know. We've got, we've got the basis covered, from our father hill mary all the way up to the prayers of devotion to st Joseph. We got everything covered and it's free. It's free, you can download it and and you can Begin to boast your life as a man of prayer by. If you don't know what to pray, we've got you covered, right, but you have to pray Now. Um, uh, what are the excuses? I hear why men don't pray in their own homes, with their wives, with the? What the excuses? I hear this three. Number one I don't have time. Oh, you don't know how busy I am. I have so many responsibilities at work. People are demanding things from me all the time and when I come home, I just want to relax, I just want to veg, I just want to eat dinner and watch the ball game and drink a beer, and you know I just want to. I don't have time. You know I've been translating a few words. Let me translate I don't have time. I don't have time means it's not important to me, because whatever else you're doing instead Of spending time with your spouse and praying with her, that's what's important to you. Stop kidding yourself, right? Second excuse she's the spiritual one. Deacon, I heard you say that the woman represents this beautiful inner life of god. By analogy, this beautiful inner life of god and she's the very heart of god's love, and all that is true. But men are the priests and their homes, all right, and the main job of priests to offer sacrifice, to give his life at the die To himself, every day and loving community. Sacrifice for his bride and for his children, or for for father Dom and for other priests, for his bride, the church Right, and for her children who are under his care as pastor, as shepherd. Finally, excuse, I'm uncomfortable praying with my wife. You know I have my way of praying, she has her way of praying. We try to pray together. That's awkward, it's uncomfortable. Well, jesus was uncomfortable, it was awkward for him on the cross and he prayed for the people who were killing him. Father, forgive them, right? So Jesus gives us the model and the example of how we're supposed to be men of prayer. No excuses. You know, we make time for things in our life that are important to us and we have to start off our day by, like for me, for example. I, you know, I practice what I preach, so I get up every morning first thing I do. Lord, thank you for allowing me to see the light of another day so that I may give honor, praise and glory to your most holy name every single Day of my life. That when my eyes open, I turn out alarm off. First thing out of my mouth before I get out of bed Is to recognize that I'm consecrating this day to God. Then, of course, I, I say a little prayer at my wife and then I get up and I say the office. Um, you know I, I do matins and lords together, or wait, what's the, the nasty names? The uh, uh, office of readings and morning prayer. I do both of those and then I go to the gym or I go for a five mile Uh walk and then I, then I, then I begin my day and I spent time sanctifying the day. So when I'm doing for my walk, I do my rosary, right at noon, I do my chapel divine mercy, I do uh Terse sector known, then vespers evening prayer and then compland night prayer. You know, consecrating the entire day to God. If I'm able to get the mass, I do that as well. Right, it's beautiful. So the whole day I create specific times and places, chapel, divine mercy, throughout the day spread out. So I'm sanctifying that day and making that day holy. Uh, the more we're driving your car, for example. What are you listening to? Listening to stupid political talk radio? Or what about listening to something that's going to make you go deeper into your faith? It's going to bring you closer to God. It's going to build yourself up as a man, to help you to understand your responsibilities because, remember, god has allowed men to borrow His sacred name, father. God has been father From all eternity and he allows us to borrow that sacred name, father. With that comes an obligation and responsibility that we will be held accountable to at the end of our life when we stand before God. He's not going to hear our excuses for why we could not live the fatherhood in the way that he called each of us to live it. Right, there's three. There's the priesthood, like father Dom and others. There's the, the biological fathers, and the covenant relationship of marriage, right, the, the of matrimony, like what we're in. But there's also the single men, right, the men. That's called the, the celibacy, and they live there, their priesthood, by being witnesses, examples of what it means to be an authentic man Within the culture today. So the culture doesn't default to that stupid Gillette commercial, the best the man can get, which sets the bar from manhood, like, look that the sets the bar really low down here. No, the bar has to start Up. The bar has to start up here, you know, and we have to have something to reach for as men, right? So? So this is how we start the process of building that, that beautiful armor of God. We have to start with with repairing and building our hearts and, along with that, the sacrament of reconciliation. We have to, because if Satan's trying to destroy our hearts through pride, then we have to restore our hearts to the sacrament of God's incredible divine mercy in a sacrament of reconciliation. I have an alarm on my clock that set for the 18th of every month, and that alarm clock goes off in the 18th of every month. So, up Time for reconciliation, time for confession. You got to go, you know, and, uh, you know, and, and when I go to confession, I turn the alarm off and it's reset automatically for the 18th of the following month, you know. So it's little. Things like that make a big difference in our lives as men.

That what you said, deacon about father and that we borrowed that I have never heard that before. That was that really hit me hard, you know, and, and like you said too, we are going to be held Accountable. You know, I remember father Dom and we did an interview with Jesse Romero and he said you know, there's a lot more men in in hell than women and Basically because of that reason that you just mentioned is because we are responsible, for, if father Dom is responsible, you know, bishop will Kovac here in Grand Rapids, he is responsible for all these people you know, and too many men. You know we were the we're neither hot nor cold, we're, we're lukewarm. You know, we're just kind of coasting through life and you know we think, oh, you know, I'm. I don't really do anything that bad, you know, and you know so what I want to come home and you know, sit down, watch some TV. It's fine, you know it's like I'm hurting anybody, but we have this, this, this complacency, this laziness, the slothfulness, if you will, that you know we're just kind of close one. You know you're fine, I'm fine, everything's fine. But but no, like there's, like we mentioned, there's this battle going on all around us and Satan loves the complacency, you know, and we need more men like you, and one of the reasons we're doing this because we, we need this spread to so many more men that you, you have to step up, because Satan is there, he's constantly circling your house, he's looking for an opening. If you allow him that, he will take full advantage in you will be in a, you know, you'll be in a whole heap of trouble at that point. So, you know, and I don't mention to prayer, you know we talked a lot about that and and I wish I had my rosary here, because in the talk that I was listening to, you gave analysis of yeah, there you go, perfect, but you, you compared it to well, now I just feel.

Check out my weapon, man. Sorry, but no you, I'm hearing.

Yeah, I do the book as well. But, but you compared to David's sling when he defeated Goliath and I. I love that. Can you? Yeah, can you break that down for our audience as well? And do I never heard that as well?

That was amazing sure, and they again. This came to be in adoration. Right, we talked about prayer and let me just say a quick word about adoration, because we're focusing, you know, on the Eucharist. Right, for at least here in the United States, were focused on the Eucharist for three years. And let me just give a little plug for adoration. Why is adoration so important? Because you can pray anywhere. You can pray in your house, you can pray in your car. Why do I have to go and and be before the exposed Lord in a buss of sacrament when I could pray anywhere? Good question. So when I'm traveling, I I call my wife, right, I call, and often I like to use FaceTime or Skype or something like, like to see her when I talk to her, but I'd rather be with her. Isn't it always better to be in the presence of the person that you love when you're talking to them? That's what adoration is. We say, oh Jesus, I love you, you're the center of my life and all this stuff, but we don't want to spend time with a message said to my wife oh, I love you, honey, I love you more than anyone I've loved anyone in my whole life, but I want to spend any time with you. Are you nuts that? There's no way that's gonna work. Well, my argument is the same thing. In adoration, we're before the living God Body, blood, soul, divinity pouring our hearts and our lives out to him. And so this David and Glythe came to me in Adoration as I was reflecting on the word of God. In fact, all my homilies are written in adoration, all my books. I read my books, the, the, and edit them in adoration, because I want to make sure what comes out of my mouth it's not what Deacon Harold wants to say, but what, what the Lord wants to say through the, the, the weak instrument of Deacon Harold. Right and so so. And thinking about David and Goliath, right, so David wasn't even supposed to be there in the battle, right, the reason he was there? Because his father, jesse, wanted intel on what was going on with the work, because his brothers were ready to fight. So he gets there and he hears Goliath issue the challenge Twice a day for 39 days. And David shows up on day 40, right, and that number 40 shows up a lot in the old and well, actually in the whole Bible. So 40 days of 49 to New York, 40 years in the desert Elijah, 40 running. 40 days in the desert. Moses getting the 10 commandments. 40 days, christ, before he started his public ministry. 40 days 40 for the Jewish people was a number of gestational weeks in a pregnancy. It represented a time of trial and testing and waiting, because after that period of 40 days, weeks, years, god is gonna do something Right. So David shows up on day 40. He hears the Goliath issue in the challenge Are we gonna stand here and let this uncircumcised Philistine mock the armies of God? Who's gonna do something? And no one wanted to fight. So David says I'm gonna do it. So he goes to Saul and says Saul, I want to fight Goliath. Saul thinks it's ridiculous because this guy's gonna kill you. You're just a kid. And David said you know, yeah, I'm just a kid, but you know what I want to do this. So that he makes his only mistake. He puts on the, the armor of Saul, right? And and when you look at the description of Goliath in first Samuel 6, in first Samuel 17, it says he had a helmet of bronze on. He had a helmet of bronze on his head. He was armed with a coat of mail. He had, you know, the Greaves upon his legs and spear in his hand, his shield bear, and when you look at the description of David putting on Saul's armor, he had a helmet of bronze on his head. He closed himself with a coat of mail. It's like he looks like. Goliath. But then David takes those clothes off because he realizes you know, I Can't go out with these. Because he realizes you cannot defeat the Goliaths in your life with the weapons of man. So instead he goes into his shepherd's bag a wallet, he goes to the brookie, kicks five smooth stones, puts him in his shepherd's bag a while. It takes a sling and he and he Rushes toward Goliath. So in his shepherd's bag a while he has a sling and five moves to. So five smooth stones right, a sling and Five smooth stones. So I think that sling is a type. We talk about biblical typology, we talk about the, the, the senses of scripture. So allegorical, tropological and a God's goal. This is a allegorical or a typological image of, I think, the rosary. So David sling and five is the sling right and the five stones you look at the, our father beads right. They represent each of the five Joyful, sorrowful, luminous and glorious mysteries of the holy rosary. So I think David fought Goliath with a type of Rosary. Now, when he goes to face Goliath, what's Goliath say to him? Am I a dog that you come to me with sticks? So when we begin to face the Goliath in our life With the weapons of God, that Goliath was very comfortable in our lives. Who, you know, who's? Who fills us with fear. He fills us with so much fear that we cannot take our relation with God to that next level. We can't take our relationship with our wise, with the church, to that next level, because we're stuck and we're comfortable and we're scared. You know, first, john 419 perfect love cast out all fear. David teaches us that we have to love More than be afraid. And what does David say to him? You come to me with sword and javelin spear. I come to you in the name of the Lord. What did we say at every holy mass? Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. So we say the same things that David said to Goliath at at at every mass, you know? And? And what? David ends up? Defeating Goliath. He says that all in Israel may know that there is a God. Know who defeats, not, but with the sword, not with the spear. Right, because Because God is with us, god is on our side now with the sword, not with the spear, because the battle is the Lord's. David understood that God fights with him and for him, and we need to understand that we are not alone in this battle To protect our minds and our hearts from the forces of evil, the forces of Satan and death that God has given us weapons, spiritual weapons that we need to pick up and we need to fight In order to save ourselves, our own souls, our families, our Cultures, our communities and our, our entire world and our church.

Yeah, I don't know I don't know any man who would, who would not love hearing these words. You know we're talking about fighting. We're talking about defending and service and and protecting, and every single man has called to that. You know, deacon, like you said, you know, raise the bar up here. This is, and we want that challenge, you know. So we use this language and I know it has to set men's hearts on fire. You know James you talked about. You know Jordan Peterson and all these other, maybe secular speakers that maybe somewhat, you know, conservative or a little Christian bent or whatever. You know they talk about that battle. They talk about the language that we're using and it's attracting men like so many men go listen to Jordan, jordan Peterson, right, and I bet a lot of men right, come to you, deacon, and listen to you as well. The language that we use is powerful when we talk about battle. It's like that. That's what men are made for, that's what we're designed for. To do that and I think it calls to our hearts. It kind of dusts off our hearts and polishes it up and gets it ready for battle and like, wow, this makes sense. Like I am built for this, I am drawn to this, I want to rise to the challenge. I want to protect my bride, I want to protect my friends, I want to become holy, right, I want to hunger and thirst and have that fire for Christ. We talk about all these tools that we use, you know, individually as well. I think it's important to touch on you that brotherhood and fraternity, because, men, we can't fight alone. Iron sharpens iron, and we are our brother's keeper as well. So we need to find those good Catholic groups, right, those good Catholic men that that help us along this, this path as well, too, because we can't we can't fight the battle alone. The saint wants to divide and conquer, right, he's one of chaos, he's one of deception, you know. So when we stick together, he's he's even more afraid of men. When we stick together and we follow Christ, we're pretty much unstoppable, and that's what Satan is most deathly afraid of, I think men, a man I'm fine.

Absolutely and not fire for God.

He's deathly afraid of that. You know. That's why he went after Adam. Well, he didn't even go after Adam first, like Adam wasn't even there and he's like, oh great, I just get to go right into Eve. But yeah, no, men want to rise to that challenge and it's good to hear you, hear you speak the truth, like that deacon.

Yeah, so, and you're absolutely right, father. And the thing about is this we look at the armor of God, right, he talks about the gourd, your loins, breast. Pray the righteous, this helmet of salvation, shock your feet with the gospel of peace. So you know, shield the faith. You have all these different parts, but when you look at it, what's the only part of the body that's not protected? When you go through, when you look at this and you could even Google this, a picture of Roman soldiers uniform during the time of Jesus the only part of body is not protected is the back. The back is open. Why? Because the in the formation that the Romans fought in, they, they Counted on the person fighting next to you to protect your back. That's, we get the expression I got your back from. It comes all the way to attack time of the Romans. And so, yes, we who so, as a man, you're not in this alone who has your back? Remember, even Jesus couldn't carry his cross by himself, right? Simon said he helped to carry the cross, yeah, so, so what makes you think you could do this by yourself? We need other men, but we need other strong men. We need men that are willing to to to go into that battle, and people like Padre Pio understood, and Louise the Moffat Understood this, and John Paul too, great Saints of church, they all understood the power of picking up your weapon and fighting for truth and beauty and goodness, fighting for the future of our families, fighting for the future of our church. And we men have to be the ones to be in that lead, to stand in front To face the challenges that are coming at us. You want to get to the church. You got to come through me. Huh, that should be our attitude.

Hey, man, yeah, I mean gosh, there's so many. I have about a thousand more questions for you, deacon, but an hour has already flown by, so I don't want to take up too much of your time. But, you know, just kind of wrap up, deacon, maybe some parting words of wisdom for our listeners there, especially for the men, you know, how can they step up, you know, in this time of of dire need for the church, for their families and and and actually fight back.

Yeah. So first of all you have to have the desire to do that. And the desire to do that comes from prayer. Desire to do that comes from putting your pride aside, right. It comes from Putting poor, putting pornography completely out of your life, which destroys your heart and being a, and that all happens by being around other like Minded men. You must join the men's group in your parish. If you don't have one, start one. You know I'm on a call every month with Deacons from all over North America and we're finding where. We've been meeting for over a year and we're putting together Ideas of how Deacons can come as men and many of them are husbands and fathers but how we can come together to bring men together in a parish, to really enliven that parish and put that parish on fire With the love of God, with the men leading the way in the parish. So being a real man means embracing the cross We've been given with love, because it's in that cross, in the image of the crucified Christ, that we Discover why we exist at all. Right, it's in the Eucharist that will give us the most. They give us the best answers. The most difficult questions in our lives can be found in Eucharistic adoration. That's where I got my calling, you know, not only for the Dacot, but to leave my career and start speaking and writing full-time, which I've been doing now against this 2012. I mean to have the courage to do that, to leave a 23 year career behind all security that comes with that, knowing that God has a different plan, that God has something better. And I tell you, my only regret is I should have done it sooner, I should have trusted God sooner, but it took me a year because I was afraid what about the paycheck? What about this, what about this? And God has done so many amazing things In my life and the life of my family Because of what he's called me to do, and every man wants that for his life. Look, there's a reason and a purpose why you exist. Don't listen to the atheist where there's no difference between you and a piece of paper you know, just a different rearrangement of random molecules. No, there is what's called a teleology. There's a purpose and a reason and a meaning for why you exist as a man. God has a purpose for you, and only you, that he's given to you, and remember the parable of the talents God wants to take what he's given us. Don't worry about what somebody else has. Worry about what you've been given by God and multiply those talents, because where's God's gonna ask, where's my 30 fold, 50 fold, 100 fold return on the investment I made in you as a man, as a husband, as a father, as a deacon, as a priest? Where is the return on the investment I made in you? Because that's the only question we're gonna have to answer when we die. Instead, before God, right, what did we do with what he gave us? Remember, we just can't take it and bury it. God is a wise investor. He's invested in every single one of us. He wants a return on his investment. And I would, finally, I would say stay close to the Eucharist. Stay close to the Eucharist. This is my body, given for you as men. We have to say this is my body, my life, broken and given for you. My wife and my children, for you, if you're a priest, the church for you, culture and society if you're a single man. That. So. It's the cross that leads us to the Eucharist, because the cross is the meaning of sacrifice, the cross is the meaning of love and that's the example how we're supposed to love as men.

Amen, amen and I probably add, yeah, confession every month too. I know you mentioned that earlier as well. The sacrament reconciliation is is always a good place to start for all of you men who may be like I don't know where to start. I mean, obviously you mentioned adoration and Eucharist, but confession as well. Well, remember.

Jesus fell three times and he got it kept going. We are gonna fall, men. We're gonna fall. It's, it's heavy. The cross that we have to bear as men is heavy and we are going to fall. But Jesus gave us the sacrament of reconciliation if we cooperate here's the key to cooperate with the grace Of the sacrament gives us the strength to get up and to keep moving forward as men, amen, 100%.

This never, if it's just when we're always gonna fall. Well, deacon, where can our listeners find out more about you? I'm not gonna lie. Your book, behold the man, is one of the first books I always recommend to men who are looking for resources for Catholic spirituality, masculinity. It's a fantastic book. I always recommend it. So work in our, our audience, learn more about you.

Yes, I made it really simple. Deacon harold dot com.

Every, everything is there, you get.

There's tons of free resources, all kinds of media stuff my social media is there, articles that I've written, that Totally free interviews everything is there, as well as the store if you want to purchase some some things. But but there's tons and tons of free stuff there. If you want to see where I'm going to be speaking, my schedule I'm coming scheduled for the next year or two years, whatever it is. I think I'm booked out now for the next two years, but, um so go on my website, look at my schedule and everything's there. Deaconharoldcom.

Wonderful. Well, deacon, this has been an absolute pleasure. We'll have to have you on and hear the whole story of your conversion or not conversion, but to your, your call to the diaconate. I think that's gonna be a A fascinating story as well. But before we let you go, father dom, would you mind just giving us and our listeners a final blessing, please? Yeah, absolutely.

Um, let us, let us end with the prayer that christ taught us so long ago Name the father and the son and the holy spirit. Amen, our father, who art in heaven, how would be thy name? Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Amen, the lord be with you and with your spirit. We, almighty god, bless you, the father, son and the holy spirit. Amen go in peace.

Thanks to god. Deacon, thank you again. So much for your time, thank you all for listening and on fire.

Thank you.

Yes you're most welcome Thank you both for having me and until next time, ladies and gentlemen, go out there and be a saint.