Fr. Aloysius Schwartz: The Next Catholic Saint? | The Catholic Talk Show

hey everybody welcome back to another episode of the catholic talk show today we're going to be talking about a man everybody needs to know venerable aloysius schwartz that's right today we're joined by kevin wells the author of the new book priest and beggar to discuss this dynamic priest let's open up this beautiful book and realize the heroic life of this virtuous and very very holy man [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right good to be back in the studio i'm really excited about this amazing man and and what we're going to find out kevin good to have you in the studio again yeah good to have you back you just write books man i love it wait it's coveted season what else you going to do it was written during covet 19. yeah that's awesome that's awesome ignatius press i mean that's impressive published through ignatius press beautiful cover art great picture of venerable aloysius schwartz really an incredible book i've been able to look through this truly inspiring yeah yeah and the last time we had you on it was for your other book um the priests we need to save the world so thank you for you know bringing uh priestly holiness to our show and i think it's because this one's not doing it right that's the whole reason kevin's coming really i mean this is really a secret detective mercy yeah a secret attempt to help you father did you all work this out or something like no we can't get uh schmitz to do the show yeah we're stuck with him so at least we got to bring in venerable schwartz yeah monsignor wells right tighten it up well it's great to have you brian it's great to be here ryan father it's good father you're you're smitten you i actually you might be up there you might have a notch above see the affirmation that i've just received you've healed so much of what these guys have wounded i remember we were here they're ripping on you about father michaels constantly so no it's good to be with you guys because you got you got the funnest podcast so it's good to be back oh brother it's awesome well we hope that you're stuck right here and if you're not make sure you're clicking the subscribe button okay subscribe click the bell every time on youtube we produce a show it'll populate in your feed if you're listening in and you're trying to figure out how you can listen in if you're commuting on your way to work or if you're just your morning routine and you want to listen to this show go to catholictalkshow.com you'll see every type of podcast forum that we're on we're on social media as well facebook instagram and twitter and we would not be able to do this show without our patrons so we want to give you a big shout out thank you for financially supporting the show and please consider supporting the show by going to catholictalkshow.com forward slash patreon and we've got some great gear and swag to send your way for supporting us all right so kevin tell us a little bit about why you wrote this book and let everyone know a little bit about father aloysius schwartz so really ryan he's the skin on the bones of the priests we need to save the church i am what had happened it's actually i'll try and keep this brief in the aftermath of writing the priest we need to save church it got out there a good bit and i'd heard from a lot of priests and some bishops we were talking about bishop strickland and i met with him but a married couple came up to me tom and gloria sullivan and they said we know who that priest is to save the church his name is venerable aloysius schwartz and i'm from the dc area so his name was always kicking around i always sort of knew him but i didn't know much about him so so in anticipation of writing the priest would need to save church i'd read the lives of the paragons the titans john vianney bosco neary colby damien the leper and what i had read in the life of this man i had not read before it was it was outside the finger of god it was incomprehensible so so it providentially it really it did i said i called ignatius father and and i proposed it to father fessio the longtime president i said hey there's this priest you've never heard of he's like you're right i haven't heard of him tell me about them and i did and father fesio said write this biography this this needs to be known so i spent i spent all of 2020 you know that rotten coveted season you know researching and writing this life and and i and i do believe um you know the holy spirit determines these things but i i believe he'll be a canonized saint in the catholic church and uh he's he's just um he's a superhero so what did father and i know colloquially he's called father al right um give us give us a little background on him and you know where he was born you know his ordination and where really was his charism what made him this type of paragon of the priesthood well you could not have been born at a worst time he was born in 1930 in the teeth of the great depression in washington dc you know hitler was on the rise um you know the the dust storms were choking the midwest farmers were just on their knees i think 15 million people had lost their jobs in america and father osborne so he was born into a life of poverty his dad was a i think he was a fourth or fifth grade dropout um so here's here's dad al's father i gotta raise a family of seven in a catholic home we got no money and and i'm trying to scratch and claw in this in this depression with a lousy job and how do i take care so al father around a little l at the age of eight or nine and this is what this will sort of show you his his um his remarkable soul is sort of the way he thought at the age of eight or nine he said um this is poverty and god's fee god's face has seemed to have turned away from our family he doesn't seem here they lived on the wrong side of the tracks he was being bullied it was just a stinking mess in their neighborhood and he said but i know he's here and this is where i must learn what hope and faith is and he said in his journals at that age i want to become a priest to go to those who feel like i do now who feel poverty darkness and just don't feel the face of god so he said i want to become a catholic priest that is so that is so inspiring and you know you you hear so many stories among brethren uh who have become priests and you know for a number of them it was inspired at a very early early age but to realize that in his young life experience such poverty poverty you know of his local surroundings but most most especially like the poverty of soul you know and the loneliness of the heart when when you are being bullied when you are experiencing you know a bad neighborhood and not finding a place to belong that poverty of soul is met by the love of jesus christ and how beautiful is it that you know i'm thinking of father tetlow as well but father tetlow received a call similarly when he was that young going through similar similar experiences and that the catholic priesthood would be born out of that charism of the spirit meeting a broken heart like that and this journey that he's oh man we're going to talk about in in that um calling the journey that he's going to experience as a special calling as a priest you know i mean just uh it's kind of exciting to dive into it yeah you know father al achieved some monumental and enormous things in his life but uh father hal was not a big guy at all was he no he was he was small he was very he was an athlete right he was an athlete he was always that guy and uh on the score you couldn't catch playing football he just ran by you um he was about uh i think he he tapped out at five foot seven 140 150 pounds ran every day of his life but what happened with father al at that time when he was a youth it was almost like a confluence of that poverty and how it solved he had fallen in love with this dc comic called the boy commandos and he would fall asleep at night his brother lou told me in research for the book with this comic book on his on his um on his chest and was a story of four orphan boys that would travel the world and they'd enter hitlerville and naziville and and he he saw the the nobility and the heroism of men who stepped into things that no one else would and and he understood his brother lou says he understood back then that these four orphan heroes were like christ and the greatest priest saints and the martyrs who did things that no one else would so he took this desire to to to bring love to the poorest of the poor in a superhero like fashion so you know we all know this you know i wanted to be a major league baseball player and i practiced the swing of eddie murray when i was a kid but that but that dies down as we get older but al wanted to be a superhero and rather than it sort of dimming as you grew older i wonder how many kids watching you know like marvel movies today are going to make that extrapolation you know into something actually heroic i would imagine probably not that many because they're not really the same virtuous comics that you know father al was reading what was the name of that comic book it was a dc comics called the boy commandos yeah so he threw out the incredible hulks and the supermans and all the popular ones because it was something about these four boys they were orphaned and i think i think i he felt sort of orphaned by society because they live on the wrong side of the tracks he wanted to be that fifth orphan that went into naziville but he saw it more in a uh in the role of a catholic grace a grace of trump you know that was given to him so after ordination okay where does he go so what what happens how does he go down this path to this heroic virtue and all the the service that he provided to orphans later in life well um what had happened was he wanted to as he grew older he wanted to he was he was very bold um and ryan to answer your question around about where he wanted to feel the poverty of christ stretched out on the cross one who gave everything his blood spilled out he wanted to live like the poor man of nazareth he just so the merry knolls didn't work he cut ties with the marinol he was the first priest american priest in the history of the marion to say i no it's not you there's too much comfort in the marinollers um so he was originally mary noel yes he was no he's a it was a marine oil formation he cut it he cut it out went to belgium where he found an order an obscure order of priests called the samus who who essentially they they're no longer they're no longer around because it's they were so austere their charism was to go to the poorest communities in the world and to live poor and among the poor as a parish priest he said bingo that's what i want that's exactly what i want so he raised his hand in 1957 and he asked his director what's the worst place in the world he said well it's post-war korea it's a dystopian novel over there he said that's my new home can you can you send me to he's like yeah we'll send you so on the uh on the feast of the immaculate conception in 57 he got off a train in the southern peninsula and and he just saw um ruination just ruination orphans being dying on the streets being neglected um you know lepers living on hillsides uh beggars under bridges and just just um just death and disease everywhere and and he it was it was a it was a scorched landscape so he so he he he he writes this in his journals he smelled he inhaled uh the smell of um uh dead animals human excrement waste trash debris rot and he said this is the incense of my new home this is where mary mary wants me mary he gave his whole priesthood to mary you know that's really bold saying send me to the worst place in the world i mean i know a lot of priests nowadays uh if they get an assignment to a parish that's maybe got some financial struggles they're like what was me right or they have to go to a parish that's you know maybe on the different side of town where they're used to serving they're like ah man that's not a great assignment i mean he specifically sought out what's the worst place in the world post-war koreas and if that's if that's not inspired by christ's love you know that's not going to be something of like a human proclivity that's not going to be like a human desire nobody goes towards that and that that goes to like the comic you know inspiration of of you know looking at virtue and wanting to be heroic um but that runs out humanly speaking it has to be motivated by something more than human strength and human interest it's absolutely inspired by the person of christ it was inspired by the holy spirit the person of christ but what he did he was very he was very practical minded he knew what he wanted to do even as a 13 14 15 year old boy so he would sleep in the basement and on the floor at his family's home he would do things practically like teresa of la sue he accepted these these bothers these hindrances these little sacrifices because he knew where he wanted to go it was almost like the baseball player ryan in in rookie ball you know he's got he wants to be a major leaguer so he works harder and harder well father al took on more and more asceticisms he he wanted to amputate every measure of comfort at an early age because he knew he wanted to pick the wound from the leper and clean it he knew that he just it lived in him it was an icon in his soul so he didn't just sort of go to korea unprepared he he had coached his body up his his mind up his soul up for it that's excellent yeah not something i think i would do you know just i don't i don't think many would again it's it's like that's it's christ living in him that's preparing him for all this stuff it's just amazing it sounds very much like saint francis just looking to radically live the gospel and saint francis is i mean practically speaking maybe the you know after the initial apostles the most important catholic ever yeah and it's because he radically lived the gospel in a way that no one did i mean he rebuilt the church through that radical adherence and what i'm hearing from about father al is very similar you know yeah and that's why the mystical church is always being reformed and renewed through lives just like venerable aloysius schwartz just like saint francis of assisi and many of the saints i mean you look at the you look at the catholic ethos in america in the 17th century you know you see the martyrdoms of antonio cuipa and the florida martyrs you see you know the life of the lily of the mohawks in in tequila you see the ethos of of catholicism and you look at you look at these these natives catholics they loved catholicism and they took on the mortifications and the ascetical practices because they saw in the simplicity of it this is beauty and they've realized that it was com it was helping them to commune with god and you know mortification and the mortification of the flesh is something that we've lost in modernity completely it's it's it's a completely opposite lesson for the you know and it's like we have to pro you know we have to comfort the flesh we need to we need to uh flee every occasion of suffering by way of chemical intervention and pain pills or or you know how how do you how do you console yourself you know he wasn't concerned about that you know i'm thinking okay if you heard the story out of context and you said young boy gets inspired by heroic accounts practices mortifications goes and joins in order or discerns finds it's not aesthetic enough and then goes and to the poorest place in the world you'd think that this is from the 1200s you'd think that this is a story from antigua that's a great point this is the 1950s that's a great point this still is this stuff still happens right so you hear these stories of these you know ancient saints and you say wow that that's a different cultural milieu at the time that doesn't happen now but this shows you that they're this culture even now is still able to raise up heroic men and women who are willing to do things that are legendary the most you know yeah and and comfort creates this apathy i think and and he acknowledged that um you know with the mary knowles he acknowledged that there was too much comfort and that wasn't his calling yeah it's not like the marriedness are living in the lap of luxury no no no i know i know but it's just it's it's amazing to for him to be given this grace of that vision yeah right and and and also to know that you know there are there's still people suffering in this world in in immense ways and that you know somebody could be called watching the show to go serve the poorest of the poor somewhere and what is the incarnation god coming to meet human poverty and passion of god and it is and and that will necessarily be inspired in the world because christ is still with us until the end of time you know that will still be inspired and thank god for the structures of the catholic church that we have vows like celibacy like poverty like simplicity of life like the cloistered life you know we have we have these missions all throughout all these various different religious orders and i'm really grateful for this uh you know to learn about the religious order that venerable aloysia shorts was a part of too because that shows everybody that's listening or viewing our content right now there is such an open capacity within the church for renewal and the orientation of new orders cropping up to respond to the same call today you know ryan you said the word compassion right yeah and that's god's compassion the the word compassion comes from you know latin oh yeah suffer with yeah right passion suffer come with i don't think people when they're thinking about compassion they think about it almost as pity but compassion is to suffer with and to enter into that suffering that's what god in his incarnation as the second person of the trinity did he suffered with humanity that's what these great saints and that's what it sounds like venerable aloysius schwartz did as well so after he goes and he he gets to korea um and he experiences this incense of his new life what happens well it was uh the magnitude of the devastation was just it was too much um and you know and satan had stepped in so whenever there's you know post-war apocalyptic landscape things became rotten and evil and strange like gangs of lepers were rubbing their diseased limbs up against people to steal their money i mean just awful things bishops were corrupt so he said where do i start how do i do this our lady the virgin the poor has called me to this to this place so he said i'm going to start with the orphan so he he began to sort of lift these these um these kids who had lost their parents in the war almost like atlas and put him on his back and and he said man they're too devastated by what had happened in this in this country so i need to do something i know what i'm going to do i'm going to start orphanages but they need mothers so we started as father as you said he started in 1964 in order called the sisters of mary and they began to mother them back to health and the one thing he said as he began to bring them in he he formed everything he did off of saint vincent de paul and louise de marillac de merilack was the one who brought in the young women who became the daughters of of charity so so father i said i'm going to go do it that way and he said sisters the way we serve is to have a constant crown of thorns um we are mary but right now we are more marthas because we need to work compassion is sacrificing all we can to these devastated little kids so that's where he started however father al was relentless so by the time he was 10 years in korea south korea was becoming transformed he was he built and was running a seven-story hospital built elementary schools hospices tuberculariums leprosariums boys towns and girls towns he he was a wonder worker um that's a lot of work in ten years i mean it's that it's it doesn't make it doesn't make sense outside the finger of god you just listed all those things getting that all done in 10 years one you know one guy with the help of it seems almost illogical or improbable that that much got done here's what he did um he was very smart he was like his grades in in let me just give you an example of how how bright he was when he left the marinollers to go to belgium only french and latin were spoken in classrooms french he didn't speak latin nearly just knew from the mass and he was already four months behind in the classroom when he went over to um to belgium by the end of the semester he had not only caught his seminarian classmates from france and belgium and wherever else he was passing them by so he was just brilliant but here's what he did and ryan you asked the right that doesn't make sense it's this this this book is fiction it's not non-fiction so he said well i got to get money i've got to get my hands on money if i'm going to build hospitals and and pay for the salaries of doctors and nurses and pay for teachers in elementary schools in the slums that i'm building so he saw in korea that there was a fancy stitch an embroidery and he said nowhere else in the world does this happen i have a sense that if they put this stitch on a handkerchief like there are whimsical scenes of a boy and a girl playing catch with a ball or walking a dog in the park or whatever if we sent them to americans willing to give us donations by seeing a few pictures of korean poverty it might work so he hired 2 000 poor women in korea and he said i want you to take this stitch put it on a handkerchief and i'm going to send it back to america within a year within a year tens of thousands of dollars came in within three years millions were coming in and he said what do i do with the money mary build so for years father rich carries a handkerchief we've been calling him the patron saint of handkerchiefs because he said when he becomes a saint he's going to have a you know ordinary run-of-the-mill patronage but i think that he's got me beat man i'm ready to seed i'm ready to seed it i think that you know are the patron saint of handkerchiefs that's uh that is an amazing coincidence well what's really funny is i just opened up the i opened up the book and i looked at the image of reverend schwartz venerable and it's like he's laughing at that you know yes father we have we have some we have some back home they're they're used we still got this for the 1960s that's fantastic wow that's such a like look if father is not laughing with us right now i don't know what's happening but it is it's very entrepreneurial you know yeah he had no business acumen he had a sense and he and he and he he sort of had that blind hope that things would work and he was always open to the holy spirit he was always in prayer he prayed three hours a day oh and i want to say this and this is where these thoughts come from i didn't mention this and i and i will this is this is foundational so when he goes to korea and he sees the magnitude of the ruination he said well god i told you i was going to live poor so he moved into a condemned mountain sign shack for five years no plumbing no electricity nothing no comforts and it was there that he sort of absorbed what saint anthony of the desert did with the great hermit saint benedict so he he was deep into in prayer that ascetical life and these ideas would percolate so he was not only was he praying reading the lives of the great priests reading the gospel reading the gospels but but he was also thinking what do i do what do i do what do i do and that handkerchief idea he called it operation hacking it worked uh that's what percolated and awesome it just it just it just worked operation hanky oh man you got you got to work with the yeah you're going to let's look at the sisters of mayor i mean i feel like you're being called right now hey no in all seriousness i was i was discerning going down there i was so touched by the sisters of mary and and the village in chalco that so you've actually so before you get into that there was father al founded boys towns girls towns right where orphans and and disadvantaged children would go and there's one in mexico and you've actually been to one of these places that was founded through father al right yeah and there there was just such a need for pastoral care and it touched my heart so deeply that everything was moving in the direction where like i want to i want to support this initiative and support this mission and uh and then in the process of discernment mission and i knew that i was called to missions i was actually talking to kevin about this on the way over i knew i was called to missions and i was thinking that this is going to be like the digital mission of being able to share the beauty of what the sisters are doing and to support these children and and to be a father to these children and my heart was so touched down there but then mission st john paul ii came open and everything kind of came together and then father dan leary responded to the call and it's just it's incredible how god has arranged this but all of the like kind of inspiring connections and relationships it's just so affirming you know and when we went down to visit our lady of guadalupe to to consecrate this work and the work that we've been doing um who did we see we saw we saw the sisters we saw the sisters of mary and and it was just like this you know you know continued connection with them and and to pray right there next to the tilma with these beautiful women uh these mothers that uh that are around the world you know in the poorest regions of the world it's it's so awesome so father can i step in there real quickly so so father went to choco girls town where there's 3 300 girls i do want to say this and it's very important that that be said um when i was beginning the research for priest and beggar i i didn't know anything about father owl really and and i was encouraged by father dan leary and a couple others to go to chalco so i spent three weeks down there and sister margie runs all the americas and i said sister sister where she welcomed me into the past the beautiful gates of chaco and it's like a humble kingdom of resurrection and you see all these girls but she said kevin if you want to know father al um show up at this place tomorrow at 9 a.m and i did uh next morning there's 12 uh what i saw as broken apostles so broken apostles yeah what's that man like that's that's powerful please so 12 girls lined up and their blue skirts and their white blouses they look happy and sister margie said let them tell their story so um you know what here's what we're gonna do it's going to take one second here um i saved the page here's here's here's the girls that were coming up the 12 girls zyra one of the children that came to me told me that she was once chased an hour up a mountain by a human trafficker her village by the sea being full of such monsters her grandfather with whom she lived was drunk most nights quote i would kneel in front of the statue of mary she said and pray that the fights and the drinking would stop and then another girl antonina came up she's been an orphan since her father was shot dead in the street her mom she believes burned to death these stories there are thousands are why the sisters of mary welcome the children each morning as mothers do sons returning from war so sister margie looked at me later on the day and she said kevin what father al did is he took the most broken children in humanity and said we know you carry a blue whale-sized cross but when you come into our boys towns and girls towns we will work for five years to try and become simon of cyrenes that little by little inch by inch we take that cross from you and we own the cross we will take your pain so when you leave as 18 19 year old kids uh go out into the wherever you are korea philippines um tanzania yeah you will go in back to your village or universities or workplaces as engineers architects musicians whatever students as catholic missionaries because you cannot understand the authentic joy that christ wants you to have in your old battered state so we're going to own it as sisters we're going to own all this stuff the best we can so i i believe father i'll just say it i believe in a certain sense these kids and today there's over 20 000 throughout the world and there's over 400 sisters of mary father you might disagree i think they're helping to save the battered part of the catholic church because they are catholic missionaries they don't know any better they're like lazarus is pulled from the tomb oh i got life again okay well i'm going to go out then they don't know anything better than just hey this sister saved me father dan leary he got into my wound i don't have it anymore look at me you know so it's beautiful you know walking into the the gymnasium where you see 3 000 young girls at attention reverently worshiping god and out of that place of their poverty they're they're crying out to god in unison and with with you know just beautifully dressed with dignity and you know dignity restored you know in a way when you see that it will it changes your life forever and i was so privileged to be able to witness that and that is the work of venerable aloysius schwartz as you're sharing kevin and and when you see the works of christ when you see the fruits of the spirit you see it among the poor and i completely agree with you that that is the mystical nature of where the church really is a lot of times we get criticized the church gets criticized about they identify you know the worst cases or the worst priests or the worst uh you know these churches are closing and this is the reason why and people are turning away from faith no like go to the poor and you will you will see the mystical church in christ's presence well that's like when during the persecutions the roman empire you know st lawrence was the deacon and they said bring us all the treasure of the church tomorrow right otherwise be executed saint lawrence came with the poor this is the treasure i love that i mean and that's that's very true the church will always find its richness and its um highest calling in serving the poor now father al did suffer a lot of opposition both from criminals from his own bishops tell us a little bit about the struggles father al had in going against the current and trying to start these boys towns and girls towns he was attacked wherever he went wherever he went his own seminary rector tried to kill his priesthood after 13 years of formation his uh his his bishop in korea wanted him thrown out his bishop in korea get this there was a mafia kingpin because father al was raising millions of dollars from generous americans um and and his own bishop was um was misusing the funds and father i'll cut him off said you're done you don't you have no more this money is 100 for the poor you're done well get this the bishop bailed out a mafia kingpin who was trying to kill father out and get to his money the bishop bailed him out not only so that if that's not evil enough uh after father cut him cut the money off he was disparaging him to priests in his diocese to bishops around the far east so father al was seen as an american cowboy who went his own way but but father al said look mary stuck this in my heart you could say whatever you want you can calmnate me you can disparage me but but when i look at the poor the red rim dies and just their brokenness i'm looking into the eyes of jesus christ so i will go forward and you will do nothing to stop me mafia kingpins his own bishop priest they all came after american bishops you got to read the book folks oh man american bishops came after brother rich can you imagine your bishop bailing out of jail the mafia kingdom to come after you could you imagine that that god of battalion but no like i mean i'm sitting there thinking about my bishop and you know i'm so blessed to have a bishop who's loved me and supported me installed me as elector ordained me sent me for studies in executive community commissioned me to do this work which has just been so fruitful um we're bl i'm blessed to have a bishop like that but you know it's the devil when when you give the devil a little openness you know whether it's hunger for power whether it's uh greed whether it's whatever it is you know the devil can come in and really take over and manifest himself and it's clear that he manifested himself in it within and and uh in these various offices um and it's it's tragic to see but at the same time the purification and the renewal of the church is accomplished in people just like venerable aloysius schwartz in the presence of that it's the renewal of the church ecclesiastes referendums the church is in constant state of reform how does it reform it reforms through open willing channels of grace and and willing to suffer for the church and remember thank you father spoken beautifully but also remember that um he stepped into things and fought back things that he read about as an eight and nine-year-old that superheroes do yes he was a he he actually attained his goal i wasn't i didn't become a major league baseball player i wasn't good enough he became a superhero he's on the path to canonization in the catholic church because he did what superheroes do he fought the enemies and kept going forward and he was protected by marriage amen the persistence of the the saints that respond to the present-day evil you know having our ladies mantle around you you have nothing to fear that was it you look at saint john paul the second the mantle of mary has told us twos even you know preserving his life so that his ministry can continue in the face of communism by you know that bullet missing his heart by you know centimeters you know is just it's amazing mary's protection is real so how far and why did this work spread i mean how many orphanages because i mean you said what he did in that first 10 years which was astounding and seemed improbable but it's multiplied almost next time the hanky business too yeah right now [Laughter] i but i i go through the tissues quick though you know maybe i should get a hanky uh so so ryan answer your question again get again we'll go back to superheroes in 89 1989 by the way he should still be alive you know he died in 92 when jordan was michael jordan was halfway through his career he he he ran every day of his life he was an athlete so he'd be 90 today but he'd be one of these 90 year olds that look like they're 65. so he should still be alive i often think if he didn't die um if he would it didn't wasn't diagnosed with als lou gehrig's disease that there would be boys towns and girls towns all over the world i'm talking the hollers of west virginia the slums of chicago so when he when he contracted als in 89 in the philippines and this is this is this is stinking beautiful he said i don't know about you but if i get als i'm slowing down i got three years he said mary calls me to work harder and she calls me from mexico why in in mexico they're leaving the faith of juan diego of our lady of guadalupe poverty is causing catholics to to become agnostics or become protestant or evangelicals i i must go go to mexico so he left the far east where he was in the philippines and korea goes to mexico with after his diagnosis after his diagnosis he he knew he was going to vanish there disappeared die so he had a cane and the cane was traded in for a wheelchair and all the while he's going down to this construction site in chalco where father father's been where he's building a seven story high girls town now there's five in this in this community and there's a boys town in guadalajara but here's the here's the exceptional things back to the sisters of mary so the sisters knew he was going to die there and father all knew he was going to die there and and they said sis father we saw what you did as you went to the poorest of the poor you go die this will be your unfinished symphony we will take your baton and we will move this forward so ryan to answer your question in a long way today there's 15 boys towns and girls towns throughout the world there's over 400 sisters of mary over 170 000 children the poorest children in the world have graduated from these boys towns and girls towns and i'm going to say this last thing i'm going to say these sisters walk two by two two by two into the most dangerous towns in mexico guerrero where human traffickers go but here's why they do it in the same way that mary's mantle protected father out and they saw it with their own two eyes they walked straight up they split the seams of human traffickers drug smugglers gangsters and they say i don't care and in a certain sense they say that the the the bad element says stay away from them they're bold and they are strong so they go up and they take these poor little girls who will be trafficked who will be sold and they take them back down the hill and they take them into these boys towns girls towns and boys same with the boys towns with drugs i couldn't do that i wouldn't be brave enough to do that yeah it would it would be definitely a movement of the holy spirit a calling and just faith yeah you know i mean this is the thing is like his leadership was contagious and and it and it still lives in in the women who are doing this you know and and it's gonna be passed on as well which makes a guy like that a saying and you and delacrosse you remember those sisters i mean were they not filled with light and all those girls filled with light yeah i mean and and that is it's contagious exactly what you're saying it's contagious and it spreads and you may be out there right now like being touched in the heart like maybe god's calling you to be a mother to be to be a woman in community with that type of bold that bold calling you may have a calling on you like father dan leary father dan leary you know is hearing confessions for hours hours on the day and hours a day yeah he's he's our friend like and he's just he's doing immense amount of work and there is a lot of work and you may be out there right now thinking you know maybe god's calling me to that type of mission and that type of ministry and follow that you know god calls us to be noble god calls us to be virtuous and to truly fulfill the capacity that is entrusted to our humanity as saint catherine of siena said you know if you become who you are called to be you will set the world on fire and that is the becoming you know if we're in a state of becoming like von balthazar says theologically our humanity is always in a state of becoming don't you see the trajectory of of of this as being a possibility for your life and that's what we all should be pursuing to overcome our fears and when we are challenged with those fears when we are challenged with a sense of like i don't know if i could i don't know if i could do that like that's the direction to go it's like the narrow the narrow way yeah you know father you said it so beautifully that's it what can we attain and and and ryan you were talking earlier about you know iron man and thor and today's marvel super heroes well you know that's on tv and kids can get riled up and get all excited hey you see the latest marvel but the fact is no that's not it you actually can do that you can be more powerful than iron man and thor you can become father alan a sister of mary and this isn't some pie in the sky pius stuff this is rubber meets the road trench work it's real yes larry's in i i know this larry tells me he's in confessionals seven eight nine hours a day he celebrates as many as three to four masses every day because there's too many kids and and um so this he needs help so he he needs to say do you like do you take um you know maybe priests going down there for maybe a week or two just to help out or how can maybe if a priest is listening how could they assist so i talked to father dan two days ago about this very thing ryan this is providential it really is he said please ask priests in america if they can come down just for a week if you don't speak spanish that's fine they have google translate they can use and it works fine i've done it before down not in the confessional but just talking to folks so uh so yeah you know what if if anyone out there is inspired by father rich's invitation go on to worldvillages.org worldvillages.org and and they can tell a priest or a young kid if you're inspired by father owl and sisters they need you yeah so yeah worldvillages.org there's a link below uh there's a link on all the pages of this episode um you know if you can't make it to mexico or the philippines or career tanzania like father rich has at least maybe consider supporting them with financially right um i don't know if you still get a hanky but you know it's not about the hanky it's about supporting these children who need it so much and everyone wants to virtue signal they everyone wants to say hey i'm i'm for the good of the world this is for the good of the world opening your wallet being generous is for the good of the world in this instance it's doing more than a tweet it's doing more than saying with a some hashtag do something concrete by supporting it instead of virtue signaling i like that yeah and when we wrap wrap this show i i want to play a video of the girls in prayer okay i have some videos that father larry said we'll absolutely put that in um so father al is venerable father aloysius schwartz now um i believe that was in 2015 correct correct um what's the road to sainthood looking like what uh what could be done what are some official prayers that people would start seeking his intercession and help to you know move that cause along well father out prayed not to be known so nobody knows who he is um father fascio from ignatius press said let's break the seal let's write this guy's life so the hope is is that now through my book priest and beggar people will understand who he is and and start to ask for his intercession so so ryan as you know he needs he needs people to pray for miracles uh there there are dozens of people from around the world who are already claiming miracles but they haven't been investigated you know there have been bishops and doctors and um so so it's a matter of that it's this simple he needs a few miracles i i will say this in researching and understanding the breadth of his life i i don't know how a man of this magnitude is not canonized in the catholic church for what he did how he lived it wasn't ju it was not social justice work because everything came from prayer from a devotion to mary mary i give you myself i will go for you in a certain sense he said in his journals i am your slave you carry the whip hand almost like um uh louis de montfort i am your slave i will work and i will work and i will go to the worst the most disregarded the humiliated and he did it and he put him on his back and he built kingdoms all over the world for the poor so i he's he's he's just a superhero so you know you may be out there and and he needs a miracle you know he needs miracles and and that comes from our open openness and asking for intercession so you may be listening in and you know of a need that you may have or that somebody else may have and it's a need for a miracle and in just a moment we're going to we're going to pray an intercessory prayer through his intercession and there'll be a moment of silence and i want you to ask for that favor i want you to ask for that miracle through his intercession now um before we before we do that uh this book and and i just love father fesio he was the provost of ave maria university our sponsor and we just want to give a shout out to ave maria ave maria university if you're curious to find out about the number one catholic university in the world in my opinion in our opinion go to avimaria.edu there are over 40 undergrad degrees there's master's programs phd degrees but really the greatest thing about the university is the fidelity to christ and devotion to mary ave maria comes from the latin hail mary from the annunciation when gabriel announced the beautiful favor of god in his mercy that he came to be with us the spouse of the holy spirit the blessed virgin mary is that docile woman of god who truly shows us the model of our humanity and at ave maria university they seek to mold our humanity to fulfill our greatest calling the calling that venerable aloysius schwartz truly lived out the calling to love and mercy itself and to reach out and transform society so you know looking at ave from the life from intramural sports to devotion to the blessed sacrament with perpetual adoration chapels masses up to six to seven masses a day you know when you're if you're a young person out there or if you know a young person out there looking for a college look no further make sure you check out ave maria today that's right our other sponsor is hollow hollow is the number one catholic app in the app store hollow really is a guide to help you grow in your prayer life from the lectio divina to daily prayer to night examines to bible stories with jonathan rooney with bishop barron bible of the year with father mike schmitz there's so much in there uh there's chant there's music go check it out right now if you go to catholictalkshow.com forward slash hollow you can get the app on us for free to find out if that's an app that can really help you grow in your prayer life so big a big shout out to ave maria and hollow for sponsoring the show but i also want to make sure that everyone knows where they can get this book because that's the reason we're doing this show today um where can they find this book kevin well two things ryan field permitted uh i would just go to ignatius.com or priestandbeggar.com you know we always got to support our local catholic bookstore um it's out now it was released last month also ryan something you you mentioned earlier if you've been inspired by the work of father owl and the sisters what i've done is my uncle monsignor thomas well is no longer with us he gave me a great piece of advice once he said wells pick three just pick three outfits and you tie to them don't pick ten don't don't support the elks and the elks in canada and the indians over there just pick three so that's what i've done for many years when i found out about what he did when i started research for the book i lost one and i put the sisters of mary in my top three so what i'm doing now is i'm sponsoring a sister so you can actually if you go into worldvillages.org and you hit the blue link you can actually these sisters have 40 50 60 kids in their class and you can feed a kid you can educate a kid and you actually become sort of a um what you meant you become spiritually adopted by the by the class they pray for you they write letters they include you in their seven o'clock rosary every night so not only are you supporting them financially with your tithe but they're praying for you so it's it's a it's a win-win so i would i would encourage that um that's amazing yeah we're we're currently looking at the the worldvillages.org website right now and looking at the pictures of these sisters you could just see the joy in their eyes and you're about to enjoy some of video some of the videos that ryan delacrosse uh was sharing you know earlier in the show and as you see the beautiful work of these sisters and and it's something that i've experienced firsthand as well um you know take a glimpse into this beautiful work and god may be calling you to support this initiative you know they unfortunately over the past you know 10 years or so have have lost a lot of support through different governments that restructured litigation and a lot of the charitable donations from germany and a number of places throughout europe really came to a screeching halt so you know please consider supporting them financially certainly by praying for them as well because this initiative is the initiative of god it's the initiative of christ i want to put a link right to this to where you can sponsor one of these sisters so everyone listening come on let's come together and let's support some of these sisters because they're doing work that let's be honest you and i don't have the the guts to do right they're going and they're fighting traffickers and drug dealers and going to the poorest poorest place in the world and we're sitting here listening to podcasts and and comfortable surroundings so let's all come together these listeners of the show and the watchers and let's support some of these sisters now real quick let's show some of those videos ryan that father leary who's down in chalcock you often get stuck in this dynamic of we have and they need so the challenge is and something like this makes it so clear that this is in fact the truth is to discover that they have and we need and to discover to tap into that gift and really realize i'm the one that's receiving i'm the one being blessed here i know this joy we've experienced it year after year but every year it just blows me away i mean complete and total joy you know you need those moments to like step back and realize like wow like this is happening this is real it's just been an incredible thing to see all these instruments of god we just have to open our eyes we just have to open our eyes and see how how wonderful our catholic faith is i looked up and and she kind of like almost looked down at like having pity on me those words that she said to juan diego like am i not your mother like will i not tell jesus to give you everything that you ever need i think the gentleness of those sisters just touched my heart from the first time we met them helping us off the bus to just making sure we didn't trip it's always overwhelming to walk into that gym with all those girls singing i came into the church a year and a half ago receiving the eucharist for the first time brought tears a joy and it wasn't until receiving communion today and turning around and seeing the smiling faces of those 3 400 girls that my eyes welled up with tears once again it's just an incredible experience it's just truly a miracle and i just thank god and hope that we can bring that sense of unity and love home to our families and spread it to each other and to others i know i'm always going to remember it and it's such an amazing experience and i hope we can go back every year and god bless all of you for taking the time from your lives to come and experience this to see it [Music] all right so yeah thank ryan thanks for that that's from father dan and then we also showed some of the video of father rich when he was down there as well so i think a good place really to end this episode is to ask the intercession of father out again mineral aloysius schwartz uh really just look if you compare his story to saint francis or or some of these great saints i mean he he accomplished that and he's unknown you just don't know about him so we really wanted to share this story of this titanic figure in the church yes so unknown so can we pray that father absolutely in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen almighty ever living god giver of all good gifts you have filled venerable owl with an ardent love for you and for souls you have inspired him to dedicate his life to relive the suffering of the orphans abandoned the sick and the poor especially the youth which he did with all humility and courage until the end of his life may his holy life of love and service to the poor be recognized by the church through his beatification and canonization for your honor and glory we pray that the life of venerable al be an inspiration for us in striving for perfection in the love of god and service to others bestow on us through his intercession and now i invite you my brothers and sisters to make that prayer for that miracle and for your intention we ask this through our lord jesus christ your son and the maternal aid of mary the virgin of the poor amen amen amen in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit amen well my brothers and sisters we thank you for connecting with us today on this very important topic we hope that this is an introduction to this great man i was hoping to read a few of the sections and homilies from venerable aloysia shorts but we've run short but that means it gives you the opportunity to get this book today be sure to go to ignatius press's website go to worldvillages.org and prisonbeggar.com god bless you and we'll see you next week [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Catholic Talk Show

Views: 14,357

Rating: 4.9556651 out of 5

Keywords: Catholic, Catholic Podcast, Catholic Talk Show, Ryan Scheel, Ryan DellaCrosse, Father Rich Pagano, Catholic Radio, Catholic TV, Catholic Show, Matt Fradd, Mike Schmitz, Robert Barron, Catholic Answers, Catholic Stuff You Should Know, Bishop Barron, Breaking In The Habit, Fr. Aloysius Schwartz, Kevin Wells, Priest and Beggar, Boys, World Villages for Children, Boystowns, Girlstowns, Sisters of Mary

Id: bkUbV8mNOMQ

Length: 56min 40sec (3400 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 30 2021