 I'm going to start off in a prayer. Name the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, amen. Lord, I am merely an instrument. You are the musician. Without you, I am nothing. I can make no sound on my own, and if I could, it would be but noise. Lord, pluck the strings of my heart so that what flows forth from me is your beauty and goodness. Let the music you compose and use me to play move hearts and minds to bring joy and peace and contemplation on your goodness and truth. Padre Pio, pray for us. Saint Jimma Galgani, pray for us. Saint Francis to sales, pray for us. So I was talking to some of the guys earlier, and I got to admit this is easily the hardest talk I have ever had to write in the history of the talks that I've given. Banging my head against the wall for an entire day, and wanting to chuck my phone out the window, chuck my laptop into the lake, it was a nightmare. And part of it I realized is because what I'm about to talk to you about today is something that I struggled with for the majority of my adult life. It is something that touches me to the core. And so as I'm writing this talk, I was a little worried. I was like, oh, this is a little intense. But I was told that these guys can handle it. And then I read in your prayer this morning before Mass, shake us, oh Lord, until only you, the unshakable, remain. Then instill in us the blazing and untamed passion of Jesus Christ. That is my goal. My goal today is to shake you, and my goal today is to hopefully set your hearts on fire. So with that, St. Alphonse Legore, Doctor of the Church says, the common opinion is that the greater part of adults are lost. St. Philip Neary states, so vast a number of miserable souls perish and so comparatively few are saved. St. Augustine, another Doctor of the Church says, it is certain that few are saved. Sister Lucia, one of the visionaries of Fatima, stated, taking into account the behavior of mankind, only a small part of the human race will be saved. There's a trend here. Now you're probably sitting there and thinking, well, I'm Catholic, so I'm okay, right? But let's not forget what Jesus said in this regard. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name? Have we done many miracles in your name? And he will profess unto them, I never knew you, depart from me, you that work iniquity. If that doesn't send a shiver down your spine and make you reconsider how you live out your faith, then we will happily find you a mental hospital to check into. None of us here are safe, that's the truth. The title of Catholic is not a get out of jail free card. And this is the reality of the situation. There is a plague that is infecting the church. With each passing day, a cancerous sickness infects more and more of our brothers and sisters. The sickness is insidious and by all accounts it wreaks havoc. Completely unnoticed and undiagnosed for generations. In fact, there are probably some of you here listening who are infected. This disease, if not treated, will lead to the damnation of untold numbers of our flock and maybe even ourselves if we do not seek the antidote. I am convinced that this disease, the same one I mentioned that I suffered from for much of my adult life, is today what those saints were talking about in their time, what they were warning us of. And while the sickness and its many symptoms can be described in numerous ways at its core, it can be identified as one thing, that is a feminacy. The angelic doctor defines a feminacy as being caused in two ways. On one, by custom. For where a man is accustomed to enjoy pleasures, it is more difficult for him to endure the lack of them. Or by another way, natural disposition because to wit, his mind is less persevering through the frailty of his temperament. In short, a feminacy is a disordered attachment to pleasure and an avoidance of suffering. Now, as I said, this plague of a feminacy manifests itself in many ways, pornography, lust, gluttony, sloth, these are all symptoms of a feminacy. But for the modern man, for all of us here, there is another particularly pernicious symptom, the one that has gone undiagnosed and unnoticed for generations. And I would argue what we are talking about today, this unnamed symptom of the greater disease has caused more damage and resulted in one of the greatest and most frequently committed sins in our time. And that is a complete and utter eradication of meekness. This should come as no surprise because the world has trained us to believe that meekness is weakness and oh, how the devil revels in that misunderstanding. Meekness is defined as the virtue that moderates anger and its disordered effects. It is a form of temperance that controls every inordinate movement of resentment at another person's character or behavior. Further, it is a mastery of our passions and acting toward our neighbor with charity and humility, without sharpness, disdain, or impatience. Those last three get me in trouble all the time, all the time. St. Francis to Sales calls meekness the flower of charity. Meekness is so essential to our lives that Jesus listed it in the Beatitudes. Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth. But one only has to look at the earth and more disturbingly at communications between our own members, our brothers and sisters in Christ and we find a complete lack of meekness. Scroll any Facebook, Instagram, whatever social media platform and you will see vitriol and wrath, effeminacy. People who are so controlled by their passions that at any perceived slight, they lash out and tear down whoever is in their path. No charity is given. The worst is always assumed of the other and acted upon. And this is all the more sinful when the stack of bodies left in the wake of the attack are the ones that bear the cross of Christ, our people, fellow Catholics. We've been tricked by algorithms and talking heads, people who are supposed to represent the truth, who are supposed to exemplify holiness, but who would be cast out if they acted the way they do now in front of the disciples in the early church. So we mimic their behavior justifying our rage and sin because while so-and-so on YouTube preaches Christ and they did it, so it must be okay. The saints have something interesting to say about this, particularly Teresa of Avila. She talks exactly about this. She bids us to never enter upon a strife of words about matters of no importance, especially at one's own fireside. A ship in which the timbers are not well joined will sink. So every community will fall to pieces whose members are not welded together with the bonds of love. That welding, that love is charity, that is meekness. So the effect of effeminacy and the lack of its antidote meekness destroys communities. Well, what does that mean for us? In our case, it seriously harms the body of Christ. How much damage have we done in our knee-jerk reactions and piffy comments online or in person, but normally online, and it is always online because very few of us have the intestinal fortitude to say it to that person's face, just the reality of the situation. That's what we've been trained to do. That's how we've been trained to act. And rightfully so, because what is being said should never be spoken in the first place. We trick ourselves into thinking we are acting as an arbiter of justice. And because we fight for the truth and we know the truth, we are justified in the way that we behave, in the way that we respond, in the way that we act. Forgetting that the anger of man works not the justice of God. To ignore that is to don the zeal that leads to hell that St. Benedict warns us of. And why might that be? We are warriors. Every one of us is called to be a warrior of some kind. So we're supposed to fight for justice. We're supposed to fight for the truth. That is good and that is righteous, but there's a fine line between those things. Sivarago says the Holy Spirit does not dwell in the heart where anger resides. For where there is anger, there is no peace. With no peace, there can be no truth because there is no charity. It is a complete and utter eradication of meekness. And this is the irony of the situation we lot ourselves on our false justice and bravado, but the real strength, the real warrior is the one who is meek. And at the very least, those who master the virtue of meekness do not heap sin upon their own heads as everyone else does. So that balance is tough, understandably so. Because at the heart of every man, I believe, is the desire to fight for something worth dying for. And that is good. That is right. But we have to be level headed in the way that we pursue that fight and act in that fight. And that is what meekness is. So the proper balance of meekness, meekness, you've probably heard this quote before. Meekness is having a sword, knowing how to use it, but keeping it sheathed. You are not a pushover, you are not timid, but you are also not bombastic and prideful. Quick to chop off someone else's head at the drop of a hat. Meekness is the mastery of our passions and acting toward our neighbor with charity, humility, without sharpness, disdain, or impatience. The meek man is the most valiant warrior. And I can tell you, he is the most hated by the enemy. A good example of the effect of meekness is given by the conduct of blessed Clement Hofbauer when collecting alms for orphan children in Warsaw. Going up to a group of men at a card table in a hotel, he asked for a donation. One of the card players spat in his face. Hofbauer quietly wiped his face and said that, sir, was for myself. I ask you now for something for my poor children. Could you imagine? The man was greatly ashamed and gave Hofbauer all the money he had about him. What's more, a few days later, he went to him and made a general confession. St. Francis Xavier was stoned by the Indians while he was preaching, and he went on without the slightest notice. Could you imagine? The Indians who had thrown the stones were so amazed at his meekness that they were the first to be baptized. He who has complete mastery over himself will find all the world subject to him, Sparago. For more is done by meekness than by anger. One catches more flies, so St. Francis sails, with an ounce of honey than with tons of vinegar. We've all heard this as well, but how do we apply it to our lives? Simple, one must bear with the irate as one bears with the sick, for anger is a moral malady. Anger resteth in the bosom of a fool, ecclesiastes. By meekness, we gain peace of mind. For our Lord says, learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. It's Matthew. Consequently, the meek are always cheerful. By meekness, we gain eternal salvation. The land promised by Christ to the meek is in heaven, Psalms. So we take these things that we've learned, these examples of the saints who've gone before us, and we mirror our lives to that. We question ourselves, am I living as he lived? Would I have the ability to have someone spit in my face and my response would be not anger, not wrath, not some disordered passion? But to thank him, I've read this a million times and still boggles my mind. But this is the height that we are to raise ourselves to, if we're to be disciples of Christ. Meekness was the chief characteristic of the apostles. Our Lord said to them, behold, I send you as sheep in the midst of the wolves. It ought also to be the chief characteristic of the Christian, for Christ speaks of the faithful as sheep or lambs. Both of these animals are remarkably gentle. And how many of us go out into the world and act as wolves to our fellow sheep. I believe meekness is the antidote to the plague of effeminacy that is destroying our souls and destroying the church. So what are some practical ways that we can work on this virtue and try desperately to heal the body of Christ that we have so flagrantly damaged? Think for one, something that helped me tremendously was going to confession, should be no surprise to any of you. Whenever you allow effeminacy to take hold and dictate your response and action towards somebody, confess a lack of charity. Remembering that we will have to answer for everything we have done in every word that we have spoken. Think about that often, meditate on the fact that you will stand before Jesus one day and your response might be, depart from me, I never knew you. Scares the hell out of me, hopefully, literally. Secondly, keep your mouth shut. Pride tempts us to speak on things in which we know not what we are talking about and shouldn't be talking about in the first place. This is the plague that we see online and in person. Some of the Desert Fathers used to carry pebbles in their mouths to remind them to stay silent. When Lent, which is coming, of course, a good practice would be not giving your opinion on anything unless someone asks you. And then, if you are asked, practice prudence and discernment on how you should respond. When you hold yourself back, when you realize I probably shouldn't be speaking, you can ask my folks, when I was asked to give this talk, I was like, I shouldn't be speaking. When you practice that, it tempers your responses elsewhere. Thirdly, mortify yourselves. And the practice of self-denial, even in the small things, you will subjugate your flesh, your passions to your intellect and will. And this touches on so much more than just effeminacy. There are so many men, when I started my apostolate, I was counseling hundreds of men on how to overcome pornography. And there are so many men who could not overcome. And one of the reasons was because they couldn't mortify themselves, but the other reason was they had no meekness. Effeminacy rules their life in all different areas and facets. So the sin cannot be cast out until the house is put in order. You're just chasing your tail, one thing after another. Finally, the last thing should also be obvious, but pray in fast. Every time you are drawn to disdain or annoyance at the actions of someone else, recognize your own hypocrisy. That's what I do all the time. Remind myself, that person annoyed me. Well, I'm a sinner. So who am I to say? God's given me tremendous mercy. Who am I to not give that mercy back to that person? So to close, I think it's important to remember that meekness cannot be obtained overnight. St. Francis the sales had to struggle with this virtue of meekness for 20 years, 20 years. So all the better you start now. So a lot of young guys in this audience, if they can latch on to this now, if you take it seriously, then maybe this generation and the generation of those to come will be the greatest generation of men the church has ever seen. Thank you. I can try. Mine, do the harder thing. Don't, if you have any social media, delete it. But if you're on social media for some reason and you feel like suffering, you can follow, do the underscore harder thing, but otherwise delete social media for the sake of your soul, please. So do the harder things started off primarily as, so I'll say this, for many years, I suffered with pornography and self abuse, long time, long, long time. And what ended up happening was I hit rock bottom so hard that I shattered. It was completely ground into dust. And in the midst of that, I cried out to God. I had a St. Paul moment. I was knocked off my horse and he said, listen, you're done persecuting my people. I need you to serve me. And so I reached out for help. I went to one of, in my opinion, one of the greatest clinics that handles the sort of thing because I'm the kind of guy that if I'm gonna overcome something, I'm gonna go full barrel, throw everything at it. And during that time, I was studying brain chemistry just because I used to have a company where I taught people how to shoot, you know, yeah. And so I was studying the effects of the brain and so those two things combined. And then coming back to the church, what was even more powerful was recognizing what the church has to offer is what the world lacks, meaning if you really want to overcome that addiction or that struggle, you need the church. So combining the church and combining what I learned from those people were developed a program to help men overcome. Now, that's not my primary area of focus. That being said, that's not my primary area of focus anymore, that being said, still have resources. We have bookmarks somewhere. I don't know if we have them at the house, maybe at the office, if anyone wants them. It's called the immediate action plan. It's five steps to help you. It's called shedding blood, the immediate action plan. Hebrews 12, four, in your battle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. We take that very seriously as Catholics, or we should. In your battle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. So that immediate action plan is five steps that you can take today, tomorrow, whatever, to help start overcoming, okay? So there's that. Primarily now my focus is in spiritual warfare. So a lot of my content revolves around that. But as I said, if there's anybody who needs any help with that sort of thing, I'm always willing and ready to answer questions and assist in that. So does that answer your question? Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So for those who couldn't hear, probably over there, he was asking about talking about confession and how many of you all are coming to love confession. And that's a beautiful thing because confession is one of the most powerful sacraments that the church has to offer. So one of the things that we do here and in my area of study, we work with a lot of exorcists and you ask any exorcist and they will tell you that confession is more powerful than an exorcism. Why is that? Well, an exorcism is a sacramental, confession is a sacrament, right? The power of coming to the end of yourself and reaching out for help and saying, there's something inside me that I hate, that I hate, that I can't seem to stop doing. So you come to the end of yourself, you take it to a priest and they absolve you. The freedom there is incredible. The power there is incredible. The graces there are incredible. But it also requires your cooperation, firm purpose of amendment. How many people have heard of that? Just curious, raise your hands if you've earned a firm purpose of amendment. I shouldn't be surprised. This is, I know where you guys go to mass. Requires your cooperation regardless, right? So yeah, so if you cooperate with God's graces, man, let me tell you, from where I came from, the evil that I did and saw, there's freedom, it's possible. So just keep holding on. If you're still struggling, don't give up. Keep going, keep fighting. Do I go? So the first question was, how often do I go? I go once a week, just as a general rule. Church, technically, what is it? It's once a year, technically. Right, recommended monthly. I go once a week. I make it a weekly thing. And it's not that I'm out here committing mortal sins every week, I'm not by the grace of God. But it is a constant reflection of yourself. It's talking about what we talked about in this. It is where are my failures? Where are my shortcomings? How can I improve? Looking and recognizing what are the trends in my behavior? One of the most powerful things that I think about often is in mass, forgive me for what I've done and what I have failed to do. What does that mean? For what I've failed to do? That opens up a world of things, right? So what was your, what invalidates confession? If you're not sincerely contrite, if you're purposefully hiding sins, especially mortal sins, I don't know, is there any, I'm probably, yeah, and lack, yes, thank you, and lack of a firm purpose of amendment. JP2 actually wrote a letter to the bishops talking about the importance of firm purpose of amendment. It is, you gotta have a firm purpose, it's not, I'm going to confession, I messed up, I fell, let me take it to Father and I'm okay, no, no, no, no, no. You have to have some sort of plan in place. And that's the beauty of the immediate action plan, again, for those who are struggling because it gives you a plan. It gives you built into it a firm purpose of amendment. Jeff? So the question is, how does personal prayer examine coming to all of this, especially overcoming sin? Yeah. And how do I, what does it look like in my life? So in my life, I get up at 4.25 every morning and I immediately go downstairs, I light some candles, I turn on some Gregorian chant and I open up the gospel of the day and I sit with it. I read through it, I sit with it and I ask God, what do you want me to know? Lectio Divina, and I'm not the one to be teaching this, but Lectio Divina is insanely powerful and important for your lives. Why? This goes back to what I said earlier. Depart from me, I do not know you, right? Or I never knew you. That new, I never knew you, is the same Greek word as Adam knew Eve. It implies intimacy. So how do you have intimacy with Christ? You study his life. You spend time in the gospels. You sit and you meditate. You talk to him. And most importantly, you shut up and you wait for him to talk back. Sometimes he doesn't. And I'll tell you, my prayer, when I had my reconversion, my prayer was like rocket fuel. It was like constant constellations left and right every day. I felt like God was just pouring constellations on me. But after a while, that stopped. And my prayer for a couple of years now has been incredibly dry, incredibly arid. And I feel as if I'm getting nothing. It's a good thing that our feelings don't mean much. They're indicators, don't get me wrong. God gave you them for a reason. But they don't mean much in this sense. Affeminacy and prayer is saying, I'm not getting anything out of this. And you stop. Could you imagine doing that with a spouse? And that's how I look at prayer as if I'm looking at my spouse, right? I'm not getting anything out of this. Sorry, you're stuck. You better get something out of it. You better figure it out. Was there another part to that? Oh, the exam, thank you. So that is, so Lectio Divina is an important part of my daily prayer. I have other prayers that I do. I have a spiritual director. So my regimen is very regimented, right? But one of the foundations is Lectio Divina. The other foundation is the rosary. And the final foundation of that is the examine. The daily examine I do at night, okay? And what that looks like is Father John Bartunek wrote about this, I think, in one of the most beautiful ways or the easiest way to understand. That is sitting down right before you're gonna pray at the end of your day or maybe it's at the end of your prayer, whatever it is. And you hop in a helicopter and you go up about 20,000 feet or 6,000 feet, whatever. You fly back to the beginning of your day and you fly back over your day. And all you're doing is you're asking God, where could I have been better? Where were my failures and shortcomings? And most importantly, where did you bless me? Maybe something I didn't recognize. So it's a redemptive examine. You're giving thanks at the same time. Otherwise, people are far too prone to scrupulosity. And as men, I know this because I'm the same way. We tend to beat ourselves up. We are our own worst enemies in a lot of ways, right? So it's important to have that redemptive portion of that examine so you're not stuck in this. Okay, I sucked here, here, here, here and here. Because that's not what it's all about. And in reality, you should be thanking God that he's revealing these moments to you so that you have a game plan moving forward and you can fight better. If you struggle with the same sin over and over again, how does it reflect or demonstrate your love for God? That's a tough question. If there's something that you're struggling with over and over again that you can't seem to get over, it reminds me of Paul, I believe it was Paul, right? Thorn in my side, thank you. There are some things that God, so let me back up a little bit. God's permissive will. Everything that happens in our life is either willed or permitted by God, okay? That includes temptation to sin. So when we are tempted to a particular sin, especially if it's something that we can't seem to overcome, it keeps coming, it keeps coming, it keeps coming. Generally, well, first of all, that means that God is allowing it for what reason? Well, God doesn't want you to sin, he doesn't desire that you sin, but he desires that you become strong and that you heal, right? We talk about this with exorcism. Why does God allow people to become possessed so they can fight, so that they can become holy? So if you have something that you're struggling with, that you're fighting over and over and over again, there's probably something in there that God wants to heal you of or with. Generally, when we're tempted with particular things, it's because God is calling us to the opposite virtue of whatever that thing is. So I find it helpful that if I'm tempted to something in particular, so for me, for many years, it was pornography, God was calling me to practice chastity. Well, here's the funny thing, you start practicing chastity, you start gaining some ground, and then it comes down that hallway of your soul and tries another door and what do you find out? Turns out, I'm also really angry. Turns out that that's something I need to work on too. And what is that? Again, it's God calling you to say, okay, awesome, you're doing all right here, now I want you to work on this. So I would just look and see what is the opposite virtue of whatever that thing is that you're struggling with? And I would even take it to prayer and say, are you trying, God, are you trying to heal me of something? What is in here? That why is this thorn in my side? Is it just to keep me humble? Could be, you know? So I don't know if that answered the question, okay, good. So he asked, how important was it for me to learn to forgive myself? It was probably one of the most important aspects of my healing process, because if I were to sit there, there's a fine line between humility of heart. I'm a wretched worm. And I'm a wretched worm, but God loves me and he forgave me and he's calling me to something more. So for me, going through what I went through struggling with what I struggled with, even for a time, leaving the faith, I racked up a lot of sin. And at one point I had to realize I can't sit here and beat myself up. It's narcissistic is what it boils down to because you're just focused on you. You're just focused on sitting there and I'm so terrible, I'm so terrible, I'm so terrible. Meanwhile, God is standing in front of you, trying to put his arms around you and say, yeah, but I love you. And guess what, you're called to more. So the question is, what would I say to parents who have children that are kind of wayward, lost in sin? And what was something that my folks did that really helped with that, is that right? So what my folks did, and this is what I recommend everybody who asked me this question, is live your faith. The biggest thing, we've had this discussion before, my parents, they've asked, what did we do that helped you? Because again, I was out of the church, I was racking up sin, deep in mortal sin, about as stupid as you can get. But even in the midst of all of that, I knew that because they lived their faith, there was a constancy there, and that I knew even when I went and confessed all of my sins to them, that whether or not, whatever happened, I expected all sorts of outcomes, but regardless, I knew what they said that they believed, they believed, and there's safety in that. It doesn't require preaching, it doesn't require chasing your kids around, it doesn't require this constant like helicopter parenting in terms of trying to get your kids back. It is prayer, it is fasting, it is constancy in the faith. That's a phenomenal question. So the question is, in my journey back to the faith, what did that look like? Was there a single moment? Is that's kind of what you're asking? Yes, okay. For me, almost immediately. Now here's the thing, I'm not, A, I'm not special, so I don't want anyone to take it this way, but my reversion was truly a St. Paul moment, okay? There's something that happens when you hit rock bottom so hard, people talk about being broken. I do mean that I was shattered, I was ground into dust, right? So there was nowhere but up from there to the point where, and this is interesting because when I left the church, I was mad at what I thought the church was, which is of course a Fulton Sheen has said many times. So I'm sitting in a Protestant rock show that they called Mass, or what they called church, so yeah, service, whatever they call it. And I had the thought, I really miss the Eucharist. Why? It was enough to break through my own sin and stupidity, and I had to sit down and sit with that and think. And it wasn't as if I had this deep love for the Eucharist because at that time I didn't, but it was a movement of God in my own heart to draw me back, to start me down a pathway of questioning. Mix that with the pain that I was suffering, the pain that I had caused myself and my loved ones. And it was just a perfect storm. So from there it was diving into the writings of the saints, diving into deliverance, diving into whatever I can get my hands on to find my way back to the church. I don't know, did that answer your question? Right, right. More than your love for the sin, you were leaving one. Yes, yeah, and it was a struggle. And I don't want to make it seem like it was easy at all, you know. There was times where, listen, my addiction was so bad. There was a one point, and this is how the enemy works, right? I had put blocking and accountability on everything. I was really just white-knuckling it, right? Just fighting hard. And the enemy, and I know it was the enemy because there's no way I would have had this thought on my own. Something that stopped pops into my head. Hey, you have a, don't you have an iPad in the garage in a box somewhere? It's like, oh yeah, I do have an iPad in the garage in the box somewhere. So I go out there, sure enough, I found it. Open it up, the temptation is there. I broke the iPad over my knee. In that struggle of hating sin and wanting to love God and do the right thing, I literally, literally smashed it over my knee, covered my bed in shards of glass. So, yeah, it was a firm decision, and then action to back up that decision. Right, right, right. Yeah, so in terms of addiction and wounds, it is figuring out what the wound is, and my opinion is the key. It is the key. So for me and my journey, I had not, Stephanie is my mom, but this is my birth mother, who is a different woman, just so we understand, so we don't think I'm saying anything negative here. My birth mom was very abusive, very abusive when I was a kid. So much so that there's still portions of my childhood that have just completely gone. There's just chunks of time that are gone that I can't remember. Just the body trying to protect itself, right? And so what happened was, because I was not given the love that a mom should give to her son, rightly ordered love, I sought out that love in relationships. So serial relationships and of course, pornography and those things, those false feelings of love that you get through a screen because whether we wanna admit it or not, that is part of what we're experiencing, okay? I've read the studies, I know how it affects the brain that is part of it. So when I discovered the truth, when I discovered that and I could walk with God through my wounds and come to terms with what happened, I mean, one of the most powerful exercises I ever did was going back to certain places and times that I could remember, where I had some sort of trauma experience and sat there and asked God, where were you in this? And when you do that, oh my gosh, what happens in that? What you see where God is, where he's walking with you, you see what he feels for you in that situation. Ho, it's a game changer. It's a total game changer. So understanding where the wound comes from, what it stems from is one of the keys in overcoming any type of habitual sin because it's not just pornography. That's the easiest one to talk about because it's one of the most rampant ones. But for all different types of sin that we have, they're almost always, if not always, tied to some sort of wound in our past, right? I mean, for goodness sakes, there's commercials now, I've seen them on YouTube for a food app that helps you eat better and they're picking up on it. They're saying, oh yeah, you had a mother who constantly fed you food so now you overeat. It's like, okay, they get it, why can't we get it? It's things that are much more important, right? Did that answer your, yeah, okay. Right, run with reckless abandon. I think that's in Y'all's prayer, right? Towards Christ, love him recklessly, but also put everything on the altar. A lot of it is taking decisive action as prudently and with as much discernment as possible in certain cases. And then part of it is, Lord, I don't know what to do. So I'm gonna put this on the altar and I'm gonna move forward and I'm gonna trust that at some point you're either gonna stop me or you're gonna redirect me. But the point is you have to take action. A lot of, go ahead, well, yeah, go ahead. So a lot of what we're dealing with in a lot of ways. And I think this even goes back to the effeminacy part. It's just a fear of movement, a fear of moving forward. What's gonna happen? This is uncomfortable. Okay, so you want me to sit in a room with candles lit and go back to a place where I was abused or traumatized and see what God has to say, what happened? That doesn't sound fun at all. But we were talking earlier, we're supposed to carry our cross. That's a part of it. So carrying our cross, I don't know. Does that answer your question? Yeah, it's really hard. It's hard to explain as well. And it's a process too, it's a process. And in a lot of ways I'm still, there's still ways that I'm trying to figure it out also. But what it comes down to now is a lot of just, okay, I've learned enough. I've gone out on my own and learned enough. I'm pursuing Christ in that way. That I am comfortable in certain areas of discernment. And if I'm not comfortable, I'm asking people who know more than I do, especially my spiritual director. And then just moving forward. Yeah. And you know, I don't know if I've, I don't know if I've even fully figured that out because it is so difficult. Part of the problem is, in recognizing this battle against the feminacy, is that the world is so far gone that we are surrounded by a feminacy. And it's trained into, I mean, even what we consume, the videos that we watch, the more I've studied this topic, and maybe this is part of it, maybe this is part of the answer, go and read Sparago, the Catechism Explained. Go read St. Francis to Sales on Meekness. Go read, you know, all these other great writers and what they have to say. Because the more that you study it and the more that you can recognize it, the more ideally your heart will be moved in the right direction. So what I found in studying this, as I'm going out and I'm watching, so you know, these big Catholic talking heads, I'm like, this dude's effeminate. And what do I mean by that? I'm not denigrating them because there is still good things that are said, but the manner in which they're said, it's hypocrisy, you know? You call yourself a Catholic, you're talking about all these things, and yet you go and call so and so this crazy name. You go and you tell people that they're a worthless piece of trash. But we've grown so accustomed to it and so used to it that we just take it as it is. So again, I don't know what the key is, but what I do know is when we study these things and we learn to recognize them, it helps us better combat them because we can recognize it. We can't fight a battle that we, or we can't fight an enemy on a battlefield that when one, we don't know we're on a battlefield because we don't know what it looks like and we don't know what the enemy looks like. Right. Amen. We can't fight these battles alone. And so yes, the fishing is fun. The meals are cool. The dodgeball is awesome. Video clips are cool. But at the end of the day, if we don't have brotherhood, if we don't have a man that we can turn to and ask him to help us and ask him to pray for us, we can't beat it. Right. We cannot beat what the culture is giving us. But this, these men here, we can turn to each other and every single one of you, I can count on you for something to help me. That is what drives us gentlemen. And that's a huge aspect of it. I'm so glad you said that because fraternal correction appropriately done with charity, with meekness, right? Meekness is the antidote. That's a game changer. I have a group of guys who I'm constantly going because I'm online. I have, I have a huge following and I'm constantly talking to people all day from all over the world, answering all sorts of questions. I have multiple priests that I can go to and that they know that they have carte blanche to say, hey, you probably shouldn't say that that way. Let's rework that. Or I can go to my buddies and say, hey, can you do it? I call it a charity edit. It's like, here's the question. This is what I'm saying. Can you do a charity edit? And they'll tell me, no holds a bar. Yeah, you know, this part was good. This part comes off a little brash. Maybe you should change that. And I can tell you from when I started this apostolate till now the change in the amount of people that have helped in multiple different ways dramatically increased. Not by any of my means, but it's literally just me stepping back, trying to act in charity and share what God has to say. Go ahead. No, I'm still dangerous. Don't get confused. Quite a bit. Quite a bit. And it's interesting because I am extremely introverted. We have a group thing that we edit for all the work that we have to do on the property and for a while I had my name as what the hermit or something like that. I was like, I just want to be off on my own. I'd rather be in a cave somewhere not talking. Like that's my demeanor. I'd rather be in a cave somewhere not talking, but I can't because as you said, and as you said, you have to have community, saints run in packs. So in my reversion to the faith, all of my old friends, I have no communication with. I just don't. I don't, is it mean? No, it's not what it's not. It's not like I said, you're a terrible person. I'm never hanging out with you again. No, it's just like a, you know, just slowly started parting ways. And why is that? Because when I started pursuing my faith, the way that I lived my life was not cohesive with the way that they lived their lives and it's okay. I don't have any ill wishes for them. I hope they convert someday and I pray for them, but I cannot be around them. There's some saying y'all probably already know this, but it's what you become the sum of ever. What is it? Some of the five people you hang out with most or something like that? Yeah, I don't know how true that is psychologically, but it makes a lot of sense, right? If you're hanging out with people who are constantly doing stupid things, guess what? Eventually you're gonna do something really stupid and all it takes is one time. Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah. So that's another huge part and actually that's a huge part of overcoming anything that we struggle with as well. When I started battling against my sins, I realized very quickly, I cannot watch the same things that I used to watch. I cannot listen to the same things I used to listen to. I cannot read the same things that I used to read. Everything changed. And the formula is really simple. Garbage in, garbage out. That's what happens. When you consume garbage, that's what comes out of you. I hardly watch anything anymore. In turn, I watch some YouTube videos but it's mostly boot reviews on who makes the best boot, right? Or like, you know, how to build something or you know, some sort of woodworking. Yeah, it is actually a lot of permaculture and farming stuff now. Or Tim Flanders, who I can't recommend enough if you're looking for a good Catholic voice. Tim Flanders is incredible. So that's basically all I watched. We haven't had TVs for two, three decade or something like that. Music was a huge one. I wasn't expecting music to be as impactful as it was. And that was a shocker for me. And it's becoming, it's actually coming more and more into light in the deliverance realm where music is having a significant impact on what is going on in people's souls and their minds. And I don't wanna sound like I'm, you know, some nut job out there, conspiracy theorists, but if you dare to dip your toe back into the world a little bit and you watch what's going on in the world and these award shows and all these other things that are going on, there is very clearly a demonic influence, very clearly, right? So I'm very careful with what I listen to. Most of the time I'm listening to chant, Mozart, like classical music, and lo-fi, which is like literally no lyrics, it's just like electronic, it's like elevator music is really what it is, it's nothing more than that. And that's it, it's like it's fine, you know? And then if I'm at the gym, you know, demon hunter, if anyone likes heavy metal music, that's Christian, demon hunter is good. So, but yeah, that was a big thing. And it was interesting looking at the patterns of my sin and connecting how, oh man, when I listen to this, my sin amplified or the temptation's amplified, it's crazy, it's crazy. I would have never would have made that connection, but it's all those little things that make a huge effect. Self-awareness. Yeah, self-awareness is huge. Yeah, you can't, listen, your soul is like a castle, okay? You have walls around it, you have turrets, you have all these different things. You have soldiers, the saints and the angels that are on your side, okay? You have to be aware of your castle. You have to be aware of what's inside of it and you have to be aware of what's outside of it. So the way that I explain it is, when you have some sort of sin, you have to sit back and treat it like an after-action report. This is something that we did as cops. We'd hit a house, we'd kick in a door, we'd take people into custody, whatever. Afterwards, we'd all sit together and we'd say, what did we do wrong, how could we do better? Okay, flip it. Now, in this case, you have the bad guy coming into your house. He got through one of your walls. How did he get through the wall? I care about my soul. I don't want that dude in my house. So what am I gonna do to make sure he doesn't get in my house? Okay, this wall is weak, what am I gonna do? Well, it turns out that scrolling Instagram at night is really stupid. So guess what? I'm not gonna do that anymore, right? So for some reason, there's a crack in this wall. It seems like it's connected to some show that I'm watching. I don't know why, but whatever. Okay, close the crack, get rid of the show. It's that simple, right? If you treat this like it's a war, like you are the church militant that you're supposed to be, that understanding, it shifts. And then you start taking control of the battlefield by the grace of God and through the grace of God with God's help. And that's when you start making a difference in all those things. That's a really tough question. I don't know if I can answer that. I met Ralph Martin once. Maybe he might be the meekest person I've ever met. Yeah, I don't know, that's a tough question. Yeah, you had a question, you've been patient. So a lot of it is just living out the example. And I know that sounds like a cop-out answer, but it seriously is the answer. Because when you are living as a witness and when something's going on and you have a buddy that starts acting, I shouldn't name names. When you have a buddy who's acting out of pocket, and you're just like, hey man, like I don't wanna be a part of that. And maybe you have a relationship that's good enough, like with all these guys here, you could say, hey dude, maybe, can we talk for a second? Pull them aside in private. It's like, hey, I care about you. I'm a little bit concerned about how you're behaving. This is just not, this isn't how we do things. You're called to more, I'm called to more. Can we talk about this? For those who aren't in the faith, it's a little bit more difficult. And that's where living it, as an example, truly becomes the best means of evangelization. Because testimony is undeniable, right? And the way that you live your life is undeniable. There's a prayer I had a long time ago, I wish I could remember it, I should've written it down. But basically came to, may God's light, or may God living in me be so evident that the light shines out of me and is undeniable by everyone who I come in contact with. Living in such a way that it is undeniable that Christ is in you. It's hard and we need help, but I don't know. In my experience, that's the best witness. Spiritual warfare. If you all have the Catechism of the Council of Trent, I think it's the Baronius Press Edition. It's either page 215 or 251. I'm not dyslexic, I can just never remember which page it is. It has something called the Audacity of Demons. And in the Council of Trent, the Catechism of the Council of Trent, says the war against them is so fierce and their hatred of us so enormous, with them there can be no peace and no truce. With the enemy there can be no peace and no truce. Their hatred of us is so enormous that with them there can be no peace and no truce. Devil prowls about like a roaring lion seeking for souls to devour. This isn't some pseudo-psychological nonsense as much as many people in the church today have tried to make that claim. It's real, okay? I've lived it. I've seen it as a discipline in spiritual warfare. So again, the Foundations of Prayer is a huge one. Lectio Divina, Rosary, Examine. That gives you an overview of the battlefield of that castle that prepares you and arms you. It gets you ready. The other thing is there's plenty of prayers that you can pray. They're part of the list of prayers that I pray every day, prayers against retaliation because I'm constantly talking about spiritual warfare online. I mean, we've experienced it in ways that people probably wouldn't believe unless they were here. It's really, it's just insane. Prayers against retaliation, all those different deliverance prayers and rightfully ordered, and like you said, it's a whole different talk, right? There's a lot there, authority and all that kind of stuff. But what you can pray is appropriate and helpful. And then of course, sacramentals is another huge thing. Holy water, blessed metals, right? It's, we're not superstitious. We don't treat it and we don't allow it to become a superstition. Okay, because it's God's grace that's working through it. But utilizing these different things that the church has given us, I mean, our lady crushes the head of Satan and she's barefoot. So. Thank you. Thank you.