The SEEK Podcast
Welcome to the SEEK Podcast – we're so glad you’re here. This podcast is a place of community, collaboration, and inspiration, created to invite and encourage you deeper into a relationship with Jesus. Join these podcasters and many others as we encounter Jesus at SEEK25, Jan 1st-5th. For more information and to register, visit seek.focus.org.
The SEEK Podcast
Vulnerability and Leadership: What God Is Not x SEEK
Explore the transformative power of vulnerability in leadership with us in this episode recorded at SEEK in Salt Lake City. Drawing from the rich tapestry of Byzantine traditions and spiritual practices, we delve into how embracing vulnerability can enhance your leadership effectiveness and foster deeper connections.
We examine the profound stories of Christ’s crucifixion and baptism, which illustrate the immense courage and humility essential for true leadership. By sharing personal anecdotes and reflections, we uncover how acknowledging our strengths and weaknesses can build trust and foster genuine relationships within our communities.
Check out SEEK Replay here: https://seekreplay.com/welcome
Welcome to the Seek 25 podcast, featuring some of our favorite podcasters recorded live at the Max Studios podcast stage during Seek 25 in Salt Lake City.
Speaker 2:All right in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, lord, for this time. Thank you for our faith, for our baptisms, thank you for Mother and my vocations. Thank you for this podcast, lord, and all of our dear listeners. Thank you for our team that allows it to happen. Lord, please soften and strengthen our hearts to say and to hear and to love only what is your will. And if we say anything, lord, that is not of your will, please strike it from our mouths and from the hearts and the minds of those who listen. Please, lord, send your spirit to our dear listeners that they may receive and hear with your ears and may grow closer to you through our words and through your ministry. O Lord, lord, please bless especially this episode, bless this technology, bless our conversation as we pray. Heavenly King.
Speaker 3:Comforter, Spirit of Truth, everywhere present and filling all things, treasury of blessings and giver of life come and dwell within us, cleanse us of all stain and save our souls, o gracious one.
Speaker 2:In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ.
Speaker 3:Glory to him forever.
Speaker 2:Hello Mother.
Speaker 3:Hi Father.
Speaker 2:Hello, sea of listeners. Thank you guys. This is, I think, the biggest we've gotten my gosh.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Someone was on Pints with Aquinas a lot and helped our listenership.
Speaker 3:Was that you?
Speaker 2:No, not us a lot and helped our listenership. Was that you? No, not at all. Well, thank you all for coming out. We appreciate it immensely. Hopefully we'll have some good things to say as you can listen, and then at the end we're going to try to do a Q&A as well. Beth, if you could raise your hand please. We have a wonderful artist friend named Olivia and she designed our stickers this year, and Beth is walking around and handing out stickers for Seek 2025. If anybody here wants those stickers, I also want to publicly thank Olivia, the artist, for making me taller than Joan of Arc, because that probably wasn't true in real life, although she's just larger than life, but anyway, the sticker has me taller than Joan of Arc, so I appreciate that. All right, sikh's been wonderful so far. Thank you for those of you who joined us for Royal Hours earlier. If you follow us on Instagram, we will do some Byzantine prayers and it was great at this event to do some Byzantine prayers as we prepare for the baptism of our Lord in the Byzantine church.
Speaker 3:My favorite. I hope that no one's offended that I had a favorite at Royal Hours, but my favorite attendee was most certainly Anastasia, who I saw her earlier.
Speaker 2:There she is.
Speaker 3:So she was a champ for the whole of Royal Hours and doing lots of gymnastics on the floor throughout, and it was really delightful.
Speaker 2:We didn't have any candles or fire, which we Byzantines really like our candles and incense. We had none of that, and so I was looking at her head and she was running around while I was praying the red-haired little girl. I was praying the gospel. I was like, oh, this is our little flaming baby running around. I know that's not how you say that, but that was on my mind, not what that.
Speaker 3:that's not how you say that, but that was on my mind.
Speaker 2:Ignore me, all right. So, mother, I'm putting my glasses at a time so I can read. I want to thank yeah they're cute. I like your glasses. I want to start off, no.
Speaker 2:I'm taking them off then I mean manly, I want to thank you. The topic we want to do today is on vulnerability and leadership, and this isn't just something I'm making up or we're making up. I actually have three examples from our beautiful Byzantine traditions and liturgies about how vulnerability works, especially coming from a leader. So there's we hear all the time if you never watched Brene Brown's TED Talk, please go do that on vulnerability, a lot of times we talk about vulnerability among peers I'm going to read something in a moment about that but there's the vulnerability when it comes to a leader. This is the vulnerability of parents for their children in front of their children, of priests and nuns, hegumenas, hegemons, leaders of communities. What does it mean to be vulnerable in front of them? And so we're going to use our liturgical texts as kind of an example of that. But I want to start with a quick story.
Speaker 2:I was sitting and I was making fun of myself yesterday and as I was making fun of myself, I was making fun of myself for always forgetting things and if you guys are common listeners, you know that I forget things all the time and I can make fun of myself in front of Mother Natalia, and I was making fun of myself in front of Beth, and they were both laughing, and the laughing was laughing with me, not laughing at me, and that may seem so odd, but I thought I could be vulnerable in front of you, of course, and I could be vulnerable in front of Beth with things that I don't like about myself. I don't like the fact that I forget everything. Now, there are also things sometimes when I am vulnerable because I need to change something, and then there's not really a laughing matter. I'm saying look, here's a weakness I have, even though I'm your spiritual father. Here's a weakness I have and this I want to change. Pray for me, please. But there are other things that I can't change. I can't change the way my memory works, and so when I can be vulnerable in that way because there are situations where, to use this example, I may share something about I forget everything Someone can absolutely use that against me.
Speaker 2:Someone could use it as a weapon. Someone could turn it against me. Someone could write my bishop and say, please, send us someone else, like, send us a priest that actually remembers things. This is utterly ridiculous, bishop, like they could use it as a weapon, of course, and I just want to appreciate that you don't. Thank you, beth as well. Thank you, bree and Greg and our entire team for not using that against me. I appreciate that immensely. You want to make fun of me real quick before I read something.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:What do you want me to make fun of you for?
Speaker 2:I was giving you an opportunity while I looked at my first reading. No, all right, I apologize. I'm going to do some reading and then I'm going to ask you, of course, for feedback, mother. And then I'm going to ask you, of course, for feedback, mother, but these prayers in our liturgy and in this case I'm reading something from my old fraternity so how many of you listen to the Catholic Stuff you Should Know podcast, there we go. All right, I was on that podcast for years. That was my first podcast.
Speaker 2:As you know, we were a community of priests. I was the only Byzantine one, it was all Romans and it was amazing To have community, and priesthood allows for an immense vulnerability that I think most priests do not understand and don't really have the capacity to do that. So I want to read you one paragraph from our rule of life, just to kind of get it kicked off. This was written by the priest in my fraternity. By his wounds we were healed.
Speaker 2:Though he knew what was in men, the incarnate word made vulnerable the heart of God, as perfect love casts out fear. The one who contemplates the transfigured wounds of Christ desires never again to say I was naked, so I hid myself, captivated by the beauty of divine vulnerability, the companion, the priest in this community, responds with courage, rendering vulnerable his own opaque interiority, that, at the risk of rejection, he gains the possibility of communion. Vulnerability with Christ in the presence of his brothers, is the hallmark of the companion's common life. So this touches on the real meaning of vulnerability, which is, you mentioned, a better definition than I had earlier.
Speaker 3:Well, etymologically it means able to be wounded.
Speaker 2:Able to be wounded. So when we're vulnerable, we're literally leading with the ability to be wounded. I'm sharing something with you and you could use this as a weapon. You could. And vulnerability means, in a sense I trust you enough that you will not use this as a weapon, that you will actually treasure it. It'll be something that allows you to love me better. And so what?
Speaker 2:The reason I started off with that was because any vulnerability that comes in leadership has to be rooted in Christ's own vulnerability, as we've been. By his wounds. We were healed, and there was something about the vulnerability of Adam and Eve that they in a sense the devil abused them. They abused themselves and they hid themselves, and because they were trying to protect something by hiding that before that they're being naked without shame, that that vulnerability was something so beautiful that when that was abused by sin, then all of a sudden they had to hide themselves.
Speaker 2:And I like how it says in that part of the rule never again will I say I was naked and I was shameful and I was vulnerable so I hid myself, but rather I'm vulnerable so I show myself to Christ, and that's, of course, what it says. Christ, of course, is the leader. He is the king, he is the prince of heaven. So there's, he was vulnerable, he allowed himself to be wounded by us and by sin, and so that is the example, that is the primary example of any leader when they want to find what it means to be vulnerable to their flock, to those who they actually have authority over.
Speaker 3:And obviously this happens like. The clearest example of this is the crucifixion.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:In allowing himself to be yeah, to be wounded. In that sense, what is this?
Speaker 2:Water. Oh, and while we were praying today, it's really whiskey, I'm just kidding, it's water. I wish when we were praying today it dawned on me we were praying royal hours earlier for Theophany. And Theophany is our celebration, our commemoration of Christ's baptism, and it actually said in our prayers I'm sure you noticed it said that who are we to see? Christ naked in the river? All of our iconography shows him being baptized and partly clothed. But just like our icons right, he was probably naked being baptized. There was a sign. A very real sign of this is the new Adam. Adam was naked without shame. Christ, when he was being baptized, was naked without shame. Christ on the cross was naked without shame, and this is the example that any of us in any form of leadership whether that's parents again, bosses, anybody who looks to us for any sort of leadership as a shepherd needs to find that ability to be properly vulnerable.
Speaker 2:All right, I want to read. I'm going to start with my favorite. So this again I want to share things from our liturgical life so we're not just kind of riffing and making stuff up. But this is a beautiful prayer, so this is actually what it says in the book. I do not listen to the book. I'm sorry, I know I do what I want in this, but it says During this litany the priest prays the following prayer silently If there is no deacon. The priest says it privately before the service of baptism.
Speaker 3:So this is not supposed to be said out loud, but Fr Michael Bachman is above rubrics.
Speaker 2:I am way below rubrics, too far below rubrics, but I want to share this because if you've been to a Byzantine baptism, you probably did not hear this, and I apologize. I cannot remain unemotional during baptisms and this is one of my favorite parts, and I've done probably 200 baptisms in my life, if not more, and I'm probably going to cry. I apologize, try to get through me. I'll hand it to you, mother, and you can finish reading it, if I don't Wait.
Speaker 3:Can we first just can we pause there? I want to know why you're apologizing for crying, like you're doing an episode about the importance of vulnerability in leadership, and then you apologize for crying.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you, I want you to be able to understand it and hear it, and I want to make sure it's clear, like if I could just have AI read it and I could just cry while it's being read. That'd be easier, but okay, so this is what the priest says Do you want me to read it, but okay.
Speaker 3:So this is what the priest says.
Speaker 2:Do you want me to read? It Is that helpful.
Speaker 2:I'm not a priest. I'll read it just because I'm a priest. So this is what the priest says, and this is what he says right before the baptism. So, basically, he's about to pass on and allow this child or the adult to die to their sin and death and arise with Christ. And God asked him to be the one who did this. And so the priest has to stand with immense humility.
Speaker 2:In the Byzantine church, in the liturgy, whenever any priest is about to touch the Eucharist with his bare hands, you will always see him do three bows oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner Anytime he's about to touch the Eucharist. So we stand with a fear of God before we touch the Eucharist and a deacon and a priest, because in the Byzantine church you would never touch the Eucharist with your hands unless you're a deacon or a priest. And so the first time a deacon is given the Eucharist, it's put in his hand and he rests his hand on the altar. Like it's too heavy, Like I can't even support this, I rest it on the altar. And then a priest when he also receives it for the first time in the hand. Again, he rests it on the altar. I rest it on the altar as soon as I put it in my hand, Like it's just a reminder that this has a heft to it, a weight to it. And speaking of vulnerability, my gosh, like the vulnerability of God. To decide that Christ's body, blood, soul and divinity is going to rest in my hand is incredible. You know, the fact that we receive him is incredible, Like it's just amazing vulnerability. I'll stop, Okay. This is what the church says.
Speaker 2:This is what the priest says. Oh, compassionate and merciful God, you alone search the heart and soul. You know their secrets. There is nothing hidden from you. All things are naked and exposed to your sight. Since you know everything about me, do not loathe me or turn your face away from me, but rather, at this time, overlook my offenses, as you overlook the sins of all when they repent. Wash away the filth of my body and soul and make all my being holy and perfect by your unseen power and your spiritual right hand.
Speaker 2:That, while I proclaim freedom and I offer it to others by the perfect faith of your unspeakable love for mankind, I myself may not be found an abandoned slave of sin. O Master, you alone are good and you love mankind. Do not humiliate me, but send upon me the power from on high and strengthen me for the ministry of this great and heavenly mystery. Form Christ in him, who now seeks to be born again through my humble ministry. Build him firmly upon the foundation of your apostles and prophets. Do not destroy him, but plant him as a planting of truth in your holy Catholic and apostolic church. That he may not be rooted out, that he grows in the practice of faith. Your all holy name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit may be glorified in him, now and ever and forever. Amen.
Speaker 2:Like I kind of understand why they would want you to say that silently, right, I mean the priest has to stand there saying I'm an abandoned, do not allow me to be abandoned slave of sin. I am a slave of sin, but do not abandon me. And then it says build up this person about to be baptized on the firm foundation of faith. Right, this is the foundation of the altar where we rest our hand. This is the foundation of the faith where this also this person who was a slave of sin, whether they were an infant or an adult. In a sense, now is receiving, of course, your gift, oh Lord, of your own vulnerability that allows them to enter into your own body and therefore enter into the heavenly reality.
Speaker 3:This is such a beautiful prayer against clericalism, right, Like it's not. This idea of the man who is the priest is better than the rest of us, is more deserving of this role, or something like that. It's like there's this proclamation of your own sinfulness and it reminds me of are you going to talk about is one of the prayers during the liturgy, like the priest's prayer before receiving communion.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 3:Oh, maybe I'm making this up, what?
Speaker 2:are you thinking of?
Speaker 3:Well, just like that, the priest acknowledges his own sinfulness at the anaphora. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 2:I think so. I think I have that ready to go.
Speaker 3:Okay great, that's just what it reminds me of.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a. And see, this is really funny, because I just acted very clerically when I said I'm going to read it out loud just because I want to, if the book says, don't do it, I shouldn't do it. But it's like there's something about. Of course, when I read it privately, as the book says, there's something beautiful that I need to be reminded of this and I guess it possibly could be distracting to people, because in that moment, the priest is just talking to God and it is a private thing. It could, of course, become showy, like I'm just reading it aloud on a podcast. It could become showy, but when it's actually being prayed at baptism it's not. It's like I'm talking to God, I'm doing it alone, alone, which, of course, is beautiful.
Speaker 2:And you're saying don't let me be an obstacle, don't let my sin be an obstacle, and yeah, I think I think that's one thing that any priest, anybody who's following rubrics, needs to understand is that if we go off script, we can absolutely become an obstacle, like to what God is trying to do in this, in this liturgy itself.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Let me read this. This may be what you were talking about. So this is right before the anaphora, right before the consecration in the liturgy of St Basil the Great, who we celebrated two days ago, and I think you Roman Catholics celebrated it when Basil the Great, one day ago, yesterday. So this is St Basil the Great.
Speaker 3:Shout out to Brother Basil, whose feast day it was.
Speaker 2:Happy feast day, brother, all right. So this is what the priest says, and in our, in our liturgy, he does say this out loud again vulnerability and leadership. God and mercy and kindness, you have visited our lowliness. You have appointed us, your humble, sinful and unworthy servants, to minister at your holy altar in the presence of your holy glory, through the power of your Holy Spirit, strengthen us in this service and permit us to open our mouth and call down the grace of your Holy Spirit upon the gifts about to be offered. That, being ever protected by your power, we may give glory to you, father, son and Holy Spirit, now and ever and forever.
Speaker 2:Amen, again, that just struck me just now. Being protected by your power, because there is something like Noah, right In his vulnerability after getting drunk, in his weakness, he becomes vulnerable and that's taken advantage of by one of his sons, and his vulnerability is covered, protected by his other sons, thank God. So there's something we're saying in this liturgy we are about to be vulnerable because that's what we've decided to do as priests and as celebrants. But so, lord, please protect us In your vulnerability. Protect us and let this vulnerability not be abused or used as a weapon.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I want to say a couple of things that came to mind as you were speaking, but I don't know if any of them are related to what you were doing or talking about.
Speaker 3:So great? Uh, because the first one, one that came to mind just as you were speaking right now, is the the CS Lewis quote, um, from the four loves. Uh, actually, if, um, I don't know if this is allowed. If anyone can like someone, sandy, I'll just put this can you look up, um, cs lewis, the four loves to love at all is to be vulnerable, and I'm gonna read that out loud um, there's a quote that starts with to love at all is to be vulnerable. If I were mother petra, I would be able to just quote this whole thing off the top of my head, but I am not mother. Um, but that. That quote came to mind, which then is just um, oh, thank you, sandy. Okay, so the four loves is one of my favorite books and I'll put this out there.
Speaker 3:If any of you listen to audio books, I'm only listening to, um, my second audio book ever. Right now, the first audio book that I'm listening to is Counts of Monte Cristo with Brother Basil. But, oh, things are happening, everything's fine, it's fine. But I just started listening to the Four Loves on Spotify and it's recorded in CS Lewis's voice. Did you people know that this existed? There's a recording of CS Lewis reading the Four Loves, and it's on Spotify, but this is one of my favorite quotes from it.
Speaker 3:He says to love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless. It will change, it will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable and I I love that quote because to love, um, this vulnerability that you're talking about, like this, the ability to be wounded, as we were talking about etymologically, that's what it means, um, able to be wounded, and um, you know, one of the things that we were talking about yesterday is one of the things that Father Boniface said in his talk yesterday was about the healing power of love and the healing power of vulnerability, and I think that's because you know this, like the father is Porphyrius. St Porphyrius talks about being wounded by love. John of the Cross talks about being wounded by love, and it's love talks about being wounded by love, and it's love that heals us. And so if we're not open to this, if we're not open to the wounding by love, if we're not open to being wounded, period, then we're not going to be healed and we're going to just be like unbreakable but also unhealable. And you know, I was thinking as you were talking about the royal hours in theophany.
Speaker 3:The line that I thought you were going to mention was there was a line in which we talked about how John the Baptist gave in, and we were talking about that yesterday. That's one of my, one of the lines from the scripture that always pierces me about the baptism of the Lord is John the Baptist is protesting and he's like I'm not worthy of baptizing you, why are you here? And then in one translation it says he gave in. And I think we get so overwhelmed by life. There's so much pressure, there's so much pressure, there's so much stress that we're always going to give in eventually and we can either give in to the devil or we can give in to the Lord. And in this particular case, john the Baptist giving in and being vulnerable in that way, allowing himself to be wounded by love of the Lord is. It's a giving in and it's the vulnerability of, of leadership that we're talking about, because this is the.
Speaker 3:The greatest struggle, I think, for me and for for priests who are, who are struggling to also have humility while also leading, is like. This is the temptation of I'm not, I'm not worthy to to do a podcast, I'm not worthy to give homilies, I'm not worthy to to consecrate the body and blood of Christ. I'm not worthy to absolve people of their sin. Um, but that's coming from a place of pride, really, you know, of saying like my sinfulness I think that's what's beautiful about these prayers is you're you're saying my sinfulness does not outweigh God's mercy. Because when we struggle with, when we think that our sins are unforgivable, that's coming from a place of deep pride, like that's what we're saying is God's mercy is not great enough to outweigh this sin that I've committed. Like I'm clearly a bigger deal than God. I have more power than Him. My sin has more power than His mercy.
Speaker 2:I can do something that impedes His ministry.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And His love for me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:There was a. We are at Seek, of course, and you just reminded me of one of Tammy Peterson's comments. She was talking about gratitude and she says that gratitude is a narrow way, and she said on either side of this narrow way of gratitude is resentment. So, basically, you need to continue persevering in your gratitude, because if you stop persevering in gratitude, you're going to hit resentment. If you don't persevere in vulnerability, you're going to go off of this narrow way. And, like CS Lewis was saying and there's many things that we need to persevere in this thing, because that's the choice we are either a slave of God or a slave of sin. And so if we in any way meander from slavery to God, we are in slave of sin. If we don't worship God, we're going to worship something. Worshiping is built into us, created into us by God, and so if we stop worshiping God, we're going to worship something else. We're going to treat something else as God, whether that's us or someone that we love, whatever it is, we'll treat them or us as God if we don't stay on that narrow path of making sure that we're worshiping the right person, being a slave to God, et cetera. That reminds me.
Speaker 2:Here's just another. This is one of the ones that we pray most often. This is what a leader, a priest or a hegemon would pray every single night. I'm just going to read part of it. But this is part of Compline, and in our Byzantine Compline the priest in this case stands in front of the icon of the mother of God and prays this long, beautiful prayer and then turns to the icon of Christ and prays a long, beautiful prayer. And I love this because, in a sense, when we're talking to the mother of God, we're talking to our mother, and Compline is right before we go to bed. If you ever go to Christ's Bridegroom Monastery, you pray Compline and then mother gives you a blessing, the mother of Cecilia, the Hegmena and then you're in silence and you just walk and go to bed. It's the first thing you do. So, basically, when you hear this, the leader is speaking for everybody, but he's speaking for himself first and he goes.
Speaker 2:I'm about to go fight a battle. Going to bed is a battle. Your body gets weaker, as it should, so you can fall asleep. When your body gets weaker, your spirit gets weaker and you're going to find temptations towards self-hatred. You're going to go through the whole day and have regrets about everything you said, everything you did. You're going to be filled with lust. All these things that happen as our bodies get weaker, our spirits get weaker, and so these prayers are basically saying Mother of God and our Lord, give me a blessing, give me the armor I need to go to this battle of going to sleep, of keeping my mind, as we say in the Psalm, so many times as I lay down to bed, let me meditate upon your commandments. Let your commandments be what's in my head, not all these other things that are going to get in the way and, you know, maybe turn against me and my spouse and my God and everybody.
Speaker 2:So here's one of the lines from this big, long prayer. Again, this is to the mother of God you are the only hope of those who have no hope, always ready to come to the aid of every Christian who seeks refuge in you. Though I have often defiled myself with all sorts of impurities, thoughts, words and deeds, though slothfulness has enslaved me to lust, though I often find myself weighed down by despair and depression, do not despise me. As the mother of God, your heart is filled with love and compassion for all mankind. Therefore, pity me, in spite of my sinfulness.
Speaker 2:Accept this prayer from these impure lips of mine, with boldness that only a mother could manifest. Implore your Son, our Lord and God, to show me his deep and tender mercies. Entreat him not to regard the numberless times I have fallen, but to lead me to true repentance, that, as his friend and follower, I may be always conscious of his precepts and ever ready to observe them. And you, sweet lady, in your graciousness, stay with me. Take my part at all times. Enable me to repel all temptations to achieve my eternal salvation. At the moment of my death, embrace and comfort my sorry soul and drive off the terrifying specters of the evil one. On that awesome day of judgment, save me from everlasting punishment. Reveal me as a true heir of the inevitable glory which your son has promised in his grace and in his love. I love that line. Mother of God, stay with me. Like I can't do this, I'm going to bed. I, like you are the queen of purity, you were sinless. Like. Remain with me as I go to fight this battle that I'm going to lose. So send your son to protect me, send him to save me, send him to give me all these things I need.
Speaker 2:But again, this is everybody's hearing this, but it's the leader who's saying it. You know, we put leaders up on a pedestal and the leader doesn't have to say although they do later on in the same service, here's my sins, here's my actual sins. But before that, they just say I'm going to read a list of what everybody struggles with. And you who look to me for inspiration and guidance and leadership, I'm telling you I fall into these sins. So please pray for me, that your leader who's struggling with these things, that when you struggle you may also find inspiration in the vulnerable way that Christ had. That allows me to be vulnerable as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there is. So two thoughts. One is just what's striking me in all of these prayers is the plea for help, the plea for protection, because I think that one of the great struggles of our time. I was just talking to the lady who flew next to me, who was sitting next to me on the flight here, who I was telling people that I realized that she gave me a lemon-lime candy at some point during the flight and only the next day at my hotel did I realize I literally took candy from a stranger but it was delicious and I was totally fine You're still alive and I was totally fine, you're still alive, I'm still alive. And then we talked about that time that I took a burrito from a stranger in a bar, which was also delicious, anyways.
Speaker 3:So I was not a nun, I don't know if that makes it better or worse, but I was talking to her. She asked me I've led a retreat, a literal pustenia, taking women from Wyoming Catholic out into the desert for five days on a backpacking trip and we're in silence for the five days and I give them a conference every day in one-on-one spiritual direction. And she asked what's the greatest challenge on those trips? And I said. I think that one of the greatest challenges which no Catholic this woman wasn't Catholic no Catholic has ever asked me that and I was like that's a really interesting question. And I think one of the greatest challenges on those trips is there's this tendency that's so prevalent in our current Catholic culture of just like I'm going to overcome my sin and I'm going to grit my teeth and clench my fists and I'm going to plow through this and I'm going to fight this thing and I'm going to overcome it and then I'm going to be perfect and I'm going to, you know, and I've done episodes before on just like. That's not the point, you know.
Speaker 3:I think that we get into this mindset of I want to be holy so that I don't sin anymore, and so it's like the not sinning is the point, that's the goal. But the goal is relationship with the Lord and we want to not sin, because sin impedes relationship with the Lord. It's not like we want relationship with the Lord so that we don't sin, but we get that mixed up all the time. And I think what's beautiful in these prayers one of the beautiful things is is it's not about the not sinning for the sake of not sinning. It's about wanting relationship with the Lord and in the very prayers we're seeking that relationship in the midst of our sinfulness. And it's not like I'm going to step aside and try to get rid of this sinfulness before I approach the Lord. It's that in the midst of this I'm trying to approach him and asking for his help with that. So that was one of the things.
Speaker 2:And I think that's what CS Lewis says when he says that love, which God is love requires vulnerability. So when we are vulnerable, we're in a sense preparing to be saved, and that's why we do it. We don't do it because it's fun to be vulnerable or it's risky or it's you know there's a danger to it. We do it because it's fun to be vulnerable or it's risky or it's you know there's a danger to it. We do it because we're preparing to be saved and that's a necessary part of love. Is actually saying it's not. Christ on the cross is the example, the icon of love and everything, even his nakedness, was a sign of vulnerability, because he's the new Adam. Therefore he was naked without shame.
Speaker 3:But the other thing that I was thinking of, as you were talking about how the leader is, is proclaiming their own sinfulness. Um, and even if it's not being done, you know in detail, it's this concept of of I'm a sinner, just like all of you are. You know, and it reminded me of this, there's a story in of the desert Fathers in which a young monk is terribly struggling with lust, and so he goes to one of the older monks to confess this and to ask for guidance. And the older monk, who's never struggled with lust before, shames the young monk and he's like you're disgusting, how can you be a monk? What are you doing with your life? You need to go back to the world, or you need to get your act together, or whatever. So this young monk starts to go back to the world and he's just in total despair, right, and he comes across another elder and this elder says you know what's wrong, what's going on? And he sees the despair on this young monk's face and he tells him and so then this elder prays that the demon of lust that's been afflicting this young monk will go instead and afflict this older monk that he's consulted.
Speaker 3:And so when the elder goes to visit this older monk. He's been, you know, struggling with the demon of lust for like two seconds and he's flung himself outside on the ground outside of his little hermitage and he's like just in total despair and he's weeping and he's all these things. And when this elder approaches him, you know, he says you know, my brother, um, you know my brother what's what's wrong? And and he tells him about this horrible thing and and whatever. But it's just like we're.
Speaker 3:So we can be so lacking in in compassion compassion, as we've talked about again, etymologically meaning suffering with um just because we've never suffered with something ourselves. And that's not to say I don't mean that as leaders we need to struggle with the same exact sin as those who are following us, but to just realize that in our sinfulness we can be compassionate with another's sinfulness, even if it's not the same sin as ours. And the moment we're losing, the moment we lose that compassion, then I think we've really lost a lot of authority as leaders. You know like we need to have that compassion.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's where where, in a very real sense, sin is sin. Sin separates us from God and there's, as we are purged of that through Christ's power, we grow in virtue. And virtue is just nearness to God. It's being filled with God, it's becoming in union with him through theosis. So there is a very real again.
Speaker 2:Before I judge, it's like before I go, before the Eucharist, I bow three times. Before I touch the Eucharist, I say you know, oh God, be merciful to me, a sinner. The same thing could happen before I go talk to anybody. I'm encountering an icon of Christ in this soul, I'm encountering a child of God. And I should, in a sense, do the same thing before I go talk to someone, especially if I'm going to call them out, or especially if I'm asked to correct them in some way. I need to, in a sense like what Moses the Black did, right, he used to literally have a backpack with sand in it and he would some say water, some say sand. He would poke a hole in the bottom of it so that everywhere he walked, a trail of sand would follow behind him and sand would follow behind him. And he would always say the sand symbolizes my sin. So, as you see me walk around as your hegemon, never think that I don't sin, he says, but notice it's behind me. I don't always see it. So basically, I need brothers to call me out. So if I'm calling you out on your sin, know that my sin is just flowing behind me and I may need you, as a brother, also to call that out.
Speaker 2:All right, we have five minutes left Before we go. Do you want to do a mini topic and have a one quick question? Sure, okay, we have five minutes. Do we have just one question? We'll do a mini topic that one of you may have. Raise your hand and Kyle will hand somebody that he sees the microphone. Thank you One question and this will be our mini topic for the microphone. Thank you One question and this will be our mini topic for the day. As that's happening, I do want to give two quick shout-outs.
Speaker 2:Versalto Coffee is who gave us our coffee? They have a stand in the back over there. They'll make you the most amazing coffee. It's named after Versati. So I will be going to Giorgio Versati's canonization with Chris Stefanik. If you want to go with us, just go look up Real Life Catholic. We're going to Georgia for Saudi's canonization with Chris Stefanik. If you want to go with us, just go look up Real Life Catholic. We're going to go to Italy. It's going to be amazing. It's going to be crazy, but it's going to be absolutely beautiful the Jubilee year in Italy and then for Saudi's canonization.
Speaker 2:Mother and I are also going to Eastern Europe. We're going to Poland. We're going to Slovakia. We're going to Poland. We're going to Slovakia. We're going to Hungary, to all of our Byzantine shrines. We're also going to go see John Paul II, where he was. We're going to go to Divine Mercy. We're going to go to Auschwitz, where Maximilian Kolbe was. We're going to be dwelling this as well. So both of those are through 206 tours. If you want to go to either of those, please come, talk to us or find them at 206 tours. I also want to encourage you, after this, to go to the talk by Noelle Mehring, who's a really good friend of mine. She's an amazing speaker. She's talking at 2.15. You can find it on the schedule.
Speaker 3:She's my friend too.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm sorry, she's also one of the talkers, but I knew her first, so ha.
Speaker 3:But she loves me more.
Speaker 1:Question. I got it. Hello, my name is Gabriel Sacasa. I was just wondering, as a Roman Catholic but who has deeply come to love the Eastern tradition through you guys, Jonathan Paggio, what are practical ways that one can breathe with both lungs, as JP2 says?
Speaker 3:The beard is a good first step.
Speaker 2:Thank you. You're already winning with that. Yes, amen, I would say it depends on what kind of personality you have. Maximus the Confessor is kind of our Thomas Aquinas, so read Maximus the Confessor. I would also say pray the Jesus prayer. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, sinner, there are certain things and basically go find a parish If there's one anywhere near you, any one of the 24 Eastern Catholic churches. Go there, talk to the priest, meet the people, see how they live, see how their prayer is. It really is something that needs to be experienced.
Speaker 3:Icons is the other thing that I would say. Learning to pray with icons and anything you can read by Archbishop Joseph Raya is really fantastic. Archbishop Joseph Raya.
Speaker 2:I'll give you another practical thing too. One thing that I think we do really well and this is something I'm convicting myself of is, if you have a Bible, put it in a place of honor in your room. You throw it in your bag, walk around with it, that's fine, but treat it with respect. There's something that we do. We Byzantines are so sensory that the Word of God is so accessible to us and it's on our phones that we kind of forget. We don't treat it with reverence and the simple physical things.
Speaker 2:So when you get home from school or work and your Bible's in your backpack have a little throne in your room, put it there and venerate it. Venerate the Bible and put it there. When you have your icons, same thing. Have a special place in your home or in your room where you put the things of reverence. Icons are windows into heaven and we've lost this because we have icons on our phones. We have the Bible on our phones. Keep on doing that. But also just take the things you're already using, put them in a place of honor in your room, venerate them, kiss them, thank God for them and let that be, in a sense, the protection, the presence of God All right.
Speaker 2:Thank you, brother.
Speaker 3:Good to be with you in person.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 3:Yes, since I am not a priest, can you please give everyone here a blessing, myself included?
Speaker 2:May the Lord bless you and keep you, cause His face to shine upon you, have mercy on you. May our Lord soften your heart to His word. May you have reverence for His holy things. May you, especially if you're in your leadership, get wisdom and vulnerability, a true vulnerability that reflects and imitates Christ's own vulnerability. And may those who look to you not abuse or mistreat this. And if you have ever mistreated someone's vulnerability or attacked or used it as a weapon, may you be convicted to ask for forgiveness, first from God and then also from them. And may your words be blessed, words of joy in that asking of forgiveness. And may you forgive quickly anybody who has also abused your vulnerability. And may this vulnerability that you see in your leaders, that you offer those who look to you for inspiration, may it be truly a gift from God and a pathway to heaven. May the Lord bless you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen, bless you all. Thank you.
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