 Because you did that earlier and you know the phone booth. And so, all right, speaking to the mic. Speaking into the mic, I'm telling you things, things I'm telling you. Well, have you heard about the thing with the place and the person? Yeah, I heard about that one day. That one guy. The guy, you know what I'm talking about. The guy with the two ears. The two ears on the side of his face. That one time? All right, that's not gonna be okay though. Also, the guy with the nose in the middle of his house face. He doesn't have a nose in middle of his house. Are you hearing this too? Yeah, I'm not concerned about it. I don't think I, that's like when you're on the phone with someone and you hear yourself talking. That's obnoxious. I just had to double check. Right, well, I'm just, my brain's a little foggy, so I'm not sure I have much to add, but I'm Holy Spirit. Do you wanna pray? In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, amen. Lord, please inspire us. Ignite the Holy Spirit within us. Bring us closer to your kingdom. Lighten our thoughts and lighten our words. Lead us and guide us, take us by the hand so that we may serve your people and all the things that we do, especially in the stories that we are trying to relay in today's shows. Let it only bring honor and glory to you, less of us and more of you. You have this in your Holy Name, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, amen. Saint Angel of the Cross and Saint Peter. Pray for us. Pray for us. Is it ready? Good to go. If you're watching this, we're testing out some new equipment. Are we live? Are we live? Yeah. Okay. We are live. As you can tell, we're a little... We're recording. Okay. We're blundered. You didn't tell us. We're trying to figure things out. We're all new to this, so it's fine. And... There's grace there, right? I don't have any announcement. Wait, wait, wait. Hey, if you're watching this, we're starting now because we had all that other stuff. Okay. Let's just get, let's just start. We weren't on the same page. That's my fault. Let's do five seconds of silence. Hey, guys. Thank you for tuning in. I have a correction that I need to make. I'm a big dumb dummy. And I have said it before that I'm just a guy online who happens to have a beard. I am not an expert in any way, shape, or form. Somehow you got a mic. Somehow I got a mic. We don't know who gave that to you. And I totally made a mistake. And what's interesting is you may be thinking, what are you talking about? Because that show came out like, I don't know, three weeks ago or whatever it was. The timing of our episodes and how we record things is a little bit strange. Basically, I said that St. Paul was one of the 12. That's incorrect. And I just had one of those moments where I was talking and I spoke faster than I thought and it was just an issue. So, truthfully, seriously, thank you to all those who emailed us because we did get some emails. It is very helpful. And it is actually really encouraging for me to know that we have people who are out there who don't blindly listen to us, but who will actually say, wait a minute, I don't think that's right. And then take the time out of your day to send us an email and say, hey, well, I'm very kind. They're all very kind. And it was like, hey, I don't know if you meant to say this, but I don't think this is, and like, you know, I checked out, I checked out some history and I'm not, I kind of get what you were. Like they were really trying. I felt so bad. They were like, yeah, they've been really generous. And it was like, no. Just slapped me in the face, right? George is just an idiot, so. It's okay. We all need a dose of humility, humiliation, whatever you want to call it. We've said it before, we're not experts, and I'm certainly not an expert. That's why we have experts on the show. Yeah, and we will make mistakes and there'll be more in the future and it is what it is. So it's encouraging for me to, again, like I said, thanks to everybody who took the time to send an email and was very gracious and kind about it. It was actually, it was a very, kind of a heartwarming thing to experience, believe it or not. People care. Yeah, believe it or not. Positive thing. So that's the correction that I needed to issue. That being said, do you have any announcements? You said you don't have any announcements. I don't have any announcements, so. What about the firelight? Well, I guess this is going out way late. So the firelight retreats probably. I think we should just begin our show. I'm good with that. You ready? You ready? I don't know. I feel like that's tradition. Are you gonna be a pirate as you waited a couple minutes ago? Yeah, and I just realized like the lights are not right. Who cares? Because you guys think that you get behind the scenes, but there's actually a behind the scenes behind the scenes. So maybe one day we could have someone actually present. You never know. Yeah, yeah. Oh, hey, I do have one announcement. We, with this new technology, we're gonna have the option to interact with you guys in a whole different way. At some point we are working on it. So if you'd be interested in maybe like a live Q&A show, you can shoot us an email. You can rate us five stars and leave a review and say, I would love a Q&A show or whatever. In Latin would be even better. We were talking about doing an entire show in Latin. Not really though. Sure, I was serious. I said it as a joke. Oh, I don't know a Latin. Okay, well anyway. So yeah, we'd really like to interact with you guys more and this new software will hopefully allow us to do that in kind of a different way and maybe not like a regular show, but like a offshoot Q&A show. So we'll figure it out. We're talking about stuff, seeing what's even feasible and plausible. And if people are interested. That being said, you ready to get into the show? Yes. I'm done rambling. I was gonna say, just kidding. Hey, I'm Jordan Burke. And I'm Kristen Priola. And this is Saints and Sages. Where we talk about the wisdom of the saints and how it's relevant for you. And boy howdy. Boy howdy. Do we have an interesting one today. We're starting off with an interesting one. Not technically a saint. But a saint. Not technically a sage. Sort of. It's about a saint. But it has a feast day. It involves a chair. It is a chair. We're talking about a chair today. Can anybody guess what it is? Chair of St. Peter. The chair of St. Peter. And it was funny, when we were looking at the calendar, you know, cause we pick out all these saints in advance, we both said like, oh, that sounds interesting. I didn't think about what that meant. And then I think when we both started doing research, we're like, oh. What is this? We're literally talking about a chair here. Not like actually St. Peter. It's a chair, a physical chair. A chair. Yeah, very interesting. If anybody's confused, let us explain. I kind of, I don't know. I don't know about you, but when I started going through this, I was like, this is one of, I think the more cool stories and kind of the fun little like trivia aspects of our faith that I don't think a lot of people know about. It's definitely divergent from our normal topics. Yeah. And I know when I posted about it on Instagram, we got some responses that were like, oh, I was there and I had no clue that that's what that was. And so I think that's really interesting too. A lot of people who have been to the Basilica, it is Basilica, right? Yeah, St. Peter. See now I'm second guessing everything. St. Peter's Basilica. You be you Jordan, it's okay, people will email us. You may, yeah, exactly. You may have seen it and not actually have known, which is kind of neat. So the chair of St. Peter, feast day is February 22nd, St. Peter established his throne in Rome. That's tough to say, say that five times. Which the church has actually only celebrated since the fourth century. So it might seem kind of funny, you know, to celebrate the church, the entirety of the church celebrates a day about a chair, but there's so much depth to why we celebrate the chair of St. Peter. So we recognize the actual authority of Jesus passed down to St. Peter and then onto his successors and then continues on generation after generation. And that's really what this feast day is about. It's not really about the chair. The chair is the symbol for the authority that was passed down. So the chair is the physical representation of that authority. That makes sense. Yes, it's a day, it signifies the teaching of the authority of the Pope. Yes, yep. Currently, and then all the way back to Jesus. So this is where it gets really interesting because there was a physical chair of Peter, it was a wooden chair. And it has like some metal rings on it, which was used to carry it and carry the Pope. And- It would slide poles through the metal rings before on the sides. It was very ornamented chair too. Correct, yeah. And you can find some pictures of it online. It's well, ornament compared to what it is now is very different, but I think for its time it was very respectable. Cathedral, by the way, Latin for chair. That's Cathedral. Speaking of chair plays into this and also Cathedral, like the chair of St. Peter and Bishop's chairs and cathedrals and so on and so forth. But this is what I found the most fascinating and this is what people were saying they didn't really realize while they were in the Basilica of St. Peter. The original wooden chair is actually encased and it's in the back. It's underneath a really famous stained glass window. Very beautiful view. It's in the apps. Yes. So we're in the back chamber of St. Peter's Basilica. So all the way in the back, you could see it when you're there, yeah, underneath that stained glass and depicts the Holy Spirit above, which is very famous. You guys probably know it. It is a gorgeous, it's not just the window too. It's what's surrounding the window. I mean, it's some of the most beautiful. Yeah, it's stunning. It's just stunning. So the actual chair was becoming damaged. Because of worms. Worms were eating it. And then also people were taking pieces of it for relics. I mean, it's pretty old. Yeah, it's super old. Super old. And I think there were even chunks that were taken out of it for, we're assuming the relics as well. It was struggling. Yeah. So Bernini eventually gets hired. And it's hired an artist. Yep, he gets hired to kind of create this chair of St. Peter's sculpture. And then later on, I don't remember which Pope it was, but he has it actually encased within the sculpture to protect it. So when you see the stained glass, you see the beautiful ornate around it. You see the four great doctors of the church, which Augustine Ambrose Christendom, is that how you pronounce it? I always mess that up. Anathanasius. You are actually holding up the chair. The actual physical wooden chair is encased in what you see there, and the chair that is being held up by. Yeah, so it's in there. Although you can't see the wood itself. It's got just bronze. Yeah. And it's very elaborate. Oh, and it is. It's one of the most beautiful sculptures I think I've ever seen, especially when you combine the fact that, as I said, you have four doctors of the church who are holding up the chair, which one of the things I love about Catholicism is everything is symbolic. Everything has purpose. And so those four doctors, those four doctors holding the chair, I even listened to a homily where they talked about like the height of the chair is at a specific height. So it involves all this other symbolism. And it's just, that's absolutely incredible. I mean, there really is a spiritual reality that the chair represents. And having that confidence in the church that we know that the Pope originally has been, he has been succeeded through like generation after generation from Jesus himself. And that's how we can trust the authority of the church is because it has started with Jesus himself. And this chair, which kind of seems funny. Like you might be like, why are we talking about a chair? I don't understand. But there's so much, like you said, symbolism behind the meaning of the authority that comes from his chair. And if you think about a chair, like there's always, it seems like a representation of something greater when you have like a chair that's placed in centrally in the church. Or you just, you know, you can recognize authority or like kingship, you think of like old times emperors. Like there's a chair and you're like, oh, everything leads up to the chair. And so yeah, St. Peter's, St. Peter was established through this cathedral, Petri, which is Latin for chair of Peter. And as you mentioned, the cathedral, which literally means the established seat of the bishop. Yeah, the chair of the bishop. And so it's placed in the mother church of a diocese, which for this reason, that's why we call it the cathedral. And it's the symbol of the bishop's authority. And in particular his magisterium. And that is the evangelical, evangelical, oh my goodness, evangelical teaching, which as a successor of the apostles, he is called to safeguard and to transmit to the Christian community. Like this is a big deal that every single time we have a pope who has been given the keys, the authority established for Jesus given to St. Peter. And then every pope following, I mean, that's a big deal. It's a really, really neat. And it's just, you know, it reminds me as you were saying that of one of the reasons I originally converted. And it's because, I mean, you look at apostolic succession, right? It's like, who is leading you? I don't want some personally, I don't want some spinoff. I want the guy who was laid hands on by the guy who was laid hands on by the guy, back, back, back, back to Peter, who was established by Jesus. God himself. Like, how do you argue with that? I know. It's one of those things that you think about. Why argue? And you're like, I don't, you know, because I heard that prior to becoming Catholic. And I thought, oh, okay, that's it for me. Right. We're not following. It's pretty simple. Someone who followed the follower. We're following the follower, the leader himself. Yeah. There's, it's apostolic succession. It is the direct line from Christ himself, from Christ himself. Like, and it's almost, there's such a beauty to that when you really think about it. Like Christ laid hand, like Peter, Peter to hit next, to the next, to the next, to the next, to the next, to the priests and bishops that we have today, all follow that line. And they represent the mission that Christ himself entrusted to us to lead and tend the flock. What a phenomenal role that our Lord and Savior has given to us as humans. Yeah. And imagine, okay, so guys, think about if St. Peter had said no. Yeah. Like, where would we be today? Imagine if St. Peter was like, you know what, I don't know if I could do that word and just wasn't courageous and then denied the keys. He's like, no, thank you. I don't want to do it. Oh my gosh, like, where would we be today? We wouldn't have the church as we know it. Yeah. Yeah. So thank you to St. Peter for being brave and like taking that authority on because that's a big deal. You know what? I just thought of something, something else really interesting that I read when I was going through all this. Jesus often sat to teach. And so that's another symbolism involved with the chair. He did? Yeah. According to a priest, I don't know. He sat at Holy. I mean, like, I guess if you think about scripture, he's like sitting in a boat or on the field on a rock. Hey, listen, people feel free to fact check us on that as well. Who did the Gospels? Check it out. So, all right, that's the history of the chair. It's really simple. It's really simple. It's really interesting. What does it mean to you and I and to the listeners? Well, first I just want to read the actual scripture where this comes about because when you think about Peter receiving the keys to the kingdom, like, where does this initial conversation start? And this is Jesus to Simon at Caesarea Philippi. And he says, And so I say to you, you are Peter. And upon this rock, I will build my church and the gates of the nether world shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven. And whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. Matthew 16, 18 through 19. And I don't know about you, but that's pretty straightforward. And I love it when scripture is this blunt. Like I'm giving you the keys and anything that you bind on earth is going to be bound in heaven. And anything you loose will be loosed. That's a lot of authority that the Lord has given Peter. And very, very clear. And I want to follow that. That gives me a lot of hope. And similar to when I was coming back to the church, I had a lot of questions. I was very uncertain. I didn't even understand half of what the church was teaching. But because there was authority that came from the pope, I felt like I could have more confidence in everything that was established. The tradition of the church, even when man errors, even when the pope errors, it's not him himself. Like it's Jesus in him and through him. And that's the kind of authority that I want to follow, right? Meaning that there's a built-in protection. And let's continue with that thought because you're hitting something really important. What does happen when there's error? Well, we can look at what's going on outside of the church. You go to, I'm not gonna pick on any particular, anything outside of Catholicism, but where are they interpreting their scripture from? Most of it is self-interpretation, right? It can lead to a lot of error and much division as well. Well, how scary is that when you think about that? Some dude somewhere, I mean, we live in the South. So there's a church on every corner. So it's kind of, I think a little bit more real. Yeah, I think it's a little bit more real for us. I'm sure other people who are listening and may have experienced it. There's a church on every corner. And a lot of it is self-established. Yeah, non-Catholic, self-established. That's just some dude reading the Bible, thinking he knows what he's talking about. And he could, but he might get some things right. But why would you risk that versus what you just said, which is we have the history and the tradition proven. I mean, undeniable. You can have issues with the policies and you can have issues with all sorts of things. It is undeniable, the apostolic succession, right? This is historical fact outside of religion. This is historical fact, right? That is your safety net. That is what says, it just echoes what you just said. Hey, what happens? What happens if someone gets it wrong? Well, they got it wrong. But the church remains, the tradition remains, the goodness remains, these things that were established over time. I don't know, I'm getting worked up, but it's a beautiful thing. Not me getting worked up, the church is a beautiful thing. It can cause a lot of confusion in the church and in people's hearts too, because they don't know who to follow or what to actually believe. And it's like, if you have this self-revelation, is this what the Bible's telling me? Am I supposed to do this? Am I supposed to jump off this cliff? I don't know. People wouldn't come up with anything. What does my dad always say? Humans have an infinite capacity for self-delusion. Yeah, we're pretty foolish. It's like, are you trusting yourself? Really? I don't know, dude. I don't think that's right. And really, it ultimately leads to corrupt versions of Christianity, which is not the truth itself. And so the authority of the church, we're watered down, just not straight truth. Happy, happy, joy, joy. Clappy, clappy. Sure, that too. Yikes. It's a movement. And by the way, I'm not, when I say these things, I hope they don't come across as judgmental. It's not, it actually makes me sad because as we've spoken up before, I had actually stepped away from the church you have as well. We both reverted. Yeah, very much so. And I was going to a happy, happy, joy, joy, feel-good church. I was like leading on stage, happy, happy, joy. Yeah. And when you, I'm not going to speak for both of us, but I know for me, when I look back, it's like I feel bad for them because all it is for them is feelings. And there's no- So much emotion. And not everybody, again, no general statements, but in general, I know I just said no general statements. It's hard to word these things, but there's just not the depth and the truth there. There's a community element that I think gives people a lot of hope there. And that's what drew me in was just, yeah, it kind of just felt right. Like people really cared about me and it was social. And I really enjoyed being a part of a non-denominational church. But I was looking for more. And that was in the, I found Jesus in the Catholic church, which is funny because I originally started as Catholic, but anyway, which kind of brings me to my next point about the chair of St. Peter being very unifying. And I love that our church is universal. One holy apostolic Catholic church. We say this every time we say the creed in church. And if you just pause and think about what this actually means, it's profound. Like you guys, we are one mystical body of Christ. This unifies us with not only the Pope that we have now, but every single Pope following and back to St. Peter and Jesus himself, the saints in heaven who are with us, for us, and praying with us now as we speak. We're all united as one body that never ends. Like that transcends time and space. And that kind of unity gives me so much like joy and faith knowing that the Roman Catholic church is the way. That universality that is just, it's not penetrable. Like this is never ending. That's it. I was about to say it and you said it. It's never ending. It will persist. Yeah, everlasting. We have, I think you hit something that's really important. A lot of people right now have doubts and they have fears and misunderstandings and anxieties and all these different things. What's gonna happen with the church? I saw a bishop say this. I saw a priest say this. What is- Who do I believe? The question I've heard it a couple of times now and it's one of those, it's like nails on chalkboard every time. I don't know if I can stay in the faith. It's like, you don't leave Jesus because of Judas. And I know that's a really rundown and played out saying, but it's so true. You don't leave the faith because of a bad priest or a bad bishop or whatever. Which can be so hard to reconcile. I get that y'all. Like if you are suffering because of a bad priest, I get your reasoning behind wanting to exit. I exited. Like I left the church. So I totally understand that like, like fully my heart goes out to you, but like remain, remain, remain, remain and find truth from like God himself and rely on the true teachings of the Catholic Church and not what people do because people are human. Even the Pope is human and we are sinful and we're always going to have that just yuckiness within the church, the body, because we're human. And we're broken. We're broken. And we're wounded. And that's never going to stop. And so if that's what we're building our foundation on with our faith, then we need to have like a heart check and go back to the basics and be like fundamentally, why am I Catholic? And like really ponder that in your heart and ask the Lord like, why am I here? Like, why am I doing this? Am I doing this because I'm hanging out with my friends in college and like that's the only reason why I'm really actually going to Mass because it's kind of like a social thing for me. Or am I doing this because I believe that Jesus's body, blood, soul and divinity like in the Eucharist, in the blood, like that's Jesus. And he calls me to him. He calls me every single day. And there's nothing we can escape from that. Like that reality exists and you can't run from it. He loves you and he's never gonna give up on you. Even if you give up, I gave up if you know what I mean. Like I left, but he's still sought after me and he's always gonna seek after you. But even when a priest does something dumb and you're just like, I can't follow that. Or if your dad leaves the church or if your mom gave up hope or if you're kind of depressed and not feeling like it or you're feeling a little lazy or your church doesn't offer Mass. Like whatever the reason is, like the Lord is same now, stay forever and ever and ever. He's not gonna change. No matter what the circumstances are, even if we can't have Mass. I wish I had a reggae horn. What's a reggae horn? Broom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I can't believe I just did that on the radio. Wow, I apologize to everyone who had to listen to that. Jordan, you've got to explain yourself. What just happened? It's that horn you hear and it's like when you like someone knocks it out of the park or there's like a mic drop moment. It's like, I'm not gonna do anything. Man, people are probably driving like turn that off. What just happened? Wow. Well, honestly, I can't even roll tired. So come Holy Spirit one minute. Well, you're dropping some Holy Spirit fire for sure. Tell us more, Jordan. Is there anything else you wanna share about the chair of St. Peter? I don't think so. I think, you know, I'm just struck by the beauty of the symbolism. I think it's one of the most unique ways that we have everything. A lot of, you know, there's a lot of symbolism, but there's a lot of things that are very literal. And I think this is one of the more unique and beautiful things that we have that kind of crosses both of those lines. The spiritual and the physical element. Yeah, for the literal representation and the symbolism of everything that, you know, we're talking about. And if you get a chance to go see it, I mean, I would love to go and check it out. I know that like they have ropes and stuff. You can jump those ropes. Don't listen to my advice. I just love how concrete the church is. Yeah. Like we have physical items like this represents St. Peter and his authority, like an actual chair. And he may or may not have sat on it. We don't, you know, they're basically, and just to touch on that real quick, the historians have said there's no reason to believe that he didn't actually sit in the chair. However, we recognize that there is a possibility that he didn't sit in the chair. Which is totally fine. It doesn't matter. It doesn't. No, it doesn't matter. So anyway, I think it's awesome. I actually really enjoyed this episode. I'm really, I'm kind of hoping that we've come across something else that's similar to this because I think it's really unique and it's a really cool way to dive into the faith. Yeah, I mean. The church has so much depth like this. So St. Peter. St. Peter. Pray for us. Pray for us. And I forgot to say this. If you're interested in conversing with us, you can email us at saintspodatmyavala.com. Yeah. Poor corrections, which is what they would use that for. Poor corrections. Poor corrections. If you have questions for Jordan, not me, but only Jordan. I will give you wrong answers. Actually, if you want to play a game and if you want to ask me a question and just get a random response that will probably be entirely not accurate, we can do that as well. We will also take your suggestions, ideas. Anything, really. Yep. And hopefully we'll be doing some more interactive stuff here in the future. So pray for that and help us. Pray for our discernment and that. Please. I know that we're praying for you. Yep. That being said, we already said pray for us, so I guess we just say bye. God bless you all, everyone. Bye. Bye. Jordan.