 Thanks for joining us for this author interview. I'm Tim Hill with tan books happy to be joined by the author of the new book how the Eucharist can save civilization dr. Jared stout really appreciate you being here really excited to talk about this thanks for having me why don't we start with a prayer okay a name of the father and of the son and of the Holy Spirit and man Jesus we adore you and the most blessed sacrament and we ask that this book may give you glory and honor that you would restore our lives through the gift of the Eucharist and that you would also restore our civilization we entrust all these things to you through your most holy name amen and the name of father son and Holy Spirit amen thank you dr. stout I I got to see a great moment that I have very rarely ever seen maybe one of the best parts about this job you just saw the book for the first time here a few minutes ago how does it feel putting all knowing all of that work now it's in your hand well you know it's redeeming actually because my first book was about beer and I felt a little guilty about that here I am a theologian and I'm devoting my talents to writing about beer and and so I said you know Lord I'm gonna write a book about the Eucharist and so this was really years in the making and it feels great to actually see the book and and now I hope that rather than drawing people to beer I can draw people to our Lord that's a fantastic background and now evolution maybe yeah all encompassing the the forward of this book by Joseph Pierce asks a question I wasn't expecting is civilization worth saving to me that's a fascinating question to consider to start this book and I guess we could ask another question is our civilization worth saving and if we look at the big picture right you know already in Acts of the Apostles the early disciples were accused of turning the world upside down threatening Greco-Roman civilization and eventually of course the Christians did convert the Roman Empire and then it collapsed and so the Greco-Roman world you know was not saved in that sense but it was redeemed and we have a new civilization growing up around the monasteries and developing into the great culture of Christendom and for the last 500 years the culture created by Christendom has been in turmoil and it's been slowly decaying from within but a lot of the principles that people adhere to in our culture are originally based on the Christian faith the dignity of the individual that is something that was really achieved by Christian civilization to say that everyone no matter what has dignity as being made in the image of God and freedom you know where does this deep desire for freedom come from it really is the fact that God has given us this freedom to be able to direct ourselves towards our end which is ultimately happiness in him but the other side of freedom is that you can pursue other things and so I would say that our civilization is running on fumes these fumes from the past and there may be some things that need to actually collapse before they can be saved and rebuilt and so we're seeing that that I think the decline of our civilization will continue but you know looking at that big picture the church has saved civilization in the past and can save it again so many things that apply to today and then I love how you bring it to an optimistic bent at the end there that yeah it can be safe civilization can be saved by the Eucharist you mentioned your first book was on beer which I I'm fascinated by and I'm sure we'll talk plenty about maybe not necessarily in this conversation and then the Eucharist to me it represents so much of what Catholicism is is is that why it was maybe not easy but you use it as the central focal point here and you know there is a connection to the beer option right because the beer option was a book saying that you know everything that is good in human culture can be directed towards God and that includes even our eating and drinking and so the moving from writing about beer to the Eucharist that you know actually has a connection and that is this is now our sacred eating and drinking of our Lord's body and blood and culture really is this organization of how we live and it's all encompassing and so at the heart of a Christian civilization is eating and drinking a supernatural eating and drinking but it sanctifies everything else even things like how you drink beer how you relate to other people how you shape your work everything is shaped by this inner core of our communion with God so knowing that it's a really all encompassing look now now it comes to okay organizing it from a book standpoint and getting your message out there how did that process work in your mind well as we see in the introduction you know I used the definition of the Eucharist as the source and summit of the Christian life to be the organizing principle of the book so the source of the Christian life it's looking at salvation history how God created us to actually share in his own dominion over creation and to cultivate things because bread and wine are not actually natural goods they're cultivated goods and then we see how they're taking it taken up within the life and the worship of the people of Israel perfected by Jesus and then transmitted down to us to the church so that's the source that you have what we really see throughout salvation history the summit is our encounter with the Eucharistic Christ and the mass and so how the mass really is the most important thing that we could ever do in our lives you know this meeting with Christ himself and so I look in that section on the summit of what we need to do to prepare for that how we follow up from that and even what we need to do to really enter more deeply into that encounter so the source the summit and the final section is the Christian life that is the Eucharist is not simply something to be believed it's something to be lived and so really that that follow up from the mass is the whole last section to say that our lives should be Eucharistic how we direct our time our relationships even the places where we live and and where we worship that all of this comes into it so that we can then sanctify the world that that the Eucharist is a mission we're sent out from mass to to live according to our faith but also to sanctify the world and in a way to recover it right because if we go back to the source right God made the world good and he gave us a mission within it but we're fallen and so in a way the Eucharist is a rescue mission to really give us the antidote from within but it requires us to make use of that and to go out into the world and to really heal the world and to shape and direct it towards God rescue mission I love how you put it that way almost makes this an adventure novel right a lot of ways for sure so if you don't mind why don't we just dive right in here you mentioned how you set it up the source and summit of the Christian life and encountering Jesus in the Eucharist is one of the first ways that you introduce things about the two disciples talking with a stranger and then realizing that it's Jesus on the day of his resurrection and what's amazing about you know that this journey to Emmaus is that they don't realize it's Jesus until the breaking of the bread that's the key aspect here is that you know I hear people say wouldn't it have been great to be one of the disciples and to be with Jesus in the flesh and he wants to be in the flesh with us as well but he reveals his presence to us in the breaking of the bread so what happens to the two disciples journey to Emmaus is how Jesus actually reveals himself to us as well and I give my own personal example you know I grew up of a non- practicing Catholic and I was actually expelled from the public schools in seventh grade I never even had detention but I brought in my Boy Scout knife to school and they had zero tolerance and so my mom went around to other schools she even went to the Jewish Academy before she went to the Catholic school so the Catholic school was like last on the list and of course that was the only school that would take me in and kind of give me another chance you know because everyone else was like a weapon no forget about it and it was a few weeks into the Catholic school and the pastor invited me to come to Daily Mass now I wasn't going to Sunday Mass 13 years old and the priest said you know we took a chance on you and so will you do me a favor yes father anything will you come and serve Mass on the anniversary day of my ordination and my mom was like absolutely 615 in the morning no problem you know and so that morning I had a Eucharistic encounter with the Lord I really came to know him for the first time in my life and I really felt him calling me to abide with him within the church that really calling me to find my home to find the meaning of my life with him and the church and now here we are a few years later yeah a few you know incredible personal experience and that leads you to the next section in your book the Eucharist in the plan of life obviously your plan significantly changed there yes and the plan of life is really that that God has designed the whole sacramental system of the church to shape our entire lives and so of course in baptism were reborn and the next sacrament according to the church's original kind of plan of the sacramental life is confirmation and so confirmation is a strengthening of the grace is given to us in baptism that are ordered towards the completion of our initiation with the Eucharist and so the Eucharist is the food and drink that is meant to sustain us as we grow into the full stature of Christ and so how do we grow into Christ by consuming Christ himself and then of course we have the sacraments of healing that restore us as we are wounded and fall in the course of our lives and also to prepare us for death and then the the sacraments of mission but the Eucharist is at the heart of the reception of all of the sacraments I mean baptism precedes it but it's completed this initiation is completed with receiving Eucharist and then the sacraments of healing are ordered towards repairing communion and so they're completed by receiving the Lord and then even the sacraments of mission right and you think of holy orders the heart of that is the celebration of the mass and also in marriage you think of the two becoming one flesh I mean that is a Eucharistic image as well because the Lord becomes one flesh with us and in Ephesians 5 Paul says this is a great mystery Christ's love of the church right and and so he's talking about marriage marriage is a great mystery and by this I mean Christ in the church and so the the Eucharist is Christ giving of his own flesh for the life of the bride and there is a way in which Christian matrimony becomes Eucharistic in that same sense of the husband giving his own flesh to the bride in this kind of fruitful union definitely talk more about that later I know you talk about that a little later in your book wanted to read a quote the Eucharist stands as the greatest of the seven sacraments because it is it not only communicates God's grace but makes the Son of God truly present to us in tangible fashion and the word Eucharist means thanksgiving yes and so you know all of the sacraments are ordered towards our union with God but God himself becomes sacramentally tangibly present to us and the Eucharist and so all of the other sacraments are ordered towards it and the Eucharist shapes our lives completely because when you think of our eternal vocation what is it is perfect communion with God and so our eternal happiness begins even now through the Eucharist so yes it is the greatest of the sacraments as a cradle Catholic I've never thought about taking that next step then totally understand what you're saying about the sacraments got that then you go to how the Eucharist shapes culture in my mind I never made that connection your quote is culture is a fundamental necessity for human life how does the Eucharist play into them so I define culture simply as a way of life that as human beings you know it's not sufficient that we're just kind of born and just go off and do our thing like squirrels right you know so squirrels born doesn't have to go to squirrel school just knows how to be a squirrel and does squirrel things right whereas we as human beings we're initiated into a whole way of living which is a human culture so you're kind of born with human nature but you're born into a particular culture and that shapes how you live how you think how you relate to other people your aspirations everything and so we need culture that is we need to live in communion with other people and if we think of culture as a kind of communion we can see how the Eucharist is really the heart of that that God doesn't want us to be Christians and then to have a whole separate culture alongside of that that's actually secular right if you are a believing Christian you go to Mass every Sunday but then you live just a normal life apart from God that is secularism and so we need to live an integrated way of life and so God needs to be at the center of everything that we do and so the Eucharist actually gives life to culture that is in our reception of the Eucharist we become one with Christ and so Christ shapes how we think how we live all of our actions all of our relationships and so we build up a whole way of life flowing from the Eucharist as Catholics your quote in the book Christian culture has become too thin and Catholics urgently need to begin living their faith more robustly than ever before mm-hmm just to further your point there it exactly what you were saying and one other quote I wanted to pull out and you use the example of Benedictine monks entering monasteries to seek God after the collapse of the Roman Empire laying the foundation for a whole new civilization built around that search the quote Christians create culture not by making culture the goal but by putting God first in life yeah and I think that's it right God first and everything else will fall into place I love that the line from the Sermon on the Mount seek first the kingdom and everything else will be added on to you John Paul the second said that the crisis of faith is not just about faith but it's also about culture because how can you say that you believe something if you live in a way that's contradictory to what you say you believe and so John Paul said that faith has to become a culture because it has to be lived out it has to be right otherwise our faith is not genuine faith it's a difference between words and actions or word being in action salvation remains our first priority you write and only through union with Christ will our work have effect in changing the world this is in your section subtitle can the Eucharist save civilization to me that answer is a resounding yes yeah and it's not going to save civilization by you know our Lord kind of coming out and saying alright here's the action plan to save civilization first you need to elect this political party then you need to pass these laws and of course we need to come up with those kinds of things right but what do we need first the biggest problem facing the world today is that we are lacking God I mean God is the ultimate answer and I think sometimes we can say yeah yeah I know but but really the election that's coming up or or the tax laws or you know fixing education and we are called to address all of these problems but we will not be able to do it unless we are first rooted in God and communion with God and building up the foundation of Christian culture as a way of life that flows from our faith that is actually what will enable us to save civilization and we can look back to history the Benedictine monks right they rebuilt Western civilization after the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West by seeking God above all else and because they put God first then economics and education even healthcare because that flowed from the monasteries all of that flowed out of their seeking God first and I think that's an important model for us today well we can definitely over complicate things we can get in our own way so much if you have a very clear goal like that I think that is something we can all take strength from and clarity from in our everyday lives you mentioned a Eucharistic revival in your next section in the book immersed in that source and summit of the Christian life here's the quote the church expresses the supreme importance of the Eucharist by calling it the source and summit of the Christian life what does that mean to you here yeah you know Pope Benedict said that just like we see the eclipse of God in the world we can actually also have an eclipse of God in the church that is we can be so focused on doing things for God or you know just like you can be so caught up in politics and economics in society well there's politics and economic concerns within the church and so when we go to church is this clearly focused on God you know are we clearly focused on worshiping him being drawn out of ourselves is our parish life something that truly teaches us how to live on it on a daily basis that's all I think about the Eucharistic revival right that's that's a three-year revival that was launched by the US bishops in the summer of 2022 right so we're in the midst of this three-year revival right now and I really do think that the revival will be successful not only by deepening our faith and Christ Eucharistic presence which of course is the heart of the revival but by living it out robustly at the parish and you know through our Sunday worship but then having that inform the rest of our lives in my mind that will be a successful revival culminates I guess in 2024 in Indianapolis and I feel like that the church is trying to walk us through it through it I feel like your book is is doing that as well did you get that feeling as you were writing this and researching yeah I think it's a providential connection because of course as I was writing the book I didn't know that there would be a Eucharistic revival but in the Lord's providence he has the book coming out in the middle of the revival and I think it can be a great resource for parishes as we're thinking okay what is the revival really mean and I and I give a lot of concrete ideas especially in in that final section about living out the revival just for average Catholics the middle section would be more how can we reinvigorate the spirituality of the mass so I think that on that level the book can really help us to refocus with the Eucharistic spirituality and then the third section can really help us to enter more deeply into a Eucharistic life within the home well let's go to part one if you're ready for it the source the foundations of Christian culture you start with historian Christopher Dawson identifying the four major components of culture there mm-hmm yeah Dawson is one of my favorite historians because he traced all of human history through the lens of the relationship of religion and culture and so I defined culture simply as a way of life I've been influenced by Dawson even in that definition but he says that culture is a particular group of people coming together in a particular place with particular practices but all shaped fundamentally by what these people believe because that ultimately will give a vision for what what this group of people actually is aspiring to accomplish together what they value and so religion is the heart of culture and of course today we're really missing that heart but the first section of the book is organized around those principles so I actually begin with the second one so being rooted in nature itself and Dawson gives the example of you think of the difference between living in Amazonia and the Arctic right you know think of the Eskimos up there right I mean culture will be fundamentally different based on that starting point of our contact with nature and so I look at God's creation that's the starting point that he's given us through which we can build culture and in particular of course as we're talking about the Eucharist that is the development of the necessities of life bread and wine and really I mean bread and wine are so fundamental to the beginnings of human civilization that we could even just say food and drink you know think that civilization emerged in Mesopotamia and the surrounding areas you know roughly eight to nine thousand years ago with the domestication of grains and so you have bread and beer both coming out of that time period and wine as well I mean so this is really the very beginnings of human civilization and it's not simply okay about food and drink like yes we developed bread and now we can sustain ourselves some of the earliest archaeological sites that we've discovered are actually religious sites and there actually was offerings of food and of beer and of wine at these original sites and so we see that at the beginnings of human civilization you have cultivation and cult that are drawn together and so I actually like to look at these things together cult culture cultivation cult just being religion and worship culture being this this way of life and but cultivation being of course the work that is needed to sustain a people so cult cultivation culture kind of all coming together and so food and drink were always festive in the ancient world so not simply secular right you know so Christians should be opposed to any kind of secularism that simply looks at any aspect of life as not having a religious signification everything in human culture is ultimately religious in the sense that is ordered towards God and even the ancient people's realized this so food and drink were religious and festive in nature and that's why they had different rituals and celebrations that marked that the year the cycles of agriculture and so there would be large you know meals to celebrate significant days and then of course sacrifice which we see happening at the very beginning of thanking God for the gift of food and drink which of course are a great cooperation between God's creation and the work of our hands in your section cult culture and cultivation this quote stands out to me the second Vatican Council affirms that man comes to a true and full humanity only through culture through the cultivation of the goods and values of nature and you meant that you went back to the beginning I'm going to go back even further from the beginning after that because your next section in the book is how food was in the fall mm-hmm yeah just to say something about that quote from Vatican II first is that our cultivation is part of being made in the image of God because God is the Creator but he isn't still within us a desire to be creative and that is really an extension of God's work of creation and a cooperation with God the fact that we can take grapes and make wine right so God made the grapes but he inspired this kind of creativity within us to go farther and to try to perfect things it's like he left creation half finished and to say okay now you do the rest and so we see that you know with the beginnings of civilization and even technology in the ancient sense of trying to perfect the work that God is entrusted to us now in the story of the fall we see that the gifts of creation contain a test within them and so God has entrusted creation to us but he has said that we are not the ultimate masters and that we have to be obedient to him and how we use the gift of creation and so he enabled us to eat the fruit of all the trees but not the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil and so the fall actually happens through eating and that's very significant when we're thinking about the Eucharist because our salvation will then come to us through eating the Eucharist is a fruit of the tree of the cross but the fall is a fruit of a different tree right the tree that is good what's wrong with the eating of the fruit of the knowledge of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is that we were trying to define for ourselves what is good and evil rather than receiving them from God and so we have to receive creation as a gift and to always be in subordination to God and how we work and that's very important for us today right because there is a temptation even today to want to be the Lord the master the dominator of creation and that is just simply a continuation of the fall and so you mentioned you start at salvation history start there move to the Old Testament celebration and memory in the Old Testament is the subtitle to chapter 2 in this quote in many ways the Old Testament points to Jesus's establishment of the Eucharist that will bring about a new covenant for God's people and that leads us to the covenant with the people of Israel so just as we see in the beginnings of civilization that food drink celebration worship sacrifice that all of these things are bound up together so Israel is a holy nation which is formed by God himself and he is the king of the people of Israel and so he created for them their rights of worship and so what do we see in Israelite worship basically a giving back to God of the good things that he has entrusted to us and so sacrifice is literally making something holy that's what the word means it's etymology but it's giving up something that is good giving it to God to show that he is the one who is supreme now Israelite worship was also an act of memory because the sacrifices of Israel were also evocative of the exodus the fact that God liberated Israel from slavery in Egypt brought them into the promised land and so we think of the great festivals so of course the Passover is the best example of that this annual commemoration of the liberation from Egypt but even if you could also look at the Feast of Booths of course this commemoration of the time in the wilderness that time of Israel stubbornness and having to learn to trust God but there was even a whole daily and weekly cycle of sacrifice in which both bread and wine were offered yet cereal offerings that's grain offerings and you had a libation of wine poured out to God every day and even within the tent of the meeting and then and then the temple right so the tabernacle and then the temple they actually had an altar of the presence and where you had the show bread this bread and wine that were placed out in front of the Holy of Holies to to be an image of God's presence and of course when we think about the Eucharist right this is a very clear foreshadowing of what would happen in the gift of Jesus's body and blood of his presence and the show bread could actually be translated as the bread of the face right and so Jesus will reveal himself to us in the bread and wine which becomes his body and blood but that is foreshadowed both in the bread and wine of the Passover and then the daily offerings in this show bread which was presented to the Lord in Israelite worship and you mentioned before the importance of keeping God first for us today for those in Israel in the Old Testament this quote jumped out at me God formed a distinct culture in Israel one guided by a unique form of worship worship should always remain the priority over work political success and even life itself Israel continued to struggle with this reality however yeah and you can look at the life of Israel as a pedagogy as a teaching God was trying to teach them how to be in relationship with him in worship was the heart of that if we talk about putting God first right sacrifice is an image of God being first over every other good thing and so this is something that we've carried into the life of the church that our daily sacrifices the one sacrifice of Christ and it shows us just as Jesus said not my will but your will the ultimate sacrifice is ourselves and that's what Israel had to learn that the worship the sacrifice of animals or that are the grain offering or the libation of the wine it's all meant to say I am giving myself to God through this worship and Jesus this is getting into the next chapter of it but but Jesus embodied that most fully for us on the cross this giving of his own life to the father and we share in that offering when we go to mass so we move from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant Jeremiah fulfilling the prophecies of Jesus's birth doing that the incarnation the abiding center of all things is the title of chapter 3 and this quote goes back to what you talked about before the rescue mission right Jesus entered the world for a rescue mission divinizing human life from within rather than seeking the meaning and purpose of our existence blindly by ourselves the word of God shown his light into our darkened world and sought us out and then you go to John's quote from chapter 1 the word became flesh and he dwelt among us yes and so Jesus is born in a manger in Bethlehem the house of bread right so main a manger that's a quick what I didn't know this until I read the book so Bethlehem translates to the house of house of bread incredible he's born in the house of bread in a manger which is a place of eating and so the incarnation itself that is Jesus is taking on a human flesh is Eucharistic in itself he was born to be eaten and the rescue mission is not simply restoring the Garden of Eden right he does actually something even much more than that because as you said right he divinizes us that is by eating the flesh of the Son of God we become one with him that we become Christ we become sons in the Son to share in his own divine life that's the goal of the incarnation and so in the Old Testament there was a prohibition against drinking blood why because it says that the blood was the life of a being and there was a respect for that right so we actually respect the animals that we eat we drain their blood and then you know they could be sacrificed or cooked or whatever but there was a kind of respect but then Jesus kind of breaks that taboo by saying drink my blood that's shocking but if the blood is the life of something well Jesus actually wants us not only to consume the life of his humanity but actually his own divine life that's the goal of the Eucharist to me it's only logical that something shocking would come from the Son of God God himself on earth as those back then were all taking it at the same time it makes sense that it shouldn't be normal and every day and in taking on our flesh is a quote the word established a bridge between God and humanity overcoming the abyss that arose since the fall seeing Jesus as the bridge really hits home with me I never heard it quite described in that way and that was a scandal to the Jews so drinking blood eating flesh and drinking blood was a scandal to the Jews as we see in John 6 but even being that bridge the fact that a human being could be a bridge to God was also scandalous because part of what God was teaching the Israelites in the Old Testament is that he was holy other that that he was supreme that he was beyond the world that he couldn't be reduced to an idol right and that even you could not picture God right that the divine essence was beyond any description any depiction any reduction but then Jesus as Paul says is the icon of God and so it seems on the surface to contradict the lesson of the Old Testament by saying oh wait but now here I am you can see me you can touch me and you can even eat me it's incredible right I mean it is beyond our comprehension that the God who is holy other who is beyond us now says I will come within you in a lot of ways I feel like we're blessed to be 2,000 years removed from that as opposed to seeing that and trying to take that all in in real time I can't imagine we've used the word shocking before I think that is I don't even know if there's a word for it we should be shocked even today right so even though it's not as roll as it was for the Jews but if you really think about it okay the God who simply exists has always existed will always exist no beginning no end no change that God has become man and not only has become man but has humbled himself to taking the appearance of bread and wine so that I can eat him you should be utterly amazed by that and part of what I'm trying to overcome in the book is that we take that gift for granted it becomes ordinary and routine because oh well I I receive the Eucharist every single Sunday and so yeah it's just what we do as Catholics no right it it can't just be something that we do as Catholics I mean this has to be every time you know appreciating this great miracle and this great gift and never taking it for granted trying to completely open up ourselves to receive it new every single time and I love how you get into that a little later on in the book right now back to Jesus and his even his miracles right feeding his people talking about the bread and the wine Jesus his first miracle right you get into that you point out I think there might be some reason that it was water to wine the first like that can't be just a coincidence right it was a transubstantiation right transubstantiation it's one of those great Catholic words that were like what the heck does that mean I don't know I'll just memorize it or something but it just means thing changing this is what it really means right and so we see already at Cana that Jesus is changing one thing to another and it is Eucharistic because it's a symbol of his hour in which blood and water will flow forth from his side and so yeah we see that already you know really coming into the spotlight you know through that miracle but when you look at the entire life of Jesus through the lens of the Eucharist you see that he is constantly pointing us in that direction so yes the division of the lobes is Eucharistic because it says that he gave thanks and broke the bread Eucharistic of course the great discourse John 6 I am the bread of life you know unless you eat my body and drink my blood you will not have life within you I mean it is so very clear and he when does he say that at the Passover even something like the our father give us this day our daily bread well it's epi ucyon in the Greek and that actually means beyond being is kind of a translation of it and so you could say you could translate the our father give us this day our super substantial bread and Jerome didn't actually know how to translate it because it's a unique Greek word it's nowhere else in the Bible it's nowhere else in ancient literature that epi ucyon and so Jerome hedges bets and he translated it daily because it's kind of like beyond substantial so give us kind of everything that we need that's one translation but he translated it super substantial in the Latin in a different gospel right because it comes up in Matthew and Luke so he translated differently in both gospels and when we simply say give us this day our daily bread we miss the fact that that is actually a Eucharistic prayer give us this day our super substantial bread that which goes beyond what we need this kind of heavenly bread and so that is meant to be our daily prayer this prayer for Jesus as the bread of life so there's so much there once again that we kind of take for granted and that we can miss only human nature but just thinking about it you get you're in your daily routine or you're in your super substantial routine massively different connotation or at least in my brain we can bring them together our daily routine as a Christian is meant to be super substantial supernatural and the Eucharist is what makes everything that we do everything that we are to be different and to be divine in Jesus Christ you get back into what we talked about before kind of how you introduce the book again back to Emmaus actually at the day of the resurrection to bring this story of Jesus kind of to a almost not a full close but circle certainly circle it back around yeah and what is the prayer that the two disciples kind of speak to Jesus not even knowing it's a prayer remain with us Lord you know because evening draws near remain with us Lord and you know we can look back to even the Last Supper discourse in John's gospel of course the Last Supper is where Jesus instituted the Eucharist and he really shows us that the meaning of the crucifixion where he's giving his flesh and blood for us as the new Passover lamb the Passover lamb has to be consumed right within the Passover meal so that's a crucial aspect of the Passover is that the the flesh of the lamb needs to be eaten in order to enter into the Covenant and that's what we see happening but the Last Supper discourse in John's gospel starting we see in chapter 15 and then following is where I think Jesus gives us the deep meaning of the Eucharist where he talks about abiding in him as being you know the the branches of the vine you know all of that is deeply Eucharistic but I think we can we can overlook that as well and he says that the communion that I have with the Father just as he and I are one so you will be in me that's my favorite line in all of the scripture I mean because he says that I and the Father are one and he says okay so the unity that I have with the Father that's the kind of unity that I want you to have with me that's Eucharistic that's becoming one flesh and also one spirit because in the Last Supper discourse that's when he says I will give you the helper the spirit to be in you and so we see that you know in our union with Christ we're one flesh with him but also one spirit with him and so when we when we look at what's happening at the journey to Emmaus he's showing the disciples how this communion of being one flesh and one spirit with him will take place and that is through the breaking of the bread and now you transition from that to the church and taking that right almost to the next step or to just evolving it with the Eucharistic church Christ's body in the world the the title of chapter 4 with this quote the Eucharist helps us to understand the reason the church's existence for the church's existence to cherish and guard Jesus's presence in the world and to foster communion around it for the salvation of souls and that leads to the growth of a Eucharistic church yes you know that the church has failed in so many ways over 2,000 years but the church has succeeded where it mattered most do this in memory of me that is a kind of mission statement for the church do this in memory of me the church is built around that communion we have been faithful to that we've been clinging to that it's gotten us through the last 2,000 years and so part of what I do in this chapter is to look at how the church is unpack the meaning of that command what does it mean to do this in memory of Jesus what does that mean for the life of the church because the church is the body of Christ Paul teaches that in 1 Corinthians right that we are members of the body and Paul says in first Corinthians you know do you not realize that when you are when you eat the bread that you are entering into communion with the body of Christ and that is what the church fundamentally is that we are the body of Christ the temple of the Holy Spirit so one in flesh one in spirit with Christ and we are meant to be a sacrament of Christ in the world that happens to the Eucharist being the flesh and blood of Christ in the world drawing others into communion once again the Eucharist is a mission it's not passive well we're just going to receive this from our Lord yes of course I mean that constitutes us as the body of Christ but it's also an active mission and that we're meant to continue to draw people into that and that's part of why Paul was chastising the Corinthians he said because you come together to celebrate the Eucharist and yet you have divisions amongst yourself the Eucharist is meant to bring communion within the church which is then meant to inspire us to go out and to draw others into that communion and you you mentioned now the development of theology the idea the Eucharist remaining the same yet developing in the articulation of its details and implications and there are a few major stages there yes it's really incredible that we see testimony to the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist right away in the early church you know you have the did a case some people say maybe written even around the year 60 saying that you had to confess your sins before receiving the Eucharist they had to do so in a worthy manner Ignatius of Antioch around the year 100 talking about heretics denying that the Eucharist is the flesh of Christ you have even Justin Martyr in the mid 2nd century so mid 100s already talking about transubstantiation does he use that term no but but he says that this is no longer ordinary bread because it becomes the body of Christ well that's what transubstantiation is this is not something medieval it's there from the beginning you have Cyril of Jerusalem really unpacking the meaning of the Eucharist in his catechetical discourses we have Saint Ambrose also talking about transubstantiation and he even does use language very similar to transubstantiation of one thing becoming another thing through the Lord's power in the Middle Ages we see an important development in theology and that's where the term transubstantiation does become explicit because there were certain people Beringer of Tours is one of the greatest examples of this of people saying well you know the Eucharist is just symbolic so the church had to say no there is a substantial presence what does that mean well substance is what a thing truly is and so to say that the Eucharist is not just a symbol of the Lord it is his true presence his body and blood are substantially made present within the Eucharist and Thomas Aquinas becomes the great theologian that lays out even how that happens right through the the sacramental grace of the church and then of course you know a lot of those controversies come up again within the Reformation many people many of the so-called reformers we would actually call them revolutionaries as Catholics that they also denied the true presence of Jesus in the Eucharist there's a whole bunch of different variations of Protestant theology Luther said that Jesus was present in the Eucharist even though he denied transubstantiation and so he said the bread is present and the body of Christ is present Zwinly said it was just a symbol Calvin said it was a spiritual presence you know that accompanies the bread right so you have all these different variations but all of the reformers so-called once again denied that there is a transubstantiation that occurs and they also denied the fact that the mass is a sacrifice but really once again a sacrifice is a sacred offering to God it is not a new sacrifice so a lot of the reformers said well Catholics are crucifying Christ again but we believe that the mass is the one sacrifice of Christ made present to us it's a robust memory do this in memory of me that we're drawn into the Last Supper that we're drawn to the foot of the cross through the mass and that's what Jesus himself taught us when you simply look at the Gospels it's a classic to me that you have the so-called reformers and they say no no that's not right and then you ask them well what's right and then a ton of different opinions yeah it's it's classic I mean we see it all I see it all the time in my life today for sure now we go to Eucharistic holiness going to specific saints to guide us I think it's one of the great blessings of the Catholic Church right not only the Eucharist and how you just explained it to us how we see it much differently than others but then we're not on our own it's not just us go figure it out or go read a book and then go do it you have so many guides along the way these saints at the top of that list yes in the church we are part of an unbroken communion of 2000 years and that communion is a communion of people like even now we're the part of the communion of saints those on earth and purgatory and in heaven we're all together as one church and so we are in communion with a lot of these great Eucharistic saints I already mentioned a couple of them you know Ignatius of Antioch or Thomas Aquinas these great teachers but the saints are the ones who teach us what it means to live a Eucharistic life they teach us how faith becomes flesh within our lives and so you know some of them like Saint Tarsitius right he was actually a martyr of the Eucharist he died protecting the Eucharist from a mob who who wanted to kind of wrench it away from him as he was taking the Eucharist to those who were in prison we see some of the great saints who are related to the liturgy Saint John Chrysostom with the Byzantine liturgy or Saint Gregory the Great kind of solidifying the Latin mass for the west Saint Francis of Assisi a lot of people don't realize that he had such a deep devotion to the liturgy he said poverty and all things accept the liturgy where he thought we should kind of lavish our devotion and attention to the Lord and some of the saints that would be very familiar you have Saint Catherine of Siena who just lived off of the Eucharist for seven years Saint Margaret Mary Alacoc when she's teaching us about the Sacred Heart right that there is a deep connection between the devotion of the Sacred Heart on first Fridays and receiving the Eucharist it is meant to be a Eucharistic devotion actually St. Alphonsus Ligurie creating many devotions to the Eucharist and some others that are not as well known Saint Peter Julian Amard I love his writings on the Eucharist he was a great Eucharistic Apostle and people should really look him up or Saint Anthony Mary Claret where the Eucharist remained within his heart even in a tangible way Saint Pius X my confirmation Saint actually who really was encouraging us to receive the Eucharist more frequently if we were properly disposed and prepared and then of course Saint John Paul the Great right who he evangelized people throughout the world by gathering these huge crowds together to celebrate the Eucharist throughout the world and I failed to mention I meant to that's one of the first that's the first scene in the book I believe it's kind of how you bring us in and of our generation let's say of a certain age that's certainly one of my first memories Saint Pope John Paul II at the time being such a world leader some of the largest gatherings in human history right where he is overseeing and then being kind of welcomed back to communist Poland at the time yeah so in 1979 he goes back you know the eight days that changed the world right during his visit to Poland and there was a very large mass in Warsaw and there was just this chant during the mass for a very long time and you know people wanted to break it up and John Paul said no but just the the crowd at mass saying we want God we want God and it comes back what right because that is the one thing necessary the one thing that we need is God present to us and of course that happens most fully within the mass itself so now time to go to part two the summit the Eucharistic heart of the Christian life and this quote jumps right out the it's not an exaggeration to say that the mass is Christian culture its source and summit giving rise to and perfection or perfecting the Christian life on earth so now it's about the experience with the Eucharist and and I think I might appreciate this section maybe more than any other because it is okay now you know about it the source right but now okay now what about your experience living with it and the temptation when talking about Christian culture is to focus on the outward elements of culture but if we go back to Dawson's insight religion is the heart of culture and so if we're talking about Christian culture the heart of Christian culture is the mass you cannot imagine Catholic life without the mass it is the heart of who we are is the beating heart of the Christian life that that really when you think of what the heart does right the blood flows to the rest of the body that is absolutely true when it comes to the Eucharist from our encounter with the Lord and the mass we see just the blood of Christ pulsating throughout the rest of the body and giving life to it and animating everything else that we do and for Catholics who go every Sunday and get them in a rut or routine I feel like this section gives I can certainly I've been there it gives us a bit of a blueprint for maybe how you can get out of that rut how you can maybe start to see it differently just like you mentioned instead of going looking at things from the outside in you see it more from the inside out and that's the nature of a sacrament right what's a sacrament an outward sign instituted by Christ to give us grace some people say an outward sign of an invisible and hidden reality so you can go to mass and you just kind of can look at it from the outside maybe yawn a little bit but this section is helping us to take off the blinders and to look more deeply what is really happening at the mass and what it is is ultimately it's the prayer of Christ himself he is the one praying and the mass and the spirituality of the mass is joining in the prayer of Christ worshiping the Father with him and so this becomes our prayer this becomes the heart of our own spiritual life that we're drawn to the Father within and through Christ and ultimately transformed into Christ through the Eucharist encounter with him I love how you use Bishop Robert Barron's phrase the Catholic thing yeah that's what mass is growing up in the South not around a lot of Catholics like I I can hear other my Protestant friends saying oh that's the Catholic thing the mass yeah and if somebody were to say you know as a Catholic what would you say would be the number one thing that you would cling to that you would say this is who we are this is what's most distinctive about us yeah it's the Eucharist it's the mass absolutely that is who we are and so what I'm trying to do in the book is to say if the mass is most important how can we make it most important in our lives how can we have that be the thing that shapes everything else that we do and you call it a foretaste of the eternal right and that is kind of looking most deeply into the heart of the mass right the mass opens up a window into heaven a window even into the life of God because our communion with Christ right he's the Son of God he's one with the Father and the Holy Spirit and so when we receive the Eucharist we literally are entering into heaven because we are communing with God the Holy Trinity at that moment and so yeah we really need to look deeply and to pray deeply um so that we can really break through that barrier we talked earlier about Christ being a bridge he's a bridge for us at the mass right and so when we pray at mass we can go across that bridge into heaven and into the very life of God you talk about the importance of ritual when it comes to the mass quote every culture which until now had religion at its center expressed its deepest convictions through religious ritual and the ritual of the mass goes all the way back to the acts of the apostles and when we're very individualistic right so we want to say well my spirituality is about me right you know and part of the sacramental ritual as we say no it's about Jesus right and so our ritual at the mass is basically entering into the action of Christ which was established all the way at the Last Supper itself and of course enacted on the cross and what do we see in acts of the apostles already right they were breaking bread in homes um they were abiding by the teaching of the apostles they were serving the poor all of this is an integrated Catholic culture right there at the very beginning with the Eucharist at the center I love how you you end your chapter five here talking about the key elements of the ritual the mass can be traced back to the earliest celebrations and it takes us right through mass right starting with the sign of the cross with the holy water and going all the way through and Justin martyr was the one who gave us that first description mid-second century so the mass has not changed and it's essential outline since then and the mass itself is meant to be a journey so that's what I kind of go through and I love actually I start before the holy water right walking up the steps and going through the door it's like you're entering into this gateway into into the supernatural life once you even go into the church the holy water evokes our own baptism and then you know when we go through the way that the mass itself is structured right you have introductory rights which are meant to kind of lead you prepare you for the heart of the mass you receive God's word his revelation which centers us on him and then of course the Eucharistic prayer which is the very center of the mass where we're praying with Christ and then of course receiving him our communion but then we are then kind of blessed and sent out into the world right so the the mass itself is a whole journey and I picture myself my family my parish as you go through it in the book and it really helps me to understand to try to implement the way of your thinking into my life so I appreciate that part of the book specifically thank you for that now now you're talking about Christ's sacrifice in in praying the mass the union with that sacrifice which I think from a a day to day realistic perspective can be I think sometimes the toughest thing for me personally to to attach to if I'm not in the right mindset or without being able to look at it maybe how you walk us through it here and it takes spiritual effort right to say what does it mean to actively participate well from the outside it looks like you stand you sit you kneel you make gestures do what everybody else does right yeah yeah yeah and right it's and so those gestures and movements are meant to lead us into the prayer of Christ but active participation ultimately is something that happens within us because we are attentive to what's actually happening at mass the prayer and the sacrifice of Christ and we are making that our own and it helps to actually to pray that to make an actual intention and so I give like examples in the book of actual prayers that you can say you know that I am offering this sacrifice to the Father with Christ I am doing it for these intentions right to to honor God to make reparation for sin to obtain grace for myself and and for other people so that we come to mass with these particular intentions that help us to be more attentive to the spirituality of the mass itself almost like a hack I guess would be the current buzzword for it right I have to because I don't know about you but when I'm in mass sometimes I will feel myself almost pulling out to to not being it's not experiencing it how I should if I'm not keeping all of that on the forefront or in the forefront and being a part of it that active participation like you're talking about those prayers I feel like get you right back in yes it's very I find it very helpful so prayer before mass and then there's prayers before communion prayers after communion prayers after mass they kind of guide us through the dispositions that we need to really bear the most fruit during the mass in our prayer and so you know once again you can just kind of show up and go through the motions but really taking some extra time for prayer before mass after mass making a good communion these things really enrich our spirituality and how we pray the mass and while these are things that we can do that is kind of about us make getting the most out of the mass the paradox of this line is fascinating to me and really hits home too the mass is not about what I can get out of it but what I offer to God in worship that's right and because it is about Jesus right so them thankfully when I go to mass it's not just about my own efforts because what could I really do to make up for my own sins and to obtain grace it's Jesus who does that but what's beautiful is that Jesus invites us to cooperate with him he actually wants us to make his actions our actions and our actions to become his actions that's what communion is about right there's an interpenetration a cooperation between us and Christ in the actions of the mass it brings me back to that bridge that you talked about earlier the bridge of Jesus just being born to begin with and then in the mass specifically that he's there taking us to the Eucharist and that bridge he's the great high priest but we participate in his priesthood through our prayers at the mass you mentioned those specific prayers that you can say before during after anyone that you pops out to you a favorite prayer yeah absolutely and you know something that's helpful I think in the book is that I include a lot of these in the back so you'll be able to to reference them but the prayer of Saint Thomas Aquinas before and after communion those are really go-to prayers for me because Aquinas says you know Lord like I'm coming before you like a beggar you know I'm sick I'm wounded I'm dirty and and I need you to really supply you know the things that that heal me and that that clean me and that and that really enrich me through my encounter with you at the mass so yes I love the prayers of Saint Thomas Aquinas that imagery of humility right that takes you right there doesn't it impressive that's good stuff fasting and confession you mentioned in the practice of the Eucharist how important both of those things are well the church requires us to fast before receiving communion now before the 1950s that was from midnight the night before all the way until you receive communion pious the 12th made it three hours and then Paul the six made it one hour before communion but that's something we should really think about right that the church says there needs to be a break with normal eating and drinking so that you can then approach this supernatural eating and drinking in a different way and of course the church asks us to to even have Friday to be a day of penance abstinence from meat is the default penance throughout the entire world for Catholics and so that's also a different way of eating I'm taking a step back from my normal patterns so that Friday can be a preparation day for Sunday and for that eating now confession is even more important right so I mentioned first Corinthians earlier about what Paul says to the community there and you know he says that if you approach the body without discernment you bring condemnation upon yourself and so how do we really do this and Paul talks about you know even being forgiven of our sins right in that context and so if we approach the Eucharist in mortal sin we are committing the mortal sin of sacrilege and so Catholics have to confess their sins at least once a year so if you're not doing that I mean please do that right that's that is the bare minimum that we need to do to prepare for receiving the Eucharist worthily and and that unless there's a grave reason we need to attend mass every single Sunday and is is that why the requirement is just for the Eucharist for once a year right so with confession so the tradition is that you would you would go to confession during Lent and then receive the Eucharist during Easter so that would be your Easter communion I mean in the Middle Ages Catholics received the Eucharist at Christmas Easter and Pentecost only three times a year unless you were like religious or particularly devout lay person and you had permission from your spiritual director to receive more frequently and that made receiving the Eucharist a big deal right it was only three times a year but I think even if we are weekly communicants we need to make receiving the Eucharist a big deal we need preparation and if you receive the Eucharist regularly you need to go to confession regularly because the two sacraments go together in the church's life yeah it's fascinating I didn't realize the history of that and I think it's easy for us to get caught up and if it's just a weekly occurrence human nature takes over maybe it's not as special if it were to be three times a year or once a year knowing that history is very helpful I think and and I'm shifting my mindset anyway into making the Eucharist what it needs to be there and love how you took us through the mass here in part two let's move to part three the Christian life building a Eucharistic civilization you name the book how the Eucharist can save civilization so this is really the crux of it in a lot of ways that's right so we looked at the source the summit and the Christian life and once again my thesis in the book is that the Eucharist is not something simply to be believed or even just to be celebrated it is to be believed it is to be celebrated but it must be lived and I would say that is what is most distinctive about the book is that I'm trying to help Catholics to think how can I live a more Eucharistic life how can the Eucharist really be the center of everything that I think and that I do and you start in chapter nine going back to culture again the Eucharist the heart of culture and again it's that not just the heart of the mass right the heart of culture starts there and then to me I love this line in the the section of life of festivity the line is we underestimate the power of a meal I think that relates to us on such a basic level that it's easy for us to ignore it and take it for granted I know it is for me lunch is coming up right lunch comes up every day but it can be so powerful yeah and even the the the term companion you know means someone with whom you break bread literally that's what it means right and so I think that you know really if we're rooted in the Eucharist that all of our eating and drinking should be different and that you know the family meal becomes a kind of sacrament lowercase s right of family life that it is the ritual that sustains family and brings a deeper communion but that's obviously true with friends and that could even briefly bring us back to the beer option right I mean sitting down for a meal or a beer or a glass of wine with a friend it opens up conversation it opens up a deeper communion with other people and bringing that then into the Eucharistic sense of it is what you do here and you do it so well for instance the quote the the more we think about everything God has given us the more joyful thankful and ready to celebrate we should be it's such a almost a light light's probably not the right word optimistic joyful way of looking at things why do you celebrate because you're you're happy about something and something is good there's something worth celebrating but we have those things right why do we celebrate Christmas so much and our cultures lost sight of that but it's because something really good happened why do we celebrate Easter something really important really good has happened and and I think part of Catholic culture eroding is that yes we go to mass for these important occasions but that celebration is meant to continue from the mass it's meant to flow from the mass so that in the home through our eating our drinking our time together how we decorate our house what we do together that these things also express the joy that we have in our faith quote here genuine celebration points to the unending feast in heaven is a fantastic line and I never thought made that connection in my mind but now I absolutely well and you use the example of a toast like what a great example of of joy like who can enjoy a toast yeah that's right and it's an affirmation of the goodness so I'm gonna toast to somebody what am I saying this person is good I'm wishing them well it's a kind of blessing and traditionally it really was I mean prosit in Latin you know which came post in German it's like may this thing be it's a blessing and every culture takes their own spin on it right you mentioned the Italian version and yeah in the whole way it helps me really envision it and and feel that joy so well with that example then you get into the rhythm of life so you start there with the heart of culture the festivity and get to the rhythm of life and daily prayer starts that in in this section and I think it's a only right that it with I think that this is the most important element of living a Eucharistic culture because if religions the heart of culture then I think for us it's prayer and worship which is the heart of how we live as Christians and that needs to be every day right there should not be a day that goes by without prayer the our father was the kind of daily prayer we've talked about that before give us this day our daily bread and so the our father is this prayer that shapes the day but I would say if we could all have 15 minutes of silent meditation and contemplation every single day we're really giving a space for God to enter into our lives more fully and that's just the beginning right you know we can go to daily mass plus this 15 minutes which could become a half an hour rents we get you know more in the habit of it right and and that really makes God to be the center of our day God is then the center of our week through Sunday and Sunday itself was always known as the Lord's day not the Lord's hour the Lord's day how can this be a day set apart for God and my family so that so that everything I do this day is different it's something special something celebratory it's something that is refreshing that gives life in which we enter into true leisure all right I think that that is the key point and then so you have the day the week but then also the year that the the life of Christ which is celebrated in the liturgical seasons should be what really gives us a rhythm to the entire year so think of advent right we're preparing for the Lord's coming you have epiphany and then of course the great season of Lent in which is a time of purification and renewal with Christ and the wilderness then you have even more days 50 days to celebrate in in Easter and then really this time of the church following Pentecost so that should really be what grounds the family life and my own prayer life throughout the entire year the quote alternating times of penance and rejoicing makes the story of salvation history come alive to us through the mass and also shapes the rhythms of our family gatherings and celebrations that sums it up perfectly in my mind because it can't always just be celebration and it shouldn't always be on the other end either it's this rhythm that you you speak of and I think you pointed out so beautifully you also mentioned specific feast days and in this book how the Eucharist can save civilization the specific ones centered around the Eucharist like the Feast of Corpus Christi and Corpus Christi you know was an octave and there used to be you know processions around the church in the neighborhood throughout the entire octave now today as a as a singular feast this should really be a big deal right you know setting up altars outside of the church really making it a very big day of processions for the entire parish this is an opportunity to bring the Eucharist out into the world and begin shaping even our own neighborhoods you know through our festivity Eucharistic miracles you mentioned you touch on here and we'll get into that a little bit more I wanted to move chapter 11 that you entitled making space for Jesus the tabernacle of the world and you start with architecture as a Eucharistic sign that churches should look like churches and that is that they should lead the mind in the senses upward to God and I love this even you know I just moved across the country all right and so as you're driving on the highway you you know you pass a town or a city and you see those spires coming up it is a reminder to pray it's a reminder that Jesus is present within that church and it really is a sign that God is here God is present you know our culture may be secular but you know what he's still here and that there is beauty in this world there is a place for you to come to encounter God I mean I think this is really important and so if we build beautiful churches we have spires domes towers all of these things these will be a sacred sign within our culture I love how you point out that you look up to those yeah you're looking up that's not a coincidence yeah absolutely incredible Eucharistic miracles I mentioned you touched on that you get into it here so fascinating to me we'll link it in this interview the website from blessed carlo acutus died at 15 but was so fascinated he created a website that we can go to to check out all the Eucharistic miracles more than 20 countries in the world and it's right there just to point and click on for us here in the 21st century incredible all the major continents right you can look in the Philippines in India right there was a host with Eucharistic face that happened recently in India and so sometimes we think miracles oh yeah those are things that happened in the past right no we have Eucharistic miracles happening now in Mexico to in the last decade in Poland or decade or so right I mean so these are things that are happening right before our eyes and what is happening with these miracles Jesus is saying I'm still here come back to me they're an invitation and so some of these people are like yeah like I don't really believe that but they have actually been tested scientifically and so we are able to say you know especially you can see a lot of heart muscle tissue that is coming into a lot of the host that's one particular form that these miracles take and it is really fascinating a couple of other general patterns and Eucharistic miracles besides the host turning into flesh the host actually bleeds the images appear on those hosts and they miraculously resist decomposition or destruction I feel like that one maybe sticks with me more than any other right in a scientific secular world where people are always looking to prove things or for evidence something that was supposed to go away never went away and sometimes they're combined because there were some some hosts that fell on the floor and so there was a priest who wanted to decompose them in water but instead they turned into flesh right and so there you have it resisting decomposition and miraculously turning into something else incredible let's move on to chapter 12 it's entitled fostering Eucharistic encounters honoring Christ's body in the world and the body as Eucharistic gift the quote is human beings are made in the image and likeness of God we've all heard that we all know that but then applying it to how the Eucharist can save civilization is what you do here yes because the Eucharist should help us to think of ourselves differently that Paul in 1st Corinthians once again he says that we are temples of the Holy Spirit but by receiving the Eucharist regularly we literally are tabernacles and so when we go out into the world we should be shaped by the Eucharistic gift we should think of ourselves differently we should think of other people differently that our bodies are related to Christ's body that he gave himself as a gift on the cross a gift to be consumed literally consumed now what about us like when we go out into the world how do we see other people do we see them as Christ or are we just thinking about ourselves right because Jesus did not come to think about himself he came to think about the Father and he came to think about those for whom he gave his life can we think about our lives in that same sense can we begin to see other people with the eyes of Christ because we're becoming Christ by receiving the Eucharist can we begin to see ourselves and our own bodies as a Eucharistic gift to be for other people and this is where I make that connection to marriage as well right because if marriage is the two becoming one flesh and we become one flesh with Christ this is where you know quoting our perspective seen we can see wait there's three here in this marriage I'm becoming you know one flesh with Christ I'm also becoming one flesh with my wife and our union and yet we are actually drawn together more deeply in our union by receiving the Eucharist together and I dedicated the book actually to my wife and to our shared Eucharistic life that has always been the center I met her in church actually and you know when we've always you know prayed together we've had this kind of Eucharistic union and of course the Eucharist is the center of our own family life and that really should be the case that our family should be centered in the Eucharist should be for the Eucharist and the more that we're rooted in the Eucharist the more that we do become for others for those who don't have that backstory I'm wondering if you have any ways to help move in that direction in a marriage specifically well you know if we say that religion is the heart of culture and we could say it's also the heart of marriage and family life as well and so I would say you know for a couple that's not deeply rooted and in the Eucharist I would say well you know obviously we go to mass together and that we're praying before mass even preparing for mass together we're praying after mass together but really it's taking time every day together in prayer and so the rosary you know is a very important family prayer and it's really opening ourselves to the mysteries of the faith praying lexio divina together spending time and adoration together because that's one of the key Eucharistic dispositions that we adore the Lord in the Eucharist when we go into a church or we go into the adoration chapel and that should really foster this disposition of continual adoration that I'm focused on God and when you think about it in marriage if you both are fostering this disposition of adoration that means we're looking together we are looking to the Lord together and if seeing him enables us to see other things differently that should enable us to see each other more deeply through the Lord good advice for sure in this book there are many instances of specific works works of art paintings altarpieces that you point to to exemplify the the massive impact at the time how religion is really a massive factor a massive factor on culture Salvador Dali here in one of your last chapters the sacrament of the Last Supper the quote is the Eucharist truly encompasses the whole world in a mystical sense that you are talking about in that is there a favorite piece of art that you have in there that really helps apply what you are trying to convey in this book you know I really love Angra's our lady's adoration of the host because you know I just love that she has her hands folded and that she is adoring the Lord and kind of modeling the disposition that we should have in our own devotion so I just and he did a few different versions of that and in every time I see that I'm just moved so deeply because I want to adore the Lord like our lady and now it's it's up to us to pick up the pieces of civilization you have as one subtitle in there and you mentioned Humpty Dumpty that's exactly where my mind goes to maybe it's my two-year-old but picking up the pieces of civilization and how the Eucharist can help with that you know all the king's horses and all the king's men put couldn't put Humpty together again and that's actually a sign of Adam literally it is Humpty Dumpty is meant to be us where humanity that the pieces have all been broken so the king's horses and his men that's the kind of the angels and human beings couldn't put it together but who could the king himself the king comes into his own to set it right now one of the things that that I point out in this final chapter on you know transforming civilization is that God ultimately doesn't care about civilization I mean literally right Jesus didn't say I have come into the world to be a ruler and I'm going to create a perfect kingdom and everything is going to be right well okay he did but what was the kingdom that he proclaimed the kingdom of heaven the kingdom of God that is his kingdom now there would be a temptation there to say okay yeah the kingdom of heaven that is just and heaven right that's not on earth but no we say that the kingdom of heaven is truly present on earth through the Eucharist right because the king is there and he is coming with all of the solutions that we need but they come to us by receiving the Eucharist it's not like receive the Eucharist and then you know you're gonna know exactly what to do to fix all the world's problems but this is the Lord's strategy and this really is a strategy that we have to to contemplate very deeply I'm coming to you and I want to fix you and I want to fix your neighbor who's kneeling next to you in the pew and your wife and your kids and your boss you're all here worshiping together and I'm coming inside of you to make you into myself and so when you go back home you should be different in your family life and when you go to work you should be different and if there's enough of you that I'm fixing from within then you should really be able to make a difference in the world I mean it's actually a heresy to say that Christ doesn't want to fix the world but we have to know how he wants to fix the world he cares more about souls than about civilization and by fixing souls he will fix the world and he's done it before so once again this is not hypothetical we know how the Lord does this how did he build up civilization in the west before through monasteries people seeking God before all else and when we seek God we open a doorway to him the more people who are devoted to the Eucharist and are giving their lives over to the Eucharist we're opening a door to our own lives to our families to our work and yes to our civilization that's not just throw away like you read this book because you wanted a blueprint for fixing civilization and then at the end I'm like well God doesn't really care about civilization I'm sorry no that's not the point of this but the point is that that really it is you know starting from the foundation our civilization has worn down to the foundation we need a proper foundation and the Eucharist and our prayer our encounter with Christ is that foundation I mean isn't that our faith that without Christ we can do nothing that's what he tells us but with him we can do anything we literally can he says you know you will do greater things than these what does that mean what greater miracles than he performed during his life you will do greater things than these do we have faith in that do we really believe that if we receive the Eucharist we can do greater things than Christ did in his public ministry so maybe we need greater faith first and we need to get our lives in order we need to get our family in order we need to get our work in order and this is a very important thing we need to get our local communities in order because we tend to think like well you know you know we really we just need to fix western civilization as a whole or we just need to fix the church as a whole or we just need to fix our country or we need to fix this particular political party no get your parish in order get your family in order get involved in local politics because I think we've seen the last few years local politics can make a big impact there are meaningful and impactful things that we can do and that's how God works you know first within what is right in front of us not dropping solutions out of the sky you know he he does do that occasionally Joan of Arc is a good example of that he can save a kingdom if he wants to but ordinarily he does it through all these little pieces where we're talking picking up the pieces of civilization that's right one piece at a time and you are a piece right that he will be picking up as he is rebuilding for the future and that leads to your conclusion the the Latin loosely translates to go the masses ended what's the phrase that you use really it's go you are sent right you you are being sent on a mission the missa s the word missa and mission are related etymologically now ita missa s is somewhat mysterious people say well we're not really sure how to translate that but you know it's really could be the sending of the gifts out to those who were sick and couldn't make mass but but it's also it is a dismissal but as you are being sent on a mission I think that is very clear ita missa est if you have encountered the Lord at this mass then you are being sent with that gift into the world and how will God save civilization it is through you you are the plan we as Catholics there's over a billion Catholics in the world you're telling me that we can't do something to save civilization of course we can but it is getting our lives in order getting the church in order right about being more focused on the Eucharist and more focused on God even within the church right but Pope Benedict said there is a secularism within the church right that we're not focused enough on the supernatural and what matters most so he said what is God's plan for saving the world it's us that is he came into the world and he died for us on the cross and he gathered his church around himself that's what the word church means is kind of assembly or gathering he's gathered us together right now what's God doing in the world where is God present in the world right now in the community of the church and you know it's too easy to think about the church as one organization amongst many but that is not true we're not a denomination we're not just like a religious body we are the mystical body of Christ in the world and we are meant to permeate the whole we are meant to be the soul of the world we are meant to bring healing we are meant to bring truth to bring peace to bring goodness to bring beauty and we are meant to inspire people to really to evangelize them to support them to heal them to gather people together to work together to cooperate even with people on the natural level right just to say we're going to work for just the goodness of marriage and family life with everyone who's willing to work together with us on that we are going to to uphold the dignity of human life because that is more and more counter cultural so how will the church rebuild civilization it's recovering these goods that we are undermining in our culture and so it is that we are going to have to be willing to die for the goodness of human life the way to be willing to die for the goodness of marriage and family life that we're going to have to be willing to die for our lord by putting him first and that might literally be true but even more mystically it means that we're dying to ourselves to live for what matters most that we're giving ourselves over to that completely so that he can live in and through us that Jesus will save civilization that he will save this world by living in the members of his body and acting through them in the world I think it's a perfect conclusion because we talked about it at the beginning Jesus came on a rescue mission and now our mission is to go out and to help save this civilization through him and the Eucharist one soul at a time it's great stuff a great way to end today really appreciate your time really appreciate the book how the Eucharist can save civilization Dr. Jared stop thank you