Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: So when I started out, I found five talks in the demonic. Oh, there's five chapters. Then you listen to them, it's like, well, that's really the same talk, just little different versions. Okay. So I'm down to one chapter. Part of the question was like, how would Fulton Sheen organize this if this is going to be a Fulton Sheen book? So just going through, like, there's, you know, some of it's chronological, then others are the signs of the demonic and the weapons against the demonic.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Welcome to the Catholic Theology show presented by Ave Maria University. This podcast is sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle, a community that supports the mission of Ave Marie University through their monthly donations of $10 or more. If you'd like to support this podcast and the mission of Ave Maria University, I encourage you to visit avemaria.edu join for more information.
I'm your host, Michael Dauphine, and today I am joined by Father Dave Thomas Ziki. Is that right?
[00:01:00] Speaker A: You got it. Tomazicki. Perfect.
[00:01:01] Speaker B: Tomazicki, excellent. Who is a priest of the Archdiocese of Detroit, an alumnus of Ave Maria University, graduated with your ba in 2010, is that right?
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Correct. Yeah.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: And went on to. Did you do your studies at Sacred Heart?
[00:01:16] Speaker A: For a couple years at Sacred Heart, and then I went to the gregorian university in Rome and then the John Paul II Institute in Rome.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: Wow. Wow. Well, welcome to the show, Father Dave. Glad to have you back. It's always fun to have an Ave alum on the show and one who's doing such wonderful work and service and ministry in the church.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: It's always great to be back to Avi Maria. It's kind of where it all started for me, in a sense. In a sense, I had a conversion here, discovered my vocation here. So always great to be back.
[00:01:42] Speaker B: Wow. Well, we'll definitely want to hear a little bit about that in the show. So today we want to talk about kind of, you're working on a book, basically, Fulton Sheen on the demonic.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: Correct. Slaving over that book. It's been years of work, but, yeah, it's done, and it'll soon be published. Very soon.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: And to kind of give a little bit, maybe, of a focus for our conversation today, we wanted to think a little bit about how is it that out of all the different remedies, in a way, and protections against some kind of evil power that Fulton sheen recommends, maybe at the heart of it is what you suggested is the Eucharist. Right. Jesus Christ's blood shed for us, and then his presence with us in the Eucharist so that really becomes. Right. The heart, in a way, the heart of Christ, which kind of protects us from all evil.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah, very much so.
Folanchine gives three weapons against the demonic. The first is the name of Jesus, the second is the blood of Jesus. The third is Mary, mother of God. Mother of Jesus. So it is all Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Like, he's the only one stronger than the devil, because even when, like, oh, St. Joseph, tear of demons. Yes. And our lady, you know, crushes the head of the serpent. Yes. But even that power is from Jesus. And Saint Michael the archangel, that power is from God. So it all does get back to our lord and specifically in the Eucharist, for sure.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Now, in your introduction to the book, and in a minute, I want to get into, what is the book? Cause it's kind of an odd book. You're pulling together a book that Fulton Sheen said he wanted to write.
But before we get to there, you begin with a quote from CS Lewis in the screwtape letters.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: Great book. Yes.
[00:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Would you want to describe a little bit of that quote?
[00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah. So he talks about, we don't want to ignore the demons. You act like they don't exist. That's one error. And he calls it an equal error of being too overly fascinated with them. It was interesting. I had my 20th class reunion a few months ago, and I did not go to catholic schools, went to public schools. And some of the people were like, oh, you're a priest, like exorcism. Tell me about that. They're fascinated. And that's dangerous. That's very dangerous. The other extreme is what Fulton Sheen was fighting against in the 1970s, where just no one was acknowledging existence of the devil. That's dangerous, too. So it's like, yes, he exists.
You're not going to stop from existing, but we can fight him with their eyes on Jesus. Got to be focused on the Lord.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah. It's interesting that St. Anthony of Egypt, who was one of the really founders of monasticism, or not really monasticism, but kind of being alone in the desert and praying, he kind of went to get away from everyone, and then people followed him.
End of the. End of the. You know, he was born in 250 and died in 356, lived to be 106 years old and fasting most of his life. But it was interesting that when St. Athanasius writes a book about him called the Life of Anthony, which ends up being a bestseller in the mediterranean and ends up being. Playing a role in Augustine's conversion, it's interesting. He spends a lot of time wrestling with demons. Sometimes the demons are almost, you can kind of imagine are the demons in his own imagination, attempting him.
But what he eventually says is when he actually kind of gives his homily to everyone, he says that the demons have no power.
The demons are actually powerless unless, basically, we invite them to have power over us. And he always says that they will flee at the name of Jesus and at the sign of the cross. So it's this odd balance, even in the very early part of the church, that to become aware of the demonic and temptation is very important.
It does make our lives harder, and we need to become aware of it. And yet, at the same time, when we recognize that ultimately he goes out of his way to show they don't really know the future. Only God knows the future.
They're largely. It's only because we don't look to Jesus that we fall prey.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: And so I just think it's kind of fascinating to see that again. In the name of Jesus and in the sign of the cross, they have no power.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's interesting. It's like they have no power, but they do, but they don't, you know?
So one quick mention about the desert. So Fulton Sheen, I found this in an unpublished article from his archives, talks about the battle that goes on in the desert. Our Lord's tempted in the desert many times he'll heal someone. Then he's out in a deserted place. So for St. Anthony, go to the desert. Like, that's where a lot of the battle with the devil is. But, yeah. So sometimes I wonder if it's, like, relative. This is me thinking out loud. So Fulton Sheen talks about how when you. The devil's cast out of heaven and he comes to earth, like, he has real authority on earth. So it's like, oh, he's got real power. Well, but not compared to Jesus. So it's kind of, like, over us. Yeah, he's got power. Oh. Unless we're focused on Jesus in the state of grace, then he really doesn't.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Yeah. It is that kind of paradoxical dimension. So tell us a little bit about then, this book. So it will be coming out soon with Emmaus academic, is that right?
[00:07:17] Speaker A: Emmaus Road.
[00:07:17] Speaker B: Emmaus Road Publishing, which is affiliated with the St. Paul center for Biblical Theology, with Scott Hahn.
The book's called the Demonic. It's by Fulton Sheen. But Archbishop Fulton Sheen didn't actually write a book on the demonic.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: So tell us a little bit about the story.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Yeah, so in 1974, he wrote the book those mysterious priests, which is the last book published during his lifetime. His autobiography came out in 1980, the year after he died. And actually, parts of his autobiography were written a week and a half before he died. It's a really cool book. But 1974, in his book on the priesthood, he has about two, two and a half pages on the demonic and says, I'll treat the demonic in another book. Just like, where is this book? So my first thought was, like, there's gotta be his book in the archive somewhere. And do you know where his archives are? They're everywhere.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: Oh, wow.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: Everywhere he's been, there's some kind of archives to him. So it's a lot to track down. But his main archives are in Rochester, New York. And my dream was, go to Rochester, find, oh, this is the book he was working on. Touch it up a little bit. Send up the printers, you know. So I looked and looked. I looked at all the archives. There's even an archives in Australia. And I don't think he'd ever been there, but there's some fans there. They just started putting archives together. So went everywhere, looked everywhere, and I could not find this book. So plan B was, you know, just going through stuff. Like, he says quite a bit about the demonic, if you know where to look. So go to these places, transcribe these talks, go in the archives, find these articles, and put it together in book form. So, yes, it's all in the words of Fulton Sheen, which this was hard to get across to people. People always say, oh, so you're writing a book. No, it's all Fulton Sheen's words. I put it together. I'm the editor. But it's all Fulton Sheen's words.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Okay, now, the book, I believe, has. Is it 14 chapters?
[00:09:10] Speaker A: Yeah. So depending on how you count, yeah, there's an overture, and there's an introduction, and. Yeah.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: And these are all basically. So it's really an edited volume of Fulton Sheen's writings, correct?
[00:09:21] Speaker A: Yes. But some of it, a lot of it was from talks. And then there are not all his talks were recorded. Like, today, we record everything. So I found his handwritten notes for talks in his archives, but I didn't find the recording of those talks. So it's handwritten notes, it is articles he wrote. A lot of it is speeches he gave.
[00:09:41] Speaker B: But one of the interesting things that strikes me about the.
The book, which is, again, Fulton Sheen's writings. So the only thing I think you write is the introduction. Correct?
[00:09:51] Speaker A: Correct. Yeah.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: So the way you've set it up, you have in the beginning the life of Christ, the time of Christ, the prince of the world. In the end, the mystical body of the Antichrist. Right. So you're again showing that we have to look at this or that Fulton Sheen looks at this question not on its own, not on the question of. Right. The demonic on its own, but in the context of the creation fall, God's plan of redemption and his final plan to put all things right under Christ.
How do you think that shapes what Fulton Sheen is teaching in these writings and talks that you've pulled together?
[00:10:34] Speaker A: Yeah, no, that's an interesting question, and it's very interesting how it came together. So when I started out, I found five talks in the demonic. There's five chapters, then you listen to them, it's like, well, that's really the same talk, just little different versions. Okay. So I'm down to one chapter. So part of the question was like, how would Fulton Sheen organize this if this is gonna be a Fulton Sheen book? Like, how does he organize it? So just going through, like, there's some chronological. You know, some of it's chronological. Then others are the signs of the demonic and the weapons against the demonic. So it structured out very well, which I don't think that quite answers your question.
How did Fulton Sheen do that? How is he thinking about it? It is interesting that he has thoughts about the demonic from our lord's life from before the fall and the development to today. And then he's got a lot of thoughts on today and what's going on in the world today. And by today, I mean the 1970s. But it's interesting that he, when he was talking about it, like, I don't know if the world was ready for it. He was more predicting what was going to happen. He's more of a prophet. Well, 50 years have gone by, and it's here. So when you read it, it's like, no, that's more relevant today than when he wrote it and spoke it.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: So before we dive into the book and a little bit more of the teaching, would you tell us a little bit about your own background?
You were a student at Aave. You talked about having a conversion call to the priesthood. Obviously, eventually became very interested in Fulton Sheen. Tell us a little bit about your own story.
[00:12:02] Speaker A: Yeah, so I'm from Michigan, from Detroit. Great place. And, yeah, I was born and raised Catholic. My parents were very catholic, always went to mass, went to confession a couple times a year and whatnot. When I was nine years old, I first thought I wanted to be a priest. And then eventually I told a priest, and he laughed when I was nine. In hindsight, this priest, he was the first one to send me a card when I went to seminary. He was so thrilled for me. So he was not laughing at me at the time. I thought he was laughing at me. So I kind of, like, I got all shy about it. And actually, I actually pushed that aside. I pushed it so far aside that for a time, I forgot that I wanted to be a priest. Okay. So then when I was about 18, 1920, started getting more interested in the faith, and not even so much from a spiritual perspective, but from an intellectual perspective. A friend of my dad's lent me a bunch of books on apologetics, just how to explain and defend the faith. So I started going through these and was like, wow, this makes sense. Like, this is real. Well, if it makes sense, if it's worth believing in, like, how am I practicing my faith? So that led to more of a spiritual conversion. So. And this is funny. So I went to public schools. I hated school. I didn't want to go to college at all. I ended up going to college for 14 years. So God has a sense of humor. But. So I was a plumber. I was a licensed plumber. I was going to community college. I was about 2021 and started having more of that spiritual conversion. And then this idea of the priesthood started coming back. It's like, ooh, boy. Okay, so I don't want to be a priest, that's for sure. And Mother Angelica once said, could you imagine on judgment day you're before the Lord? And God says, like, this is the life you lived? It wasn't a bad life, but this is what I had in store for you. Why didn't you ask? And I was like, okay, this is what I want, and I'm kind of afraid to ask about this. So when I was 22 years old, eight months after getting my plumbing license, I quit my job, came down to Ave Maria University to discern the priesthood. And by that, I mean to discern that the priesthood was not for me. I was really trying to twist God's arm. But. So that's 2007, and I came here, and I had a great work ethic. I wasn't 18. I was 22. Great work ethic. But it was a very hard school, and it kind of broke me down. I was very much trying to do it my way, do the school my way, do my spiritual life my way, do it all my way. And in a few months, that came shattering down. So it was the last weekend of October 2007, went to confession, first time in a long time.
And the priest asked, like, have you ever thought of the priesthood? And I said, yeah. And he goes, well, what do you think? I'm like, I don't know. Well, you gotta pray. So that week, I started on a spiritual, like a prayer life. So the priesthood for the next week, mass every day, rosary every day, 15 minutes of adoration every day. Come back to confession in a week. That's 2007. I've been doing that for, what, 16 years now? Whatever it's been, the 15 minutes has turned into a holy hour. But when I started to really pray, I kind of got humbled. The school here broke me down, I got humbled, and then my heart started to crack open to let God in. And that's when I really started to discern and just to discover his love for me. So that's when I say, like, I really met Jesus, especially that year in the prayer life. And through that, I discovered my vocation about a year into really, really intense prayer. Discovered my vocation to the priesthood, you mentioned. Sorry.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: No, that's quite a story. Wow, that's beautiful. But, yes, but the interest in Fulton Sheen, as well tells me that.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: Here's a funny one for you. So I used to be a plumber, and then I got interested in Fulton Sheen in 2009. So while I was here, someone gave me his book, Life of Christ, and I didn't want to like him because, like, everyone else likes him. You know, it's like the Beatles. Everyone likes the Beatles. I don't want to like them. Well, I do like the beals. And then when I was exposed to Fulton Sheen, he blew me away. It was reading life of Christ. It's his best book. Many saints have written a life of Christ, and Mother Teresa's favorite is Fulton Sheen. So what does that tell you? So that was 2009. Got interested, and then I just couldn't put him down. I just kept reading and reading and reading him. So here's a little funny thing, little funny story. So there's a canadian Alan Smith. He lives an hour or two from me, so not too far from me. He's the guy who's republishing a lot of Fulton Sheen stuff, and a lot of the anthologies and stuff are from him. And he is a retired master plumber who discovered Fulton Sheen in 2009. So I don't know how it lined up so well, but that's, I love it.
[00:16:34] Speaker B: That's great. It's good to see that, you know, God, God's plans. Occasionally, we can see these little highlights in them and begin to see how right God can bring such wonderful things and kind of introduce almost a whole new generation. Fulton Sheen. Braylee was from the 20th century, certainly the most well known catholic presence probably over, I think it was a decade on the radio and a decade on tv in those early days, also radio and tv.
[00:17:03] Speaker A: Oh, he was huge.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: It's hard to imagine how, like, he won an Emmy, right? And he thanked his four writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
[00:17:10] Speaker A: Luke and John, yeah.
[00:17:11] Speaker B: So.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: So in 1949, he wrote the book Peace of Soul. And so today, like in the catholic world, if you write a book and it sells 10,000 copies, it's like bestseller in the catholic world. So in 1949, I discovered an early version of peace of soul. It was like seven months into when it was released. It was like the 7th printing or whatever. They had printed a quarter million of those in the first seven months. And that was before the height of his fame. That was before his tv show. He got huge in the 1950s.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's great to see, and I've gone around the country sometimes speaking at different college campuses with different organizations. It's mystic Institute or other.
And one thing I find is that there are a handful of names that people are always interested in. Cs Lewis, certainly, but Fulton Sheen. Fulton Sheen and then Aquinas. So it's great to see people coming back to that. We've done a couple podcast episodes on Fulton Sheam, already on the catholic theology show. But one thing without going too much into his background, but he was a first 1st 1st rate theologian who was deeply, deeply, who became a master of the thomistic tradition. And a lot of his early work was trying to recover a thomistic understanding of God and how that allowed for our whole scientific and political life. And seeing in a way that in the modern world, we want to make science and politics eclipse God, but that actually they make no sense without God, because otherwise we will, our science will become simply a way to manipulate ourselves and others and politics the same, manipulating ourselves and others. So politics and science in a way, only work both intellectually but also morally under God.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: Yeah. Pope Benedict talks about, when you cut off God, everything loses its place. And then he specifically talks about the environment. Either you worship the environment or you destroy it. Everything loses its place. But yeah. So Fulton Sheen, his dissertation, his doctoral dissertation, is forwarded by GK Chesterton. So it's kind of like a handing on of the baton. And it's interesting. So he preferred the intellectual life, he preferred academia over the whole public thing. And then about 1950 ish or so I think, is when he was offered his tv show. He was in prayer, and I can't do both. I can't keep up with both. And he preferred the academic life, but he felt God calling them into more of the public sphere.
[00:19:47] Speaker B: It is interesting as well. I was just recently looking up Chesterton in the twenties, visited the United States.
In the New York Times. There's an article about Chesterton's visit to the United States and talking about and engaging in 1923. There's a full page article in the New York Times about Chesterton's visit.
This is just fascinating. Right? And so Chesterton also was a very well known, influential personage on the national and international scene in the same way that you. So you mentioned that he had written the forward. So Fulton Sheen again had a kind of presence that it just would be hard to believe.
I mean, we mentioned Scott Hahn earlier. Wonderful. We've had him on the show and he's great. He's a wonderful apostle, or even Bishop Barron is wonderful in our day, but it would be hard to believe, kind of. I don't know how to put it. Like the New York Times covering, Scott Hahn spoke at Spokane, or Bishop Barron spoke at Sikh. And that's going to be in the New York Times.
You know, like we are, we don't realize kind of the reach and the breadth that many of these great, great. That at least Fulton Sheen had in his time.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Back when there were only four channels and he won the Emmy.
I wonder if it's something like Jordan Peterson. Like, so. So Fulton Sheen would go around, give lectures, and they would, of course, sell, oh, Fulton Sheen lecture. You know, who does it anymore? Jordan Peterson does. But other than that, to give a lecture, it just, that almost never happens. We don't think anymore, you know?
[00:21:22] Speaker B: Yeah. He has an essay on basically the decline of argument, and he says that the ability to think rationally about our beliefs.
So he's definitely a very firm Catholic. But he thinks that we ought to use reason to examine our beliefs and that most people would rather just hold them rather than reflect rationally on them. Because he thinks if we do that, we will eventually, in a way, all false beliefs, somehow they will reveal themselves if we really think through them carefully.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: And even that gets into the demonic. So overall, God unites and the devil divides. So divide any kind of division, but divide faith and reason. But it's amazing. People think like, oh, you divide faith and reason and reason will prevail and faith will die. Well, actually, they both die.
Reason cannot survive without faith. And, yeah, they both die. You gotta keep them together.
[00:22:19] Speaker B: And we see that in the modern, postmodern age, the modern age tried to exalt reason without faith. And then the postmodern age kind of gets rid of both and replaces it with some kind of weird secular faith in some kind of future world, or usually now, no longer a utopian, but a kind of dystopian future that will somehow, maybe give way to something higher. So we're going to take a quick break, and when we come back, I want you to. Maybe you want to do two things. One, I want you first, just walk us through real quickly what he calls the three signs of the demonic, and then the three remedies.
[00:22:55] Speaker A: Okay, sounds good. We'll do.
[00:23:04] Speaker C: You're listening to the catholic theology show presented by Ave Maria University and sponsored in part by Annunciation Circle. Through their generous donations of $10 or more per month, Annunciation circle members directly support the mission of AMU to be a fountainhead of renewal for the church through our faculty, staff, students, and alumni. To learn more, visit avemaria.edu. Join. Thank you for your continued support. And now let's get back to the show.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Catholic Theology show. I'm your host, Michael Dauphine, and today we're joined with Father Dave Tomazicki.
[00:23:40] Speaker A: Tomazicki, very good.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: And an alum of Ave Marie University who's a priest of the archdiocese of Detroit. And you're currently, your current position is the secretary to the archbishop, is that correct?
[00:23:54] Speaker A: Secretary of the archbishop. I'm his chauffeur. I'm his bodyguard. I handle his calendar. Yep.
[00:24:00] Speaker B: Excellent to hear, and by the way, it is beautiful to see. I think the archdiocese of Detroit has a real missionary, you know, kind of impulse in addition to managing and operating a huge archdiocese that really, like, in the 1950s, was one of the premier in the United States. So it's a massive archdiocese, but I think it really has a big heart for mission. And what I've seen over the last maybe, you know, 20 years, huge.
[00:24:27] Speaker A: Oh, huge. Yeah. So in 2017, I think it was, we released unleashed the gospel, the archbishop.
It's what we got out of the synod of 2016, and it's a very beautiful document. But it's not just document. It's not just a program. We're trying to save souls, and we're in an interesting time where faith is declining all over the place, and every faith is with the secular world.
So what do we do? Do we just manage the decline, or do we try to save souls. And let me tell you, as a priest, it's so much easier to do maintenance and just manage the decline, but that's not what it's about, you know? So, yeah, we're trying to save souls, trying to unleash the gospel, as the document's called. Yeah.
[00:25:07] Speaker B: And one of the things about the gospel is that we're rescued. I think it's one of your mentors, Father John Ricardo.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:15] Speaker B: Who's also. We've had a couple episodes with him. And one of his key themes in doing his work with acts 29, mobilizing for mission, is that Jesus didn't redeem us. He did, but we don't understand that word. But he rescued us. We need to recognize that. And I was thinking about one Peter five eight. Be sober, be watchful. Your adversary, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking for someone to devour. Resist him firm in your faith, knowing that the same experience of suffering is required of your brotherhood throughout the world. Right after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, establish and strengthen you to him. Be dominion forever and ever. Amen.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Amen. Yes.
[00:26:12] Speaker B: And so even this powerful line, which I think sometimes people might be familiar with in one Peter five, about resist the devil, who is prowling like a roaring lion, looking for someone to stop there. Exactly. They stop there. But if you go on, it's because Christ has called you to his eternal glory and he will strengthen you, and it's his dominion that lasts forever. But we do need to then become aware if we're going to be rescued. What are we rescued from? And right, in some ways, the gospel is good news because we have a problem. There's something deeply wrong with us, and not just with me, kind of in a way with the whole world. And I think in some ways this is what we broadly understand to be the demonic, the rebellious spirits that are. Right, the fallen angels, and how that interacts with our own fallen kind of demonic natures that make it, I don't know, make it harder for us to live the way we genuinely want to live, make it harder for us to actually achieve communion and belonging. People feel more disengaged from families, more disengaged from friends, more disengaged from other generations.
Well, in a way, that sense of division and scattering is exactly what the term diabolus means. So maybe if you could just talk a little bit about that sense of why, just broadly speaking, is recovering a sense of the demonic really necessary somehow to appreciate the good news of the gospel, for one.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: I mean, it's just true. And, you know, our lord is the way, the truth and the life, the truth leads us to him. When we're separated from the truth, we're separated from our lord. And then. Yeah, so the demonic divides. The demonic divides.
I completely lost my train of thought, boy.
[00:28:06] Speaker B: Well, no worries at all.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: But in the morning here. But I had one coke.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: No, you're great. But I do think that key sense that it's so funny, in the contemporary world, we're so aware that everything's bad, okay? So we don't look at ourselves. I thought, by the way, one quote that you mentioned here that I just want to like you.
It's in one of the chapters by Fulton Sheen on the blood of Christ. But you actually say that Catholics used to be made fun of because they thought that Mary was immaculately conceived, conceived without sin. But now the modern world thinks that everyone's been immaculately conceived, conceived without sin, because we've lost any sense of sin.
[00:28:46] Speaker A: So, yeah, the good news makes a lot more sense when you know the bad news. But also Fulton Sheen has a great way of just keeping his eyes on the Lord. So let's put our eyes on the Lord and, oh, he became man like, why? He died for us. That's huge. And he was worth crucifying. He's not some little sissy Jesus that the modern world makes him to be. He was worth crucifying. But why did he do that? And why did he do that for you? So we do have to be careful about.
You can get stuck in the intellectual of things. Okay, but let's put our eyes on Jesus, who walked this earth, who exists and existed 2000 years ago, too. Why did he die for us? What is he fighting? And it's a fight. It's a fight. You don't give your life just for nothing.
Yeah. So the bad news makes the good news more apparent. But yeah, when we fell, we fell into the hands of the devil, who was not kind. I remember I was in Mexico one time and I was explaining how in baptism there's exorcism and this little lady, she's like, oh, a baby that big needs an exorcism. And it's like, okay, but put yourself in the shoes of the devil. Is the devil going, oh, he's so cute, I'll leave him alone. No, it's the devil we're dealing with. So, yeah, we have to be careful. We have to know about him and know what's going on? The best way to lose a war is not know that you're in one while we're in a war. Now, Jesus has won it, and you'll win it, too, if you're with him. If you're not with him, you have no chance. No chance at all.
[00:30:14] Speaker B: Yeah. So let's. He does identify three signs of the demonic and three weapons against the demonic. So let's just real quickly, what are the three signs of the demonic? Here he talks about love of nudity, violence, and a schizophrenic mentality.
[00:30:28] Speaker A: So it's always a twist. The devil, it's almost like he's not so much a father of lies as he's the father of half lies. Cause that's what confuses us. So you look in when Adam and Eve fell, the devil says, oh, did God really say this? And it's a little bit different. Okay, so the first sign is love of nudity now. Oh, but isn't the human body good? Didn't God make us go? Well, yes, he did, but then we fell. And in order to get back into that state, we have to go through the cross, but the devil's anti cross, so he's like, hey, hey, I'll give you a garden of Eden. I'll give you everything you want. Oh. But it's going to be the demonic version of the Garden of Eden, which is the pornography and eroticism of this day.
[00:31:09] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:31:10] Speaker A: The second sign of the demonic is violence. But even this is a twist, too. So Fulton Sheen talks about a good violence. He calls it the sword pointed inward, letting our lord crucify our hearts to make our hearts like his.
When we don't do that, there's the bad violence of, I'm going to crucify everyone else. I'll march in the streets, but I'll never change myself. And then the third sign is a schizophrenic mentality. And it's a loss of identity.
So much with baptism, with the sacraments, with priesthood is identity. Who are we? Well, we're God's children. When we lose that, we don't just become something else. We become 10,000 million other things, as we're seeing today, this huge loss of identity.
[00:31:50] Speaker B: Right? And maybe the loss of identity, but also trying on identities, like it's the identity of the weak. We're always searching for something and that kind of looking for so many other different things.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: But are we searching for something or what? We aren't? So it's interesting. So Fulton Sheen talks about God says, I am who am. So it's like the devil says, I am who am not. Okay, so how many genders are there today?
Whatever they call 150, whatever the number is. Now, how do you get there? Well, I'm not this gender. I'm not that gender. I'm not this. I'm not. I am not. I'm not, I'm not. I am not. I am not. That's the definition of the devil, right?
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And in some ways, it's kind of recognizing, too, that, you know, I mean, I think it's weird because we're so quick in society to kind of somewhat vilify, and I, pun intended, demonize. Right. Those who think differently than us. It's kind of like having stopped believing in the devil.
We.
We attach the devil to earthly phenomena, so now we believe our enemies are the devil.
[00:33:02] Speaker A: You know, there's something wrong. You got to blame someone. Yeah, but even that. What is that? So our God makes us in his image and likeness. If we lose that, we start to make everything in our image after our likeness. And it's actually what the world calls unity is what Pope Francis calls a demonic sameness. You know, unity is, you have to think like me, believe everything I believe. So our world talks about division, but it's not division at all. It's just a demonic sameness.
[00:33:30] Speaker B: I think of Cs Lewis in his screwtape letters, and also a little bit in Perilandra, describes that what the pantheists falsely believe would happen in heaven, where we all dissolve into kind of this divine ness and lose our identity, is actually what happens in hell. In hell, we lose our identity and are all kind of, like, melted down, like lead into this just kind of demonic. Whereas in heaven, we become more and more uniquely individuals. The saints, in a way, are more distinct from one another. Right.
[00:34:04] Speaker A: That's real diversity.
[00:34:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Versus just the blob of nothingness. Yeah.
[00:34:09] Speaker B: Okay. And I think that is a fascinating way, too, of thinking about how.
Right. It's, in a way, a false promise of returning to the garden through this twisted love of nudity. A false promise, almost, of returning to the garden by having our earthly enemies be the ones we hate. So again, we're fine, and then again, even the schizophrenic, because we lose that sense of true identity. So we create these kind of false identities that are somehow going to try to make us okay again.
But we're just kind of really dealing with not only at the surface, but ultimately with lies. And so these three weapons against the demonic, the name of Jesus, the blood of Jesus, and Mary, the mother of Jesus.
[00:34:56] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So the name of Jesus, powerful name, a name by which every knee must bend in heaven, on earth, and under the earth. Fulton Sheen really doesn't say much about the name. That's the shortest chapter in the book. He talks so much about the person of Jesus, but he doesn't say much about the name. But he has a couple few pages in the book, the blood of Jesus. He gives many beautiful talks about that. And then I found some handwritten notes where he ties all in with fighting the demonic. And then, yes, Mary, the mother of Jesus, she stomps the head of the serpent. We run to our mother.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Yeah. And I love this. So this, I wanted to focus a little bit on that chapter eleven, on the blood of Jesus in chapter 14 on the holy hour. And maybe if we're going to look at all the different things about what does it mean to understand this presence of the seed of confusion, seed of accusation, seed of hatred, that the ultimate remedy of that, of course, is Jesus. And maybe if we focus that remedy of Jesus and Jesus presence in the eucharist. I've been giving some talks recently, and this is part of a book that Matthew Levering and I wrote called the wisdom of the word. But we were talking about how can the blood of Christ be good news, and how can we understand, again, the nature of that somehow Christ's sacrifice matters? And when I was speaking on this topic, different parishes or other venues, what I kind of began to realize is that people don't believe in the presence of Jesus in the eucharist because they don't believe in the presence of Jesus at all. Like, they don't believe that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus because they don't believe that the body and blood of Jesus matter. So how? So I've been really trying to understand and unpack that sense of, well, sacrifice is necessary for us to make right what we've wronged. You know, even something similar. Like, if I steal your phone, I have to give it back to you, right? But if I, let's just say I take your dog for a walk and I'm not paying attention, maybe I'm on my phone and an alligator in Florida eats your dog. Well, do I give you an iPhone? Do I give you a dog? It's like, what kind of sacrifice do I make to make that right? And we begin to say, wait a second. Oh, there's all sorts of things we do that we actually really can't make. The sacrifice we would need to make to make things right, because we can't change the past. We can't raise the dead. So.
And then we recognize in a way that ultimately, the problem is that I'm sacrificing things all the time. I just sacrifice everything in the world of my own ego, but I can't sacrifice my own ego because my ego only gets bigger when I sacrifice things to myself. So at some point, Christ has to break through, and it's the sacrifice and blood of Christ that he sacrifices everything on the cross. He gives up everything out of perfect love for us and for the father. The catechism in 615 will say that Christ knew us and loved us all on the cross. Not only each of us, but all of us, even all those nasty parts of myself that I don't reveal to anyone. Jesus knew and loved me on the cross. So could you just say a little bit about that? I just become more and more convinced that the more we begin to understand the true nature of the sacrifice that we need to make, but cannot make, and then begin to recognize that Christ has made it for us, like God could, God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
And I just love to see that. Basically, this is exactly what Fulton sheen is getting at, is that there is something wrong with us, and we kind of know this, and Christ puts it right through his blood on the cross. So just help unpack this notion of why the blood of Christ really makes me whole and is the greatest defense against the devil and rescues me from those lies.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: Yeah. So, yeah, yeah. The blood of Christ, second weapon against the demonic. Fulton Sheen talks about how sin is in the blood, and blood is. Sin is also an offense against God, which I remember my first theology class with Doctor Nutt here, him talking about that there's a quasi infinite character to our offenses. Okay, but we're not infinite. How do we make that up? Well, we can't. So without Christ, we go to hell, every one of us, like that, which is actually what we deserve, you know, because our sins, even our small sins, small sins carry that much weight with it. So we have a loving God who doesn't want his children to go to hell and who is willing to die for us. St. John Vianney says that, you know, we give according to what we give to the extent that we love. And God gave his only begotten son for you. So sin offends God, and the sinner deserves to die. And life is in the blood. So the blood is always preserved for God. And then sin is in the blood.
And you see, throughout history, bloodletting, sacrifices. Fulton Sheen even talks about the Romans.
They would kill a goat, or I think it was a bull, and they'd walk through the blood to try to have themselves cleansed. And in the Old Testament, they sacrificed goats. And that's where we get the scapegoat from. One goat sacrifice, its blood is put on another goat. And you drive that goat out of town like you're driving. You know, you got the sins, out, you go. And they're doing the best they could for the time, but the only one who can bridge that infinite gap is someone who is God, you know, who's infinite, and then who is man and can take the sins upon him. Well, that. That's only Jesus. There's not a whole lot of God. Man's running around, so it's our Lord, and he's sacrificed on the cross. But in dying, he kind of explodes death from the inside. Okay, so then how do we participate in that? And Fulton Sheen's main philosophy for everything, everything that he writes, everything that he talks about, is the cross. That's his thing, the cross. We have to die to live. And that's all through the Bible. The seed must die for the grain to sprout. So, yes, sin is in the blood. Blood's gotta be shed. Our lord was the ultimate scapegoat. He took our sins upon himself. He has no sins of his own, and he sheds his blood. So how do we participate in that? That's really in the mass, and particularly through the Eucharist. And Fulton Sheen. It's not so much in the book, but in, there's a YouTube video. If you just google Fulton Sheen mass, he explains the mass about a half hour video, and it's very beautiful. He talks about how the elements, just phosphorus and whatnot, they don't have life. So, in a sense, the plant says to the elements, hey, you want to have life? Well, you're going to have to die to yourself and come into me. Okay, then the plant, you know, the animals, like, hey, you have plant life. You don't have animal life. But if you want it, you got to die to self. Be ground in my jaws and come into me. And then the animals are eaten by. By man. And then this is where it gets tricky. It seems that. Okay, so then. But man eats the animals. But man also eats God. Well, yes, in a sense. In a sense.
But you can't receive God well if he hasn't received you. So, you know, the plants are eaten by the animals. The animals are eaten by man, and man is consumed by God if he lives mass well. So Fulton Sheen goes through the offertory, where we offer ourselves, and then the consecration where we die, you're put on the altar. Everything you are is on the altar, and then you die.
And to the extent that you've died is to the extent that you can really receive God in communion, you know? So, yes, we have to die to ourselves. And he says, like what? Just, like, takes communion and takes this and takes and takes. And, oh, I love the homily. I love the music. I love this. I come to mass to get, get, receive, receive what? Takes what? Doesn't give. Well, parasites. We become mystical. We become parasites on the mystical body of Christ. So it's so important to live mass well because when we don't like who's the ultimate parasite? Well, it's the devil. He doesn't have anything of his own. He's got to corrupt other things. So when we don't live mass, wealth, that's what's going on. But when we do, when we die to ourselves, let God consume us and then receive his life, in the end, we're in his blood. In a sense, we've been redeemed by him. We're with him.
[00:43:13] Speaker B: That is amazing. That is amazing. I love that vision about being at mass and just seeing that. The good news of the mass is that we get to die to ourselves and in a certain sense, right? We get to make that sacrifice that we most deeply want to make, because we make it not of our own strength, but in Christ. That's funny. When you're like, when you're a child or a young man, you always want to wait for some kind of great adventure or some great run into a burning building to save someone so you could get. And I think it's kind of funny because we actually do that every massive in the mass.
We have that highest act of courage where we die for the world in Christ, because Christ did that.
[00:43:56] Speaker A: The ultimate adventure.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: Yeah, it really is. So we are running out of time, so maybe we'll have you on the show again. I'd love to do that. It'd be great to talk a little bit about the role of the holy Hour.
What a beautiful thing, right? Archbishop Fulton Sheen, his whole life, his whole priesthood. His whole priesthood.
[00:44:17] Speaker A: And he got more intense in recommending it. In the beginning, he'd recommend it. He even say, yeah, there are priests who don't do it, and they're good priests. By the end, by the seventies, like priests, you have to do the holy Hour.
[00:44:29] Speaker B: Wow, that's such a noble practice and encouragement.
But I think, as I said, for today, though, let's. And you also have a book on, by the way, just I have to mention it, Fulton Sheen and fatherhood, which isn't a book, but I guess your thesis. But I think recovering that sense of fatherhood.
You had mentioned to me as we were talking about the podcast beforehand that it's fundamentally the gift of self. To be a father is to be willing to lay down one's life.
[00:44:59] Speaker A: The father plants the seed and the seed dies. You gotta lay down your life. Yep.
[00:45:03] Speaker B: And what a beautiful notion of recovering fatherhood and so many different things, both for priests, for laity, for just, you know, every, for really every person. So we have a three, I have three questions I'd like to ask our guests on the show. So first, what's a book you've been reading?
[00:45:20] Speaker A: So I just started a book. The archbishop lent it to me. It's about John Sr. I forget the whole name of the book, but it's about John Sr. Who was a professor back in the sixties at, I think, Kansas City University or University of Kansas, whatever. University of Kansas, yeah, university of Kansas.
A philosopher who really like city, connects it to nature. And we are just not as smart as we think we are to go into these cities and just, oh, I'm just going to think and get things right. You got to get out in nature and just see how the world is, how God designed things and then think from there. So it's in that I'm just starting the book.
[00:45:53] Speaker B: No, that's great. I actually just bought the book as well, recently, and he did the integrated humanities program at the University of Kansas, he and a couple professors. And interestingly, all these students started taking the classes and the program and started converting to catholicism.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Isn't that interesting?
[00:46:11] Speaker B: And then they went off to this french benedictine monastery, and then Clear Creek in Oklahoma is a benedictine monastery of that with a lot of his former students, one of whom, I think writes the book on John Sr. So it's really beautiful. Secondly, what's a practice you do on a daily basis that helps you draw closer to God?
[00:46:33] Speaker A: It'd be prayer in the sacraments. The holy hour is huge, absolutely indispensable. I started that when I was here in 2008. So 16 years, whatever it's been now as a priest, you know, daily mass, daily rosary, officer readings, just. Yeah, without prayer, life becomes just a blur and a blob and a bunch of nothingness. You don't I tell people, like, I started to really pray in 2007. That's when I started to live. If you're not. If you're not praying, you're not living. You gotta pray.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: And what's a belief you held about God that you realized was false and what was the truth you discovered?
[00:47:09] Speaker A: This might reflect more on me, my belief of me versus my belief of God. But growing up, my parents didn't have money. They weren't gonna send me to college. I had to go to college. I had to pay for myself. So in that, I got a very good work ethic, which is good, which is good. But there's kind of like, oh, I can save myself. I'm just gonna work my way through it. Even when I came here, I came here to discern the priesthood was not for me. I came here to twist God's arm. Like, I am still in charge. God.
But to be humbled and let God love me, that's not easy. God loves us so much that it hurts, and we kind of don't want to be loved that much. So to realize his love and let him love us, I'm still working on that. That's been a big one.
[00:47:51] Speaker B: There's a beautiful line from. I think it's Cs Lewis's, maybe in mere Christianity or problem of pain, but he says something like, right, God can. Only God has no other happiness to give us than his own. Right? We might prefer just our own kind of comfort and happiness, but God wants to give us his happiness, right. And that is transforming so well. Again, Father Dave, thank you so much for being on the show. It's been wonderful to have you. Thank you for your really. Just obviously, you've so deeply, kind of studied and imbibed Fulton Sheen's teachings and to help make them available for another generation. Thank you for your service. The book called the Demonic by Archbishop Fulton Sheen, compiled and edited by father Dave Tomaszicki, will be coming out with Emmaus Road Press probably in the next year or so.
[00:48:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Mace Road Publishing. Yeah, hopefully. Hopefully next few months, maybe a year. We'll see what happens, but soon. Yeah. Thanks for having me on. And it's funny, like, to write your own book is way easier than to compile something for someone else. That took a ton of work. I love doing it, but it's really diving into Fulton Sheen's thought.
[00:49:03] Speaker B: Well, excellent. Thanks again for being on our show, and thank you for listening today. And again, if you're interested in Fulton Sheen, we do have a couple earlier episodes on Fulton Sheen's God and freedom, and also just a general introduction to Fulton Schieen with Doctor James Patterson of Ave Marie University.
So thank you again for listening to the show.
[00:49:26] Speaker C: Thank you so much for joining us for this podcast. If you liked this episode, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app to help others find the show. And if you want to take the next step, please consider joining our Annunciation circle so we can continue to bring you more free content.
We'll see you next time on the catholic theology show.
