Divine Mercy Explained with Fr. Michael Gaitley

hey friends a quick word before we get to today's episode the the episode you're about to see is not at all the episode that i planned on making but it is the episode that god planned on making we're going to be interviewing father michael gately and i'd never really spoken with father gately before this interview and there are some things that we talk about that were not part of any scripted idea but just you could you'll be able to see where the lord was going with this this episode's a little bit weird though in that we had some technical problems you'll see father gately's feed will freeze up for a while that's not your screen and you know the perfectionist and keith would be like hold on we got to redo this we got to look perfect but there was just the holy spirit was flowing so much i just said no we're just going to let it go and if it doesn't look perfect so what and that thought that i had in my mind was i guess encouraged greatly by the words that father gately spoke to me i kind of feel like what you're about to see isn't even really a podcast episode it's more of like spiritual direction and a conversation that he was having with me that was really directed at things that were going on in my heart so it's a long episode made longer now by my comments but i really want you guys to understand why this is i think so important you know father gately has not been doing things like this for the last year he's kind of wanted to recede from speaking in these types of ways you know through the internet or whatever but he graciously agreed to come on catholic feedback um and i am so blessed that he did i i really feel like this is an important episode an important conversation so i have included all of it there's nothing edited out and like i said it's kind of long so put yourself in a position where you can devote some time to listen to these words and i think that if you let the holy spirit speak through through you um to you through father gately you're gonna be blessed so thanks so much for watching this episode i hope you guys love this so here it is my conversation with father michael gately welcome to catholic feedback i'm your host keith nester on this podcast we connect the eternal truths of the catholic faith with everyday life send in your questions and comments to feedback at catholicfeedback.com this podcast is brought to you by down to earth ministry a ministry of stewardship a mission of faith and by the generous support of our patrons for more information please visit downtoearthministry.org that's down the number two earthministry.org let's get to it welcome to catholic feedback i'm your host keith nester on this podcast we connect the eternal truths of the catholic faith with everyday life i'm very very excited about our show today we're welcoming a man who even though this is really the first time i'm talking to him sort of face to face through a computer screen his work has had a deeply profound impact on my own life and my own journey as i as a new catholic really and uh his his his book 33 days to morning glory this marian consecration was a pivotal moment in my own personal journey so you guessed it if you haven't figured out who we're talking to today it's father michael gately and he's going to be joining us today to talk about something i've become very interested in lately which is divine mercy so everyone's putting their hands together virtually for father michael gately father welcome to the podcast and to my channel thank you so much for being here yeah thank you for having me on keith so this is how i know you i know you uh from writing this book but there's a lot more to uh who you are and what you're about than than 33 days to morning glory so so for for people and a lot of my audience are people who are either brand new to the catholic faith or still exploring it so let everyone know who you are and tell us a little bit about your work sure um uh who i am fundamentally you know obviously as a christian is um the son of the father and beloved of the father and somebody who struggles with accepting that love and i think my work is essentially a testimony to the what i feel is an extraordinary tenderness and gentleness from the lord for a very broken and weak soul that he for many decades has really worked hard it seems to try and convince me of his love and i think i believe it now and i think a lot of my work is helping other people who struggle with believing god's love for them to accept that love and the marian aspect to the work that i do is that i really feel that the heart of mary's mission that is mary the mother of god that her mission is really to help also um get people to accept jesus in their hearts as their loving savior and as uh their friend and so um she doesn't have the brokenness weakness and sin like i do but it's a similar mission in terms of helping people to see the true face of jesus which is a face of love and mercy that's man that's incredible right there so how long have you been an ordained priest uh just over 10 years yeah okay so your priesthood has taken you to some pretty interesting places i mean did you did you first join as a like a diocesan parish priest or have you always been in like a religious community so um i belong to a religious community now the marian fathers of the immaculate conception i actually did most of my formation um the vast majority of my formation in another religious community um right at the very end they decided i wasn't a good fit and they were right um uh and uh you know so it was a long journey for me uh i was like say i was a professional seminarian it was more than 15 years of studies toward the priesthood wow but like i said it was it was a very graceful time because uh i had a long time for prayer and study and um to try and grow in self-knowledge and uh i wouldn't change it for anything it really helped me to um know myself as a weak broken sinner and god as love and mercy itself so that's uh so my journey is 10 years of a priest 15 years of studies toward the priesthood and [Music] and just finding my myself in a time in my life where i feel like i've uh have a lot more peace because i think i've really become more convinced of the mystery of god's love and it's it's such a beautiful mystery and it's such a beautiful gift amen it certainly is and you know this whole idea of divine mercy um when i was exploring catholicism i was overwhelmed with all of the different devotions and prayers and all of the stuff that that people as catholics jump into so i used to be a protestant pastor for 22 years and you know our program prayers you know we had the lord's prayer we had a few things that we did but the devotional life that i've experienced as a catholic has been incredible and i first became interested in divine mercy a few years ago um because i was messing around on youtube and i came across the chaplet being sung and i was just attracted to that so i've learned a little bit about it and i've had a couple experiences with it but i know this is something that you're profoundly interested in and so i just want you to explain to us like what tell us tell us like at a third grade level what is divine mercy and where did it come from sure um divine mercy is the heart of the gospel you know you were just talking about as a as a protestant you know there was maybe a more streamlined we'll say approach to prayer and devotion in the catholic church there's a just a smorgasbord of all kinds of devotions and history and all these things in terms of like devotional life and different traditions and things one of the things that i found is while it's beautiful to have all these different devotions catholics like myself can sometimes get confused as to what the heart of it all is what the very heart of it all and um divine mercy as pope benedict xvi said during his pontificate he said it divine mercy is not some secondary devotion but rather it's the central nucleus of the gospel message and i think in the evangelical world there's a real focus on you know the central nucleus of the gospel grace saving grace or as catholics we tend to use the word mercy more than grace but um in the catholic sphere divine mercy i believe is the way that the holy spirit has brought a new richness in our time to the great richness of catholicism by helping catholics to also rejoice and accept and focus their attention on the heart of the gospel so what is the heart of the gospel the catechism of the catholic church says the gospel is the good news in jesus christ of god's mercy for sinners it's the good news that god doesn't love us because we're so good but because he's so good it's the good news that god's love is like water that always rushes to the lowest place it's the good news that jesus leaves behind the nine and the 99 righteous and goes in search of the one lost sheep it's the good news that god loves us again not because we're so good but because his love seeks out the weak the broken and the lost and divine mercy as a devotion which comes to us through the polish saint and mystic saint faustina kovalska is i think part of a long line of a prophetic movement in the church coming from the holy spirit um starting with saint margaret mary mary alicoak in the 17th century going through saint perez of lisu who was a saint that one of the popes said rediscovered the gospel going through saint faustina kovalska who brings to us the modern message of divine mercy and then then coming to john paul ii who was the great pope of mercy which was picked up by bennett the 16th and uh and pope francis so divine mercy is something ever ancient ever knew it's something that um is the very central nucleus of the gospel message it's the good news that god is love it's the good news it's the bad news that we're sinners but it's the marriage of those two that merciful love is that which meets sinners in their brokenness and i think it just uh gives great uh compliment to all the devotions and things in the church but it's it's a movement in the church right now focusing on what's most essential which is the kerygma the gospel and the acceptance of the gospel by sinners the good news of god's mercy how did this come through saint faustina like what tell us the story about that sure um saint faustina again was a polish mystic uh she died in 1938 more or less in the eve of world war ii she had predicted world war ii but you think of like world war ii as the worst war in human history the worst place to suffer the the highest casualty rate during the worst war in human history was in poland and in this place which is like the worst of the worst in terms of what the mod the ugliness of the modern world um that in the midst of that brokenness which itself is a sign of divine mercy because mercy goes to the lowest place that in the midst of all of that suffering in that pain jesus appeared you know there's a mystical tradition in the church where jesus not giving some new gospel again but he gave faustina a message that brings the church back to the heart of the gospel and we see that in a historic way because again poland suffered so terribly during the war and after faustina's death in 1938 on october 5th 1938 1939 the nazis invaded poland and poland went through hell and they say that world war ii is the war that the polls lost twice because not only did the nazis come in and caused tremendous pain and suffering but then the communists in soviet russia came in and took over poland and so poland suffered tremendously but um the heart of the message was that jesus told faustina that he wanted an image painted and it was the image with the signature at the bottom jesus i trust in you an image that i think you can see behind me and it's the image of jesus with the two rays and the signature jesus i trust in you and i like to think about like that jesus for those people who are suffering so much in poland and even in the modern world with all the suffering all the loneliness all the pain all the brokenness that as we see in that image of divine mercy jesus is stepping into our darkness he hasn't abandoned us he's stepping right into it to it and with amidst all of our fears he's saying i don't want you to give in to fear i want you to place your trust in me because i love you i'm with you and i will bring you through this and um so that's i think the significant aspect of faustina is she gives sort of a modern testimony to that central nucleus of the gospel of god's mercy meeting suffering god's mercy meeting pain god's mercy meeting sin and that's a message that is so important for us to hear today which is why i think god wanted to amplify the gospel message through the prophetic witness and testimony of a great saint faustina but then also john paul and these other popes yeah and i you know i think this idea of of mercy just as understanding how it relates to us and god is it like you said before it is the center of the gospel and especially for for a lot of us who can get easily focused on all of the stuff that that we're supposed to do in our faith we can fall into this trap of believing that god loves god's level of love for us is somehow dependent on our performance and i feel like when there's a breakthrough in our lives where we realize that we're loved you know as ephesians 2 says we're that his mercy his mercy was rich toward us while we were dead in our transgressions not sitting above us going well just keep trying harder and then maybe i'll love you when you have a breakthrough with that i i feel like that's when you finally understand the gospel but to me i've i my experience is there's so many people that can go their entire life practicing their faith and never quite get there because they're still convinced that it's all about performance yes i think i think you are absolutely right and i think um the heart of it all like in the beginning you asked me is or about who i am or is that i understand my identity is the son of the father and i understand that the father says to me what he says to his son who became incarnate for us that the father is constantly saying to me you are my beloved and um i am 100 convinced that and it's not because of anything i did i mean i would say you know the father's voice was heard at the baptism of jesus this is my beloved son in whom i'm well pleased um i don't think the father is always saying in whom i'm well pleased because i'm a sinner you're a sinner and we do things that displease him we sin but the reality that doesn't our sin and our struggles do not change the fundamental bedrock reality of what has been given to us through the sacrifice of jesus christ obtained to us for us through faith and baptism namely that we are the children of god that god is my father he's your father and he loves me not because of anything i've done but because of what his son did for me on the cross and in his resurrection and that that that his love for me does not change just as if you have children i think you have you have a family i have three there's nothing as a christian father there's nothing your children could ever do that would keep you from loving them no matter what and in fact the more trouble they got in or difficulties the more you would love them and jesus himself tells us in the most beautiful parable i think of all the parable of the prodigal son about the central truth of that reality that when the son asked for his inheritance which was essentially saying to his father as far as i'm concerned you're dead and then that son went spent his inheritance on loose living and on prostitutes and act lived like a pig and then lived with the pigs went back to his father and his father saw him from a distance and embraced him because the reality is the father recognized um you know and the son said you know let me i don't deserve to be called your son anymore the father recognized you are always my son we are always the children of god no matter what and um that when like you said something changes it's to me it's that reality and that's the simple reality that jesus came to share with us through his suffering through his death but also through his preaching that we by the by the power of jesus christ and his sacrifice and the power of the holy spirit we have been made the children of god god is our father and the father loves us with the same love with which he loves the eternal son it couldn't be greater it's just a question of whether we in our brokenness will accept that love and if and when when that reality hits us it changes everything then it goes from being a christian life is performance because that's a worldly perspective that's what we learn from the time we're little we all the bottom line reality is we all want to be loved every one of us wants to be loved and from the time we were little kids we've learned that in order to get love you got to get all a's you got to be a star athlete you got to be handsome or beautiful or whatever the case may be you've got to be successful you got to be somebody to be loved in this world and that's true but we're not we're talking about a father who's not of this world it's our heavenly father and he loves us in categories that are not in line with the world he loves us because we're broken and we're weak and we need him and the more we think that we try to earn his love the more we're out of the category of the kingdom we're out of the central category of the kingdom which is we can do nothing and he is god we're not but he has come to save us and his son and he gives us the power of the holy spirit which is the power to follow his will to follow his commandments but we receive that power we receive that grace when we accept him into our lives in a personal relationship and friendship and a dependency of prayer of daily prayer and uh getting to know him through his word and and that that christian life is beautiful and it's different from the performance approach to christianity which is not really christianity but there's a lot of christian there's a lot of you know what appears to be christianity but that it's really a form of living that's in christian in the worldly categories and it's and it misses the central reality of the joy of being the children of god i i agree you know i often tell people the gospel is not try harder exactly because if that were the case then jesus wouldn't have had to die on the cross he just would have come down and told everybody try harder but his teaching all leads toward his ultimate glorification which is if i be lifted up i will draw amen to me that's the sacrifice the fundamental message of the gospel is there's no trying that we could ever do that would make up for the the chasm that exists between us and god due to our sin but that's where the mercy of god comes in but it's so hard father gately to really receive that sometimes because we know us we we know our own brokenness but i i feel like the message of divine mercy and understanding this it kind of like goes around all of the stuff that we're engaging in because it's a simple prayer i mean i'm thinking of the chaplet specifically it's a very simple easy thing to do but it's it's also very childlike in faith i think which i think is the key to it and i feel like if our job as leaders in the faith or your job as leader of faith you know or whatever i'm able to do is to help people to recognize that it's about god's mercy and then our life is or lived in response to that i feel like that's that's incredible the problem i think we have sometimes is we we live in these categories where we say okay well then your guests are telling me that i don't have to do anything right so god doesn't care what i do because he loves me anyways and has mercy on me so i might as well go sin and not worry about it but so how do you how do you help people to to recognize the connection between god's mercy and then personal holiness yeah i think i think the heart of it is um coming to understand that we're sinners and i don't mean that and i think what i mean by that is to understand how we're sinners fundamentally and what i mean by that is in the fundamental category the f the most fundamental category of all in the christian life is the category of love god is love and he has called us into the communion of love that he himself is as father son and holy spirit we're made in the image of a god who is himself a communion of love our brokenness our sinfulness is that we're selfish that we don't give in to self-giving love that that we're we have this tendency to just make ourselves the center of the universe make our needs the center of the universe all of these things and the idea is it's very important to see i think and to recognize that at least and this is in my opinion and particularly my reading of saint teresa of lisu who's one of my favorite saints is that you know you read a lot about the lives of the saints and sometimes it's it's like wow they're so amazing they're so virtuous they've done so many sacrifice they've suffered so much and they seem like they're on this this totally different level and they are but then you you listen to them and they act like they're the biggest sinners it's like well are they just being phony like well they're probably not because they're saints but what gives like how really can like a saint francis oh or saint charez like or any like any of these saints talk about oh i'm such a broken center no you're not compare yourself to me you're no you're a saint but what the the reality that they recognize is that they don't love god as much as they should is what they recognize is they see how much god loves them and this gets to the point of like you know you're saying yeah well i know god loves me but then how do you keep from from just saying well i'm going to go in sin that's not even the categories the categories is no no do you see how much he loves you when we the more we enter into the mystery of that love the more we're pierced to the heart to see that love is not loved as he ought to be loved the more we begin to weep like the saints that he loves us so much he's entered into covenant with us covenant means he's given of himself to us totally and completely we see that in the eucharist it's a total gift of himself he's god he's given himself totally to me a weak broken creature and how do i give myself to him half-hearted i'm distracted i'm thinking of different things it's the reality of our lack of love that that pierces saints to the heart and the interesting thing is we'll never be there we'll never get there we will never win that competition of loving god as much as he loves us he loves us so much but it's the saints that the more they draw closer to that mystery of love the more they see their brokenness and the more they desire to love as they've been loved and if you know you say well then i won't do these things look the fundamental category is love if you're doing those things you're doing things that go against love you're doing things that are selfish the more we draw close to a god who's not selfish but self-giving the more we enter into that mystery and the more we become convicted of our own sinfulness it's a much greater conviction of sinfulness to experience and to rest in and to stay focused on the love of god for us than to read all of these different things this is a sin this is a sin this is a sin yeah it's a sin but why is it sin because you're not loving he who loves you and and otherwise it's just sort of dry commandments but they're not dry commandments they're given by the god of love and they're they're demonstrated for us on a cross which is the ultimate sacrifice of love but we don't always see things in the category of love we don't see our sins in the category of love we see it as an oh up i did this now maybe i'll miss out on heaven and i'll miss my my life insurance policy that maybe i'll i won't get to heaven i'll go to hell it's no it's all about this relationship with one who gives himself far beyond anything we can imagine but that the saints begin to approach and so um so how do we you know do all that we to how do we grow in love how do we grow in living on authentic christian life we enter more deeply into the mystery of love that is we ponder as one of the biggest things in the diary of saint faustina jesus told her meditate on my passion he says when you meditate on my passion your soul acquires a distinct beauty well the three o'clock hour is one of the devotional aspects of the divine mercy message and devotion and what are we supposed to do in the three o'clock hour we reflect on jesus's abandonment on the cross that is that he made the sacrifice of love for us and he was abandoned not only by his disciples but he's abandoned by us because we don't reflect on it enough and so every day at three o'clock the heart of that message and that devotion act the heart of that devotional aspect of the devotion is to reflect on the passion of jesus and what does it mean to reflect on the passion of jesus oh crud the christian life has all of this suffering in it that's not what that's the wrong category is to look at the cross and see love no greater love is a man than if you give up his life for his friends and to ponder the mystery of love revealed for us on the cross that's that's how we enter into these things we reflect on what christ has done for us as our friend and as our savior i want to ask you a question that i don't think i've ever asked anybody before and it's kind of a personal question but like for me do you think that when we do that you know that we can console the heart of jesus and his passion and i know that that took place 2 000 years ago but i'm often drawn to the agony in the garden when i'm praying the rosary and how he is he's alone there um from the human perspective i know the angel comes to minister to him but he says to his disciple why couldn't he just keep watch with me one hour and i think a lot of us long to find some way to console him there and i know that that's in the past but do you think that when we reflect on that that somehow that that brings him consolation it's funny can i ask you a question absolutely have you ever heard of my book consoling the heart of jesus no i haven't see that's very interesting because what the question you just asked i think it came from the holy spirit i've never asked somebody this but what you just described gets to the heart for me in my relationship with jesus christ i wrote a book my first book was a book called consoling the heart of jesus i had no idea and the reason i wrote that book is because during my seminary during my novitiate i had a very powerful experience where i felt like the lord was asking me to console his heart really and um i wrote the book as a manuscript while i was in the seminary and i had a theology professor he's a very renowned theology professor and he said you can't console jesus and i said what and it threw me into such darkness because that had been the heart of my spiritual life and um long story short i did a lot of studying on this and i could give you uh i could give you explanations from saint thomas i could give you explanations from different papal encyclicals but at the heart of it that i've come to an understanding to the short answer in what you're describing absolutely yes we can console him and in fact i feel like this is an aspect of the catholic i love the evangelical christians i think they have a lot of things that they can teach catholics about love for scripture the importance of praise importance of faith importance of all these things but there's something very beautiful that the catholic tradition i believe can offer to evangelicals evangelicals will often say you know the heart of the christian life is a personal relationship with jesus and i would say i agree with that but the spirituality of consoling the heart of jesus is really a personal relationship with jesus on steroids um i once gave a talk to a bunch of doctors um it was like a retreat for these medical doctors and they and it was about concerning the art of jesus one of them wasn't catholic and it was on consoling the heart of jesus and at the end this doctrine he came up to me said father gateway the idea that we can console jesus whoa he said you catholics you're deep i need to reflect on that and that's the whole point for me this is very a deep this is the depths of the thing but not everybody wants to go there because it's the mystery of his sorrow of his pain of his thirst and i'm going to get into that this is how i usually explain it in the old testament god revealed himself as i am in other words i am and you're not i'm the creator you're the creature i'm everything you're nothing except in so far as i hold you in existence that's the first point god is i am and we're and we're not and there is nothing we can give to him really he's totally happy in and of himself father son and holy spirit in a certain sense we really add nothing to his glory he's completely happy he's completely satisfied he does not need us he's the great i am we're the i am not in a sense and saint paul saint peter actually says that when he's asked if if he knows jesus in the in the uh in the courtyard of annas i think are you one of his disciples i am not and god is the i am and when he denied jesus he became i am not because he departed from the one who is truly alive so that's the first point god is i am he doesn't need us and so this idea of consoling god god doesn't need us point two the incarnation not out of any necessity but out of his free choice god the father sent his son to become incarnate to be our savior and with the incarnation the second person of the trinity who doesn't need us and totally happened himself with the incarnation he became like us in all things but sin if he be truly became like us in all things then one of the things well i'll put it this way what is most characteristic of the human being the philosophers will tell us and they're wrong and that sometimes sometimes catholics i think even we have this rich intellectual tradition but i know a lot of catholics are uncomfortable with the heart uncomfortable with affectivity and it's all about being orthodox it's all about having the truth but let's leave our emotions out of it because i've got all this brokenness and i don't want to deal with it and i like having everything clear it's one of the things like you know i've have some friends that get really upset about pope francis and i i just don't like they have and what they've said is oh he's it's he's got to be more clear he's got to be more clear a true father gives clarity i said no a true father gives what his children need and sometimes what we need is mystery because sometimes to have all of the answers is a bit of uh it's not really the truth we don't really have all the answers because god is a mystery and he's a mystery of love and it's a mystery that we only approach with humility and faith yes it's faith seeking understanding but when we think we have all the answers and sometimes we can fall into that as catholics because we got the fullness of the truth but the reality is we have the fullness of the truth in terms of what's revealed in terms of a teaching authority of the church but the mystery of love is something we all need to grow in and delve into and so the ideas back to the this point about consoling jesus is god became like us in all things there's a bit of a tangent but i think it's an important one jesus is like us in all things and what separates us from the animals what makes us truly human is not fundamentally our reason it's our heart that's what scripture says the philosophers may say what separates us is our intellects but if i the last time i was in a catholic church and i've never seen in a catholic church a statue with the sacred brand of jesus that's true i see statues of the sacred heart of jesus and that as he became like us in all things but sin he took on a human heart and because he took on a human heart every human heart has a desire to love and to be loved god doesn't need us the eternal son didn't need us but when he became incarnate and took on a human heart he took on he became vulnerable he took on a human heart powered by divine love for sure but that heart has a need for our love and that need for our love that desire for our love is so great that if in the old testament he defines himself as he gives his name as i am in the new testament from the heights of his love on the cross i think he revealed the fullness of his name as an in as our incarnate lord in a certain sense because on the cross as he was in the midst of his deepest agony dying of love for us he cried out not i am but i thirst i thirst and as mother teresa one of these great you know she wasn't the most intellectual but she was the great great lover and so the mysteries of the kingdom were revealed to her because sometimes we forget jesus says i give you thanks father lord in heaven and earth for hiding these things from the wise and the learned and revealing them to the childlike to the little ones and what is the mystery that he revealed that he is humble and gentle and meek of heart and that his heart thirsts for our love what mother teresa received from jesus in prayer is that the fundamental heart of jesus is that he is a thirst that he's thirsting for our love and you ask the question you know is he still can we console him i mean he lived 2 000 years ago so you know isn't he happy in heaven how can i console him now and the usual answer is people say oh well you know you console his suffering members of the body and that's how you console jesus but the head of the body is happy in heaven i would say hold it i would say that we can console not only the members of the body of christ but we can also console the head of the body why because and this gets back to your insight and your intuition i think about the garden of jesus being in the garden jesus is true man but he's also true god as true god he could see all people of all time saint paul tells us that the son i don't have the i'm not an evangelical christian so i don't have it perfectly memorized but i know that just is that saint paul tells us that that the son of god died suffered and died for me he died for me when jesus was suffering on the cross because he was true god and because of the nature of love because god is love he knew personally i believe i'm convinced i'm convicted he knew all of us personally as he was dying for us on the cross personally he died for you he died for me you know that's a that's a that's a cliche but it's also a fundamental theological reality it means he knew me it means he knew you then two thousand years ago when he was dying on the cross because he's god he knew those for whom he was giving up his life he could see you and he could feel the pain of the rejection of his love by us which is our sins but he was also as he was on the cross consoled by our love for him just as he was consoled by mary at the foot of the cross standing there looking at him with love the suffering of the rejection of his love was terrible but i think he also received some consolation at least in the garden by our acts of love and there's there's more theology of it but but i'll end with this so with the so he's the great i am in the old testament and the new testament is i thirst in a sense he's made himself vulnerable you can ask the question the third point why it's for the sake of friendship because the reality is god and us are on different levels we're creatures he's the creator in order saint uh are not saying you can't either aristotle taught us that the nature of friendship there needs to be a kind of equality how can we be friends of jesus unless there's a kind of equality and the reality is how can we be a friend of jesus i'll put it this way friendship requires a two-way street how can i be a friend with you keith if let's say you're coming to me and you're sharing your your heart your pains and your sufferings and i know i've never share with you that's not friendship that's called spiritual direction it's a one-way street friendship is always a two-way street in friendship friends share their hearts their joys and their sorrows how can we be truly friends with jesus if all he's sharing with us are his joys of being in heaven and i can't wait till you get here while you're slugging it out down there no he is suffering with us now because he suffered for us then and he carries that i mean as as the catechism of the catholic church says the paschal mystery and i would say all the mysteries of christ because jesus is true god he's true man and true god but the paschal mystery this is the catechism of the catholic church i don't know the paragraph number i think it's 470 something but the paschal mystery is such i could be wrong on that that might be with the human knowledge of christ anyway the the paschal mystery the suffering death resurrection of jesus is unlike other historical events most historical events i just touched my nose that what i just did is swallowed up in the past it's not happening now it was then 20 seconds ago and and counting the paschal mystery of christ the catechism says abides it transcends all times and participates in the eternal now so in other words everything of christ's life it's like he is the same yesterday today and forever when jesus and this is what mother teresa recognized through a mystical experience of her love is what she realizes when jesus cried out on the cross i thirst those words echo through the ages as a real word you know an evangelical world the word of god is living and effective it's alive it's not a dead letter when the word of god is preached it is alive why because it's the word that's spoken by he who is god the incarnate word that the word doesn't pass away and so the ideas including that word that he that word of love that he spoke from the cross when jesus said on the cross i thirst it was a word that he spoke for you and for me inviting us into his love and this also answers the question sometimes people hear about saint faustina and they're saying you know that's saint faustina she's you know she's great but she's this mystic jesus was appearing to her he was talking to her he never was never talking to me she could hear him does jesus speak to you does jesus speak to me absolutely through his word every day at mass when we hear the word proclaimed every time we take prayer he is speaking to us in his word no less in fact in a greater way than faustina hearing locutions because those locutions those words they could be an error maybe it wasn't jesus maybe it was the devil appearing as an angel of light every mystic that you have to test the spirits you don't have to test the word of god it's the word of god you can be assured it's him speaking to me and when we when we listen to the word with faith it is jesus speaking to us this is why mother teresa in every one of the chapels of the missionaries of charity would have a big crucifix and underneath one of the arms of the crucifix would be written the words i thirst and she would say those words are not in the past only they are alive for us here and now do you hear the words that jesus is wanting to say to you speaking in your heart she said it's you don't get this from books but from hearing him speak do you hear him speaking those words and sometimes people and a lot of catholics i know we get caught up in all of the all the fanciness of oh we got all these answers we got st thomas we got the catechism we got all these things nice and laid out and but what's the one that we tend to skirt around love and how do we know that because so much of catholic chatter and noise on the internet is the opposite of love oh but we're preaching the truth is it done with love yeah it is then why is there so much anger then why is there so much rash judgment then why is there so much demonization are people really watching you and listening to you and i'm not talking about you i just met you but you seem like a man of love but so many that i you watch and you hear and you think if somebody was not a christian if they were listening to this person would they say see how they love one another that's what attracts people to christ we can have great we could have great answers but not be moved to faith hope and love it's love that melts hearts and it's a heart that moves the intellect i think i think we need to figure out a way right now to like get all the catholic youtubers into a big room and they can sit down and you can kind of remind everybody of that because that's that was one of the things that for me when i first you know when i when i left my position in ministry i didn't just jump right in from okay i went to be a pastor now i'm gonna go find some way to be a ministry in the catholic church that was the last thing on my mind you know i i let that go because i felt like the lord was calling me into his church and i had to get to a point it took me many many years father gately where i was able to sacrifice that just for jesus and i had a very distinct moment in my life in my in my story where jesus spoke to me from the cross and i asked him i said lord i want to become catholic and i'll do it but you need to make a way because i didn't know how to get through this and he just said i am the way the truth and the life you don't need me to make a way you just need me and i was praying as people were receiving the eucharist i got my blessing out of mass and i was i just knelt down and prayed and the lord just hit me with this with this beautiful idea of his of his love and and of course his mercy and it was you know it was a couple years before i ever started thinking about getting involved in ministry again and one of the things that was hard for me was that my fantasy of all of this unity and catholicism was just shattered as soon as i started going on youtube you know because i thought okay we're catholic we all have the same we're united in our faith we're united under the papacy we're united under the magisterium of the church and all of our doctrine but man what i've found to be the case is so many people their idea of the purpose of catholicism is to say i've got the truth and my job is to stamp out where everybody else doesn't have it which immediately puts yourself above everybody else and it's been it's been difficult so i've you know just in my own ministry i've tried really hard to not live in that world it's tough sometimes but i i think your message there would be something that so many people need to hear because it is so true if we can't treat each other with love then we're not doing it right and it doesn't matter what you know well the the thing is i i think exactly what you're saying but the thing is i need to i need my remind like i don't need to tell other remind others i think we all need to be reminded of this because as i was saying like how do we not stop from sinning we reflect on on the god of love and you know i i presume everybody's intentions are good it's just over the last year with the pandemic and things the temperature has really turned up it sure has and and it's hard for everyone it's hard for people who are trying to hold things together it's hard for five people to make sense of things but the the one thing though that we can hold on to is that god loves us and that we're called to reflect that love and it's not my job to tell people this is how you do it this is but what i what i have seen is i've seen a lot of people who are afraid and a lot of people who are angry and as a as a pastor so as a priest i'm looking at the flock and i'm thinking what does the flock need from her leaders they need to be they need to be helped to to trust to not give into fear because the devil the devil plays in fear and we do we do not have to be afraid jesus tells us over and over again do not be afraid and our job is to preach the gospel if we're catholic leaders if we're christian leaders because what we preach is jesus christ his gospel what we preach is christ crucified who's christ crucified it's christ the ultimate icon of love because no greater love is a man than if you give up his life for his friends that is the message that we as catholic christians preach there's issues that need to be addressed that i'm not capable others are way more capable others are way more intelligent but i think no matter whatever our gifts they're to be put at the service of love and it's easy to forget love when temperatures are turned up it's easy to forget love when there's interests involved it's easy to forget about love i mean i remember when i was a newly ordained priest and um you know i had just had a successful book and people were and i was going and speaking at these conferences and things and it is so easy to start thinking that you're something based on your own works it's so easy to think that i'm somebody who's important you're we're not christ is important and as soon as we start i mean i always think about there's this passage and i and i i i worry and this is i've i've really i've i've pulled back a bit from some you're you're the first i think interview i've done a long time and it's because you're a friend of a friend of mine who asked me to do that but i would have normally said no why because i'm trying to take some time because i really want to grow in love and i see how a lot of times for me it's easy to get caught up in uh making an impact through doing this and that i want to make an impact by being a saint and i recognize i need to be to become a saint i need to learn to love and the idea is um i think the current situation that we're all in where we're struggling and suffering it's to get back to the basics and the basics are you know to receive god's love for us and to love others and ask ourselves you know uh oh but what i was saying with that is in the current environment it's and i've seen this with in in ways i'll just put it this way it's easy to get drawn into the world what do i mean by the world you know saint ignatius of lola it's you know the path of satan is pleasures right and that's where you just stop yeah we can't be doing this sin or that all these pleasures what's the next one riches and fame adulation it's very and then what does that lead to ultimately according ignatius is the way of satan pride i'm somebody i'm important and what happens is it's very easy to go down that path and not rex and what happens is the further we go into the path towards pride the more love departs it will say wonderful things to justify oh but i'm doing this for the sake of souls i like i'm reaching all these souls if we have not love we are simply a noisy gong if we have not love we're simply noisy gong and if we're looking at oh how many views did i get how many of this oh how many how many how many followers do i have all that it's very easy okay pl maybe we're not pleasure but as soon as there's the adulation things it's not saying we don't do anything ignacious also said adrian quadragis do what you're doing don't stop doing what you're doing for fear that you're going to become prideful or whatever but be on guard but be on guard and in the that's that's true of every age but i think especially in this age when it's like there's the growing narcissism and the social media things all that's great but you know it's it's it's there's a more of a preoccupation of how do i look and how to you know what's my how are people you know there's this this thing in classical spiritual theology called timur humanus which is human fear of of human beings fear of what others think sometimes we prioritize i don't care what anybody thinks except our base yeah you know there's just as in the secular world there's virtue signaling like i got this and this you know the category i'm i'm saying all i'm hitting all the right hot button issues but but the thing is we get these isolated camps and then we're we're in the echo chamber for our own group and everybody's saying oh you you preach the truth you're so much and you're in this little we're in this little you know there's the left there's the right my goal is i want to be in the elevated center which is the pierce heart of jesus from which flows the blood water and and i don't and i'm trying to get there and that's why part of why i'm like i want to get out of the whole thing because something that's always haunted me as i'm somebody i talk about you know divine mercy and people ask me you asked me to speak about divine mercy and something that's always haunted me was there's a passage i can't remember if it's in the diary faustina or one of her letters but it was talking about blessed michael cepacho saint faustina's spiritual director and he once went on a radio program over the radio and he was talking and i don't remember all the details but it just it struck me enough that i remembered i never went back to it because you know the diary is so big and you lose where passages are but i remember it struck me that something was like where father blessed michael cepacho was thinking about how he came across was looking at himself in the in the radio interview he wasn't looking at christ he wasn't thinking about i'm doing this he was thinking about like you know how do i look how did i sound how are people going to receive me and i think what i remember that is faustina was thinking jesus was very displeased with that he was very displeased with that and um and i thought if that's blessed michael cepacho who was fustina's spiritual director and she said so many wonderful things about she said that that jesus's gaze was on him constantly night and day and yet at that moment jesus's gaze on him was one of displeasure and i think about like if if you know it's not for me to go and remind everybody i'm reminding myself i'm pulling back a bit just because i want to be a saint i want to make a true impact which means if my life is truly given to love and i'm a selfish sinner just like anybody else but i want i want to be a saint i want to be given to love and i work with this this wonderful priest father james divine father francis denkowski who helped me with the marian missionaries of divine mercy and these young men and women where we do farm work and all these other things and and i say that not as like a plug oh you know missionaries we're so great no but it's i have this environment now where i can do a kind of more simple living and really looking at um how do i grow in love and that's for me maybe everybody else doesn't need that but i needed that and i'm not sure i need to you know if this helps as a reminder for others good but i'm reminding myself this is what i remind myself all day long and but i do think when i turn on some of catholic media i wonder is that spirit of the world getting in or is it that spirit of christ who is and this is the way i said the path of satan was the riches and pleasure oh the other one was fame adulation leading to pride the path of christ which is the opposite the standard of christ is poverty and simplicity of life abuse and wrongs not abuse you know in the stan you know what the current context of scandals all that although maybe i mean jesus is with all of the victims of abuse but he was abused and beaten and made fun of and accused and all these things leading to humility he was disliked he was rejected which led to humility that's the path of christ that's the path to humility and that path of humility is the path of love because love our ability to love it's not our power it's not something we work up it's poured into our hearts by the holy spirit you asked me at the beginning of the program what is divine mercy in one sense you look at divine mercy is divine love going down to suffering humanity but in order to receive that love so as then to overflow and give that love we have to recognize our need for that love which is what humility is and what all the the being humbled being you know rejected being forgotten being you know treated poorly like i've gone through quite a wet ringer over the last three years and i didn't always handle it well it was the anger and this and that and just thinking like what a gift that suffering is because it's reminding me who i am nothing i'm nothing but he is everything and he loves me and that makes me something because that makes me his son and um if that's not fundamental and if we're not remembering that every day as mother teresa said how can we last even one day if we don't hear jesus say i love you if and if and if we can go every day without hearing him say that you know and like hearing those words well how do i hear him say that just think of those words i thirst if you hear those words if you think of those words that's why she had on the wall of the chapel it was because that's called meditation look at those words you look at those words and then he's speaking to you because those words are always there jesus is always saying i thirst for you we just don't hear it and we don't understand we thirst for him and that's what he simply thirsts that we thirst for him and that's the friendship he wants to have with us for us to understand he's thirsting for us and us to understand we're really what we're really thirsting for is for him and that's what the catechism of catholic church is contemplative prayer that's what mother teresa said that's prayer so for mother teresa with their nuns you know i've given her treats to missionaries jerry they're very simple and they pray very simply but they get to the heart of it i thirst and they hear jesus saying that to him not in their ears but in the faith of knowing that he's constantly speaking that from the cross 2000 years ago that abides now present in the eucharist present in the mass present in the word present in my heart and sanctifying grace because that never changes he's always thirsting for us and it's to always hear the father saying you are my beloved you are my beloved and hearing that word from our father that we don't have to do all these things to earn his love gives us the freedom to then serve him without looking at ourselves and trying to be somebody we're already everything we need because we're children of the father and that's enough that really is enough and there's where christian peace there's our christian joy and there's where christian love comes from because if we're filled with the father's love in darkness and in consolation but knowing in the darkness knowing in the consolation that his voice is not the same his voice is the same you are my beloved no matter how we're feeling you are my beloved when that becomes the bedrock reality of our lives then we can go and share that reality with others and and that's um that's what um i think that's the heart of the christian life i don't believe that there's anything in the scripture that is by accident and when we talk about this idea before and i think all this connects of consoling jesus in the garden the the part of that that hit me that hits me the hardest is when he goes back to the disciples and he's just and i can hear it in his heart i hear the pain in his voice of why couldn't he just keep watch with me one hour now why does he say that it's not because he is like scolding them that thirst that you talk about there is a manifestation of that in that relational way because he loves us and wants that from us so we have to remember that even though we cry out to god for his mercy which i think divine mercy and the recognition of the need for divine mercy is the antidote to our pride because prideful people people who are something they don't need mercy because they've already earned you know whatever it is they think so oh i don't i don't need that you know but when you have to get on your face before god and ask for mercy what you're essentially asking for is to receive receives something more than what you deserve and you're acknowledging that you deserve that you deserve punishment for your sin but you're asking for god's mercy so when christ says why could you not keep watch with me in some ways we might hear that as a scolding but really it's an invitation to love because he's asking us i want you to enter in to this reality of this loving and you talked about it earlier father about how can you have friendship with god if there's not that ever that that um you know equals sharing and i know we can never be equal with jesus but just an element of sharing and i think that that's that's important well here's the thing is is i mean i want to comment on that because you brought up something that's very important that's relevant to all of this in terms of that relationship with jesus like something that's very that's very important and this is where i try and focus because i spent almost all my time investing everything in about uh you know 15 to 20 young people and well why i'm not you're going you could be doing it you have an impact on that well what i've come to learn is fatherhood is you know you you you yourself you've got children you spend all this time investing in them that's what jesus did with the disciples and one of the things i've i've learned is the greatest sort of impact in the in the area of the kingdom so if we become saints one saint makes up for everything like it's hard for me to say let me put it this way jesus loves everyone but you know then there was his disciples right there was like you know all this whole group of people that were following right was the 70 and this and that then there was the twelve that jesus had spent the night in prayer with his father and the father put it on the lord's heart to call these 12 to himself to be with him but then even within that 12 there was peter james and john and they were the ones to call to be with him you know with the missionaries like you know one of the things i love is communal discernment like one of the things i love about working in a small community is to watch how the ho then i don't have to rely on just the holy spirit speaking to me i could see when i'm hearing him speak in other people then it's like he's working in a community it's it's for me i've it's become a much more effective form of discernment and what i've recognized is um my provincial i was talking with my provincial superior and he brought up a passage to me in the dire faustina about where jesus was complaining about um he was complaining about you know people living in the world or whatever they wound his heart you know the sins of people in the world it hurts his heart but it's like a surface level this is not exactly what it says i'm paraphrasing but it's like a surface wound but then there's his quote unquote chosen souls like the souls of religious the souls of you know people that have been touched by him in a particular way says those are the ones that really wound his heart but they are the ones that also can console his heart the most and it's interesting because in the diary of faustina jesus says the biggest wound his greatest pain is when those that are closest to him don't trust him of all the things the biggest thing that hurts his heart when those that are close to him don't trust him but what i realize is the diary of faustina is often talking about the world is held in existence by chosen souls the world is hauled in existence by the souls of little children the soul hold this the world is held in existence by the souls who are kings of the internet by the souls who are best-selling authors but no the world is held in existence by the little souls the hidden that are not not notice like we're in the year of saint joseph you know what is the true image of saint joseph is joseph concerned about drawing attention to himself and like what is the message of saint joseph silence hiddenness humility he's not doing all these big explosive things joseph is behind the scenes you'd hardly notice him that's most of christians most christians are behind the scenes and they look to the christians that are you know in the limelight so to speak and you think that's what christianity is that's not christianity that's not the heart of christianity i should say i mean that is christianity we're called you know there's different roles in the body i don't want to take away from that but what i want to make the point is not to just in the world we think the most important people are the politicians the movie stars in the kingdom those aren't the most important people in the church those aren't the most important people the most important are the little ones the little souls who accept the invitation of jesus to deep intimacy of prayer which can happen as for active people or contemplative people but there are some people that are touched by some of these things and what's so important is to accept those invitations to that intimacy why and because part of consoling jesus i'm convinced that what consoles the heart of jesus what consoles the heart of mary is that they're looking for people like in the garden to be with him in his suffering he's looking for people it doesn't mean that you have to go through all this crazy suffering and things in fact in the diary of philistine people say oh yes it does okay well in the dire fasting of jesus says you there is more merit to being with me for one hour in my passion to be meditating on my passion for one hour then a hundred days of scourging yourself to the point of of drawing blood can you scourge yourself to the point of driving sure can you eat glass sure can you walk on needles and all these things yeah you can do all that but what he likes best if you just be with him and console him as he's going through the past and be open to hearing his voice i thirst and i'm convinced that with mary my image of mary my image of jesus or this side of eternity is jesus thirsting and it's not it's not pretty and it's not but it's not forceful it's very gentle but it's if if the still small voice that i hear of jesus is i thirst and he's weary and sad because so many of the people that he wants to speak to aren't hearing him either they're listening to the noise of the world or they're listening to the noise in the church they've got caught up in the gossip they've got caught up and they're so stirred up with all these things they can't hear that still small voice calling them to that intimacy which is real truly what can save the world he's the savior of the world but he wants to continue to pour grace in the world to these little souls who can hear his voice and enter into that intimacy of his thirst or with mary to enter into the intimacy of this mother who's watching so many of her children hurting and broken and sometimes that's where we get yeah all those people going to hell and this and that's just that's a super tragedy but i think what pierce is the heart of mary moore this is based on my reading of the message of fatima it's not just the souls going to hell that breaks her heart but what really breaks her heart is all of those souls that she's calling to a deeper intimacy of consecration so that she can use them as instruments in her hands to bring back a multitude of souls and that those souls reject that intimacy because they're distracted by all these other things that we've been talking about instead of giving themselves to love and letting themselves be led by love and become saints because what i think you see in the saints what you see is love i mean i was just watching an interview with mother teresa on a very and she was being interviewed by this guy who is a very famous catholic intellectual i don't mention his name and it's i'm not gonna say anything but against him but you could tell he was like you know he's a caligan eventually he could he could battle with the best of them on intellectual terms and mother teresa was there and you could see how uncomfortable he was and it was like you could see he was looking and it was like it was almost like the work i'm doing is important but that's important why because that's holiness and it's deep holiness and what is deep holiness it's people who aren't afraid you know to be all in for jesus and to say i'm willing to listen to your thirst which is something it can be a dark place but say jesus i would rather be here with you in the thirst and leave you alone and the sad part going back what just triggered me with that is james john uh andrew james and john was andrew james and john right again you were the evangelical you tell me peter james peter james and john sorry i was like i knew that was wrong okay thank you um peter james and john these were his closest friends he'd call them he just he was looking for their consolation and they let him down that's the pain in the heart of jesus there's certain friends and really calling and they'll you know i'll do this for you i'll do this for you but will you will you be with me that doesn't mean you have to be a contemplative you put everything but it's like that the bedrock reality of that friendship with him and entering into the mystery of love so that we can be a mystery of love to others drawing people to the ultimate mystery of love which is jesus our savior so for me that's the that's the heart of it is like were we are the beloved of the father and i think there's many many catholics who are drawn to watching podcasts like this or are drawn to that that all the the lord is calling them but like don't stop at the surface don't stop like it's going into the deep of hearing his thirst seeing mary's tears and saying i trust you i trust to do whatever you ask and this is a key thing with this i think the reason why a lot of people put a brakes on myself included the reason we put the brakes on for that deep intensity of whatever you want being what i call all in for jesus and mary whatever you ask we're afraid of what they're going to ask us we're afraid of the suffering that might happen but in my experience jesus is more gentle with me than i am with myself and the thing my experience with him he's very gentle he knows what i can take i remember i was complaining about i'm like lord if this happens i'm not gonna be able to handle it when i'm this if this thing happens and i felt like not that i'm hearing voices or whatever but i felt in my heart like he was saying michael that's why i'm not gonna allow that to happen i know you can't take that so that's not going to happen but just trust me and i'm getting all bent out of shape and what's interesting is people think like you know i know i choose these things and end up things you can't handle and then the things that you're afraid of are the things that you can handle but it's it's up to him he knows what we can handle he knows who we are and in my experience he's a gentle savior is there suffering yes but he carries us through it mary's make as louis de montfort as maxime colby says mary makes crosses into something sweet we do not lose if we're all in for them but the problem is we don't trust them this is why jesus said to faustina what wounds my heart most is when those who are closest to me don't trust me because it means you can't bring them to to these other levels where their impact will hold up the world and but in order but and this is i'll end with this because i've been going on and on but the heart of it all if if the secret to becoming a saint i think is trust as we read from therese and faustina and i believe it's true and we have to keep trying but we it's the heart of it is trusting if the heart of it is trust trusting in jesus trusting in mary trusting in our father in heaven you can't trust somebody unless you believe they're good and i don't think we believe enough in the goodness of god and there's a lot of fear-based spiritualities can you get to heaven by fearing hell yeah but there's a more excellent way to get to heaven being motivated by love and the gentleness and the tenderness of jesus i could speak all along that but that's that's where i'm dedicating all of my time now because you with the the marian missionaries is that i'm trying to put together a spirituality and by spirituality it's an asceticism for catholics an asceticism of where to direct your attention because what we have control over we try to have control over is our attention and i really feel the holy spirit conforms saints powerfully those that are called to this this deeper intimacy and some are called to it it's a gift and it's nothing we earn due to earn but he's calling some to this intimacy but what blocks them is a lack of trust and the reason there's a lack of trust is because they don't believe in his goodness and what the testimony of faustina the testimony of therese my testimony from my 30-day nation retreat my eight-day retreats of being a 15 years of studies toward the priesthood where i was a very broken person i still am but i had a very fear-based spirituality i was very afraid of god i was like i got to do all this so i can at least avoid perg i want to try and not have a long purgatory it was so much based on fear and in my retreats jesus was incredibly tender with me incredibly tender incredibly gentle such that i didn't believe it was true so this can't be true because nobody talks like this everybody says you're somebody else and then i would go to my next day retreat pick up right where it was and he broke me of my intellectualism which is where i i mean i was really i had i had one professor he was like blown away because i i had practically memorized the summa not everything but he said in this in the course of his semester i mean i had i had st thomas down for at least in a superficial level and i had i could i had all the answers but i knew nothing of the mystery of love and i always think back to saint thomas he said after at the end of his life he had this experience of god everything i've written a straw yeah then the lord sort of and my my having all the answers was a crutch i had to make myself confident so that i could be somebody because i had all the answers and the fullness of the truth and i was very proud of that as a catholic and you know i was and i knew all the mysteries of everything but i didn't know the mysteries of love but the mystery of love is the mystery of everything and that's a mystery we only enter into with humility with poverty with being rejected by being going through following the path of christ but it's a path we don't have to choose if we if we love god and we want that he will he will provide those crosses for us we don't have to pick them ourselves that's my experience yeah if you're eating 10 bowls of ice cream a night yes do the penance of you know don't eat so much ice cream but the little way is such he'll pick it he'll he is faithful if that's what you desire and he'll be gentle and that's what i discovered incredible gentleness beyond what anybody had ever told me until i read therese until i read faustina until i met some of the marian missionaries here that's why we came together as as we saw we're all seeing jesus through the same lens and it's the lens of that image that you see behind me that image of divine mercy and i believe he gave that image to us because he knows how broken we are in the modern world and our families and all these things but the answer isn't to demonize and rail against everybody is to first let him heal us and then know how to speak to the broken not a word of judgment and this and that and we're the great perfect club and you guys are broken and you're this group or that group but no i'm in the broken one how did jesus speak to me how does he reach me and how can i reach them because my job is to find the lost sheep and to bring them home because i was that lost sheep and the good shepherd found me put me on his shoulder with gentleness and brought me into the master's joy the father's joy and um uh that's um that's what i think is needed in this type of mercy a proper image of god and some could debate me on this and that's fine but i've been at this i may look young whatever i've been at this a long time and i feel i know what i'm talking about because as we learn in the gospel of john evangelization is i have seen the lord and i believe i've seen the lord not that i'm some mystic or whatever but i have seen his tenderness i have seen his gentleness and no one can tell me otherwise it's true and when we discover it when we experience it it changes everything and it makes us want to give ourselves completely because we know he's not going to let us down because we see how good he is and we can trust him and we can be all in for him because he's not going to let us down wow i'm just i'm like i'm blown away because so much of what you're saying right now it it resonates with me on a really deep level and you know when i when i became catholic there was there were lots of doctrinal things i had to sort through and i finally got to a point it was really because of the blessed virgin mary where there was just this like route that that she took around my head and went right to my heart and that's happened that's that's continued to be my experience since since becoming a catholic and even in those moments of wondering well what's going to happen to me you know 22 years my career my my family all of that and and believing that whatever whatever that turns into doesn't matter if i'm where jesus wants me to be and what i've seen god do in my heart and the the the level of intimacy that i have entered into with him and i feel like i'm just scratching the surface it it it that has for me been the biggest answer to to people that have like tried to come after me like my old friends or whatever that think i'm crazy for being a catholic they want to say oh well what about this thing didn't the pope do this and didn't you know we find this and the abuse and all of the things that people want to say i have no doubt like you talked about father where you said you know i have seen god in in that tenderness where he came to you i've seen that too in my own life and i could never deny it because he's been so he's been far greater to me than i could ever imagine just by bringing me into the church and what i've experienced as part of it and that mercy of god it's beyond it's beyond anything we can comprehend but at the same time it's so simple isn't it yes it's it's it's we want to make it so complicated but the reality is it's so simple so sometimes when i get caught up in these debates and in my own intellectual pursuits or whatever trying to figure all these mysteries out and then i remember the words of christ you know you've got to be like a little child and then you hear the simple message of mercy and you see christ just calling out to his disciples could you not keep watch with me for one hour that's a simple request that's not a complicated request he wasn't asking them to understand all these divine mysteries or figure a bunch of theological stuff out or even he wasn't even really asking them to suffer he was just asking them to be with him and that's the core of everything when when christ is presented to us in the eucharist that is the that right there in the flesh is god with us be with me and i don't think we can get better than that i think that's the heart of it and we can't get better than that but we can always get deeper and deeper with that like that's that's the heart of it and we've heard all this before why do we always have to keep coming back to it why do we have to be reminded that god loves us why because part of the wound of original sin that's the catechism of the catholic church says we have a distorted image of god jesus came to heal that image to see our to see our father as love and mercy itself but we have to be reminded we have to be reminded and that's like to your evangelical friends and things yeah this is that is what it's all about it's this relationship with christ but then it's like and and if sometimes they look at catholics and they're seeing like and it's true like with the marian missionaries i we have we have these three rules rule number one is party and it's because it's because when christ loves us it gives us the joy of the gospel when he comes to us in our brokenness it gives us the joy when you have a whole community of joy it's a party not in a typical not in a worldly sense but the party of of joy together but the second rule is um the second rule is don't be weird don't be a weird catholic and being weird calling what i mean by that is don't put secondary things as a primary thing you know you might like this if the if the main focus is what language the mass is in it's a secondary that shouldn't be the main focus for some people it's very important and and that could be an important thing for the sensibilities of some people that i'm not arguing that but it can't be the most important thing or can't seem to be the most important thing or this apparition that's great but it can't be the most important thing when it becomes the most important thing it looks weird it sounds weird it is weird a father who's whose work is more important than his wife and his family it's weird because he's not putting the most important thing first it's and the idea is i think maybe sometimes evangelicals can look at catholics and say they're weird and you know what they might be right some catholics might be right they might be right me if they would have met me in the seminary if they maybe before the seminary if they met me now i mean when i'm when i'm when i'm uh you know being having my really bad days or my typical days when i'm not putting love first anytime we're not putting love first it's weird because someone can look at that as a christian it's weird because they're not being what a christian is a witness to the love of god because god is love we profess a god who is love and it's weird otherwise and the last one is but but but for your evangelical friends the last one is keep it real for the missionaries we try to keep it real it's part of why we have a farm it's part of why we we serve the poor with the pandemic it's been hard because of the social distancing and all that but those are the things like it's why we live in community it's why you know um we just made a bunch of maple syrup why make maple syrup when you get it from the store well one it's expensive when you gotta feed 25 young people who love maple syrup it's a lot cheaper when you do it that way but doing those things being together not having everything to be a digital distraction it's keeping it real but the most real thing of all and is is the real presence of jesus in the eucharist and so it's saying like yeah you're right to focus on these things but the name of the game is not just to know the grace of christ that we're saved by grace and not by works and all these other things we can know that but the name of the game of christianity that's the gospel is one don't be distracted and put secondary things best so that you never hear the gospel which sometimes happens for my son's catholic friends it's like i once had a bishop tell me i didn't i didn't have a personal relationship with jesus until after i was ordained a priest and really get into it until i was a bishop that's a problem but and he says and that same person said i find that to be the fundamental problem and it has been my fundamental problem my priestly ministry and my episcopal ministry helping catholics develop a personal relationship with jesus so then the evangelicals can pat themselves in the back yeah we have a personal relationship with jesus but i have evangelical friends and they talk about one of the biggest problems in the evangelical church is burnout and part of the and and they i don't i don't know this i just these are from my evangelical friends who become catholic and i don't want to judge anyone but and i don't know it firsthand but they just said it's sometimes it becomes like you have to just you have to like put on the show and and and it's like you got to speak the language father god we just come to you know like okay that's fine but you just gotta say all the things when when it's like and pay the bills and do this and that and what catholicism provides is it keeps it real because there's the depths are there the phonies yeah phonies are everywhere amen but then there's the saints the saints aren't phony they're real they really love christ like beyond beyond but the most real thing of all is the eucharist like that makes it totally real and because we're fickle because we're shallow because we need to constantly be able to go deeper he gives us the eucharist every day he offers it every day if we if we have the privilege and we're able to receive it and he gives it to us every week for sunday mass why because he wants that mystery of his love i give myself to you completely to start sinking down into our hearts when it goes just from our heads and we all know this stuff but when it really penetrates our hearts and how does it penetrate our hearts keep it real keep it real keep it real in our in our prayer with the lord where we're speaking from our hearts not from a pedestal where we're where we're we're speaking to him from our heart because he's our friend and friendship is to speak from the heart and then to let him speak to us from his heart that's why that's why he made himself vulnerable because he want he called us into friendship i no longer call you slaves but you did i i am and you're not and then he brought a people to himself with israel but then he calls us his friends i no longer call you slave you're my friends and i want you to know my heart and i want to know your heart and by get by sharing with him our hearts and getting to know his heart we our hearts become like his heart compassionate deep loving of the father and gentle and humble and not and trusting of the father trusting of his will for our lives being at peace and i hope to get there someday i'm praying if you're not already there that you get there and that the world would have more saints because god god knows the world needs saints and um he needs these type of lovers that bring the whole world to god wow well i i can't thank you enough father father gately for spending this time with me today and i honestly feel like and i know we're recording a uh a video podcast but i really feel like you've just spoke right into my heart you know and a lot of the things that you said today were things that the lord spoke through you to to encourage me and to challenge me really honestly um so i just want you to know that this was a god thing and i'm i'm very very aware of the fact that this isn't something you do a lot of anymore and i just want you to know how appreciative i am that um you were willing to take the time to do this and i want to just tell you this you had you had a lot of amazing things to to to share if you ever feel like you want to share more um you have an open door anytime you want to to come on my podcast or or anything that i'm doing i mean it's not it's nothing special but but uh i just want you to know that i'm always open to hear from you because i really appreciate your ministry i appreciate your heart and you know i mean i felt like i knew you when i read this book but just listening to you share these things like there there is a a real sense of prophetic um i guess just a prophetic spirit in some of the things that you've said because i live in that world that you're talking about right now of everyone's trying to be somebody you know everyone's trying to make a name for themselves everyone's trying to make an impact and and that's we we all want to do that for god but it's easy to get caught up in this rat race and i remember doing that as a pastor and i said i'd never do it again but sometimes i honestly feel like i'm doing it now sometimes you know and because everywhere you go there's always these expectations and there's always this thing you need to achieve and this number of people that think that you're worth listening to and i want to find a way to live out that message of mercy and that message of love the way you're talking about um through this medium of of you know the internet or whatever but i never want to lose that that that cry for mercy and that heart for that and i really feel like god spoke to you today god spoke through you today for me so i want to thank you for that you know oh thank you like i said this i haven't done many of these and this this has been a blessing for me to just also remember um how great the how great god is how beautiful god is how good god is and um thank you for your words and and uh you know if i i'll i'll keep that's a gracious invitation i'll i'll definitely keep it in mind and i'll keep you in prayer with this and my advice uh in terms of what's helped me is um i've found people who i've been able to share a life with my time in the marion missionaries of divine mercy who are people who have that peace and that joy because they know the lord and um they know the voice of the shepherd and uh you'll know those and those the one things we we have with the missionaries there's a local farmer our local shepherd actually who has about 400 sheep and um they they when often the mother the mother use i guess they're called they reject one of the lambs and the lamb just dies and we met this shepherd we were asking her questions and she met our community and was like hey can i give you some of these lambs because we don't have the ability to bottle feed them and all this because we just don't have the time but maybe you guys would be interested um and we said okay and we've got i know if you could hear them one of them's like bleeding i don't know what they're doing in this building but um they end up in a lot of interesting places but i'll have to find that out after the podcast um but uh it's been uh such a beautiful oh one thing i've learned is this the lambs and we also have sheep now too is they follow each other and they know and it was interesting is because we bottle bottle-fed a bunch of them we have some other sheep that weren't bottle-fed a a shepherd up the valley from us we're keeping them in our barn but it was interesting the little lambs were out with father francis this really amazing priest who's somebody uh he's so humble he's such a good man i've learned so much from him and uh he's kind of like our farmer priest like he goes and helps with the sheep and stuff so he all these little lambs came out and he had him and they were just following him and the other sheep could see they're all pregnant these these use they can see the babies and they just kept and the the little the little ones like didn't even the little lambs like didn't even look at them because they're used they're bonded to people because they've been bottle-fed what i realize is like it's so good when people who are following the shepherd someone like father francis like you know and then they they follow each other and they end up going in a good place so i would just my advice is you're on a great path and um i think your your evangelical background is is going to be a beautiful gift that you can offer to the church in terms of your personal relationship with jesus um i think you know the riches of catholicism are going to be help you to go even deeper i'm sure they're helping me to get deeper they help us all to go deeper and um i would just say uh you know keep listen to the voice of the shepherd but if it's hard to hear the voice the shepherd look for the lambs that hear the voice of the shepherd and you'll know them by their peace you'll know them by their joy you'll know them by their love you'll know them by their hope you'll know them by their faith and um follow them and they'll lead you to the they'll lead us to the shepherd more and more more and more closely to the the good shepherd at least that's what i'm trying to do because i've been spoiled i've got some really great people here and they're they're helping to form me more into the the man i want to be for god and for christ so well i would love to come visit your community sometime um yeah we'll put you to work you just bring me that you guys that'd be great we so we used to you know i told you this on the phone the other day but we used to live on a boys ranch and we had to milk cows every day and we'd never done anything like that before but we moved to this ranch to help take care of these teenage boys that were struggling we had to quickly acclimate to farm life so i had to learn how to drive tractors i had to learn how to fix fences that would be broken across the place and my wife and i and our kids we milked we milked cows twice a day and and so we learned that physical work is like there's a lot of theological truth that's found when you're milking cows bailing hay and getting your hands dirty um there's there's some powerful truth which i think is part of why their jesus uses that imagery so often times in his in his teaching you know well just just one one comment is it remind me something i think may cap off all of this in a way okay is i like we weren't looking for this shepherd who gave us these lambs and we've all commented like this is a gift from jesus to us like we weren't looking for they just they met another farmer told them about us and just said hey we've got these limes would you guys take him um and uh or something like that like she heard it and then asked us yeah and one of the things i realized like these little lambs they're so cute like um they're super cute like we're like we have we have one right now that's like five days old and there and um she's like she was not doing well she almost died and so we we thought that part of it was she was just she was alone because we put her with the other lambs but they were too big and they were stomping on her and stuff so we had her alone and she just got she almost she just like almost died so we had to take turns going and just holding her and then she'd like be fine and she'd come back she started eating if she was left alone she just stopped eating she was like we had two lamb experts come in and friends of ours and they said no she's just do hospice lam do hospice land care she's not gonna make it and so we just held her and it was my turn to like hold her at one time and and it blew me away because i'm looking at this lamb and i had known this before i had said it before i'd written about it before but it i just was looking at this like super gentle super fragile super vulnerable lamb going back to like that jesus made him the son made himself vulnerable and have a need for our love his thirst he didn't have to but he chose to and i'm looking at this little lamb and i'm thinking this of all like of all the animals in the cosmos on earth this is the animal that god chose to identify himself with most closely the lamb of god a lamb is not a sheep apparently like a lamb is uh a sheep you know that's still suckling from its mother at least that's one definition i heard lambs are like they're they're fragile they're small like that is the image that jesus identified himself with not a sheep at the image of a lamb and he's the lamb who was slain and there's a passage in revelation where he said like i turned and you know and i and it was like you're expecting to see the big lion like because it was talking about a lion i turned and there was a dead lamb standing and it's like that is the image of power in the kingdom it's the humility the gentleness the docility of a lamb or as he says elsewhere it's to be like the little children the mysteries of the kingdom are revealed to the little ones and um and uh the mysteries of the kingdom are the mysteries of love and they will be revealed to those who go the way um of the humble gentle christ and uh i hope uh i hope that we can hear his voice and follow him and become like him and uh please pray for me for that and uh i'll continue to pray for you that um the good work that the lord has begun in you will come to a beautiful completion with the media apostolate that you're uh that you've undertaken and um and this witness that you're providing for the church your own experience of the love of christ well i appreciate that most importantly just pray for my heart that that um god's will is done in me and and that i can be ever more a person who embodies that love that we talked about and cries out for mercy well once again thank you so much father gately i know that i've taken up way more of your time than i said i would no it's great to be with you well i want you to know this is the i i i know right now that people that are that are listening to this and watching this are just are so blessed by your words and by what the lord's doing through you so so thank you again and um i look forward to some time coming and seeing your your place i would love to be there and i think it would be an absolute blast to party with you guys with some pitchforks and some whatever you're doing maple syrup i don't care i'd just love to do it it'd be it'd be great yeah as soon as as soon as the coveted restrictions massachusetts is pretty strict um we'd love we'd love to have you up we part of our ministry here is hospitality so awesome and you can the if you wanted to uh contact you've got amanda's contact information yep i do okay i do i do well all right thank you so much father gately and i pray that you have a great day please greet everyone in your community for us and i'll be in touch with you about when this will air and i'll send you guys opportunities so you guys can can uh can view it if you'd like or or um you know share it with people too awesome thanks keith god bless all right take care god bless you thank you so much should we pray shall we close with a prayer that would be fantastic okay the name of the father and the son the holy spirit amen father in heaven we thank you for being our father we thank you for your love for us we thank you for your son jesus our savior jesus we thank you for your thirst of love for us we thank you for your gift of love in the eucharist we thank you for our mother of mercy mary we asked lord that you would help us to be um sheep that hear your voice and follow you we ask that you would give us the grace to trust you as you bring us home to the father we ask all this in jesus name amen amen father and the son the holy spirit amen amen thank you so much father all right thank you all right take care my friend all right you too bye-bye thanks for listening to catholic feedback with keith nester send in your questions and comments to feedback at catholicfeedback.com this podcast is brought to you by stewardship a mission of faith and is also supported by our team at patreon.com forward slash keith nester please consider joining our support team catholic feedback is a production of down to earth ministries for more information about down to earth or to bring me to your parish or event visit down the number two earthministry.org see you next time you

Channel: Marian Missionaries of Divine Mercy

Views: 25,251

Rating: 4.9377432 out of 5

Keywords: michael gaitley, 33 days to morning glory, divine mercy tour, lighthouse catholic media, lcm, chris alar, marian consecration, louis de montefort, saints, marian missionaries divine mercy

Id: 4iauyK4lxQ8

Length: 101min 6sec (6066 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 11 2021