 Alright, welcome back Father Robert Nixon freshened from Australia and we're continuing our conversation on the Great Spiritual Master, the blessed, the venerable Thomas the Kempus. And today we're going to talk about his small work humility and the elevation of the mind to God. But why don't you open us up with a short prayer and hopefully we'll get humble while we pray. Lord God, you have commended humility to us. You told us that you yourself are meek and humble of heart. Help us to imitate you in your model of this wonderful virtue. This virtue which brings us close to true self-knowledge, which brings us to openness and humility to your divine will. We ask this through Jesus Christ, the master of humility. Amen. Amen. Well, that's a great prayer. The master, Jesus Christ, the master of humility. Now, so this was, was this the first work that you did with us? This was the second one. The second one. Oh, the first one was the Crown of the Virgin. Yeah, yeah, by St. Aldefonces, which we'll talk about at another time. Wonderful. The second one. And I have to mention something I just mentioned to you right before we went, we started recording that you very kindly dedicated this work to the memory of John Morehouse, a wonderful and gifted herald of the gospel and dedicated servant of God, the church and humanity. And my, you know, one of my best friends, he was our, he was the editor at Tan Books for a number of years and he had a very premature death in his early fifties and he left five kids and a wife whom I'm still very close to. And so we, we, we very much miss John Morehouse. But so thank you for dedicating this work to him. And John was actually a very humble guy. He, whenever you were talking with him, it was never about him, it was about others. So, so anyway, just thank you for dedicating that to John. He was, he was very encouraging, Carter, about this particular work. So, yeah, a photo was fitting. Yeah, yeah, I miss him. I sure miss him. And the John Morehouse conference room is actually the, the, the boardroom that we meet in just down the hall. So anyway, his memory is alive and well around here. So, okay, humility and the elevation of the mind to God. Now, before I get into the content, I got a lot to ask you about that. Where did this work come from? I mean, he did not write a little book called Humility and the Elevation of the Mind to God, right? So how did you find this and how did this get to where it is? So I, you know, have the collection of the complete works of Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Akempas, and there are several additions of this, probably about eight additions floating around. These are, these are all Latin ones which compile all his works together. And so I went through these very carefully. And I said, which ones are going to be useful for contemporary readers? And humility in its original format is, is, I mean, it's quite a short work. And the, the Elevation of the Mind to God is a separate work as well. Right. So you could combine them together a little bit longer, but it seemed very fitting to combine them together because humility provides us with the, with the necessary first step, the preparatory groundwork for the Elevation of the Mind to God. So to couple these together, as well as some other devotional prayers and writings seem to be very fitting. Yeah. Yeah. So our, okay, well, but I mean, was this a homily hero? I mean, like what kind of, was this ever bound on its own and sold before in Latin? Like, how did he write these things? No, look, it seems that he would have originally written this work as a kind of instruction for his, for, for novices, he was training for people he was giving spiritual advice to. Sometimes he wrote short works at the request of other people would say, you know, right to be something about humility. So, so it's like a compilation of, of thoughts for that purpose. I see. And he wouldn't have been thinking about publication, of course, in his own lifetime, works were generally transmitted by being copied by hand. Yeah, yeah. This was just at the advent of printing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So now the, my favorite book that Tan publishes is a book called Humility of Heart. Oh, yes. And so it's my, I love the, the subject of humility. And so anytime I see that word, I kind of, I kind of zoom in and I've become convinced through this work and Humility of Heart, which is our, that was last year was our kind of book of the year. And we sold a ton of copies of Humility of Heart. Yeah. And the reason it's so important, I think, you know, Dove tells nicely into the very first line of this work. And I'll just read it. It says, quote, learn from me for I am meek and humble of heart. Now, that's how this work begins on humility. It's my understanding. I think in the Gospels, the only time Jesus says, learn from me. Yeah. Is when he says this. Yeah. He doesn't say learn from me for I am wise. You know, he doesn't say, he doesn't say learn from me because I'm patient and kind. He doesn't say I'm meek and humble of heart, right? Yeah. So that's kind of an incredible, an incredible thing for me. So, you know, what I took from that when, when I realized it was we have to learn how to look at each scene in the Gospel, each scene of the life of Christ and view it through the lenses of humility, right? So the baptism of Christ, we need to say, what's the lesson in humility or go back to the incarnation, you know, where, where's the lesson in humility, the last supper, where's the lesson in humility, the passion, of course, where's the lesson in humility. So, so I feel that this one line, how this book begins, learn of me for I am meek and humble of heart, Matthew 11, 29, it's, it's really to me, Father, it's Christ saying, read all of the Gospel stories through the lens of humility. I'm just curious what you think about that. I think that's very true. And this is something which we can easily overlook because in the, in the great events of the life of Christ, in the incarnation itself, in the baptism, here is Jesus Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity, the supreme ruler of the universe, the judge at the end of that, of time. And here he is interacting with human beings, not only as a teacher, but also as their servant. Yeah. And I think this is truly remarkable. It's a, it's a lesson which each of us can profit from, you know, we think, how do we interact with, with our fellow human beings, with the world around us? Do we come here as, as a servant, who is someone who is, who is meek and gentle and humble of heart? And I think, I think, you know, it's such a beneficial life lesson for everyone. Yeah, that's beautiful. The, the very first lesson I'm reading from the, from the first page of the very first lesson of Christ is therefore humility of heart, for this is the foundation of all virtues and indispensable to the attainment of eternal salvation. So, you know, one thing that, that kind of strikes me about humility is, you know, you know, there's a lot of people in heaven, Father, that didn't practice a lot of mortification because they're, they couldn't for some reason. There's a lot of people that didn't give away all of their money that are, that are still in heaven. There's a lot of people who weren't virgins because, you know, they were called to the state of marriage. There's a, there's all different kinds of people in heaven, but there's no one in heaven who was not humble to some extent here. And they're the one non-negotiable, you know, and I guess that's why the saints, including a campus here, taught that humility is truly like the foundational virtues. Let's talk about it as like the foundational virtue. Yeah. So it's only through humility that we are able to encounter our true selves in relation to God. So the human being in our fallen state, often we're, we're puffed up with ego and illusions and defense mechanisms. And this makes us fail to recognize what we are in God. We are given by God this immense dignity of bearing His likeness and image, but also we are, we are, we're, we're tiny fragments compared to His immeasurable power. So our attitude towards God should be one of, of reverence, gratitude, obedience and humility. Now I would suggest that this attitude towards God is one which we should carry towards our fellow man as well. Seeing in them the image of God, one of the brothers or sisters of Christ and it, this, this then makes every other virtue emerge naturally. So, so I think the, the, the church fathers speculate and I just love this and I just think it, it ties right into humility perfectly. The church father speculate that the reason Lucifer fell from heaven is that he, he, the, the idea of the incarnation, that second person becoming man was, was revealed to them and Lucifer being the highest angel, like the most beautiful Lucifer meaning light, you know, the angel of light. He says, no way in hell can I worship flesh and bone. You know, I mean, this is going to be a crying, whining baby. You know, who wets his diaper. I cannot worship that. I'm an angel. Okay. And so Lucifer and the other angels, they take a nosedive straight to hell because they could not exercise that level of humility and you know, I mean, okay, he's the devil. I'm not going to give him sympathy, but I can kind of get it. Like I see the problem there. I mean, there is a powerful as the angels are to say, I'm supposed to, you know, to bow down before this flesh and blood, just it is, it's, it's, it's a mind blowing exercise and humility on Christ's part and then the devil and the angels, even lacking a little bit of humility there, was enough to cast them to hell. It is. Yeah. So pride, this, this refusal to submit fully to the will of God was the sin which caused Lucifer to fall, which caused him to rise up against God. I think if we think about the story of Adam and Eve also, it is pride, which is the first sin because the devil tempts them by promising them, you know, to be more than what they are by saying, you know, you don't really need to obey God. So this failure in humility, we think about also, I think individually, a lot of our, what struggles in life conflicts and so forth, they emerge from this sin of pride, this idea that we have to stand up. We have to make ourselves more than who we are. We have to defend ourselves against things. And I think a little humility goes a long way in establishing peace. You know, in terms of you mentioned Adam and Eve and one of the things that I've reflected on in one of my little books is that when the devil tempted Eve, he was saying, if you eat this, your eyes will be open and you will be like God. So it really was this pride of, hey, I'm not content with what God made me to be. I want to be more. Yeah. I want to be more insightful. I want to be more beautiful. I want to be more popular. I want to be more whatever it is. So like humility, in a sense, you know, humility is accepting exactly what God wants of you and nothing more. And in fact, another little book that we have, it's the book of the year this year, and it's probably my second favorite 10 book, Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence. Oh, yes. It's interesting, Father. The I find the most interesting part of that book is he says, true surrender even surrenders your own notions of holiness. So you have to accept that, hey, maybe God didn't make me to be any more holy than this. Yes, I have to accept that. Hey, God made me to be a good person, but not a great saint. Indeed. And I have to accept that just like, again, it's the ultimate surrender is actually just humility. It's that's all it is. That's all our holiness comes down to a large extent is, is are we fully and completely accepting exactly what God wants of us? And we complicate the hell out of this by thinking about all the different virtues and all the different practices are needed. But in the end, I think God's just saying, are you humble? Because that's what enabled Michael the archangel to throw out the the Sarah from Lucifer from heaven. And it's what caused Lucifer to fall all the way to hell. It's the pride and humility question over and over again. Yes, to recognize that that all of our talents, our virtues and so forth are all a purely gift from God. Our existence itself is a pure gift from God. And in the context of this, you know, not to be not to be ambitious, even even with respect to virtues and holiness. So we find ourselves often in a state of, you know, a certain level of holiness or devotion. And it can be pride, which impels people to want to push themselves beyond this to reach to the next level. Of course, we need always to be to be aspiring to be desiring this, but it's God who who gives us it. Yeah. And he gives it in his own time in his own way. I tell you, I saw you playing piano last night. If I could play like you, I'd be very prideful because it was it was remarkable. Our audience should know, by the way, that you are like world class pianist. It was incredible. And I left there saying, I don't do anything as well as he plays piano. I can't brush my teeth as well as he plays piano. I can't do anything at an expert level like you do piano. But anyway, so I guess that but you seem to retain the virtue of humility quite well, even though being a remarkable pianist. Anyway, so I was just I'm just mentioning that you the you can you can I guess a lesser person could become very prideful when they have tremendous skills, you know. But anyway, let me let me turn. No, I mean, that's fair enough. I think as as a musician, you know, I say this is this is probably one of the career hazards of of music. Yeah. Yeah. Pride. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to keep it in perspective. You think, well, a musical instrument, it's it's basically, I mean, it's a sound maker. So yeah, you learn to use it. And yeah, it's OK. I mean, it's man, but it's not it's not the it's not the be all and end all in life. Yeah, I hear you. But you are remarkable. OK, so just I just wanted to mention some some passages back in this book about humility. We kind of talked about humility in general, which is just an amazing virtue. But it says here, a campus says on page two, he says humility was a particular virtue of Christ and is therefore feared by the devil and despised by the world. It is. Yeah. So I mean, like the devil fears it. He does. Because how does the devil tempt us? A lot of the time it's by plugging into this pride and ego and ambition, you know, and this this pride and ego gives rise to not only to wrongful desires, but also to refusal to forgive, refusal to be charitable, refusal to sympathize with other people. So humility breaks down all of these. And the truly humble person can't be overcome by the devil because the devil has nothing to offer them, which could possibly distract them from virtue. Yeah. And it's despised by the world. Now, we think, well, what's the world? The world is not used in the sense of meaning God's creation, but rather it's it's used in the sense of this kind of network of forces and so forth. And this is closely aligned with the devil himself because he is described as the ruler of this world. Yeah. And it's something which the world as such can't come to grips with with a truly humble person, you know, because it when when a person is truly humble, the world doesn't have power over them. Yeah. Well, I thought about that. I mean, like if you've detached from material goods, for example, you know, big, big corporate America doesn't have anything to sell you. No, they're powerless over you. Yeah. Yeah. So they always have to be holding out that forbidden fruit. Oh, yes. And yeah. And if you're not seeking it and you say, I'm perfectly content where I'm at. And a perfectly content person is not a very good customer. They don't like anything. And there's this tremendous freedom in true humility. I think we find it greatly in Christ's encounter with Pontius Pilate, where he doesn't reply. He doesn't defend himself and Pilate is kind of thinking, well, I can't I can't master this guy. I can't overcome him. You know, he's not defending himself. What's what's going on here? You know, and one of the other works you've translated for us, the meditations, I'm sorry, the the passion of the Christ through the eyes of Mary by St. Anselm, which will talk about us some other time. But but there's a fascinating point there where the Blessed Mother is telling Saint St. Anselm about her perspective on the passion. And at that moment when Christ is kind of on trial, she she expresses to St. Anselm. She says, you know, my son's such an eloquent speaker. He's so good with human beings, you know, he's going to defend himself and hopefully get out of this mess. But she then is kind of maybe not shocked, but she she has to witness her son say, you know, he's the sacrificial lamb and he doesn't he doesn't defend himself. He doesn't defend himself. So even at that hour where, you know, even Mary had hoped he would defend himself and he does not. And he lets this little Roman man exercise power over him, which again, the humility of that is just mind blowing. You know, when I mean, we get, I get, I get, you know, angry at somebody who cuts me off in the in the car, you know, taking in crisis, letting Pontius Pilate condemn him to death. It's, it's remarkable. Another passage that struck me, father is, he says, a campus says, external piety and uprightness mean nothing unless accompanied by internal humility. While humility is a ladder ascending to the highest blessedness, its absence can easily cast the soul down to hell. And what I wanted to ask you here, you know, in the Gospels, man, do I see Christ going at the Pharisees and Sadducees? I mean, he cannot stand those empty white wash sepulchres. He cannot stand that fake, that fake humility sometimes that they show or a rigidity tied to the, to the, to the tradition without any kind of charitable or humble spirit. I mean, when I see this stuff that really makes Jesus mad. It's that stuff. Yeah. And so, and I think when a campus was writing this, he was writing it at a time in the church. Again, we talked about that revival and maybe the external piety was getting pharistatical again. Maybe there was too much emphasis on the bells and smells of everything. And so he's emphasizing here just what Christ emphasized in the Gospels, which do not be fooled that the external piety is true holiness. Oh, yes. And of course, we live in a world today in which, well, at least in Australia, we find external piety is not something you see a great deal of. Yeah, it's gone. So he was writing from a perspective when external piety was a way in which people could advertise their own virtue. I think we find the equivalent of external piety though in today's society, what you might call virtue signaling. Oh, gosh, yeah. Where people talk about whatever is fashionable, trendy social causes and everything and make like they're really so concerned about these things, politicians, especially, and you think, well, is this really for real? You know what? We should apologize to our listeners for not listing our pronouns before we began this episode, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Talk about virtue signaling. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if you're in any doubt, we're both peas slash hymns here. No, but that's a great example. Inclusive language is another thing. I mean, people use inclusive language. I find, you know, most women don't care about it one way or the other. But what is it? It's a way of people making themselves look good. Exactly. No, that's the stuff with the wokeness, you know, that drives us crazy. Yeah, well, it's fake humility. Well, that's right. You know, and I think the whole woke thing is the modern day equivalent of Phariseeism. Yeah. Well, that's a great connection there. That's a great connection. All right, I wanted to, on page six, I'm going to read you just a one line. The truly humble person is honestly aware of his own weaknesses and failings. He judges himself more strictly than he judges others and regrets his wrongdoings and sins constantly and sincerely. Now, why did I pick that out? Well, in studying humility, which I've done like through our other books on humility, there's a fascinating thing to me. Holy saints, and I think a campus was probably one of them, they very often truly believe that they're the worst of sinners. Yeah. Like, you know, and from my perspective, I'm saying, you're crazy, you know, but they truly believe it. Yeah. And, you know, in one sense, humility is supposed to be recognizing the truth. And, you know, a St. Francis de Sales or a Therese of Lisieux, they should know good and well. They're a whole lot holier than Connor Gallagher. Okay. But because of the virtue of humility, it seems like it does something to the brain to where they don't judge others, but they judge themselves and they look at others and they say, well, this person has this, you know, situation that's making it difficult for them. They're so compassionate towards other people around them and they're kind of saying, okay, these people might have an excuse, but I don't have an excuse. And so, you know, I guess that's how a saint can actually believe they're the worst person in the world because either they're crazy or the virtue of humility is really doing something to them to where they honestly believe they're the worst person in the world. And you know, the reason that we should judge ourselves with greater strictity than other people is because we can see in our own hearts. We can see in our own minds. So, you know, we can accuse ourselves with honesty, with certainty. With other people, we don't know what's going on in their lives and hearts and so forth. And so, in charity and justice, we're bound to give them the benefit of the doubt. But we can't excuse our own selves and often it can be tempting to go about it the other way, you know, to excuse ourselves and to condemn other people. You know, but I think to take this opposite approach, to think we're responsible only for ourselves. And this is something which in one of the books of Saint Edsel, he also talks about, you know, can you honestly say I feel I'm the worst of sinners? Yes, you can because you're in only position to judge yourself. You're not really in a position to judge other people at all. It's amazing. It's amazing. And as a parent, you know, I got a bunch of little rug rats at home. And, you know, the finger pointing is always, it's his fault, it's her fault. You know, that's what kids do. Adults do it worse. They just do it in more complicated ways. So, you know, one of the, what we call the core virtues that our family is no scorekeeping. I'm always telling the kids, you can't keep score. You can't keep score. And so, because when you live with people, you're saying, well, I did the dishes last night. It's your turn. Or it's not my turn to do this. It's your turn to do these little bickerings. And they're all just little bursts of pride. And so, as a dad, you know, with these little guys, I'm trying to always instill, okay, what's the humble thing to do right now? Right now, you're fighting like hell over the dishes. What's the humble thing to do? Don't tell me what the scorekeeping thing is to do. Don't tell me what the just thing is to do. Because that's essentially what they're always arguing is, it's not fair, you know. And I'm saying, well, forget fairness. Forget scorekeeping. Forget justice, your understanding of justice. What's the humble thing to do? And when you just break it down at that level, they have to be honest and they admit, yeah, the humble thing to do is just to do the dishes. Okay, you know. That's right. So, it's a very practical thing. And the other thing I'm trying to do with the kids' fathers, when my kids do something good, if they have any virtue, right, if somebody, adult or kid, does something that's kind, well, we know, and a campus teaches us, the virtue of humility is present within that other virtue, right? Yeah. So, when my kids do something and they do something kind, I'll say, oh, that's very kind and humble. Like I add and humble because, oh, you know, that was very brave of you. Good job to be strong and humble, you know. So, I tell them often, whenever I'm complimenting them on something, I try to say that it's also humble because I want to train their little brain to always see humility in the good and to see pride in the bad because if there's a vice, if there's anger, if there's, you know, lack of compassion, if there's whatever, there's pride. Yeah. And if there's anything good, there's also humility. So, I'm always trying to push that for the little guys, is learn to see humility in all good things and to see pride in all bad things. Yeah. It doesn't make any sense to you. It does. It makes a lot of sense and, you know, I think our, in general, the world tries to link strength with pride and humility with weakness. Yeah. But, you know, I think it's really the other way around that humility arises from true strength and promotes true strength and pride, I think, is linked with this weakness and fragility. So, you know, the cultivation of the virtue of humility makes us stronger people. Absolutely. It's only the truly strong person who can be truly humble. So, we mentioned a few minutes ago that humility, the work on humility and then the work on the elevation of the mind of God in this particular volume. There were two separate works, but we've combined them together. Yeah. And humility comes first in the book because it serves as the foundation for the mind going to God. So, I've turned to this second part of this book entitled The Elevation of the Mind to God and the subtitle there is Be Still and Know That I'm God. I just want to read the first couple of sentences. I find this absolutely beautiful. And so, this is written differently. This is a campus writing to God. It is, yeah. It's like his love letter to God, you know? But listen to this couple of first sentences. I seek you, my God, but not through any of the senses of my body or through any perceptible images. Rather, I turn within myself to the interior chambers of my thoughts and feelings and the realm which lies beyond all thoughts and feelings. I just had the comment there. I just find that beautiful. I mean, this is a campus telling us exactly how he seeks God, you know, not and the stuff around, but truly within that interior castle like Teresa of Avila talks about. Very much so. I mean, this line, I mean, it could come straight out of imitation of Christ, right? I mean, it's so, it's so a campus-esque, you know? Yeah. But that's how he begins this elevation of the mind to God. It's by turning inward. And I just find that interesting. Yeah. So, to free ourselves from the distractions of the world and, you know, and other people and everything that's going on around us and to look within ourselves, you know, and we're told that the kingdom of God lies within us. I think that's such a beautiful and true line. This links so closely with humility and pride, because pride is always something which turns us to the outside world. It turns us to what we seem like, you know, what other people think of us, what other people are doing. Humility frees us from that. And let's us move to this inner world, this world of our own thoughts and feelings. And I think what he says so beautifully, what lies beyond thoughts and feelings. And this is where we have to go. We're going to find God. Now, is he kind of getting at what the mystical theologians would talk about? Like contemplation where, you know, God is working on the person, you know? So, this is, I don't feel like he's saying, let's think about God in the perfect way. That's not really the elevation of the mind, right? It's not an academic exercise, you know? No. So, you know, the meditation, which is where we're thinking consciously, I mean, it's a useful first step, a preparatory step to this experience of contemplation. But the contemplation happens when we leave behind all thoughts and concepts. And, you know, it's a very blessed experience, which comes to most people at different times in their life. And I think that's what that introductory sentence is about. He's saying, go beyond these thoughts and feelings and encounter God in a different place. To leave everything behind, yeah. That's incredible. So, I mean, that's what elevation here refers to. It's kind of, you know, so I just wanted the listeners to hear, like, that's what this work is about, is encountering God. The next subheading is a prayer that, again, he's writing this as a prayer, right? Yeah. A prayer that the mind may be freed from its bondage to the things of the physical senses. I mean, our mind does have this bondage, you know? Yeah. And so, he is, this is a, this is a compass, his prayer to God that we get to read about how he will be freed from the trappings of this world. Yeah. Not so that he's not just a clear thinker, but that he has an intimacy with our Lord. That's right, you know? And the human soul is made for union with God. It has this natural upward tendency, this kind of yearning for the higher things. And it's sin which holds us back, which entangles us in the things of this world. So, you know, if we can sometimes experience this liberation from the physical senses from the external things of the world. And this is not to say that the physical senses in themselves are evil or anything like that, but they entangle us. They hold us back. They become our masters and our prisons. No. Well, and so the remainder of this short volume that we've published with you, there's a lot of prayers. Yeah. And are these also written by a compass? They are. They are. So, he wrote these prayers, I think, mainly for his own benefit, you know, because he felt this, this needed to express himself through writing. And he would have written these prayers and revisited them at different times. So, they're very beautiful works. I mean, you know, the first one is a prayer of love and praise to the Blessed Virgin Mary. I mean, these things are absolutely beautiful. I mean, O Virgin Mary, golden rose, indescribably sweet and beautiful. Let my prayers poured out to you with devotion. Enter into the sight of your most holy presence. I mean, he's a poet. He is. And you're a poet as well, translating this to where we can read it like that. But it's just, you know, almost radiant star illuminating the firmament and gracious queen of heaven. I mean, it's just like a love letter to our lady. It is. It is. It's absolutely beautiful. And I mean, this is something which people who've only encountered Thomas the Kempers through the imitation of Christ might not think about. They might think, well, it's kind of a little bit dry or, you know, not so mystical. And part of the reason why I was so keen to include these devout prayers is they really, they really illustrate the mystical side of Thomas the Kempers. And I think this is where the imitation of Christ with its emphasis on self-denial and so forth ultimately leads us to this mystical union. So the self-denial and things are not like an end in themselves but a way of freeing the soul of bringing it to this wonderful liberty of which is the love of God. Yeah. Beautiful. Well, in our next episode, we're going to just talk about, you know, in general about how, you know, kind of a summary of everything we've talked about so far in the previous episodes about how we can use Thomas the Kempers in our lives, you know, in our own pursuit of holiness. But, you know, I highly recommend to our listeners and our customers at TAN to check out Father Nixon's translation on humility and the elevation of the mind of God. I mean, every page is a glorious insight. And I'm very grateful, Father, for your work on this tremendous book. You saved this from the dungeons of time. I mean, you have brought it back and translated it for the first time into English. And, you know, that's heroic in my mind. So thank you for that. And any last words, Father, before we depart for today? Well, thanks very much. It's been a great pleasure to speak with you today, Conor, about this wonderful work. And I encourage everyone to check out the TAN Book website and acquire a copy of it for themselves. Outstanding. Thank you, Father. God bless you. Thank you.