 It's been a long long day. I got a lot to say. It feels like I'm carrying a two-ton weight. I go to see a friend. Hello, I'm Monsignor Patrick Winslow. And I am Father Matthew Cowd. And we are speaking from the Rooftop. A podcast brought to you by Tan Books, in which we invite you to join our conversation out here in the open air. Where we look out upon the world around us from the rooftop of the church and share with you what we see. Well, happy new year, Father Cowd. And to you, welcome back. It's good to be back. Well, good. Hopefully it's going well. I need to apologize if you hear something dripping in the background. I don't know how sensitive the sound is, but we do have a small leak in the building. Yeah, a gray matter coming out of his ears. Yeah, clearly that's what's happening. It's all falling out. Underused, I think. Yeah, I think so. I think so. You had extra, right? Oh, extra. That sounds like something my dad would say. He had extra. Oh, Lord have mercy. Speaking of which, I saw your father, as you know, at the March for Life in the middle of this larger gathering. And I said, you've made quite a few appearances, at least verbally, on the from the rooftop. And he was very pleased with that and still thought it wasn't quite enough. Of course. But true to forum, he, in the middle of a thousand people walking around and everything else, he decided to show me some things from his computer on the relative sort of physics and what have you of climate change and whatever else. Oh, don't get him going. Proved to me the reality of some of the unfounded biases of other persons. One of the funny stories. He has strong opinions on that, you know, relative to the scientific data on the debates pertaining to climate change. And, you know, he's got some interesting data on the matter. But one time he was going to get done. Tell you this already. He was going to get donuts. We're on vacation. And he went out just to get some donuts for the family. My father is inclined to engage everyone who's near him. Yeah. So having conversations with my father means standing next to him. And then after that, good luck. So this woman who was waiting on him, she was working there at the store, started, my father mentioned something about the weather. And then she started alluding to the fact that the weather that it was so temperate in August was related to climate change in a very severe kind of way and how dour and sad all that was. And my father just made a very quick comment. So you don't need to really worry about that. And just as a way of saying it's not as bad as you think. And she responded by saying, no, you know, this really is. And in fact, she asserted her credentials. Really, she says, you know, I'm a scientist. And my dad's really in what field? She said, I'm a physical therapist. And my dad said, well, I'm a scientist too. And she said, really? He said, yes, I have a PhD in analytical, physical, analytical chemistry. She walked away. Did he get his doughnuts? He got his doughnuts. But listen, there are many reasons to walk away from your dad. But that's not necessarily one of them. No, I really actually appreciate it. It was always good to see him. So he was really funny. He's done his credentials after her after hers apparently either she didn't believe him or she thought maybe he was lying. Either way, I think she was probably well founded based upon her interaction. I would believe him just because I probably never would have heard of physical analytical chemistry had it not been for someone saying it to me. Not a field that I would ever even approach. Well, that said, now that we've given him more time than his warranted. Some day we'll actually have him on the show. He's interesting in the manner of the practice of faith and all the good things that he does in terms of Bible studies and prison ministry and things of that nature. So he's as much as he is a fun target. He is actually worth having on the show to talk about some of those things. I remember working in a prison and for just one year at a maximum security facility where I was a part-time chaplain, I brought you in one time. I was there. I remember that. And I remember at the time thinking in really with a matter of first month or two that this was intellectually draining. These guys had nothing but time to read and they read. I gave a guy a catechism within two days. He handed it back. They would ask questions about St. Thomas. And I remember thinking in contrast to my parochial experience, these were much more difficult, challenging questions that I was getting at a parish level. But it was quite interesting to experience that contrast. In so many ways, there are men ripe for conversation about serious matters. And I think so often in a parish level, we're always trying to shake people up to think about the serious things. I mean, the one benefit they have, and it's hard to talk about having benefits in prison, but the big questions are looming large. Can't really avoid them. Yeah, but we can walk around like the living dead, never really engaging the more serious matters. And I think people do that a lot. Yes, absolutely. I remember my experience going in there with you and it was a chiaroscuro sort of a thing, right? I mean that sort of light and darkness because there was a lot of darkness. So people obviously choosing when they're in, when they're faced with those big questions, which route they're going to go. And some went simply into the darkness. And so walking through those halls, those cells, and seeing the imagery they have on the walls or the kind of characters that are staring at you. And at the same time, experiencing the men that would come to mass or to the Bible studies or to the various things that you did, or having personal conversations with them, they have to live on the one hand in that darkness. But they're constantly being sort of infusing their minds with real light. And I just remember thinking to myself that it's such a wonderful ministry for priests, for laymen, for deacons, etc. because it's an easy place to bring light into because they're hungry. Those who are answering the question in the right way, exceptionally hungry, whereas you say sometimes we're in a position in parishes where I have to convince someone that they're actually starving. Right. Yeah. Or you're trying to get an audience to come and hear me talk about this or present the church on this. And meanwhile, they are quite literally a captive audience. Well, maybe you're, maybe you're trying for it. Oh, yeah. No, no, no. People are duped by your persona. They come and listen. Waiting, waiting in line outside for wisdom that falls. Clearly, clearly. Meanwhile, your seminarians are running away from every break. And every break and weekend that they get off. Speaking of breaks, they're back. Everyone's back in action. We got a couple weeks under our belt of the new semester. And it's always an easier semester than the first one simply because the first one, you have a new class. And when you're small seminary, the new class makes up a significant portion of your men. And so they're finding their way and learning how to be in the seminary and articulate and gesticulate in that sort of new arena. And by the second semester, they come and walking as if because they're coming back to something. And they have that sort of habituation. And it got me thinking about, you know, the nature in general of habits and how much we ultimately rely upon them for almost everything that we do in life. And sometimes the word, you know, habit is synonymous with the word that we use for virtue. Some people have a difficulty with that. The Latin word is habitus and say, but habits are not, they're not these sort of rote things that we do that are mechanical. But on the other hand, the habit is a very analogical word in the sense that it's elastic. You can use it for a lot of things. So you and I have various habits that we engage in that are sort of underneath the ground of our consciousness that we rely upon something as simple as driving a car. If I had to think about driving a car all this all the time, I think we were talking once about driving a bicycle in reverse. Oh, right. Yeah. And that's the logical pathways, the neurological pathways. We need lots of those habits that we build in that are sort of subterranean that shape us. And then there's that the help us get through life. And there are other ones that we are very volitional about and that create the perfections of our various capacities, our powers, and make us ultimately creative and facilitate a kind of joy in our activity if their virtues. But it brought it home to me because the men just got their cassocks, which we call a habit. In religious life, we call them habits, which is sort of interesting because it makes sense that we do that because it's a way of comporting yourself. It's like a way of being part of something that it funnels your action through in a certain way. So it's kind of been a joy to watch them come back as it is every year. And then they have a certain kind of ownership about the place it didn't have before. So the second semester is always easier because I don't have to do nearly as much relative to what they're doing. Because they're habituated. They're habituated. Yeah, the plan is that that practical habit produces and cultivates or just doesn't produce, but cultivates the actual virtue or muscle that you're trying to cultivate. Yeah, and it doesn't mean that we don't have to always go back to those things and be intentional. This means that when we're in them, because we know how to do them, then we can be free and creative and enjoy them. I was thinking simply this morning about the fact that you and I went through seminary and part of seminary life is you're saying morning prayer in common. It's a simple thing. Now, you may not like the way they do morning prayer. You may love the way they do morning prayer. But at the end of the day, after eight years of seminary, you're probably not going to miss morning prayer anymore. It's just become such a staple of your life. You can't imagine getting to noon or evening tide and not having done. Although we do have some friends. No problem doing it. But we will leave his name. We have some very creative friends that sometimes they will wait till the end of the day and they'll do all the prayers for that day and it's midnight and they'll begin the prayers for the next day. There is a long tradition of that being done. That's a long tradition of that being done. A blessing the hour is in advance or even afterward. That's right. Yeah, in canonically it was acceptable. Yes. Especially living the life of a diocesan priest. We don't have the routine of a religious where you have to sort of chaff all these different times throughout the day and it's just sort of built in. So you can see why parish priests would go that route. That said, I'm sure there are other reasons beside some practical reasons maybe. I don't know about you but for me, I have a very large section of time in the morning when my mind is most fertile for prayer and thought. The difficulty with that of course is that if I've got a couple hours of time in the morning which I carve out for prayer, which is kind of the staple, two or three hours, then the temptation sometimes is then to go get your work done after that. And it doesn't imbue the rest of your day. I think some people may not understand the context in what you're speaking because it might be worth noting that when priests are ordained. It might even be a felicitous for them to know that that's what we call the day, the work of God, that we actually are charged and promised to pray these hours every day for the faithful. So people think of poverty, chastity and obedience and those are the evangelical, meaning gospel councils or gospel directives for those who wish to follow in the pattern of our Lord who lived a life of poverty, chastity and obedience to his father. Those are religious communities who live those consecrated vows. Diocesan priests do not take these vows, rather we make promises. We make promises of obedience, of celibacy, that is to be committed to chaste single life and then also to pray for the faith, to pray for the people, a promise of prayer. And that prayer takes the form of the liturgy, the hours in particular. Obviously there's a liturgical prayer of the celebration of the mass and the other sacraments, but then in addition to that is the divine office, which is the prayer of the church, which most people are unfamiliar with, but you have the office of readings, you have the morning prayer, the afternoon prayer, the day, the daytime prayer, the evening prayer, night prayer, and there are the old Latin terms, which I'm sure they roll right off your tongue if you want to relate them as a lords man. Matins, lords, prime in the old bribery, which was kind of a neat little hour that never changed, it was exactly the same. And then tersex non, which were the different hours of the day. In the day. So nine, noon and three. They call it now mid-morning, midday, mid-afternoon. Exactly. But we're just obliged to do one of those three. That's correct. Right. And then. Evening prayer, night prayer. Vespers. And compland. And compland isn't sort of completed. I haven't been finished. And the church has always been very merciful and compland. It's a very short prayer because usually you're ready for to follow. You're trying to remain awake while you offer it. But it's one of those things that we would recommend to you because even though the priests are obliged to say it, and I think most of us do so as a real anchor for us and our spiritual life to turn our minds back to God during the day, even if you have a substantial moment of time in the beginning of the day or the end of the day, those kinds of things just sort of take your chin as it were and a finger on your chin and move it back in the direction of the Lord to refocus your attention and why you're doing what you're doing. So it certainly would be something that we would recommend for all the faithful. If you're looking to develop a new kind of activity and repeated actions will eventually develop a habitous habit, a virtuous activity that you'll begin to enjoy, I would recommend that you begin by starting with looking at the literature of the hours, maybe take one or two hours a day. There are apps available. There are. Yeah, iBrievery is one, Universities is another. There are others out there. Also, there are some that are red allowed. So people commuting on the way to work. Are you confessing here is that what you're doing? I'm not confessing. I'm just simply saying, but there are different ways that people can participate in the literature of the hours. You know, it's an interesting way to pray because you may not feel what the Psalms are saying. You may be joyful, but the Psalms are maybe talking about despair. But somebody in the church is feeling despair. Yeah, so how many you know is most likely, you know, and so you the whole church is praying that psalm or that canticle, but these scriptural texts and these prayers. And because the whole church is doing it, there is a need for them, the world over. And so we're participating in one voice as part of the body of Christ on earth in with his voice, articulating these Psalms, that he himself would have prayed with his own lips and did so as recorded in the Gospels. So there's something mystically corporally beautiful about that universal practice kind of coming together with a single voice with a single articulation. The body of Christ is articulating in a common way every day, regardless of the particular member articulating them. And that's important to understand. I, you know, when I read the Psalms, I mean, obviously one of the greatest challenge with prayer in general is distraction of mind. Extremely difficult to remain focused. It takes a certain discipline. You could say happy to helps cultivate it. But I find myself increasingly listening to the Psalms from an earthly perspective, thinking of the human voice that would utter these words. I mean, there are times in which it says, you know, the Lord said, the God said, but most of the time the Psalms and the canticles are coming from the mouth of a human agent. And I try to imagine, you know, the circumstances, the world from which this person was speaking and relate to it. And they're just remarkably earthly, you know, the utterances and the feelings, the agonies, the joys, and they're very tethered to the ground, which is interesting when you consider that these are the prayers that we come together and pray. Absolutely. And as you said previously to recognize the fact that even though we say that the Psalms are the portrait of Christ, according to Thomas, right, that sort of the Christ as it were being manifested by them in all the various vicissitudes of his life, even him quoting the Psalm on the cross, right? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The Psalms were ever on his lips as a manifestation of himself, but himself as a man too, himself raising up as one of us, all of us into this, into both praise of God, but also admission of pain, of agony, of need for vindication, salvation, hope, etc. The cries of the human condition that were taken up into him. And then to realize even that not only for thousands of years, but for thousands of years since Christ, we have a couple thousand years now, that every one of the church has been still singing those Psalms. So every epoch of the church, anyone who has been a priest or religious, but even more than that, certainly the faithful relative to the scriptures that are read at Holy Mass, they're imbued with the Psalms. And that means that everyone has had the same prayer book for thousands of years. And it's been on the lips of every saint that you've ever read about, every pope that's ever governed to the church. That's a wonderful thing to think that I'm going to add my voice to that. And one of the things I think people love about Gregorian chant as the primary song of the church, the voice of man being the primary instrument, is that its modes capture all of those different movements of what the Psalms are relating. And there's something about it that just sort of orders you and settles you. It's not the rhythm of a three, four time. It's not a beat the way modern music is. It's got that arses and thesis, which is that way of, if you imagine a kind of a swirl up and a swirl down, it kind of puts you in that wave of praise, of prayer. And so when you hear it, you kind of float along on the whole thing. And we're also floating along all the way through history with all these various persons. And maybe I'm getting too many metaphors and it's getting too poetic at this point. I think people are used to that with you. So one of the lessons I think people can draw from, I think some of our reflections is that the habit of prayer that we manifest in the form of an obligation to pray the divine office. So whether it is the divine of office or it's the rosary and other things. But that the habit of tethering back time and time and time again more than just once a day is something of great value. And I think of it just in terms of a needle and thread. Here's in the fabric of your life, with the praying and stitching prayer into the fabric of your life, you don't want too long of a stitch. It becomes weak. But to be able to tack back with shorter intervals has a tighter fit to marrying, if you will, a prayer life to the fabric of your life. It's just a way to think of it because if it's too far, the intervals are too far apart, and don't tack back sooner rather than later, well then they can become shall we say less strong, weaker in enduring the vicissitudes of life. But if you, and I'm not saying that every minute of the day, you know, to offer a prayer, but I'm just saying that I think that the divine office does a good job. It has, it doesn't let the morning pass, the afternoon pass, the evening pass, the night pass. It's a constant tacking back. Yeah, and if you've always, if you're always feeling that chord on some level, if you're not doing vocal prayer or meditation or contemplation, if you're always feeling that chord, then you're beginning to achieve that imperative of the scriptures, which is to pray without ceasing. Right. But it's not the same kind of prayer as saying in our father, it is praying without ceasing, and maybe you're learning something from your latest hobbies. Contemplate the current of the soul. Your hobbies. Oh, my hobbies, yes. In terms of the stitches. Stitches, yeah. But that said though, I mean, you're right. I mean, cultivating that current of the soul, even if the conscious mind is engaged with all the many things that we have to be engaged in. People have to take care of the kids, they have to do this, they have to do that, they go to work, and you know, even things that we do oftentimes, which are just as temporally minded as your average person in managing bills and finances and meals and things like that, you're still going to have that current, like these tacking back to current, we're mixing a lot of metaphors, but it does create a current of the soul, as you say, praying without ceasing. Well, speaking of currents before we go, we were at the March for Life, and the showing was really quite extraordinary. Really awesome. I was, one didn't know if people were going to come after the end of Roe v. Wade, and yet they did, and they came en masse, and it was a joy-filled event, but maybe think about this when you mention the word current, because there was, if you recall, we were at sort of the head of the march as it was coming down, we were going to jump into that current. But as it was getting closer to us, we noticed there was an individual who was very sadly deranged, and the things he was saying were black and vile and horrible, I won't repeat them on the radio. But I was just praying my rosary waiting for the march to get to where I was, so I could jump in that current. And this man was going back and forth in the front of the procession, just with a megaphone, just shouting these obscenities and horrible things at these kids, really, who were in the front of this, just kids. So many kids. You know, 13, 14, 15, 16-year-olds that were just marching. And I was kind of looking in a defensive posture to see what was going to happen, because you always think to yourself, I have to defend someone on some level, because they're just kids. And instead, what happened is this guy was going back and forth that astounded me as these kids got louder and louder with their song, as he was shouting obscenities through that megaphone. And they just absorbed him, like white blood cells. I mean, they completely consumed him. They didn't touch him. They didn't hit him. They didn't do anything. But this crowd, this avalanche of persons just sort of crashed upon him. But the sound was joyful. That's nice. And in terms of, they just were loving God. There's a joy drowning out. Yeah. And I couldn't hear him anymore. I don't even know what happened to him. I couldn't see him anymore. Maybe he just went home. But I thought to myself, what a beautiful image for the way in which we actually conquer. I don't go on the absolute, this is not my enemy. This is not my enemy. I'm just going to absorb him right here. We'll push back against the darkness, but we don't attack the person and that the light of the gospel overcomes it. It's really a beautiful and apt image. Well, just before we go, I just always say, as you know, I quoted Ruth Bader Ginsburg and as my sister mentioned, we were on our edge of our seat thinking, where is this headed? It was a quote that she has used where she was quoting an abolitionist and a woman's rights activist in the early 1800s who said, we don't ask any favor from our fellow, from our brothers, only that they take their feet off our necks. And I couldn't get that thought out of my mind. It's a beautiful quote. And I applied it to the pro-life movement. For years, the Roe v. Wade decision has been the court's foot on the neck of the pro-life movement that hasn't been able to affect any substantial change in our legal system for protection of the rights of the unborn because it wouldn't allow it. It kept its foot on our necks. And so by overturning Roe v. Wade, you see how the foot has been taken off the neck of the pro-life movement. And now we can really begin to work and actually affect change. But until then, until or unless that happened, we couldn't. Hard to speak when someone's foot's in your neck. Oh, well, that's right. And we weren't asking for any favor, right? I mean, so I thought that the words were appropriate. It's sad that Ruth Bader Ginsburg couldn't see it apply to the pro-life cause, as she saw applied to another equal rights cause. But it is equally applicable for a category of people that have been subjugated and whose rights were not being respected. And the people, the children in the womb are not asking for any favor. Just take the foot off our necks and allow the people that are speaking on our behalf, advocates of the pro-life movement, take the feet off their necks too, so that we can affect some real change. So I thought it was a really... No, it's beautiful. Just a really apt social justice point to be made that was applicable to the women's suffrage movement, as Ruth Bader Ginsburg had mentioned, but it's equally applicable to the pro-life movement. And so those were some of my thoughts coming out of the march this year. Let's all of you out there have a blessed week and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to this episode of From the Rooftop. For updates about new episodes, special guests, and exclusive deals for From the Rooftop listeners, sign up at rooftoppodcast.com. And remember, for more great ways to deepen your faith, check out all the spiritual resources available at 10books.com. And we'll see you again next time, From the Rooftop.