The Differences Between Catholic Religious Orders | The Catholic Talk Show

hey everybody welcome back to another episode of the catholic talk show today we're going to be talking about the differences between catholic religious orders yeah we're going to look at the religious orders like the jesuits and the dominicans and the benedictines and franciscans and show the differences in what they believe how they pray what they wear and more now i'm a diocesan priest which means i'm not a religious priest we're going to tell you a little bit more about that as well but as a diocesan priest i do have a religious affinity that i can't wait to share with you [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right really exciting conversation we're going to have i didn't had no idea you had an affinity for a religious order yeah i think i could guess it which one why don't we leave why don't we leave that for an inquisition okay all right i think that's a good inquisition an inquisition on you i think i think we will do a a mexican standoff inquisition where we're just like like this because i was discerning one too as well so yeah which i didn't know about and i can't wait to hear it and i didn't i didn't discern the particular religious order that i have an affinity for until i was deeply in the diocesan process same really yeah that's really important to explain and i think this is the easiest way to start this right now you are a diocesan priest and then there is religious orders and some religious members of religious orders are priests some some are not can you briefly explain what that difference is yeah so a diocesan um you know priest and i get asked this all the time you know what order do you belong to well i'm i'm a diocesan priest so that is the order that goes all the way back to jesus christ and setting up the apostolic church and then the successors of the apostles are the ones that have governance over particular regions we are the the work you know the work staff you know the guys in the trenches the the the soldiers in the trenches uh that do that work you know of of parish priests being a regular parish priest now they're from the diocesan priesthood that was established by jesus christ through the succession of the apostles there are men and women throughout history who live remarkable holiness and their charismatic gifts their their chrismation and the power of the holy spirit guided them with very specific gifts to rebuild the church in very unique ways throughout the history of the church so you have the beginnings of religious orders cropping up in the early 4th century all the way through to present day there are religious communities that are that are being inspired in the hearts of men and women and and these communities are helping the process of rebuilding the church so it goes hand in hand between diocesan priesthood parish priests as well as the religious priests and sisters that really do this beautiful work that's a really good uh explanation so your obedience and is to the bishop right whereas a religious order their obedience and their vow would be to their regular right which they're superior or regular so some of the famous religious catholic religious orders and there's a distinction between orders and congregations and institutions there's all kinds right but orders in a general sense and we'll explain the distinction later but you know you have the jesuits you have the franciscans you have the benedictines the augustinians the dominicans the mercedarians right then you have the norbert the norbertines and the congregation of the holy cross and the sisters of notre dame and you know carthusian carthusians and the trappists sam yep the trappist you have to recognize the beer come on and the carmelites and the there's so many of them right hundreds hundreds not about the coffee beans i mean some of the brothers what about the mystic monk coffee i drink that every morning that's good stuff so you know there's all these different ones and they all have founders and we'll try to get into a few of the big ones and explain the differences but i think why do we have religious orders in the church what what led to the reason that you have particular groups of people who act and dress and worship in a particular way that's as a community you know and i think you brought it up in like the fourth century like the first religious orders are the augustinians and the benedictines right and they really came of the camera out from having a common either rule or way of prayer or a regiment of prayer where they lived communally and then they started developing a particular lifestyle now these lifestyles and all these religious orders are what's generally known as charisms right and a charism is essentially the character and the style of what they do but there's a lot deeper meaning you know almost like what they do outside of prayer right because they're praying they're worshiping and then it's and that could also be attached to what inspires other people to follow them as well as like what they're doing in in prayer and how god has revealed himself so i like that i i can't help but as i'm listening to sheil i'm thinking of dunk one of your best friends right and relating it to football or athletics you know you have you know you have a brother who what what position did dunk play uh he was uh he was a soccer player was he i i i snuck him into the fsu football oh you said he's got you guys as a linebacker but yeah so he doesn't play football but you know like clearly because of your athletic prowess and because of your leadership skills and your charismatic nature i mean he would go into battle for you like it's just very very evident the guy just absolutely loves you and you've had a huge influence on his on his journey and his life and and uh he absolutely loves you so you see like charismatic people and we all have had them like i remember a senior that i followed you know as a freshman sure that i really looked up to and i really absorbed it's it's the same sense but in this in this form it's like you have people saying i am committed to following your rule of life like how do you live your life how do you pray saint benedict like how do you pray well you're going to pray all the psalms each day you're going to live severe austerity you're going to live in silence with me in the mountains and and i'm going to teach you what god has taught me in the power of the spirit and in that we are going to rebuild a sense of communion and fellowship and that's precisely where god is really exercising the religious communities in the world by the power of the spirit to give gifts for that building up of the process i think what's helpful is the catechism of the catholic church in this respect so that she can fulfill her mission right this is the church's mission universal church we already have an idea of diocesan priesthood this is how religious communities fit in with the diocesan model as well number 768 in the catechism so that she can fulfill her mission the holy spirit bestows upon the church varied hierarchic and charismatic gifts and this way directs her henceforward the church endowed with the gifts of her founder which is jesus and faithfully observing his precepts of charity humility and self-denial receives the mission of proclaiming and establishing among all peoples the kingdom of christ and of god and she is on earth the seed and the beginning of that kingdom we can't ever imagine the kingdom being a place of division what we long for is a place of union and harmony well that sense of union and harmony has to be present on the earth because of the deposit of faith in jesus christ so we start to see how that's built up in a constant manner in the characters of the church in harmony without these different charisms yeah right like you know like my wife is very domestic right so she's very ordered in the way she thinks about god and reads books and this and i'm more you know franciscan in the way that i do things and contemplative right so when i talk to her about you know praying the hollow app and and having this experience with god or to her she's just like where is that in the book yeah you know what i mean like it's just but the two of you together that's exactly what where i was going with it is that the complementarity that we have the union that we've created through literally lowering ourselves before each other creates a bond of unity in christ you can't create a bond of unity in christ unless you humble yourself before another you know religious orders are almost like specialization right yeah you know it's almost like special forces i don't know what it is it's like it's like navy air you know the air force the army like there's different theaters of battle right but the same country and they make up the armed services it's a very kind of the same or if you want to look at it like sports teams right they all have their kind of different styles you know that the pittsburgh steelers are going to have you know tough defense and a good running game you know that the um the the raiders are going to have nasty defense you're going to suck going to leave houston everybody's going to leave houston again you know but it's like that and they have different colors they have a different team culture it's kind of the same thing right yeah so that's kind of how these developed right is like you're looking at these styles of life and there's so many different types of people right some are contemplative some are action oriented some want to get rid of everything that they own other people want to study books right and that's the four main categorizations of religious orders they are the monastic orders okay the monastic orders are founded by monks or nuns and they live in a monastery and they recite the divine office and their terrorism their founders their charisma of those founders were people that were led to a person who had this like and and monasticism goes all the way back to benedict exactly right so that that's a really that's a really good tie-in and and then you have the mendican orders yep the mexican orders are founded by friars or nuns who live from arms recite the divine office and have active participation in apostolic endeavors i think it's very important that you said they live from alms like they are beggars yeah they ask people to give them so some of those would be like franciscans or cistercians are franciscans mendicant there yeah absolutely uh that's why that's why you immediately said that because i you know what i'm like yeah dude benedictines would be too well benedictines are more important orders would be like um servites which um seven surveys the founders there's the franciscans mercedarians um do you have that you have a list of them that's the thing is the only ones i know is the franciscans and they divide it up into like 5 000 different well here oh okay here's a list so augustinians uh carmelites servites franciscans capuchin franciscans conventual franciscans dominicans there's so many franciscans yeah we'll talk about that but not all franciscans are religious orders only three of them are actually orders the rest are congregations then carmelites augustinians trinitarians and the brothers of penance those are the mendicant religious orders then you have we already talked about the monastic then you have cleric regulars and cannons uh cleric regular they'll be like jesuits right and like you they take they take vows of you know poverty chastity obedience um where for for me i take it's a sacred promise right like i'm it's it's not as uh so the the vows of like a jesuit for example they take a number of vows right and some of their vows they they don't take until like much later in their in their well they see the order the difference between a religious order and a congregation or even a diocesan is the difference between what's called a simple vow and a solemn vibe a solemn vow can only be you can only be released from it by the pope and you basically live your vows as the order says and you have no rights to any property simple vows uh they can be dispensed by a bishop you can still own property right you can still own private so like if father rich you know was left a you know a farm by a great uncle he can own that right yeah where these other they can't that's one of the primary differences is who cares for all religious orders have solid vows no no only religious orders have solemn vows so yeah but i'm saying the distinction is congregations right they do not they take simple vows so like so he's in a congregation no no as a diocesan priest i take sacred promises so my promises of uh obedience of a life of simplicity you know so a diocesan a diocesan priest is different in respect to the vows and how they're dispensed how they're lived out um where you know for example like like you said you know i don't take a vow of poverty yeah so you know i can have possessions that i own where uh you know for carmelites for franciscans for these they take a take a solemn vow solid that anything that they don't own any type of possession they can't that is theirs so they're they're bound to a much more sacred life in terms of the way they live personally within that yeah what's the difference between a congregation and religious i know we're not talking about them sure maybe throw that in there just to kind of give it distinguish i'm sure there's a lot of people but the big difference is the nature of the vows okay so they take a simple vowel but not like him well exactly they take a simple vowel he makes pro he makes promises they take a simple vow and then orders take a solemn vow okay our sponsor hallo is the number one catholic app in the app store to date and let me tell you it is a magnificent app over 400 million prayers have been said through this app there are contemplative prayers lectio divina bible in the year with father mike schmitz there's so many resources on this app and it continues to grow people's lives have been changed by building a habit of prayer through this wonderful technique and this wonderful application so make sure you check out hallow today and as you do realize that there are so many functions of this app developing your own personal prayer developing prayer even in groups journaling and maintaining the consistency of prayer that sometimes we could slip out of in the busyness of life so check out hallow i am sure that it will enrich your spiritual journey with christ so let's talk about some of those orders right yeah i think we've already talked about the franciscans a lot on a lot of episodes but you know the franciscans everyone knows them founded by saint francis they wear they wear brown or or gray right if you're a conventional um what are some of the characteristics you immediately associate with franciscans well they they serve the poor because they are poor because they're amended in order right because they're amending order they bind themselves to poverty and in the in the case of the cfrs which i i came to know christ through their ministry now the cfrs would be a congregation okay see that's because they're not one of the three orders see that's great yeah that's good to know the three orders would be the friars minor the capuchins and um wow hmm so anyways they go beg for food they eat whatever's left over they feed to the poor and then they also you know work with you know drug addicts and people on the street you just love them yeah um i think franciscans one of their like the thing is that they radically live the gospel like saint francis you know it's crazy um crazy awesome and i would definitely you know i know that you've always kind of had a franciscan spirituality but yeah franciscans are probably i don't know in my mind maybe the easiest to love in the church they're because they're just so devoted to the gospel to live like christ as you know saint francis they live providentially in a way that's like bold courageous yet it works and it's powerful you know like the witness of that is to me it's like you know how many people out there listening would say hey i'm just gonna just sell everything and god's gonna take care of me you know what i mean like that's not literally how they live yeah you know for for me and and and like sheila was saying too like you know knowing that you had a very franciscan spirituality and charism um i remember that just growing up with you you know like how inclined inclined you were to that uh type of a charism you know for i think a lot of it really depends on where you grow up and what type of communities are around you and what type of charisms are around you because you encounter it and then you're like wow i'm attracted to that way of life like that's a beautiful way of life i would have never discerned carmelite spirituality if i didn't have a carmelite order that lived neighboring my my parish down in off of old dixie highway and and going to visit their property and pray in their sanctuary and go to mass with them and see how reverent they were when they celebrated the mass and how monastic they were in silence in the house and and walking around the the property for the 12 you know the stations of the cross and and um you know so it's like what are you exposed to the greater exposure i had was to diocesan way of life and then when i went to ave maria i was like you know well what is god calling me to and saint francis had a huge impact um the oblates of mary immaculate you know they were my spiritual directors initially at ave so like they started to have an initial reaction like for me to encounter them hogar de la madre was also another one was like wow that's it's just an impressive uh community they're living their charism uh really really well um so all of these things you know they started filtering into my into my brain i think if i going back to that very beginning if i was around dominicans you know the order of preachers and and you know thomas aquinas saint dominic yeah you know like i i never was i was never exposed to that i think that's probably i would have i would have enjoyed that itinerant preaching like i i've thought a lot about that i would love to do that i i know that god has has given me a gift that i'm humbled by that i i do enjoy my my uh my service in that manner but you know it definitely wasn't the one that i have the affinity for as as it developed but i i turned to my my oblate of mary immaculate and i said these are the things i'm discerning i don't know if i should join the diocese of saint augustine or what i should do if i should be a diocesan priest or religious and he looked at me and as a matter of fact very intelligent guy he's like rich if you're sitting there thinking that you're anything but a diocesan priest you're full so i i joined the diocese right there after like just a couple of months later very cool yeah so i think part of me that's an entrepreneur is loves the franciscans because of that just kind of getting out there and just trusting and going and just everything's new every day yeah detach yourself from all all possession and like adventure like the great adventure of the unknown i'm going to go out there and i'm going to encounter and you're so person driven yeah that it just it it fits your it fits your charism super well yeah it's a side track there so so franciscans they wear brown they preach they radical the gospel they have fraternity they have poverty they serve the poor yeah they feed the poor some of their like famous saints like um saint francis and say bonaventure yep uh solanus casey man look at this padre pio andre pio what about this maximum the guy the st joseph guy uh in canada audrey bessette yeah um i don't know buzzy francisco absolutely i didn't know that yep um another one i think that everyone knows is you know and they have like they have a liturgical schedule that's their own that's their own that's an important thing to to bring up too now you brought up the carmelites right carmelites to me when i was a kid i always confused carmelites and franciscans because they seemed very similar right uh carmelites were founded by kind of a group there wasn't like one singular founder right um they were founded by a group of monks who went and lived on mount carmel where elijah had the great battle you know against the balls and all that it's a powerful place if you ever get to go there you could just feel the silence and the solemnity and the prayer as you're as you're walking around the mountain yeah the carmelites were founded during the crusades and these monks who are now free to you know operate in the area went and lived on mount carmel but then carmel and then as christians got driven out really the carmelites had to move back to europe but uh and that's where they it was only they're only there for like 50 years on carmel right and then in england and france but they're you know what they were they were like the uh the white with the brown rabbit and that's where the scapular comes from is a piece of their habit um and they're they're very much about contemplative prayer fraternity and service too you know they're the ones with you know discount or couch right that means they wear shoes or they don't wear shoes right um some of their really important sayings who are some important caramelized saints like teresa of avalanche theresa john of the cross like giants edith stein who was inspired by teresa of avila they kind of out punched their weight in the church there's not as many of them as say you know other orders but they have the magnitude they have these great spiritual writers you know they're very contemplative very deep i think that's a good way to describe their character no faucina was not she was a congregation yeah she was a congregation i can't remember the congregation offhand um one of the first ones again the augustinians you guys ever roll with any augustinians i hung out with augustinians once and i've always i always wanted to really develop a good relationship with augustinians just being from the diocese of saint augustine and the only ones that i hung out with were were in rome and and uh it was unfortunate because i would have loved to have so i got more questions about this okay so this is saint august but it was not founded by him okay but that's the distinction i'm trying to make is like he was a bishop diocesan priest bishop you know in that order how did this one get founded was it founded in his sort of his like honor or charism or yeah so it was okay there was a bunch of hermits living in the hills of italy that's how a lot of good stories start it does once upon a time there's many hermits living in the head you know this this so in an effort to to get them to kind of be more in touch with each other uh pope innocent iv brought them all together and said look you guys are doing all the same thing right and you're all hermits and you don't have a support system right you're all on your own it was kind of like creating the heck y'all doing he was basically unionizing hermits okay and he gave them the role of saint augustine to guide them right as a way to be able to so how's that created through a charism of a bishop like that's my through the pope but i mean st augustine you know it was his um he wasn't a hermit well no but his charisms were helpful so like a lot of study a lot of understanding because yeah hermits are on their own right he was a orator yep so orator educator educator yeah so you know there's a lot of contemplation which augustine certainly did you know there was a lot of study in the cultivation of knowledge right which he certainly did um living for the liturgy um apostolic activities to anybody right based on what they need in that time and place right so it's not like hey we focus on four on poor people or we you know it's versatile it's versatile right it's kind of like how the um the jesuit started actually they they they were at the service of the church they first were found and the pope and they still are really you know in many respects uh you know like the legionaries too it's like they they have their their hierarchy goes right up to the pope you know and and in respect to taking vows like one of the vows um you know of the jesuits i believe is to the pope it's to obedience to the pope it's obedience to their missions as defined by the pope so the pope gives them the definition of of uh their mission which when francis was elected francis was a jesuit he was a jesuit so as the pope he actually superseded his boss right he like jumped over but as a jesuit he still has to it's it's like creating this like time loop where he's like what am i supposed to do i'll ask myself what am i supposed to do i ask my order well my order says i have to ask myself but it's just like this [Laughter] so you know people said hey that might create a unique situation but uh jesuits founded by ignatius of loyola uh amazing and then i know you guys talk about the spiritual exercises yeah it's really amazing oh it really is i'd like to get a jesuit on and talk about ignatius i mean he was yeah he was something else man he was um jesuits were at one point suppressed um you know the jesuits so many of them were martyred in england during the reformation uh canada everywhere some of the most brutal is the japan and the canada yeah martyrdoms oh jesuits isaac jones isaac jones yeah unfortunately the jesuits that a lot of times in church history have been cannon fodder you know they're on the front lines you know yeah so it's a missionary it's a missionary order they were created that way yeah and this the same thing goes with the order of preachers the dominican is a missionary order now you know this is a great way to to express this uh other point too as it relates to charisms and now we're really exploring all of these different charisms all these different religious orders throughout time and number 788 uh 798 in the catechism the holy spirit is the principle of every vital and truly saving action in each part of the body he works in many ways to build up the body and charity by the many special graces called charisms gifts anointing graces by which he makes the faithful fit and ready to undertake various tasks and offices for the renewal and building up of the church you know and that's a really important thing that you said there is that religious orders even though they they kind of have this flavor they have this traditional understanding there's always constantly renewal in these orders you know like i said earlier the jesuits were suppressed but then they were back uh you know there's so many franciscans because that those charisms continue to get refined into more and more nuanced charisms you know you'll have like um you know franciscans who are working on inner cities you'll have franciscans who are working towards uh religious fraternity with other christian groups you'll have some working with drug addicts like those charisms get refined into more charisma charisms i guess you know right it's almost like a sub-charism you know like you have the charism of how they live their life and their faith and worship god and the expression of that charism and the expression of it yeah and you look throughout time where you have a religious order like the carmelites for example you know when john of the cross and teresa of allah you have this absolute explosion of of excitement and enthusiasm around this religious community because the spirit hit them so strongly and now you have all of this like you know propagation of of vocations you have a ton of men and women becoming carmelites same thing with diocesan life it's like you have you have moments of great influence and then you have all of a sudden all of these vocations you know next thing you know you're having 10 ordination 10 or 90 every year or five people to be ordained you remember back in uh pt days when they went through their spike then they kind of went down a little bit and then they didn't have ordinations for a little while same thing with our diocese we went through a stretch where there was no ordinations now we're having ordinations every single year and it just depends on when the spirit hits a community for renewal even even a diocese so that's where we have to constantly be praying for renewal that's where we have to realize that each of us have a charism and we need to pray to the holy spirit to influence our work so that we're participating in this renewal you know we never want to go back to a historic church that we never knew the church is in a constant state of renewal yeah and we have to belong to that renewal but we have to ultimately be working for the common threads of unity not division you know and and tearing at different communities or or divisive things that's what leads to suppression when the when the um uh the order of preachers the dominicans we're at war with the jesuits and then and then the politics that happened all the way up to rome with the pope and then you know in working in the far east that's what really led to the suppression of of in respect to different orders losing vocations you know people don't want to be a part of groups that are fighting people want to be a part of groups that are building yeah you know be a part of this process of being open to the spirit because when you are it will necessarily bring about the fruits of building so i think another a cool thing that we can do is just kind of i'd like to hear your opinions so that people can understand you know in a word or two i'm going to say a few and then just kind of give your one or two you know or one sentence explanation of how you see them right so um dominicans uh vibrant learned well spoken i think of a dominican order that they're very talented uh musically um with like skola and beautiful music and the tradition of of uh of the faith yeah you know then dominicans and their white habits and you know how about them dominican sisters yeah exactly that's what i was thinking too absolutely national dominicans who are those married mother the eucharist yeah same they say they're they're grafted out of uh of natural dominicans they're the ones in michigan yeah yeah yeah but uh yeah i agree i got to see firsthand avi maria the the uh mary in houston educators preachers uh trappists beer that's the first thing that comes to mind but also even more so austerity discipline over the flesh bishop galileon my my former bishop who affiliated me um you know back in 2006 as a seminarian he would he went to a trappist order and lived out a greater majority of his days after uh leaving the office yeah galileon yeah it's self-sufficiency you know that's that was their thing is that they would be able to sustain themselves you know by the work of their own hands yeah i when i think about them i think of mystics i think they're they're very mystical in terms of their contemplation they increase contemplation every day they're spending hours and hours before our lord embracing poverty embracing poverty and then also um they're craftsman yeah like like they're they're craftsmen like they when they do something they do it very very very well because they live by their hands i mean whether it's caskets or beer or yeah you know that's why you say oh trappist beer jelly this or that because everything they do they do well because they live by their hands i have trappist jelly in my in my stuff's drink that every morning delicious to the trappists yeah missionaries of charity mother teresa's order yeah i'm trying to think what congregation so i just think i thirst like jesus oh yeah i love that at the cross yeah that's that's what they do is they they give jesus something to drink yeah mission day of charities is like one of those newer ones they're not that old historically the church but everyone knows what they look like you know the white sauron i think it's called with the blue stripes sorry they're able to see christ in people in ways that are just unbelievable regardless of of you know whether they're simple or status or you know national identity or even religious affiliation they see christ in in everyone and when i think of missionary charity i think twofold one active yeah in service but also contemplative um you know mother teresa allowed a contemplative order to be to split off so they have a contemplative arm and they have an active arm and i got to serve the contemplative order in san diego and they lived in a very poor area just outside of town south of the city and it was a joy to be able to you know pray with them and celebrate the liturgy and and hear their confessions and so blessing oh man it was so awesome i missed that a lot i miss that community a lot uh the holy cross congregation educators uh par excellence i mean phenomenal educators missionaries preachers notre dame yep i mean notre dame is a holy cross school and so many really great schools are holy cross you know yeah that's what i think about when i hear that but they're also missionaries too yeah they are mm-hmm uh the brigidine sisters do you know them i have no clue i think of saint bridget i think you say bridgette and i still have those boys sorry daughters of saint paul right there in publishing oh yeah you know i think they're a very joyful group of women sure mercedarian sisters they're very focused on the eucharist in education like all of these religious orders they have these focuses you know of things that they do and they do well and if you're like you said i mean you you can't you can't not think of their efforts in evangelization and even in modern sense like they have consistently been in publishing they've consistently been online they they have youtube efforts they have all sorts of things that they that they have are constantly endeavoring in new evangelization which i always appreciate i think there's one called like the the congregation of the little lamb and they're in france and what it is is um women with down syndrome or intellectual disabilities and they go and they pray and it's the little lamb and they have their own white habits so beautiful and man it's just and they have um you know their abyss i believe and these women even though they have these intellectual deficiencies have this beautiful joy of christ so even for everyone there's a charism and oh man yeah it's the congregation of the of the little like that's beautiful it's amazing your order the apostolic order are the arbiters of this these entities right in christ obviously and and supplying them with the the the opportunities that they're looking for and saying yeah go over here and that's where tragically you know we fail as diocesan priests is if we can't represent the universal breadth of the church in respect to charisms that's why i always whenever it's in the church calendar i always opt to celebrate optional memorials or memorials of different saints because it's highlighting different religious men and women throughout history and what they do what charism they were into if they worked in hospitals and they worked for a health care system they built hospitals they they took care of the dying they took care of the sick and they infirmed like that they took jerusalem well i have cousins who continually tell me all of my cops all of my cousins that are cops in the military hey whenever the you know the next time they come back exactly exactly um yeah so i mean religious orders i'll put some charts and some things right because there's no way we can get to all of them there's so many i'll put some charts on there for everyone listening to see the founder see the basic charism of it so you can start to explore these because it's such a rich treasure within the church all these expressions of unique characteristics of christ these charisms that are lived out in beautiful ways you know by amazing men and women who devote their life and i think for us just as laymen right looking at this i think what i would hope to see is that god's put a charism in you yeah and and you know you you know you lean one way or the other spiritually and embrace that embrace that and incorporate that into your prayer life and how god is acting in your life to to be called forth you know well i think that's a good segue to our inquisition so i think for the inquisition today father rich you tell us what religious order you maybe feel that you would belong to and then which one dull across myself you know what in in viewing charisms what did you contemplate where would you contemplate now and then where would you see you know our personalities oh where i would see y'all's personalities oh that's that's i like that i like that inquisition question um now i don't like many inquisition questions but i like that one um i was like i mentioned before i was very attracted to franciscan way of life went to saint francis's paternal home and knew very clearly from from god and directly from saint francis that i wasn't called to to be a franciscan why is that well i was i was praying and reading a biography and i came across this quote from francis where it said no two flowers are exactly alike and at that point i was in such admiration of francis that you know i had already given away a ton of my belongings and and i was ready to just kind of give everything and um and when i read that i heard in like my soul in my heart like richard there are no two flowers exactly like bloom where you are growing and it helped me to take a step in the direction of now i've gotta i've gotta go off to ave and i've gotta i've gotta really discern you know who i am yeah um and what charism that god that god's given me so that carmelite so that was a quick discernment but really entering into the depths of the diocesan life i needed a spirituality and it's not that diocesan priests don't have a spirituality we pray the liturgy of the hours we are very active contemplative but i needed something to tie myself to and anchor myself to and i fell in love with the jesuits and i fell in love with saint ignatius of loyola i have a lot of similarities with knee injuries and that was the catalyst to my own conversion and and uh my love of the word of god and and discerning the word of god and applying that in my life and lexia divina and and the application of senses and placing yourself immersively in the scriptures all of the things ignatius taught i was already learning in the spirit prior to me learning about ignatius so there was like all of these different correlations that i was experiencing early on and then it started to be facilitated in my formation through ipf at creighton university with all these wonderful jesuits that that taught me as well as um you know father fesio and ave maria at the time who was just a wonderful influence of a jesuit as well so definitely jesuit um without a doubt without a doubt um i'm i'm attracted to a couple of secular institutions out there um you know congregations that are are very very open minded in in like the worker priests movement um like working in the field of secularity and and having a secular job but also being a priest i kind of like that concept a lot and it's also tied because i am a secular priest as a diocesan priest i am called to live in the world but not be of the world and and to work among you know fellow man i find myself in the office so much that i would rather be out like you know in another office well like in a in a secular setting like you know i've had i had jobs since i was in eighth grade so you know like being in a factory and working uh you know working a forklift throughout the day but having these conversations with people that's interesting in a matter so like that that is definitely attraction of mine like now so it's like between jesuit and secular institutions that are a worker priest movement that's kind of more of and being a more nomadic priest um not tied to a specific territory but tied to specific initiatives um i'd be attracted to that for sure yeah so for you guys which i'm like even way more excited about you without a doubt franciscan spirituality and i i still see it in in many different respects even a conversation we had earlier today with different philanthropic things that you you get into and and the people that you meet and you your heart gets touched and and it's some initiative with a poor community that you know they don't have snacks or or fruit juices or gatorades for their sporting events and like i could just see your heart being moved and and you want to provide you want to provide for the poor you want to you you give of yourself and you you embrace a sense of poverty so that you can give um like that that always inspires me so i see i see a lot of that in you de la crosse and then for you shield i see in between a trappist and a and a like an augustinian um you know trappist and in respect to you having a phenomenal ability that um very skillful very handy very you're able to kind of take on any type of of project and manage it and and get down in the details and and really beautifully do incredible things but then also your your hunger for knowledge and you know your study and and your your photographic memory and remembering things and so you know i think i think between those two you're striving after knowledge and your your skillfulness i'd kind of put you in in that in that realm i don't know i think i'd be more in one of those clown orders you know they'd do the clown masses but there's no way there's no way i see i'd see him more as a either a carmelite or a trappist because he would be be able to read and be able to provide for that thirst of knowledge but also be able to do something that would require his application of something which i think would actually create something better out of it you look at the trappist of old and how they developed agriculture they developed whatever i see him as the trappist like guy that runs the internet for the th yeah like that kind of guy he just comes out for an hour and he's like you do that you do that you do that i'm out going to freaking read a book [Laughter] yeah i'm being silent yeah i definitely see for de la crosse franciscan but um what flavor franciscan you know i don't i don't know if i'd see like capuchin you know i could see you doing what's uh cfr i could see you as a cfr i really could you know yeah i mean that's the one i discerned so you guys pegged me right yeah but but you mentioned something really interesting which is the how you develop as a person spiritually and i don't think this is a very fair statement because or a very fair conversation because yes i i was definitely franciscan because now i'm an entrepreneur and the excitement of the unknown and the reckless abandon of my faith to god that he would provide like that that is essentially them but they have a charism of service which my charism was my wife and my children however after living with my children and my wife for this long i have decided that i'm going to take my talents to the travis monastery and i'm going to live in silence man i might be a hermit brother i think you should yeah you should you should start the congregation of the seven holy sleepers [Laughter] so yeah again um if you're looking for more information about catholic religious orders i'll put links if you go to catholictalkshow.com and go to this episode's page i'll make sure that those are there but go look around go like you know um go go find out about something look at what you're discern your charism and try to match it up if you're not young pray to god that he would give you the grace of this understanding knowledge of self is so important and if you're discerning a religious life or a vocation you know your vocation directors they're not always just going to uh try to get you into their order you know they're not signing you up um but discern a few of them discern the benedictines discern the jesuits discern the dominicans or the norbertines or the silesians or you know the passionists and all of them right go out and discern them read about their founders read about their cares discern diocesan right the redemptorists we didn't talk about there's so many there were so many communities yeah so if you watch this and we didn't mention your community we're sorry please put it in the in the feed as well and put your links yeah to your relationship you know anyone who has a really argue why you're the best religious order out there in the business right you know we want to get get some conversation it's a great job i'll end the episode with this so there's a there's there's three religious arguing there's dominican a franciscan jesuit and they're all like well no obviously the jesuits are the greatest and the francis is like no we're the greatest but we'd never say it the dominicans are like well let's ask god what he thinks so they all pray and they write a letter and then they they put it in the ocean and they let it go off and they wait a couple days for the letter to come back and then they're like well i wonder what god said he's like well my brothers or my sons do not fight over which religious order is great the franciscans and the jesuits are great sign god opie that's great well my brothers and sisters thank you for connecting with us this week make sure on the comment section you put your own charism like what what religious order do you have an affinity for we want to get to know you guys so please put that in there and we want to see you next week and make sure make sure make sure that you're praying for the renewal of the church and you have something to participate in you know your charism who you are in god is the most important thing as de la crosse was saying to to discover in yourself we need you to help rebuild the church of today ecclesia senpai referendum s the church is in a constant state of reform and it is so awesome to build this church community and our community online with the catholic talk show with you thank you to our patrons thank you to our sponsors and we'll see you next week [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: The Catholic Talk Show

Views: 173,269

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, Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans, Benedictines, Augustianians, Carmelites, Trappists, Carthusians, Norbertines, Premonstratensians, Cistercians, Paulines, Capuchin, Mercedarians, Servites, Salesians

Id: 2ISTxdKbP4o

Length: 50min 17sec (3017 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 22 2021