Living Spiritually
The conversation revolves around a discussion on the depth of life and the importance of living a life that is spiritually rich and meaningful. It emphasizes the value of deep thoughts, meaningful words, and actions that reflect love for God and neighbor. The speaker encourages the audience to seek a deeper life by focusing on the grace of God and the support of the community, rather than merely extending the length of life. The conversation concludes with a prayer and reflection on personal sins and the need for communal support in spiritual growth.
MC: Adam Hohn
Presenter: Joseph Gruber
Deacon: Rick Freedberg
Brought to you By: The Knights of Columbus
Jackson Michigan & Surrounding Area Catholic Parishes
Queen of the Miraculous Medal: https://queenschurch.com/
St John the Evangelist: https://saintjohnjackson.org/
St Mary Star of the Sea: https://stmaryjackson.com/
St Joseph Oratory: https://saintjohnjackson.org/new-here/st-joseph-the-worker-oratory/
Our Lady of Fatima: http://www.fatimaparish.net/
St Rita: http://www.stritacatholicparish.com/
St Catherine: https://stcatherinelaboureconcord.org/
Audio Trasnscription
participantOne:(720-29120): Does anyone mind if we pray again? No. Oh, good. Always good to check. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Direct, O Lord, our actions by thy holy inspiration, and carry them on by thy gracious assistance, that every word and work of ours may begin in thee, and by thee be happily ended. Amen. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. One evening, three men, three friends, go to a funeral home.
participantOne:(29380-56080): Their fourth friend was the first of them to go. They've been friends for decades. The three men go up to the casket to pay their final respects and they all offer a few words on behalf of the fellow that passed. And afterwards they got to talking and they started asking the question, what do I want people to say when they're looking at my corpse?
participantOne:(56480-79700): in a casket, in a funeral home? What is it that I really hope to be remembered as? How do I want to be seen the day or two after my death? And so the first guy, he says, you know, I really want to be remembered for my work ethic. I really want to be remembered as the man who got things done, who was committed, who was loyal, who was dedicated.
participantOne:(80580-111800): I want to be remembered as a guy who was dependable. That's how I want men and women to remember me. That's how I want to be remembered. And the other guys nodded. That made sense. So the second guy says, I want to be remembered for my relationships. I want to be remembered as an incredible husband, a great father, a good friend. I want to be remembered by how I loved other people. And they nodded. And the third guy, been thinking very deeply, nodded.
participantOne:(112760-135079): He said, well, when they're coming up to my body, laid out in the casket in the funeral home, what I really want them to say is, oh, my goodness, he's moving.
participantOne:(136660-168380): So why is that funny? One of the worst things you can do to a joke is deconstruct it. That makes it less funny. We're still going to do it. Why is that a funny joke? Because the first two men were talking about something completely different than the third. The third was saying, I want a longer life. And the first two were saying, I want deeper lives. And I think the modern world is obsessed with lengthening our life.
participantOne:(169200-197620): Everybody is into how can I be the healthiest I can be? How can I have the highest quality of life for as long as possible? How can I live forever? Right? There's a scene in Parks and Rec where one of the characters says, you know, scientists believe that already today there's a man walking who's going to live to be 150, and I believe that's going to be me. Right? People can be obsessed with the length of life.
participantOne:(198020-229579): But what if we were obsessed with the depth of our lives? Well, then it invites the question, how deep can a life be? Well, in order to answer that question, we have to establish what is a deeper life versus what is a more shallow life. Gentlemen, the deepest things in life would be the greatest commandments. When we love God and when we love neighbor, our lives are deeper. That is what deepens our lives.
participantOne:(229900-266640): when we love God and when we love neighbor. So what makes our life shallow? Well, that's when we sin. That's when we put ourselves first. That's when we disregard love of God and love of neighbor. Every time we sin, we commit not just something that is abhorrent to God. We commit something that is a superficiality, something that is making our lives more shallow. Every time we sin, that's what we're doing. So at Mass, we're given a particular time
participantOne:(266860-298340): to publicly repent of four different ways that we make our lives more shallow. We do this in the Confidior when we say, I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned. And then we list four categories where we make our lives superficial. Yeah, right? Four categories. In my thoughts, in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do.
participantOne:(299220-335219): So what if we use those four categories and ask, what if we made these as deep as possible? What if we were men of deep thought? What if our words had depth? What if our actions had depth? What if when they looked at our life and they saw what we didn't do, they were like, wow, that is deep. That is a deep thing to not do those things. What if we went for maximal depth? So when we think, we're bad at thinking as a modern person.
participantOne:(335880-365360): Man, we are bad at thinking. We are actually inundated with the thoughts of other people almost constantly. When we go into the car, we turn on the radio or we put on a podcast or we put on music. We are allowing other people to think for us. When we go home and we put on the TV, we are allowing other people to think for us. What happens if we actually take time for deeper thought? In Romans chapter 12...
participantOne:(367060-394719): St. Paul says to the Romans, I appeal to you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Spiritual worship is a funny translation. It's actually more technically an intellectual worship, a worship of our minds. And then Romans 12, 2. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.
participantOne:(395080-422660): that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me, I bid everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith which God has assigned him. Gentlemen, what if we made it our mission today to be men of great thought, of deep thought? What if we made a commitment today...
participantOne:(423620-462700): Why don't I think on higher things? Why don't I think about what is the will of God? Why don't I think about what is good and holy and perfect? Why don't I carve out time to do that? What if I stop the inundation of other people's thoughts and actually consider the world with the mind of Christ? What about our speech? In the letter of James, he has some pretty harsh words about the tongue. He says in chapter 3 of his letter,
participantOne:(463160-486960): Let not many of you become teachers, my brethren, for you know that we who teach shall be judged with greater strictness. For we all make many mistakes, and if anyone makes no mistakes in what he says, he's a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also. If we put bits into the mouths of horses that they may obey us, we guide their whole bodies. Look at the ships also.
participantOne:(487220-517260): Though they are so great and are driven by strong winds, they are guided by a very small rudder wherever the will of the pilot directs. So the tongue is a little member and boasts of great things. How great a forest is set ablaze by a small fire. Gentlemen, our lives are dictated by the words we speak, and how often are we careless or thoughtless in our speech? What if we determined to speak in a way that glorified God and dignified our neighbor?
participantOne:(517880-551620): What if we didn't talk about people behind their backs? What if we spoke of the great glory of God? What if we spoke of what he has done in our lives? What if we spoke of what we hope to have in him? What if we used our speech to communicate the goodness of the Lord? Whether it be with our wives, with our children, with our brothers, with our fathers, with our friends, with our co-workers. What if we actually allowed our speech to really reflect the glory of God?
participantOne:(554560-588960): He says more things about the tongue, but I'm not going to read them right now. And then what we do and what we don't do. The sins of commission and the sins of omission. The bad things that we've done and the good things that we have failed to do. St. Paul talks about this in Romans chapter 7. I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now, if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good.
participantOne:(589400-619360): So then it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me that is in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. Right, the struggle of fallen man. We know there's a good thing to do, and we know there's a bad thing to do.
participantOne:(619760-648100): Fundamentally, we should want the good thing and not want the bad thing. And then we find ourselves all twisted around because what we do is the bad thing and what we don't do is the good thing. And what depth there would be in our lives if we got untwisted. And this is one of the hard things, right? There is a kind of Pelagian view that says you can just grit your teeth and you can will yourself to be the man you're called to be.
participantOne:(648680-678980): We're not Pelagians. We're Catholic. We believe that grace is a real thing. Grace is a transformative thing. Which is why when we pray the Confidior, we don't say, hey, I've done these bad things, my thoughts, my words, my deeds, the things I didn't do through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore, I'm just going to do better next time. That's not what we say. That's not how the prayer ends. I don't know if you're familiar with it. That's not how it ends. Okay.
participantOne:(679579-709460): It ends by asking for the prayers of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the prayers of our brothers and sisters for our sake. Because we can't do it on our own. This is one of the crazy things about being Catholic, is that it puts to rest, it puts to death, this kind of weird American independent spirit saying, I can become the man that I'm called to be all on my own. We can't.
participantOne:(710040-736920): It doesn't work that way. We actually need our brothers. We need the Blessed Virgin Mary. We need the help of the saints. We need angelic intercession. And this is the cool thing. Those things are available. They are there for the asking. And so what is required is a spirit of surrender, a spirit of humility, a spirit of saying,
participantOne:(737339-762480): Lord, I don't have this. I do commit these sins. I live a shallow life. Every time we go to Mass, we are saying before everyone, my life is more shallow than it should be. And I don't want it to be that way anymore. And so, which is a beautiful thing, because the rest of Mass is there to provide the grace to become the man that we're called to be.
participantOne:(763800-794180): Gentlemen, the saints, they didn't live longer than us necessarily. Some lived very long. Some lived short lives. We have child martyrs and a bunch of saints that died around age 24. I remember when I was 24 and I was really hopeful that I'd be one of those saints because it sounded a lot easier than living a long time. They don't live longer. They live deeper. They don't pass up opportunities anymore.
participantOne:(794980-828080): to live more deeply, to lean into the grace that is provided in their thoughts, in their words, and what they do and what they don't do. Another thing about words, I forgot to mention this. What would happen if you had a transcript of everything you said yesterday, and then you were brought before God, and he said, okay, read this out loud to me. Just tell me why you said all these things. That's all. Just why did you say all that you said? I say a lot of nonsense, and I shouldn't,
participantOne:(828600-859060): And I don't know about you. Maybe you also say a lot of nonsense. What if we actually lived knowing that God is in the audience? What if we lived knowing that God is here, present right now, listening, watching, attentive, loving? Would we live a deeper life? Men, we don't want to be shallow. I don't think if you're here at 7 a.m. on a Saturday, you don't want a shallow life.
participantOne:(861040-891260): but we so often settle for something more shallow. C.S. Lewis said, we are half-hearted creatures fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased, he said. What if we had a kind of holy discontent? What if we were saying it is not enough joy
participantOne:(891540-923540): to settle for a shallow life? What if we actually said, I want to be the man that I'm called to be, a man of greater depth? What if, when we die, the men and the women who come after us say, that was a man of great depth. Walking into the room, he changed the whole temperature of the room. He changed the spiritual temperature of the room, because he brought such depth. What if that was you? What if you lived that way? What if you spoke that way? What if you acted that way?
participantOne:(924819-952680): That's my encouragement to you. You can't do it on your own. You can only do it with the grace of God, the support of the people of God. But you also have to cooperate with that grace. You also have to be open to help. So for that, what we're going to do is we're going to pray the Confidior together. And then we're going to give you guys a few minutes. There are these little quarter sheets at your table, hopefully. If not, just pass them around.
participantOne:(953199-982240): Just to give you a little bit of time to reflect about thoughts, words, what you've done, what you will do, what you won't do. Sound good? And then after we have some time for quiet reflection, we'll go and have small group discussion. Thoughts, questions, comments? Thank you very much. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
participantOne:(982600-998400): I confess to Almighty God and to you, my brothers and sisters, that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do. Through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault.
participantOne:(998680-1012500): Therefore, I ask Blessed Mary of her Virgin, all the angels and saints, and you, my brothers and sisters, to pray for me to the Lord our God. Amen. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
