 So as I said last night, in this talk, I want to discuss how to defend the faith, not against objections from unbelievers or heretics or whatever, but against the demons. In August 2019, the superior general of the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, told an Italian magazine that Satan was not a real being, but a symbolic expression of evil, which I think was a symbolic expression of his stupidity. This is clearly heresy. Satan exists. The demons exist, and they hate you, and they want to drag you to hell. And unless you and I take seriously their existence and their influence in our lives, I think much of our lives will be inexplicable to us. In 1 Peter 5, 8 through 9, Saint Peter says, be sober-minded, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour, resist him firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world. So this is a universal predicament. Satan does not just limit himself to Scott Hahn and Pope Francis and whoever else, but us as well. We are at war. Trying to understand Christianity without reference to the demonic is a bit like trying to understand the Lord of the Rings without reference to Sauron. Imagine trying to explain the Lord of the Rings to somebody without reference to Sauron. What would you say? Well, you might say something like, there was this ring and it was the worst, and it was not conducive to the flourishing of Hobbiton. And so these two little fellas and a few of their friends got rid of it. Things were better after that. No one's going to read that story. And yet, very often, if we were to sum up the Christian faith, we might say something like, God exists and he loves us and he sent his son to die for us so that we could be in relationship with him and have eternal life. That's true, just like what I said about the Lord of the Rings was true. It just happens to be woefully insufficient. We are at war. Speaking of the Lord of the Rings, there was that lovely exchange between Phaedon and Aragorn. If you haven't read the books, you must, but the videos were quite good too. Phaedon says, I will not risk open war. And Aragorn says, open war is upon you whether you would risk it or not. We are in a spiritual battle. In his commentary on the creeds and Thomas Aquinas says that there are three sources from which the temptations we experience arise. It's not all from the devil. He says it's from the devil, the world and the flesh. He says, the devil would have us disobey God and not be subject to him. This is removed by faith since through it we know that he is the Lord of all things and must therefore be obeyed. We're also tempted by the world. The world tempts us either by attaching us to it in prosperity or by filling us with fear of adversity. And he says, but faith overcomes this in that we believe in a life to come better than this one. And hence we despise the riches or ought to of this world I ought to. And we are not terrified in the face of adversity or I am, but I'm a coward. Not that funny. Whatever. We're also tempted by the flesh. That's what I meant by my cowardice. The flesh, however, tempts us by attracting us to the swiftly passing pleasures of this present life. But faith shows us that if we cling to these things inordinately, we shall lose eternal joys. In all things taking the shield of faith, we read in Ephesians 6. We see from this that it is a very necessary thing to have faith. Why would Christ allow Satan and the demons to tempt us? Us Christians who have been baptized, who receive the sacraments and who pray, he says for five reasons. First, so that we may receive experience. So it's like taking Satan's temptations, all of these five things involve using them against him. And he quotes Sirach 349. What does he know who has not suffered? Second, to prevent arrogance. Unless the greatness of the revelation should exalt me. This is Saint Paul saying this. They was given a sting of my flesh, an angel of Satan to buffet me. The third reason he allows Christians to be tempted is to confound the devil. So that he may know how great is the strength of Christ, so great that he is not able to overcome it. This is Satan. An example of this is given in the person of Job. The fourth reason is so that we may be made stronger just as a soldier is made strong by experience that afterwards their children might learn to fight with their enemies and to be trained up for war. And fifth, so that he may, that is you, know his own dignity. Because when the devil attacks someone, it results in honor since the devil attacks those who are holy. So whenever we are tempted, Saint Gregory says there are three things that take place. And this is a quotation from Aquinas. Gregory says that there are three steps of temptation, namely suggestion, delight and consent. The first is from the outside and can be present without sin. The second is from the inside, that is delight, in which there begins to be sin, which indeed is perfected in consent, by consent. The first step could be present in Christ, but not the others, he says. So even though Christ was tempted, he wasn't tempted in the way we might think of temptation. It was impossible for Christ to sin. So we could say that it wasn't strictly impossible for the Blessed Virgin Mary to sin, though she never did, but it was impossible for Christ to be tempted and then to sin, and he never did. But how then do we combat these suggestions? Elsewhere in the Sumer, Aquinas talks about why we are tempted and he says that Satan tempts us in order to deceive us. And I was just sitting out there on a chair earlier and thinking to myself, what would those deceptions be that would take me out of the Christian walk and lead my soul to hell? What would they be? I think very often what I'm most afraid of are things like losing my health or my wife entirely losing hers, the death of one of my children perhaps, maybe somehow becoming destitute. Like I have all of these fears of these external things happening to me. But I don't really think that any of those things would lead me to renounce the Christian faith. I think what would lead me to renounce the Christian faith are the lies that I believe, that Satan wants us to believe about God and about others and about myself especially. I moved to Steubenville a year and a half ago and we moved in the middle of winter and it was the most trying time of my life. My wife's health completely gave way. She was hospitalized three different times. We didn't know what was wrong with her then and we don't know what's wrong with her now. And if you've ever been in Steubenville in the winter, it's not a pleasant place. I think Dante did, which is why he put the center of hell right in the middle of it. But I just wasn't well. I just wasn't good. I was believing lies about God and about myself. Lies about God like maybe he comes through for other people, but he doesn't come through for me. Maybe he's attentive to other people, but he's not attentive to me. Or lies about myself. Maybe he would be attentive to me if I hadn't so recklessly screwed up in so many areas. Lies about me like there is something fundamentally wrong with me. Matt Frad, something, I understand that we're sinners and so in a sense that's right, but something fractured at the core of me that was irredeemable and that whereas healing was possible for others such that they could then begin to live mature Christian lives, that somehow this just wasn't true for me. I don't know if I could have expressed it at the time because usually when we're under demonic attack, it's like a deep dense cloud descends upon our heads. We are no longer acting out of a place of peace, but we are sort of reacting to what's going on. And during that time, Dr. Bob Schuetz, show of hands if you know who he is. All right. If you have a choice to buy my book or his, never buy my book, always buy all of his. Dr. Bob Schuetz is a very good holy man, psychologist. He runs the St. John Paul, the second healing center down in Tallahassee. I think I got that name a little wrong, but anyway, he'd been texting me asking me if I would endorse one of his books on sexual brokenness because I'd done a few books on the topic and I wasn't really getting back to him because I was just not in a good place. And he texts me, how are you doing? This is what I texted him back. I said, I want to smoke pot and listen to Radiohead. So not great. And I fully meant it. And he said, we should pray. I said, okay, God, I say this to praise the man. We began meeting weekly over Skype for about seven months, met weekly, and we just prayed together and asked the Lord to reveal what lies I was believing, what lies that Satan would have me believe, where these lies stemmed from, and what the Lord would have to say about those things. It was funny about three weeks into this, I was experiencing this tremendous healing that I knew Christ wanted for me. And I said to him in a way I thought he would accept. I said, hey, listen, I've been thinking it would be helpful to find a therapist anyway. I'd love to be able to pay you for these sessions because I didn't want them to end. And I didn't want him to be the one to suggest it. So I said that. And he said, no, that's not what this is about. Cool. Okay. And I was realizing like a lot of these lies that I believed, a lot of the lies that you have believed about God and yourself, I think have been these like demonic whispers to you through perhaps things that have happened to you, things that others have said to you, even things that weren't objectively wrong that you interpreted as such. And you came to have an agreement with the demons about you, you know. And if you don't, if this is completely unfamiliar to you, if this is making you uncomfortable, Trent's talks upstairs, I don't know how to make this comfortable to you. It's almost like I don't know how you could not know it. We walk around with each other and we've got no idea what the hell each other's been through, you know, the sexual abuse, the abortion, the divorce that sent you spiraling, you know, the fact that you're a single mother with children and you're super self-conscious when you're at mass, the fact that you've been repenting of masturbation pornography for 800 years now. Just these lies that come in about who God is, his trustworthiness. And I came to believe through this prayer that much of my life I have just not believed that I was a delight. I believe the opposite of that. There's something wrong and this isn't, this isn't me on the couch here. I'm hoping that you'll take what I'm saying and you'll apply this to yourself, you know, but I just, remember it's been a kid and I just felt like weak and freckly and ugly. That's actually how I viewed myself and I wonder why it is that I did. And so I think for me pornography seemed to make sense because you know the people who don't treat me like ugly, the people who seem to delight in me are the people in pornography, you know. Very often these sins that we engage in, they're scratching a real itch that needs to be addressed only the sin can never fully address it, which is why after we've engaged in the sin, we feel even more let down and broken and disgusting than we did. But I think until we allow the Lord to speak into those places in a deep and meaningful way, then we're not going to understand our own behavior. Sort of like St. Paul who says, I do the things I don't want to do. The things I don't want to do, I end up doing. And then you come to a conference like this and think that you are supposed to be beyond all that somehow, or that if you were to share it with a friend over coffee or at the evening popcorn, whatever they did last night, that you should at least hide that. And yet there's St. Paul saying, I do the things I don't want to do. And those bloody things that I don't want to do, I end up doing. How do you understand that? Like if Satan and the demons don't exist, it seems like you have two options. Either God is holding out on you or you are right that you are a royal screw up and that despite your best efforts and best resolutions, you cannot get your shit together. And that you are not delightful to the Lord. He doesn't love you. He doesn't delight in you. Maybe he loves you in an obligatory sense, you know? Like, yeah, I love them. I will they're good, but I don't really delight in them. And this is just such a foul lie from the pits of hell, you know? So I want to suggest one way that we can begin to respond to these suggestions and these lies. And we'll just be scratching the surface here today. Because of course, you have your own story and I have my own story. And I don't know your story and you don't really know mine. So this will have to be worked out elsewhere. But how do we begin to respond to these deceptions? Think of Satan against Eve in the garden, you know? He didn't threaten her so much. Her bodily autonomy or, you know, the garden will burn down. He just whispered deceitful things like, did God really say? So today I want to suggest help we can get from a fourth century monk and hermit by the name of Avagrius of Pontus. I asked the bookstore to buy 60 copies of these. That's all there is. If you want one, get one quick and you'll probably want one when I'm done talking about this. So a fellow monk writes to him and says, how do we better combat those temptations that come from the world, the flesh and the devil? And he wrote this back. This is a monastic handbook for combating demons. He goes through several categories of serious sin. We think of the seven deadly sins, yes? Pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth. You want to know an easy way to remember the seven deadly sins? Pale gas, P-A-L-E-G-A-S. I don't know what that is, but it sounds nasty. So pale gas, pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, avarice and sloth. But when this book was read he wrote something similar and here were the major categories of sin that Avagrius wanted to respond to. Gluttony, fornication, love of money, sadness, anger, listlessness, vain glory and pride. And then what he does under each category is come up with a series of false things. We believe that the demons say to us that the world says to us, that our own flesh says to us. And then he, under every lie, has a corresponding scripture for you to memorize so that when you are under attack you can respond with this verse. You know, I've got some people in my life who I deeply love right now who are very sick and I've been feeling hopeless about this. And you think, okay, what's the lie I'm believing? Like, whenever you feel yourself in that dark, thick fog of spiritual attack a good question to ask is, what am I believing? And I guess what I'm believing sometimes right now are things like the best of my days are behind me. There is no hope in the future. I just have to slog this out until death now. Or I cannot do this. The Lord maybe doesn't want me to be happy, something like that. Okay, so what could be three corresponding scriptures? It could be something like, no, the Lord said he wants me to have a future full of hope and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Yeah. And I've been told to rejoice in the Lord at all times. So he comes up with about 500 scripture verses against 500 temptations that we often face. I've come up with seven and I'll just give you one right now just to kind of show you what I mean. Ah, let's see here. And what's amazing as you go through these temptations is you realize how normal you are because you're like, I thought I was the only one who thought that. No, you're not that special. Let me give you a thought that you've perhaps had and then show a corresponding scripture. When the demon of lust says, you have already sinned grievously one more time before confession won't hurt. Your laughter gave you away. Then you say to yourself from Romans chapter two verses four through five, do you not know that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart, you are storing up wrath for yourself on the day of wrath when God's righteous judgment will be revealed. We'll look at some more of those later. Now, there's a difference between rebutting the attacks of the enemy and dialoguing with the enemy. Rebutting the attacks of the enemy, good dialoguing with the enemy, not good unless you're the second person of the blessed trinity. Perhaps you've found yourself doing that as you're tempted to engage in some active cowardice or lust or sloth or something and you start to justify and talk back with the temptation and what happens, you fall. So we don't want to dialogue with Satan or the demons, but we do want to rebuke them. In James chapter four verses seven through eight, we read, submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God, he will draw near to you. I think of the Benedictine medal on that lovely medal in Latin. If you find the translation, it says, be gone Satan, never tempt me with your vanities. What you offer me is evil, drink the poison yourself. So sassy, I just, it's very good. But notice what he didn't do. He didn't engage in conversation, but he rebuked him. Of course, we see the par excellence example of this from our blessed Lord, when he was tempted in Scripture, we see him rebuking Satan with Scripture. Satan says, turn stones into bread and quoting Deuteronomy, Christ says it is written, man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. Satan trying to tempt Christ to vain glory says, cast yourself down from the temple. Christ quotes Deuteronomy again saying, thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. Satan tempts Christ concerning ambition and tells him to worship him. All these things I will give you if you fall down and do an act of worship to me. Jesus replies, get away Satan, it is written you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve. I like this line from Scripture in Luke chapter 6 verse 45 where it says, the good person out of the good treasures of his heart produces good and the evil person out of the evil treasure produces evil. I like this line. For out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks. So here we have an example of the tongue being influenced by the heart. Right? Here's what Chrysostom by the way says regarding that. He says, for it is a natural consequence when wickedness abounds within, that wicked words are breathed as far as the mouth and therefore when you hear of a man uttering abominable things, do not suppose that there lies only so much wickedness in him as is expressed in his words, but believe the fountain to be more copious than the stream. But that's how I was meditating on Scripture this past week. I think I'm learning that just as the heart influences the mouth, so too can the mouth influence the heart. I'm not sure if I'm right about this. I don't know what you think. Hear me out and then let me know. In James chapter 4 verse 3, we read, look at the ships also. Though they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder, wherever the will of the pilot directs. And here he's making an analogy between that small rudder that directs the ship and our small tongue that directs our person. And so what I think this could mean is if I find myself attacked from the world, the flesh or the enemy, if I am believing lies about God and myself, and I feel just bombarded and in that thick cloud of fog that I've referenced, then what I can do is quote Scripture, quote the true thing against the false thing. So if I believe that there's really nothing I can do in order to be saved, that perhaps I've blasphemed the Holy Spirit, of course there's a specific meaning to that, but when we're lying, we're not believing, when we're believing lies, we're not believing things that are logical or true. So if I've noticed, what am I believing here? Then what I can do is in the name of Jesus Christ renounce that lie, and in the name of Jesus Christ announce the truth. So if I believe that I am damned, I could say something like in the name of Jesus Christ, I renounce the lie that I will be damned. And in the name of Jesus Christ, I announce the truth that God desires all men to be saved. And he loves me as a father loves his child, not the way you as a father love your child, so imperfect, giving scorpions instead of eggs, but the way the loving father, the perfect father loves me. You see? All right, just to kind of give you some examples here, I gave you one, I want to give you six more, and then I'd like to cut the talk short and open it up for Q&A, and you can ask whatever you want. Whenever I come to these things and I'm sitting in your chair, I'm usually bored until the Q&A, so I thought I'd give you plenty of time. So since I've written a lot on the topic of pornography, and since sexual temptation is something that bombards me, I thought, well, why don't I come up with lies that I've believed and show scriptures that refute it. Now of course, if you wanted to get this book, you could, it's called Talking Back, and that's actually the translation from the Greek, Talking Back. It's kind of cool, huh? A monastic handbook for combating demons, and obviously there you're going to find major categories apart from fornication or lust. But let's just look at some of these just to give some examples. When the demon of lust says, I'm only looking, surely it's not only permissible, but praiseworthy to appreciate God's creation. But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. When the demon of lust says, surely God would not want you to endure suffering like this, James 1, 12, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial for when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life which God has promised to those who love him. When the demon of lust says, it's not technically porn, and I don't want to fall into the trap of being a prude, James 1, 14 through 15, but each person is tempted when he is lured. Isn't that right? Lured is like a warm bath that rolls over you, and you just fall back into it and become unhappy. Lured and enticed by his own desire, then desire when it is conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death. I'm thinking of that scripture. Oh, here it is. It's the next one. Good thing I didn't say it. Here's the fourth. When the demon of lust says, how can this be wrong when it feels so right? Apparently, that used to be a saying. Is that right? People would say like, if it feels good, do it? Okay, one of you has to say that, not 100 of you. What? A song? Yeah, that's what they sing in hell. What an idiotic thing to say. Well, here's what you say in response. You can think of so many places for this, right? Maybe you're tempted to steal. Maybe you're tempted to detract and speak negatively about someone, some cleric, some friend, some YouTuber, or maybe it's pornography or masturbation or fornication or adultery. By the way, I do think it's important that we use ugly words for ugly behaviors. It's not hooking up, it's fornication. It's not gay sex, it's sodomy. It's not masturbation. I think it should bring back self abuse. Not to shame those of us who are struggling, but to acknowledge the evil that it is so that we can more manfully or wonder womanly, whatever, resist. So when the demon of lust says, how can this be wrong if it feels so right? You say, there is a way that seems right to man, but its end is the way to death. That can just sum up every temptation, really. There is a way that seems right to me, but it leads to death. When the demon of lust says, nobody has to find out. And the Lord has more important things to worry about than my sex life. Listen how good this response is. It's such a slap in the face of that insane idea. It comes from Ecclesiasticus, chapter 23, verses 18 through 19. So you remember, the Lord doesn't worry about this. Nobody sees me. This is something I'm doing in the privacy of my own home. Listen, a man who breaks, and you can apply this to you ladies, a man who breaks his marriage vows says to himself, who sees me? Darkness surrounds me and the walls hide me and no one sees me. Why should I fear? The most high will not take notice of my sins. His fear, says the author, is confined to the eyes of manly, does not realize that the eyes of the Lord are 10,000 times brighter than the sun. They look upon all the ways of man and perceive even the hidden places. When the demon of lust says, just fantasize a little. You know, don't go all, you don't have to look at pornography, just fantasize, there's nothing wrong with that. Proverbs 4, 23, keep your heart with all vigilance for from it flows the springs of life. All right, you get the point. It's difficult to have to look up a corresponding verse of truth to combat the suggestion that the demons or the world, the flesh is throwing at us. So maybe during this time of retreat for you, spending some time before the Lord and asking, what lies do I believe? How are the temptations often suggested to me? And what is a scripture verse I can memorize to combat these demonic thoughts? I'd like to suggest three books that you could check out to better understand this sort of thing. And then we'll have Q and A. And how is it that we do that? How are we doing Q and A, somebody from Franciscan? Yeah, good. Ah, there it is. Thank you so much. You're very good. So the first book you should get is everything Bob Shoots has written. Second book you should get is Jacques Philippe's book. Yeah, yeah. Searching for and maintaining peace. That book is a absolute life changer. Some books are like, that's good. And some are, oh, that's good. And some are like, oh, my God. That is this book. It's a really life changing book. Searching for a maintaining peace. One of the things he says in there is there is never a good reason to lose your peace. All the reasons we attribute to losing our peace, he says, are bad reasons. Because he says, when we lose our peace, we act as if we're blind. And then everything becomes much worse. Isn't that true? For those of you who are parents here, you know, your child does something and you spiral, you know, like, oh, my God. If they keep doing that, they're going to like do meth in the street one day and become a prostitute. It's like, maybe, but maybe calm down. One thing he says in this book that I've found really helpful, he says, before we are Christians, we often want the wrong things in the wrong way. We want sins and we want them now. He says, once we become Christians, that's all of us, presumably. We want the right things, yeah? Like we want our children's sanctification. We want to be patient. You know, we want to be holy. We want to want to pray. You know, we want the good of those around us. But he says, we very often want the right things in the wrong way. We want it with a spirit of unrest. You know, I wish I wanted the sanctification of my children the way that God wants my sanctification. He's not like perpetually frustrated and angry and kind of bickering at me. He's at peace, yeah? So this idea that we have to search for and maintain peace in order to fight the spiritual battle. So get that book. And then the final book would be this one by Evagrius of Pontus called Talking Back. If you're interested, they've got copies, I think of all of these things in the bookstore. All right. So with that, if you have any questions, you can come up. You can ask. It doesn't have to be about this talk. It can be about anything. I'm happy to chat about whatever you want. If you want to go, that's okay too. If you don't want to come up, I'll just go as well. Feel free to line up too, if that's helpful. Yes, sir. Okay. Hi. I volunteer in a lot of youth ministry. And one of the things, I guess there's two attitudes towards demons that I encounter, especially from teens. One is like they don't exist. It's the symbolic idea of evil in the Bible that you said that Jesuit superior said. The second one I found, and this is a little harder to, I guess, refute, is not taking demons. I don't know if seriously is the right word, but I guess that's the best way I can put it. Like there's a lot of kids that will, I guess one example, like YouTube channels where these teens will go to like haunted houses and try to like contact spirits or contact demons, which seems like, I guess harmless and stupid on the face of it. But in reality, I just, it seems like they're not taking demons seriously. How would you respond to that? Yes. I'll respond to that. First of all, are we able to get some more volume in these monitors up front so that I can better hear the questions being asked? Because it's a little difficult to hear. So CS Lewis, I think it was in screwtape letters, which is a book I'd highly recommend. I believe it was there, but maybe it was me or Christianity. I forget not the point. Here's the point. He says that the demons are equally pleased either when we deny their existence entirely, or where we go looking for them under every rock. So, but in my estimation, usually when I'm engaging people who aren't firm in their faith, it's usually that they're not aware of the demonic. And that might be what needs to be emphasized. So that could be done through any number of ways. I interviewed an exorcist on my show a few years, a couple years back or a year ago or something. So that could be a way to either watch it with your youth group, watch snippets from the youth group, and then always to kind of base it in the teachings of the church. So you could show them a clip and then read from the catechism. Maybe that night you could give out St. Benedict medals, have them blessed, and that sort of thing. Thank you. Hi, thank you for your talk. I have a parenting question for you. It's a dilemma that I'm thinking through right now, as I have young kids and trying to find the balance of teaching my kids that they are sinners and they fall short of the glory of God and they need Christ in their life to redeem them, but also that God loves them and delights in them. And sort of there's a tension, I feel like, that exists somehow between how we teach this to our kids and sort of demonstrate it to them. And I wonder if you could talk a little bit maybe about how you thought about that in raising your own kids or talked about that with your wife. Yeah, so I think the primary way we teach them that is through our own love and patience with them as we experience their shortcomings and we show our continual love for them. And I think as parents we should also not be afraid or think at a threat to our authority to ask their forgiveness whenever we have fallen short or sinned as well. So in our home we make it a point to say, to use the following language, you know, when I did this I shouldn't have done that, please forgive me. And the other person has to say I forgive you. They can't say it's fine. And when they do I say, no, it's not fine, which is precisely why I'm asking your forgiveness. So I think that language is really important, that's one thing. The second thing I try to do regularly is take my kids to confession and have this be somewhat of a joyful experience. So my kids know that whenever I take them to confession, usually here on campus, we always get dessert after. You know, so I don't know maybe they come for the dessert, but hey, you know, that's okay, we do that kind of stuff as well. So and the third thing I do is in the Old Testament there were what were called years of jubilee every 50th year where slaves were sort of freed and debts were forgiven. And so occasionally what I'll do in my home is I'll tell the kids we're doing a jubilee day today. And what that means is they can tell me anything wrong they have done and they will not be punished at all. And I praise them for coming to me and telling me things. Yeah. Now, look, if somebody, I think one time somebody stole a purse from a friend or a toy or something and she had to give it back, but there was no punishment. There was just, I am so proud of you for telling me that. That's so beautiful. So I just like love when my kids tell me the truth about the bad things they've done. I'm like, oh, like praise. I think I think Jordan Peterson says this, it might be obvious, but like if you see a behavior in your children that you like, praise them when they do that thing. And so whenever my kids tell me if something they've done wrong, I'm always like, oh, you are the best. Thank you so much for being humble. And so those are three maybe things that could help. Thank you very much. You're welcome. So I'm hoping you can come up with a good scripture verse for this. So you know, I like to send my husbands out of town. I want to masturbate like I'm like, no, I'm not going to do that. That's sinful. So instead, I'll eat these three candy bars or something like that, you know, and I try and make the sins less and less in my eyes. Yeah. God's eyes, I don't know, but what's a good you're lovely. You're lovely. Thanks for your vulnerability. So I think it's really important when we're talking about sexual sin to realize why it is we engage in it. And I'm convinced that the primary reason we masturbate or look at pornography or whatever is to self sue that we experience agitation within ourselves. We feel overwhelmed, stressed out, chaotic, and we don't like that and want to self regulate. You know, so the reason we shiver is to regulate our body temperature. The reason we sweat is to regulate our body temperature. Well, we also seek to regulate emotionally through certain actions. And so I think to recognize that this is why I'm doing that is a really a good way to begin to heal from that thing. And then to ask ourselves, what are those triggers in my life that that trigger me when I'm in that emotional state? And the goal, of course, would be to avoid that emotional state. So if I'm beginning to feel very overwhelmed or stressed out, like that's a red flag for me. And then how do I remedy that in a healthy way? If if the only option in the moment is treating eating three chocolate bars, that's probably the way to go. But it also might be by taking a deeper look at that agitation where it's coming from. And that can be really, in my own life, it's been helped through therapy and good spiritual direction. Yes, sir. Yeah, I've got a friend. I meet with him every week. He hears voices. And I don't really, I know he has severe schizophrenia. But he has a he's had in the past problem masturbation. And he's kind of feels like he's overcome it. It's a little bit embarrassing. We meet at Tim Hortons. He tells me his previous sentence, but I'm not a priest or anything. But these voices sometimes tell him very vile things. He's what? These voices that he hears tell some very vile things. Like, and he even told me like last year, one told them, they were telling him to stab himself because he's a loser. He doesn't have a wife. He doesn't have children. His life is useless. And the minute he dropped the knife, he could hear like you and I are talking, oh, we almost had him. And he uses scripture like to combat these evil voices in his head. And anyway, I just I just try and tell him not to be so hard on himself, but also to try and live a pure life, pray the rosary. And he's like on fire for scripture and Eucharistic adoration. And he often goes to confession talks with priests, which I think is helpful. But I don't know like I'm not a psychologist. I don't know how much of this is spiritual. I'd put him in touch with one. That's the first thing I would do. If you've got somebody who's healing hearing voices, he needs help immediately. So however you can as his friend, take him somewhere to get I've done that for a friend once to get immediate help. And I didn't know where to take him. So I took him to the emergency room. Well, yeah, they put him in touch with psychologists and he does. He does talk with psychologists and shrinks and that stuff. But but you know, it's just I tell him, you know, sometimes with these voices, one of my friends who's a little bit too much into the hearsay of spiritual, you know, flashy stuff that you should just rebuke these voices. But I think there's more to it than that. Thank you. Can I let me let me answer to that a bit. I think, you know, like we are body soul composites, both body and soul being equally a part of who we are. We're not we're not people who have bodies, we are bodies, you know, like when Will Smith slapped Chris Rock, he didn't merely manipulate the husk, which was not him and throw it against the husk, which was not Chris. He hit him, you know, to use a kind of popular sort of example or whatever. So I think it's really important that we seek out not merely spiritual solutions to things, but real psychological and other human solutions to things. I remember a mother coming to me at a conference and asking me how she can help her son, who's struggling a lot with pornography. And she told me what she takes into confession, things like this. And I said, what non spiritual things are you doing to help him? And she looked at me like, why would why would I even ask that question, which showed me how I think a lot of us feel, you know, this is not merely a spiritual issue. And therefore, other ways of help might be called for. So that's what I would say to you is you need to put him in touch with somebody who can help them. Oh, and I know he does do that. But I try and also tell him to get a closer relationship with our lady because she's very pure. All right. Thank you so much. We'll get to the next. Thank you so much. Thank you for your presentation, as a Dr. Frat. But I watched an episode of Journey Home with Marcus Grodi one time, and they had a gentleman named on Gavin Aschenden. He is a convert in the United Kingdom from the Anglican Church into the Catholic Church. And he was a high ranking like prelate bishop. And in doing so, he, well, I couldn't believe the way he was speaking to Marcus Grodi that he would describe like experiences with the demonic side, which were very graphic and real, at least in his mind, he'd be going to confession. I mean, let me say communion for the first time. And he'd look above him and he'd see black bats circling above him. Or when he'd be going to bed at night behind like his bed, there would be like a whole demonic scene going on. And he had to call a priest and ask him to do he said start praying at Rosary. And it did help. But some of these experiences are very, I mean, beyond normal, like some of the things you're describing, which are more subtle, but deadly. Yes. And I'm just curious how you might react to what this gentleman had to say, you know, public on TV. And lastly, I listened to some people who are parents. What do you say about exposure to Harry Potter? Uh huh. Good. Thanks a lot for that question. If I look like I'm in agony, it's only because I can't hear you. So I apologize for that. So maybe for those who come up, if you could just try to ask a question quickly, because it's very difficult to hear might because I'm old, might because of the speakers might be both. Yeah. Yeah. I remember a friend of mine saying, and I'm not sure what you think about this, that he says that often when it comes to how Satan tempts men, he realizes that if he would intimidate them in an outward sensational way, that they would become aware of the battle that exists and fight with great strength. And so he doesn't do that with men often. He said he'll intimidate women, but be insidious in a different way to men. If Satan did come at us in those different ways, it would be much easier to take the spiritual battle seriously. I remember shortly after my conversion in the year 2000, having a dream that was the most real and terrifying experience of my entire life. I'll tell you what it was, but as I tell you, it'll sound super not interesting and maybe not scary, but I was desperately searching for something. I was in this cave running around in my mind. I didn't know what it was I was looking for. And then finally I found it and this rush of relief fell upon me and joy. And it was the chalice filled to the brim with the blood of Christ. And it was either levitating above the ground or somehow above the ground. And as I went to drink the blood of Christ, this little, this is going to sound, however it sounds, I don't care, this little dog with no whites in its eyes and a broken little tail walked, rocked in front of the chalice and its jaw dropped open and he screamed a human voice, you know. I woke up terrified, but experiences like that encourage us to take the spiritual battle seriously. I mean, if Satan knows what he's doing and he does, then he'd probably be a little more subtle than that and lull us to sleep as it were. Okay, Harry Potter, Trent Horn's got a great podcast on it. Check that out. Next question. Hello, I am a mother of young children and I'm also a teacher of, I teach music, so I teach like two years old to like teenagers. And I've always tried to speak to my children and my students in a way that makes bad things seem bad and good things seem good. But I understand the delicacy of the question of demonic force for a child and their innocence and their ability to be afraid. Do you have any recommendations about how to both be authentic to what we need to know for their protection, but also to protect them from being afraid where they do not need to be? So the idea of how do we introduce the subject of the demonic to our children in a way that doesn't cripple them? Yeah, I think like one way would be to kind of remind children that that sometimes we have this false idea that Satan, it's like ying and yang, you know, so like Satan, not ying and yang, that's the wrong idea, but like Satan and Jesus is like equals. And I would say, well, no, it's really like Lucifer is equal to like Saint Michael the Archangel. But if God went up against Satan, that would be like, I don't know, like your child going up against a UFC fighter, it's like an infinitely different. So reminding them of how limited power Satan has and how he's lost and how he's really nothing to worry about, right? I've heard an exorcist say that the sacrament of confession is more powerful than an exorcism, because when it comes to an exorcism, the demons have your body in some sense. But when it comes to mortal sin, you might say we've handed over our soul to the demons. And so we really don't need to be afraid of the demons. There's even some charming stories from the lives of the saints. You could tell your children, I don't know how apocryphal this is or not. But I think it was John Vienny, who is apparently woke up one night and the demons had presented themselves to him and he said, Oh, it's only you. Okay, I'm going back to bed. I heard that story. You know, like, I think just to kind of keep things in perspective like that could be helpful if you're to begin talking to children about it. And then you can't go wrong with the scriptures, obviously, as well. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, I need you to tell everybody what you told me earlier, just so I feel good about myself. He basically got me engaged to my current fiance. And I've never met you. So how did I do that? I threw pints at the client. I asked the question. He answered it very forcefully. It was something similar happened to me. I told you earlier that I was dating my wife, well, dating my girlfriend, Cameron, and was discerning marriage and was really afraid and not sure what to do. And I called my best friend, Mark Bennett up from Brisbane, Australia, about three in the morning his time, but he woke up and I said, Look, I want to propose to Cameron, but I'm really like scared. Like am I right making the right choice? He said, What the hell are you talking about? You idiot. She's better than you anyway. You need to propose before she figures that out. Now, I personally think my wife married up, but I get the point. I get the point. So I think I said something similar. So good for you for being a man and proposing to a beautiful fiance. What was your question? So I have people in my life that struggle with anxiety a lot, and they get a lot of the lies that you were talking about. And I'm a very, how would you say this, logical person. And so when they come to me with the lies that they're experiencing, the first thing in my head is sort of, well, why do you think that that's ridiculous? You say that about your own thoughts? No, no. In my head, I say that about their thoughts that they're bringing to me. Now, how do I properly and help them lead them to God without sounding? Who's they? The people that come to me, like my friends who struggle with anxiety or whatever. How do I properly respond? I'll tell you once later. I responded the other day. So I was in, this is a weird story, but let's do it. I was in Africa. I was in Namibia hunting. It was really cool. And people were like, you there to feed the homeless? No, I was shooting things. And we were at this lodge and I was dealing with jet lag. And this fella who wasn't a Christian, I was like, yeah, I'm just having trouble sleeping. And him and a group of guys were around. And he joked. He said, well, and he said it a lot, crude away than this. But he said, well, just masturbate works for me. You go to sleep. And I said, I couldn't think of a more effeminate thing to do. But thank you. So I'm a big fan of mocking sin. Now if he's like, I struggle with masturbation, I wouldn't be like, whoa, what a loser. I would help him and love him. But like, I think like when people suggest things that are illogical, or by the way, when Aquinas uses the word effeminate, I know there's a Latin translation to this, but by effeminate, what he means is failing to do your duty when you should and like kind of falling back on that. So I don't know, like calling out the cowardice of a particular suggestion would be one way. But maybe maybe you've got more to say. And I cut you off. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's like, especially with people that are very, very close to me. And when they're in those moments, it's, it's difficult because pretty much anything I say kind of spirals. And we kind of go down this, this sort of, could you speak closer to the microphone? We sort of go down this rabbit hole of, well, now I'm worse because I'm believing these things. And they're so stupid, which means I'm stupid. And can you give us a suggestion? Like, can you give us an example or no, is it too personal? Yes. Yeah. So, um, yeah, so they some somebody, I will sort of say that somebody came to me and said, I don't feel like I'm doing enough for my, for my significant other. And they're like, I'm not enough. And God wants so much more for me. And I'm like just terrible. And I like, I kind of looked at them as like, no, no, like, of course you're enough. Like, God believes this and God, God loves you. And, and, and he wouldn't have created you to be not enough. You are enough. And in her head, she goes, Oh yeah, you're right. I'm really stupid. And like, we went down the spiral is like, no, that's not what I'm trying to say. And, you know, so I think if your friend came to me and said, like, I'm afraid I'm not enough for my wife, like, of course you're not, you're an idiot. Have you, I would say this, I really would. Like, have you met you? Of course you're not. Because I think that's actually the truth, you know, like, and it depends what you mean, like, are you enough for what? You know, like, earlier this morning, my wife said, can you get my computer for me upstairs? Well, I can crush that. But if she said, can you fulfill all of my desires? No, we've been married 16 years. Did you figure that out two weeks after we got married? Like, so in one sense, you're enough. But in, in a deeper sense, of course you're not. But what, what can you do that you're being called to do? I think is the really kind of question there. I like how Jordan Peterson puts it. He says, what's something you could do that you would do that would make your life better? Not what's something you could do that would make your life better. Because there's all sorts of bloody things you could do. But again, have you met you, what you'll do is get super excited about this one thing, do it twice and never do it again. Like, that's what you'll do because you have no perseverance and you're a weak coward, right? But like, okay, but what's some, what's something that you could do that even you, wretched as you are, would do? It's like, well, I guess I could, I guess I could make a decision to do X, Y or Z. It's like, okay, start, start, start with that, you know, and acknowledging our own wretchedness is, is I think a good thing. It sounds like I'm speaking out of two sides of my mouth right now. But honestly, I think acknowledging our own wretchedness is a sigh of relief. It's like, yes, like you are wretched. Yes. Like it's amazing that your wife has stuck with you this long, or it's amazing your husband has put up with you. Have you, again, have you met you? Like, you're very frustrating to be around, right? But also, God loves you. He has thought you into being. He has a plan for your life. And you, with all of your nagging and wretchedness, can even lead your husband to heaven, you know, like this. So I think like acknowledging the reality, the situation in a non-rosy way, can help us be like, oh, thank God, I knew I was wretched. Okay, good. But not, but wretched doesn't mean irredeemable or not deeply, deeply loved. As one confessor once said to me, you are far better and far worse than you could possibly imagine. I think that's right. You know, like, we talk a lot, right, about viewing our own, sorry, I'm going to go off on a tangent here, like about looking at our own sinfulness, right, and our own wretchedness. And what we do often is we look at that apart from the gaze of the merciful Christ. You can't do that. If you go within without him, you will just destroy yourself. What we have to do is we examine our own conscience and all of that has to be under and with the merciful gaze of Christ. So it's not that you believe too much in your own wretchedness, you're far more wretched than you could ever imagine. It's that you don't believe enough in merciful love. That's your problem, you know. So I think it's something like that, maybe. Thanks, Matt. Yeah, I don't know if that, so you just text your friend and tell him he's wretched. Hello, good sir. First of all, thank you for all that you do with promoting and working on things, like coveted eyes, Strive 21, get closer or further away. What's... No, no, you're good. Okay, victory. And of course, the porn myth is an excellent book. I'm looking forward to reading this one, the one that you talked about today. There's a lot about people that have these problems with lies, insecurities, and you just collapse on yourselves. A lot of what you talk about with things like with Strive 21 or other programs is accountability. And so a lot of people aren't really good at that, though. And so accountability. Yeah, a lot of people aren't really good at it. And so how would you... Of course, it's like, oh yeah, I'm gonna go to hell, help me, stuff like that. But how would you recommend charitably approaching your accountability partners and just saying like, hey, you're not cutting it, man. Like you're not really being there for me. So how would you recommend like charitably approaching that as well as living it out better yourself? There's two things you could probably do about that. If you believe that in chatting with your friend and saying, hey, I really need you to step it up. And maybe not even just, not just generally, I need you to step it up, but here's what I need from you. You can even just say, like, is this something you're willing to do and be okay if he says, not really, because I have a life and stuff and I can't, I'm not willing to commit to that. And fair enough, because I appreciate your honesty and then find somebody who is. So that would be the first thing. And if you just don't think this person, he or she is open to that, then trying to find somebody else who is. And then one thing I found helpful in an accountability relationship, and you've heard me speak about this, is not just contacting my friend when I'm tempted or when I fall to some sin, but to speak with them about how I am living a more beautiful life, right? So not just like, here's how I failed, but here it like, here's the middle circle. Here are the things I need to avoid or else I'll end up falling and then talking about that. And then here are the things I need to do to live a more beautiful life. So I'm not constantly stressed out feeling chaotic, overwhelmed and exhausted. And then communicating regularly about that and maybe meeting weekly and making it more broad about not falling and more about how to live a good human life. You know that, but that's what I'd suggest. Thank you. God bless. It's funny, you know, like sometimes the suggestions that we really don't want to hear because we've heard them before are the really the ones we need to hear. I remember my next door neighbor's parcel came to my house and it was like, I don't mean to laugh, but it was like pills that were supposed to make you thin, I guess, which I don't know, I'm pretty sure they don't work, but like it was like these miracle pills, you know, and I just feel like it's kind of like that with like our health. Like we want to hear the suggestion we've never heard before that's just so crazy. It might work, you know, it's like if you're online, you're like this crazy trick will help male pattern baldness, you know, paste your hair with peanut butter before going to bed. You're like, okay, I'll try it. You know, well, there's certain things that are out of our control and there are certain things within our control. And when it comes to like overcoming sin, some of these things we've heard a billion times, but it's because these are the things that work and we've got to keep implementing them. GK Chesterton once said that it's not that Christianity has been tried and found wanting, it's that it's been left untried. I messed that up, but and whatever. And I think it's that's what he said and whatever. So, you know, sometimes it's those things we've heard a thousand times we have to keep implementing despite how bored we are with them. Yes, sir. If you don't mind speaking right into the microphone so I can hear you. Is this good? Oh well. Yeah, if you just try and keep it quick or else I won't be able to hear. Okay. Yeah. So I'm a student here at Franciscan and I've come across a lot of kids who are like serious in the spiritual spiritual combat and stuff like that. But there are a few kids I run into who are almost like radical about it. Oh gosh, like everything is spiritual warfare. That was totally me. Like they mean it. I saw a kid at Franciscan the other day and he was wearing a wall crucifix around his chest. I'm like, that was so me five years ago. Also, you will never find a date. Continue. Right. How do I be spiritual but not be a spaz about it? That kind of yeah. And like there's times where they like meet someone they don't like and they're like, oh, it's like he's controlled by like Satan or something like that or like it's spiritual warfare. Like when people come to me like that, how do I say it again real quick so I can hear you? Like when people talk about like spiritual warfare and almost like a radical way where everything is like spiritual warfare. Like how would I talk to them because my I want to be like calm down but like at the same time still promote spiritual warfare. It's fair enough and maybe I should have prefaced this whole talk with that line from Lewis that the demons are equally satisfied when we find them under every rock than when we deny their existence entirely. So I know that idea. I don't know what you could say to them, but I do think an unhealthy sort of assessment of what the demons are doing all the time to us can lead to a sort of neuroses and I perhaps would just invite them to speak to a good spiritual director about it and realize that you don't have to sort their problems out for them. I remember once I was giving a talk somewhere and sometimes this happened someone came up to me and they went and this is going to be my really bad American accent. I apologize. I love your country. I'm happy to live here. This is not an insult. Hey, I just I just get the feeling that like you're under like a lot of demonic attack right now and I'm like no I'm not. I just I just feel yeah well that's terrific but I'm not or I'm so deluded that I'm unaware of it you know but I got it. So that's probably super unhelpful. I'm sorry I had to line up for that answer. Thank you. All right so we don't have much time so for these next questions could we try to keep them really short and then I'll try to wrap up. Yes ma'am. What resources do you recommend for parents who have little children, little sons and when is the first time to introduce purity talk? No person on the planet is better at answering this question than me so buckle up. Doesn't mean you'll like the answer but I'm with the opinion that we should speak to our children about their bodies from the moment they have them and um and any awkwardness or perceived awkwardness on our part is on us not them and you don't have to foist your awkwardness on other people. You can just have honest frank conversations about people's bodies and the goodness of them and things like that using the appropriate words like penis and vagina and that don't use weird words that's your problem not your kid's problem again don't push your crap on them that kind of stuff. I would say start talking to your kids about porn at the age of six. How? Here you go you ready? Here's why because you and I talked to our kids about all sorts of atrocious horrific things in an age appropriate way when they're that young like you take your kid to a big thing and you say don't run away from mommy or daddy and if they do you're like why did you do that you should have asked me to come with you and they say why you might say something like because a bad man could take you away from us. Now you know statistically that's unlikely but you say it because you want to protect them and give them the knowledge necessary to live in a fallen world. You don't go into the ins and outs of what that means but you equip them yes okay if you can do that about say child abduction and whatever else you can say that about pornography here's how you do it you say there are good pictures and there are bad pictures and some bad pictures are called pornography what's that? Well pornography is pictures or videos of people showing parts of their body that their bathing suit should cover and if you ever see that or if somebody ever shows it to you maybe online or on an iPad or in a magazine or in a newspaper you should always tell mommy and daddy and we'd be really proud of you you might think you'd be in trouble but you wouldn't be something like that that's obviously not a sufficient definition or response to pornography but it's the beginning of one you're kind of expanding the horizon right like maybe online maybe someone shows it to you maybe you see it that's great yep that's great what about masturbation what what about masturbation how do you bring that up yeah yeah so if I have a child I don't for the for the live stream if I have a child who's masturbating first thing I would do is like really really not freak out about it because I think the reason we masturbate and especially as children before the age of reason is to self soothe so I would say to my daughter or my son I would say hey um when you touch yourself on your vagina or your penis like that that feels like what does that feel you know not to be afraid of talk having this conversation and then say something like you know I think when you do that that's a sign that you need a hug from mum so the next time you feel like that would you come to me so we can snuggle something like that I think is helpful because that way they're receiving their regulation from the proper healthy place they don't have to retreat into themselves to regulate in an unhealthy way they can come to you to have that regulation met from a maternal or paternal way that's the start of something okay good yes oh shaking your head all done all right I'll chat with you after I'll come out the back and chat first of all thank you kindly for coming to my talk I really appreciate it I hope it's been something of a blessing to you let's say a little uh prayer together