 We are live for those who are watching behind the scenes, very excited about this show. We have a very special guest who I will introduce shortly. But with that, it is a little different. If you're watching behind the scenes, you notice there is only one of the two co-hosts so far. And we'll talk about that on another show, but don't be alarmed, everything is good, everything is wonderful, everyone is happy. So with that, let's go ahead and get into the show. Hey, I'm Jordan Burke and welcome to Saints and Sages. I am very excited. Today, we have a special guest. And if you're listening and you're wondering, why is the intro different? Don't worry about it, it's okay, everything is good. But we have with us today, Mallory Smythe. She is a speaker and the author of the book, Rekindled, How Jesus Christ Called Me Back to the Catholic Church and Set My Heart on Fire. She joined walking with purpose out of a deep desire to help women come to know Christ personally through the transforming power of his word. Mallory experienced a powerful conversion of heart and college when she came to know God personally through scripture, which is a very good way to get to know Christ. We talk about that quite often with Lexio Duvina. But anyway, back to her bio. Having worked with college students as a focus missionary, she is now working in women's ministry and it is her dream to see all Catholics fall deeply in love with God and grab hold of the joy offered in the gospel. Mallory lives in Denver with her husband, Jared, and their four daughters. That is awesome. I only have one daughter and I love her to death. So I can only imagine how incredible it is to have four daughters total. So Mallory, welcome. Thank you for having me, Jordan. Yeah, the fourth one is actually sitting on my stomach right now. There you go, good. Three out of the world right now. Yeah, thank you. So we are talking about an absolute powerhouse and I probably overused that word in the last show but it's hard to find words to describe how incredible Fulton Sheen is. And this is one of the reasons I'm really excited to talk to you about him because you have some more insight and kind of you'd mentioned you had personal stories and I believe that I saw, I should have confirmed this before we started, but I believe I saw you have one of his quotes on your website. So he's very personal to you. Yeah, the first time I ever heard about Archbishop Fulton Sheen really ever, I was working as a youth minister and I came to know the Lord, like I said, through scripture, like you said in my bio, through the Protestant church. And so I had really started listening to all of these like incredible Protestant pastors. And I remember talking to one of my coworkers at the Catholic church and I was kind of still like closing my journey of really trusting the church. Like I had decided to stay Catholic so I was working as a Catholic youth minister but I still had some things I was wrestling with and one thing was like my priest wasn't very enthusiastic about Protestant pastors, that's weird. And I remember talking about something, one of them said to a coworker and she said, oh, a father would love that but he probably would love the way like in Archbishop Fulton Sheen would say that. And so immediately I was like, oh, well that guy's probably a loser. And then I don't even know from there, I just, I probably came across one of his YouTube videos and I remember sitting with my husband and I was like, Jared, everything he is saying is so relevant today. It makes so much sense. It's so orthodox, it's so compelling. How did all of this get lost? Like how did all of this good teaching get lost, you know, in the 60s? And he said, well, Mallory, it was the 60s, that's how they got lost. And so from there I just kind of became a fan and I have just been in awe of how holy he was, despite all the fame and everything else in his life. Right, it's so incredible to look back. As you said, everything he was talking about then is incredibly relevant to today. And it's shocking because you watch some of these videos are in black and white. And what he's talking about, you can take and transplant into today 2021 and it would be just as relevant and just as powerful. And I think more importantly, what's so striking about it, at least for me, is that what he's saying, the solutions that he's proposing would solve today's problems as well. Absolutely. And I think that's something else I've learned from him is that when you were in the heart of the church, when you were following Jesus, and I know you guys already did an episode on him and you talked a lot about his holy hour and I was actually just listening to him talk about it for the narrator for his autobiography and how he talked about how important it was for him saying faithful to his vocation. But when you were close to the Eucharist, when you were believing the sacraments, when you were in the Word of God and you were studying wisdom, that wisdom is timeless. It just always applies. It's the same thing with scripture. It's written 2000 years ago and it still applies today. It's the same. And so it's that wisdom that I think listening to Archbishop Sheen has taught me like go after the wisdom and whatever you write will be relevant. Like maybe you don't want it to be but it probably will be if the human heart hasn't changed. Right, that's totally right. And it's also a, it speaks to how important tradition and orthodoxy is and how he just was able to take these, well this is kind of a side note now but how he was able to take these seemingly complex issues and break them down into a very simplistic manner but even still in a very elegant way, I'm not nearly the order that he is. Maybe one day if God loves me enough to grace me with that, we'll see what happens. But taking these huge wide expansive topics whether it was communism or modernism or whatever other ism, breaking it down in a simplistic form that I think is, most people can grasp and doing it in a way that really just pulls people in. We kind of talked about this in the last show how he drew people to him, how popular he was, but I don't know, what are your thoughts on that? And I haven't actually read his autobiography so does he mention any of that in his autobiography or what do you know? Something he mentioned in his autobiography that I love is that he spent 30 hours preparing for every television show. And he did most of it in front of the Blessed Sacrament and so he said he never used notes. And even at the end of some, I don't know if it was a bishop or another professor but when he was a professor, somebody gave him the advice that every year at the end of every year that he should tear up his notes because he said, if you don't tear your notes up you're gonna get stale and you need to be like going back every year and renewing the things that you're teaching. And so he had, he was rigorous when it came to his study and he said that if you learn it enough it becomes part of you and you actually don't need the notes. And I think that's exactly what he did so well was that it became part of him and he never lost his humanity. He was an intellectual, there's no question. He was brilliant but he never, like he also was raised on a farm. He never lost that humanity. And so he was able like you said to distill that intellect and because he knew it so well and break it down to where you or I or anyone else could understand it which is I think a call to the clergy today. You know, I was talking to a friend it may have been on an interview for the book and my book is, it goes through like some of the issues I've had with the church and how I've dealt with them. And so he said, well, okay how do you wanna fix some of these things? And I think one thing is that whenever our priests are learning these high level theological things which are so amazing tell me how that matters to me during the COVID crisis. Like make it matter to me today in my own life whenever somebody could have lost a job or my kids home from school and he could do that. There was actually, I have the life of Christ right here. It's super old that Archbishop Sheen wrote and there's a point and it was so simple but where he talks about Nicodemus going to Jesus in the night and you know that's whenever Jesus says you have to be born again and he talks about God to love the world like all that stuff. And he says that Nicodemus says like we we believe that you are a great prophet. And he just says, notice that Nicodemus uses we because he wants to avoid any personal responsibility of I he's not ready to own it. It's like so simple and you're like, well, I do that. Yeah, you know, just such like such good insight that he can distill it down for us to understand it. Yeah, he's really inspiring whether I when what's really interesting too is whether I'm reading what he's, you know what he's written or listening to him. I feel the same draw which I haven't I don't think it's a norm for a lot of either authors or speakers either you connect what they've written or you connect to how they speak and they kind of run along that path which makes a lot of sense. But with him, it's, you know I was reading in particular victory over vice and I'm just compelled I'm drawn. I'm going page after page and quite frankly it's one of those books, you know it's so small it'd be better for me, you know to not highlight anything because I'm going to end up highlighting the entire book you know what I mean? But it's I've loved reading his work and then learning more about him. You had mentioned that you had so you came in contact with him hearing about him through someone else thinking like, I don't know about this guy what kind of swung you around from that viewpoint was it just kind of diving in and listening as you mentioned with your husband or like what kind of I guess what I'm asking is what brought you deeper into what was the hook that really got you deeper in into love with the phone machine? It really was listening to him and really from listening to him learning about who he was and I'm always blown away with how much recent history we don't know. I was talking to my dad this week and I was like, was it a big deal when Ronald Reagan got shot? I didn't know he got shot and I care about history. He's like, who's a huge deal? He almost died. I'm like, well, you know what? No one talks about it. Okay. And so like learning about how he had like, I mean 50 million viewers or something like that every week. He was huge. He had all these Emmys. He was just so popular and I think that blew my mind because really I had associated that kind of preaching that we just talked about where you can just still theological ideas for the common person for their everyday life. I associated that with Protestant pastors. I associated that kind of popularity and that kind of power with the Protestants and it was almost a realization of like, oh, oh, yet another thing we gave to them in the first evangelist. Right, right. And so I think I was just really in awe of how popular he was. And then, I don't know, a couple of years ago I was just looking for something to listen to on Audible. I am always listening to Audible and so I downloaded his autobiography and I was just blown away at his stories, his whole, like how holy he was and how entertaining it was. He's just such a delight. He's such a delightful person that, you know, saints don't have to be boring and he certainly isn't. How true that is. I mean, most of them aren't, but. Right, right, I'm just saying. Yeah, what you're saying resonates with me in a particular way because I at one point had fallen away from the church and I had found myself in a, you know, quote unquote, non-denominational parish drawn in, like I think or as I believe a lot of people are to that charism, right? Because there is a particular charism outside or rather a more apt way to put it might be that I think some people have come in contact with priests who may be very holy but they don't have that sort of skill or that charisma that Fulton Sheen had. And as you said, I mean, it's true that is found most often a lot of times in Protestant churches. And what was interesting for me was having, yeah, sure, the interest is here, right? The flame is here and I'm like a moth, it's here but I'm circling around. There's not a lot of depth here which is ultimately a part of what brought me back. So it's still encouraging to hear and you've said it, I've experienced it myself but someone who is in the faith, who is so solid, who is so traditional, so orthodox, traditional in terms of like following the Magisterium and has that depth that's required to move forward in the faith. And man, I wish, I wish we, and I know that we have them out there but this kind of that Fulton fire for lack of a better term would kind of engulf and the hearts of all of our priests. Could you imagine what our world would look like and what the church would look like? It'd be so incredible. But I'm sorry, we're coming up to a break. We're coming up to a break and right after that, we'll be right back and I'd love to hear some of your faith. I know you said you had some quotes, anything else that you have about him that really kind of touched your heart and we'll get into that when we come back. What'd I do? Oh, for those, I thought I was being corrected which is common and happens a lot and it's necessary because I screw up a lot which is good for my humility. For those watching behind the scenes, we, if you should go to avaladashinstitute.org, avaladashinstitute.org. I sound like a radio producer now. It's a terrible thing. I apologize if your ears are bleeding. We have some fantastic classes. Look at that marvelous maggots popped it up on the screen. If you would like to take some of our courses, you should, why? Because they're gonna make you holier. I'm just gonna say it. I'm a little bit biased but it's the truth. Now, let's get back in this show. Welcome back. I am with, I'm Jordan Burke with Mallory Smythe talking about Venerable Fulton Sheen. We've just been kind of doting on this guy this entire time and for good reason. And I was curious, you said you had some quotes you had prepared and forgive me if I'm jumping ahead but that's what just popped into my head and I'd love to hear what you have. Yeah, so I have two. One is pretty popular but it definitely made a huge impact on me as a woman in the church and just trying to learn more about the feminine genius and just what does it mean to be a woman because it's changing every day in the culture. And so he said this and I'm not even, I guess just from life is worth living. He says, when a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its woman. Now, I'm just not sure there's a more powerful quote about the power of women than that. I agree, I agree. And of course, again, like when I read it, I was like, well, that's true. Right, right. And said in an incredibly elegant way as well. Yes, yes. It's such a great quote. I've read that before and it's one of those that no matter how many times I hear it, it still leaves me pondering the depth. Because I think we're only, at least I can only speak for myself, but I hear that and I'm only scratching the surface. I think of the wisdom there. And it's one of those things you can just continue to meditate on. It's so, so powerful, so powerful. But this is kind of your world, right? So you're, as we kind of talked about in your bio, you're part of your desires to help women reach, I like to say, press your heart against Christ's heart. And I feel like that's kind of what I'm gathering from your, could you explain kind of what you do there? And, you know, if you want to go into that at all, and if it's a machine or not, it doesn't matter because I'm curious. Yeah, so, well, it's funny a couple of years ago. So I, as you read, I started out as a focus missionary. Well, I started as youth minister and then into a focus missionary. After I left the bottom of the corporate ladder, I worked in accounting for a year, which is like, if you know me, it's hilarious. Like no one should ever have me doing their numbers. It's just silly. But, and, and so, and honestly, I wasn't like, I was passionate about ministry, but not necessarily women's ministry. And then a couple of years ago, a priest friend of mine kept introducing me to all these people. I was like, Mallory's in women's ministry. And I wasn't, I was like, and I was like, do you know something I don't know? And then over the years, that like has led me into women's ministry and really joining walking with purpose for, for people who've never heard of walking with purpose. It's a women's Bible study ministry. It was founded by Lisa Brennick Meier. You guys can look her up. She's incredible, has evangelical background. And she came to know Christ through scripture her whole life. And then she converted to the Catholic church and it's a similar story. She converted for her husband without like any real love for the church, went through a crisis, fell in love with the church and has been bringing scripture alive for women in their own state of life for years. I've only been here for a year. So I'm brand new. And I create content with under Lisa. So I write blogs, I create videos of a Bible study coming out in June. So it's about friendship, reclaiming friendship. But the whole thing is I, the more I have grown into like my vocation as a wife and a mother, the more I'm amazed by women. Just what Archbishop Sheen said, the level of woman really does dictate the level of society. And we have no idea the power we have because so often we're so busy fighting a battle that's not necessarily ours in the culture. Like if we would just be who the Lord called us to be and if we would like you said, press our hearts closer to his heart. The things he like Joan of Arc, mother Teresa, totally different people born into original sin who gave themselves over to Christ and look what he did with them. One is in a soldier's outfit when you see her and one is in habit. One was burned at the stake and one was like a quiet old woman who just spoke truth her whole life and they both changed the world. And so my desire and mission is one for women to know that they are loved by God, where they are, exactly where they are and the mess that they're at and that he's gonna do something with them and that they need to let him, right? It's not just about sitting and being like, oh, Jesus loves me. Yes, he loves you so much. And he wants to bring you into such holiness that the world has to respond to you. And one of the main ways to do that and to find that is through scripture. I mean, that was the way my life was changed when I realized this word is for me. It's alive, it's active. It's sharper than any double-edged sword and he has something to say to me in it every single day. And that's gonna bring me into the heart of the church and into the heart of the sacraments. I love that. I love that. I'm sitting here. I mean, you can see me. I'm nodding my head vigorously. For those who are listening, I'm really into this partially because I, so part of what I do in ministry is helping people recognize their self-worth primarily for men. And I know that that's also something that's highly important in the work that you're doing as well. But also just as a father of a little girl, I'm just like sitting here taking mental notes, like, okay, what's coming next? Let's get prepared. I love that. And then, so wrapping it back to Fulton Sheen, his quote about measuring society by how, is it, did he say how the women are treated? In the higher her virtue, you said the level of the woman. I love that. That is incredibly deep. So let me ask you this then. Oh, actually, I have this other note. Now I'm jumping around, I apologize, but I wanna get to this because we totally missed this on the last show. You said, you figured it out. You said, why was he called Fulton in the last show for those who clued in and I apologize for jumping around. This is important. We couldn't figure out what the name change was about, but you have the answer. Yes, so he said in his autobiography, he was born Peter, I think Peter John. He had tuberculosis and he cried so much that the family kind of joked that he just belonged to his mother and his mother's maiden name was Fulton. And so they say, oh, that's the Fulton's baby. And then when he was like a little older, I mean, he was still a baby, but like two, somebody asked his grandfather what his name was and he said Fulton and that was it. It just stuck. Wow, wow. I like that a lot, that's funny. Let me ask you this then. So I have another, well, actually, let's do this. I want, because I'm looking at the clock here and I hate it when we're not able to plug our guests' information and we're coming up, we still have a little bit of time, but I wanna make sure that all your website, whatever you want plugged and plugged, and for those listening, we're also gonna have all of this listed in the description, whether you're on listening on podcasts or on YouTube, it's all gonna be there. So where can people find your work? Where can they find you? Anything that you wanna put out there? Mm-hmm. Yep, they can. So I have a website, www.malorie-smythe.com. Those pesky domains don't always work out for you. You can check out my work there personally. My work is also at walkingwithpurpose.com. So you can go there or also at walkingwithpurposeofficial on Instagram and Facebook. And then this is the book that I wrote personally, rekindled. And the reason that I wrote it is because I kept coming across people who had left the church, who had such a similar story to me. And as they were telling me why they left, I said, that's a good reason to leave. And so the whole purpose of me writing the book was to kind of tell my story in three different parts. So each chapter is what I experienced, what I learned and why I stayed to kind of level with millions of people who've had those experiences that we've all had. And so you're like, yeah, I've had that lackluster experience, I've had that bad experience, I've had to wrestle with this. This is what I learned and this is why I'm still here and here is your invitation back. So if anybody is wrestling with something in the church or knows somebody who is gone, which I know you do, it's a great and relatable book for those people. And so you can get that at Ave Maria Press or Amazon.com. Awesome. And it looks like our producer plugged that into the notes. And as I said, for anyone listening, we are going to have this as well. And I will be picking up a copy of the book here after the show. Now, back to Fulton Sheen. So we gave one quote. What was the other quote that you had for me? I'm curious. So the other quote, see if I can find it. Okay, so this is in the life of Christ and he's talking about the birth of Jesus. And he says, so he's talking about Herod and how Herod had the slaughtering of the innocent to kill Jesus. And let me see. Okay, so it said totalitarian. So he's calling Herod a totalitarian. Totalitarian are fond of saying that Christianity is the enemy of the state, a euphemistic way of saying an enemy of themselves. Herod was the first totalitarian to this sense. He found Christ to be his enemy before he was two years old. Could a babe born under the earth in a cave shake potentents and kings? Could he who has had no demos or people following him be a dangerous enemy? The dim, I don't know what he's saying there and rule the people. And basically he said like, nobody went after Stalin as a baby. No one perceived Hitler as a threat as a baby. And yet, Herod saw the king of the universe and was afraid that he would take his tinsel crown. And so he went after him. And I just thought it was so insightful. This is the level of depth that we're talking about. So for those who are unfamiliar with anything of Fulton Sheen, don't be, I don't know, don't, it sounds a lot more heady than it actually is. I promise you that, you know, that he's written so many books and they're very, very approachable. But that's the level of depth that you are to expect with his writings. It's just, and for him to take, as you mentioned before, Nicodemus we versus I, right? These little nuances that are purposeful and they're part of the story, you know, it's so incredible and how blessed are we to have somebody who was given the ability and the grace to grasp onto those things. Granted, he said, he gave his yes. He said, I will spend an hour, you know, in adoration every day or daily holy hour. And that's a big part of it. But I just, you know, I said in the first show, I don't think we're gonna be able to do him justice at all. I'm thankful we're doing a second show because you've definitely expanded and helped a ton. But I'm constantly at a lack for words when it comes to trying to describe him, his life, the work that he's done, the movement he's had and the reach from either from theology to politics to, you know, all these different things. It's just, it's absolutely incredible. Yeah, absolutely. Do I have time to share one of my favorite stories? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, great. So I have a bunch, but one, and it's really simple actually. He has these amazing stories about bringing people into conversion. One, which I love where he invited a woman to come and talk to him at his parish because she was struggling. And she said, I will only come if you promise you will not ask me to go to confession. He said, I promise I will not ask you to go to confession. And she said, promise me. Like I'm not coming. I will not go to confession. He said, I promise y'all will not ask you to go to confession. And so she shows up. And I think it was at St. Patrick's in New York. And he said, oh, there's this like really famous artist painting in the back. Would you like to see it? And she's like, oh, sure. I'd love to. And on the way he pushed her into the confessional. He said, I didn't ask her to go. Yeah, right. There you go. And then there's other one that I loved from his autobiography where he said he was a professor at a college and there was some strike between him and one of the leaders of his department. And that person started spreading rumors about him and it got to Rome. And he was sitting with the secretary of state who would eventually become Pope Pius XII. And Pope Pius XII, whoever he was at the time, I forgot his name, I think it's Pacelli. He asked him about it. And Fulton Sheen responded, I would just rather not talk about it. Like that's all he said. And then that guy got moved. And the guy, and he said, I wonder if he knows that I never said anything. And I think that story as simple as it is, is so powerful to me because I struggle with gossip and it takes an unbelievable amount of self-control and virtue to not defend yourself when you know that you are innocent. And he just, he literally gave it to God. He did not defend himself and God did what he would. And I just think how many of us have that high of a moral character these days? Like, I know that I don't. And so that's just one, like I said, it's super simple, but it was such a good lesson for me. Yeah, I love that. I love that. Well, folks, that is Venerable Fulton Sheen. Thank you so much to Mallory Smythe for coming on the show, for imparting your wisdom and your love for this incredible soon-to-be, I'm gonna say it, he's a saint. You know, we're waiting for the confirmation, but we pretty much already know. You can find more about our awesome guest at Mallory. You know what? I can put it on the screen, check that out. Right there, Mallory-Smythe.com. You can pick up her book, Rekindled on Amazon. And what was the other one? WalkingWithPurpose.com, did I miss anything? Yeah. No, you're good. Awesome. That was great. Perfect. Thank you so much for coming on the show. All right, thanks, Jordan.