Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Exodus 90 focuses on bringing men to freedom by prayer, asceticism, and fraternity. So we challenge men to do a daily holy hour to engage in ascetical practices. But I think part of what makes this work is that we have weekly fraternity meetings so that we actually can build support so that we can continue to grow in the faith.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Close 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 Maria 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 Doffine, and today I am joined by Dr. Jared Stout, who is an alumnus of Ave Marie University, earning your PhD with the university in 2009, is that correct? Yes.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: It'll be 15 years this spring.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: We're so glad to have you back, Jared. And what a blessing to have you on the show. For those who don't know, Jared Stout is currently the director of content for Exodus 90. Over the past 15 years, he has served on the faculty at the Augustine Institute, University of Mary, St. John Viani Seminary in Denver, the Institute of Catholic Culture. He's founded three catholic high schools, is involved in the founding of a Catholic junior college, and is also the author of a new book with Tan Publishing called how the Eucharist can save Civilization.
[00:01:45] Speaker A: I'm also really bored, as you can tell.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: Wow. And recently moved to start a farm, is that correct?
[00:01:52] Speaker A: Right. In rural North Carolina, near my friend Jason Craig, who runs fraternist. So we're looking to do evangelization from the land.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: That's wonderful.
I just love the topic. I wanted to talk a little bit about Exodus 90 and the Eucharist. So tell us a little bit about. I think Exodus 90 has kind of struck a chord, maybe with a lot of people. I have a lot of friends, older friends, younger friends, college age students who have been involved in Exodus 90, been inspired by it. Tell us a little bit about what is the kind of movement of Exodus 90 and how did you get involved?
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Well, first of all, I think Exodus 90 has taken off because a lot of men are feeling enslaved, and Exodus 90 focuses on bringing men to freedom by prayer, asceticism, and fraternity, things that we're really lacking. I think a lot of times men just really don't know what to do in the church, and sometimes it even feels very feminine. They're not sure how to become a leader for even their own family. So we challenge men to do a daily holy hour to engage in ascetical practices, especially what we're known for, the cold shower, but among other things, fasting a couple of days a week. But I think part of what makes this work is that we have weekly fraternity meetings so that we actually can build support amongst men so that we can continue to grow in the faith. The way that I got involved is that the founder of Exodus 90, Jamie Baxter, is a graduate of the Catholic studies program at St. Thomas, where I did my undergrad and master's. And I've been working with them since they were founded in 2015, just in numerous ways through their old website and writing exercises for them, and had the opportunity a little more than a year ago to come on full time to direct their content. And it was very exciting because we were really moving from being Exodus 90 to Exodus. Well, what's the difference? Well, we were started as a 90 day program, right? There's 90 days to freedom. And we are now growing to be something that accompanies men throughout the entire liturgical year, and that when they finish this 90 days, a lot of guys say, well, what's next? And now we're able to give them the next steps to continue to grow in virtue.
[00:04:09] Speaker B: That's great. And so could you say a little bit about maybe the initial starting of Exodus 90? My understanding was it started by, like, a priest, maybe for seminarians at first.
How did it start? Kind of, in some ways, really? What is it, too, for maybe listeners who aren't as then, you know, like, how did it kind of take off? Because it seems really to have done so well.
[00:04:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Father Dorr was working in formation and a seminary and realized that as you're trying to teach young men, they're coming with a lot of baggage from broken families, and there's just so much that needs to be dealt with there and, of course, issues of purity.
So over these 90 days, reading through the book of Exodus, he challenged the seminarians to really take a step back from technology and social media and to grow in discipline and strength, and it really impacted them very greatly. And our founder, Jamie, was one of those seminarians who was impacted by it. And so he was encouraged by Father Dorr to really turn this into a nonprofit and bring it out to other men. And there was one year when they were kind of tracking the sign ups, and Jamie thought there was a mistake.
Wait a second, where did more than 10,000 guys come from? And it really has spread like wildfire just on its own, it's men telling other men because their lives have been changed by it. And at this point, we've had more than 100,000 guys go through it.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: Wow, what a blessing. And praise God for that. And it's also great to see that God works through people who have ideas in responding to concrete situations and tie in. We have this great ascetical tradition of the.
You know, Paul even says, I discipline my own body.
But of course, with the desert fathers, St. Anthony of Egypt, so many other great saints, and then the tradition. But somehow that tradition, it got separated from daily life, at least in the experience of many catholic men. And so I see somehow exodus 90 as kind of helping to overcome that and to bring that tradition, because I think it used to be part of a whole. But then people kind of. We've lost sight in a way of that whole life that the catholic faith is for our heads, it's for our hearts, and it's for our bodies.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: Yeah, we definitely live in an age of laxity, and this is part of that reality of men not being challenged any longer. You even look at lent, right? It used to be 40 full days of fasting, and there was no eating during the day. I mean, over time, there were concessions for these collations, these little snacks to keep people going. But now there are no days of fasting in Lent because ash Wednesday and Good Friday, you're still eating three meals. Okay, well, maybe a couple of them are small.
And so what we've seen is that men appreciate the challenge. To say that you really do need to sacrifice for your faith. And if you do sacrifice, you can grow in love through this. And this is actually how you can become a better husband and father is by growing in sacrifice. And so love is the ultimate, I think, motivation for asceticism. It's not just trying to be macho. And to say, I'm going to do this hard challenge for 90 days, it changes our lives when we're doing it to grow closer to God and to be able to serve our families more.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: And at the same time, it seems as though we're in a world that offers more and more ensnaring temptations. I'm teaching a course this semester on. It's a new course, love, friendship, and the future, being human. And one of the things that I've been doing a lot of reading about and are doing a lot of reading with the students is know just the phenomenon of partially social media. I think news media, the phone, just so many different ways. I think Netflix video games, all these different things, let alone issues like online pornography and all this other stuff, which are kind of always intertwined with that, just because of our whole advertising. And the darker side of the human heart, these are often. And we watched a documentary, the social dilemma. Watch another documentary, the childhood 2.0, and they show how that algorithms are written to keep us engaged, because the more engaged we are, the more that advertisers can make money, or advertisers will pay. So the companies make more money, and they're designed to be more engaging by keeping us distracted. It's really a loss of attention. We lose attention to God, to others, and to ourselves.
Not that these things can't be used, but that they're often used in an imbalanced and temperate way, and that they're actually designed to keep us unbalanced, to keep us, in a way, distracted. And even the reward pathways, so that they talk about that if you get something good every time, it's somewhat exciting, but if you get something one out of every ten times, it's really exciting. It's like hitting the jackpot. And they talk about the way, like, when you scroll through news media or social media or different things like that, or even when people play video games, it's like, well, it's every now and then you win. And that creates, again, a little bit of a dopamine rush, which keeps us addicted. So we've always needed this.
We always have had a tendency in our own hearts to become worldly. This didn't start with the smartphone and the technological revolutions, but something about this virtual world is designed to play upon our human vulnerabilities, and not only our own human vulnerabilities, but even our social vulnerabilities, right? The feeling of being left out, the feeling of trying to find out what's going on and all these different elements. So what could you say about maybe Exodus 90 and kind of the particular situation that. And I wouldn't. Certainly young men find themselves in, but old men do, too.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Right. As we were walking in here, I heard one of your students say, Dr. Dauphiny, I'm reading the shallows, right. And I love Nicholas Carr's book, the Shallows. And he says that we've become these hunter gatherers again, of information, right. That we're always just scratching the surface, jumping from one thing to another, and we can't concentrate. We can't think deeply, can't read deeply either. A lot of men come to Exodus 90 because they want greater freedom in the area of purity. But I think what they ultimately need is more silence. And so the daily holy hour is a struggle. Now, what do guys complain about? Yes, the cold shower, which, of course, has its health benefits, but we're doing it as a sacrifice because it's also very difficult. So guys struggle with the cold shower, but, boy, do they struggle with, you know, following from Carr's book. The thing that really struck me the most is that, okay, it's one thing to say that our reading habits have changed and they've become more shallow. But if you're not able to read deeply and therefore you can't think deeply, that means you cannot pray deeply.
And so as I'm getting all these messages from Exodus men, they're saying, what do I do in the silence? And the answer is, well, nothing. Right? Because you're filling that up. It's not silence. And that's what the guys want to do during their holy hours. Just give me more to read, because I read through that reflection that you wrote, and it's ten minutes. And then what? I still have 50 minutes left. We say, you need to lean into the silence. That is the point of giving up social media, of not checking the news and not watching sports and TV and movies, all these things that we're taking a step back from in Exodus 90. We're doing it so we can positively embrace something. And ultimately, that is this time with the Lord.
[00:12:14] Speaker B: There was a reflection in the Magnificat from December on, Zechariah's silence. And Zechariah, as people may remember, was the priest who heard the angel Gabriel but doubted and was rendered mute until John the Baptist was born and blessed. Stefan Wazinski wrote something in the Magnificat, but I copied it out because I just thought this was so helpful, because he talks about silence. He talks about, why is silence hard? And again, it's very easy for us to think, especially of our contemporary age, in which there's so much noise and everything. But this is what he writes, and he's writing this in the mid 20th century.
Everything around man makes far less noise than man himself.
Again, think about that. Everything around man makes far less noise than man himself. The echo that magnifies external things in our soul. This is the real uproar. So, yes, we are getting bombarded with noise, with advertisements, with information, with distraction, but it's the echo of those things, the echo that magnifies external things in our soul. That's the real uproar. So, again, that sense in which kind of, we have to recognize that it's inside me. That is the noise.
I think St. Teresa of Avila in the interior castle would speak about the imagination as kind of the lunatic in the house or the madman in the house. And that our imagination, you just sit still for a little bit, your imagination will go crazy.
And then what you have to do is just kind of, like, learn to let it calm down. And, of course, now we have, again, billion dollar industries, probably trillion, I don't know, but just billion dollar industries. And I don't even know how many hundreds of thousands of basically tech people and advertisers that are trying to manipulate our distraction.
But when we learn to have that pause, then we can begin to recognize, wait a second, my inner mind and heart and desires are all over the place. And we can begin to kind of notice that. And then we can have that real struggle, right? And that recognizing that the real slavery is not just the external. It may be that, and it's also that internal, that internal inability just to rest and maybe recognize that maybe God is actually God and that my providence, my thinking, is not going to be enough. So I better really welcome the Lord's presence.
[00:14:59] Speaker A: Every year when we start Exodus 90, this year, it was January 1, we hear people saying, well, Exodus 90 is pelagian because these men are doing all of these things. There's the spiritual bravado, the cold showers, the fasting, not eating between meals, no sweets. And the other things that I've mentioned abstaining from media.
But that's not what changes our lives. It is the holy hour. So I don't understand how reading the book of Exodus and making a holy hour every day is pelagian, because that's the center of it. It is allowing God to act. I think for so many of our men, they've never made a holy hour before.
They're not in that habit of daily prayer and of silence. And it is a struggle. I mean, we tell them, if you're discouraged, that's normal, right? I mean, don't give up. And if you don't make it all the way through the holy hour, that's fine, because it is hard to go from being distracted every day, always looking at your phone, to then setting that aside and saying, all right, just go sit down, whether it's in your house or ideally at church, and just spend an hour listening to the mean. For a lot of guys, that would drive them know. And so we have to help walk them through that.
[00:16:14] Speaker B: Are there any tips for people that you would give know? I think Teresa Vavila, again, I think one time said that she always found prayer hard if she didn't bring a book.
So also the sense like that it is okay to bring spiritual reading to a holy hour. It's okay maybe to journal as a way of trying to collect our thoughts on paper and kind of quiet the imagination.
I'm sure you have a lot of practical tips. You've probably written some essay articles on it.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: You know that I have.
[00:16:47] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Well, Pope Benedict XVI said that he was convinced that the practice of Lexio Divina would bring about a spiritual springtime in the church. And that's interesting because John Paul II was always talking about this new springtime, and Benedict said a new spiritual springtime. And I think he was trying to direct our attention away from looking at the externals of the church to saying, well, if we're going to have a new springtime, it's going to have to happen within. The reason why I answer with Lexio Divina is because ultimately it's conversational.
Teresa Vavila said, I begin with a book. Well, what book should you begin with? In Exodus, we begin with the Book of Exodus, but other times of the year we look at other books of the Bible. And so we allow God to have the first word in the conversation. And the goal is obviously not to read a lot as you sit down, but it's really just to sit with a passage to ruminate over it. And that becomes your meditation. As you keep pouring back over these words and you listen to see which ones are really speaking to you, you unpack them. The second step after the reading then is that effort of your mind in meditation, that mental prayer. And then you respond, this is your word back in the conversation. And I tell people, we give God the first word. Sometimes we can't listen to him speak because we do all the talking. Right? So let God talk first, unpack what he says to show that we're a good listener in that meditation. And then we respond.
You share based on that passage and how it sat with you, what is on your heart. And then finally you let God speak again. And Cardinal Sarah, in his book the Power of Silence, says that God always speaks in prayer, but his language is silent. And I heard a guy who wrote into Exodus 90 just this last week. I don't hear God speaking in prayer. And actually if he said that he did, we might wonder.
And so we do these weekly videos where we're addressing guys concerns. I'm doing that with father Boniface Hicks from St. Vincent's Archabi.
And we were know God is speaking, but we're just not used to the language of.
It's. It's imperceptible. And we were talking about the way in which prayer is like even a human relationship. And obviously, I can pick up a lot from my wife without her saying a word. I can just walk into the room, and I kind of know what she's thinking just from even looking at her. And I think something similar. In prayer, we have to learn this language of love. And so contemplation is the height of it. That's the goal of this relational prayer, is to just sit with the Lord in loving union and to listen to his languageless language back to us.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that's beautiful. And I think, in a way, you talked about Lexio Divina. And for those who might not be familiar, that really just means, like, divine reading. So divine reading, godly reading. It means, in a way, reading in a divine manner the words that God has used. And I think this is also something that we have all these messages from our society. We have maybe the messages we tell ourselves. We have the messages that we remember from our schooling, from bosses, from teachers, from parents, from friends, all these different messages, some of which are helpful, but some of which are not. And so to include in those messages that we hear the messages from God in scripture, always interpreted with the church, with the magisterium and tradition of the church. But that deep sense that these words, in a way, are words of life, and when we allow them, they can kind of help to reshape our own thoughts. Lewis, C. S. Lewis talks about in mere Christianity. He says, if we don't have good ideas about God called theology, it's not that we don't have ideas about God. We just have bad ideas about have. We will often have all sorts of things that we think that we're thinking about, but we just really don't understand. And so I think that deep sense of opening ourselves up to the words of God. Maybe just one question, because I do want to, after the break, I want to turn to then kind of seeing how Exodus 90 leads to in the original formation into the Easter celebration, but also then, in a way, the Eucharist. But maybe just a little bit of your own story. How did you get interested in studying theology, teaching theology eventually, obviously getting interested in prayer and the Eucharist and all these themes.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Well, we've known each other for a long know because you were teaching back at St. Thomas when I showed up as an undergrad there. But I don't know if I've ever told you that the way I got into theology was actually getting kicked out of public school?
[00:21:30] Speaker B: That's a great story.
[00:21:31] Speaker A: Yeah. In 7th grade, I brought my boy scout knife to school and there was zero tolerance. And so they sent me to a prison school, and I lasted there one day, and only the catholic school would take me in. I mean, my mom literally tried every other school first, and I never even had detention before. So it wasn't like I was this rebel child or whatever. So I showed up at the catholic school and the priest said, okay, we've taken you into the school. Will you do me a favor? And it's like, yes, Father, anything. He said, will you come and serve mass? Daily Mass, on the anniversary of my ordination at 615 in the morning. And my mom was like, absolutely, I'll drive you there. No problem. Because we were just so grateful. And I was a non practicing Catholic, so I had received the sacraments. Took me three years to get my first communion because I didn't show up for enough classes. So I was kind of a CCD dropout.
And that morning I really felt the Lord speaking to me in the Eucharist saying, this is your home. This is where you belong.
So I started going to Sunday mass that summer. I started going to daily Mass the next year. I had a school project to do on divine mercy. And we went into the Catholic bookstore, and there was just a little divine mercy booklet. And I said, well, that'll do. And my mom, no, no, you like to read. Get that big red one, the whole divine mercy diary. And that was actually the first catholic book that I read, Faustina's diary. And then I read crossing the threshold of hope, and then this other book called the Bible. And I just read that straight through in 8th grade. And then St. Therese's story of a soul, and then the catechism, which was brand new actually, at that time.
And I haven't looked back since.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: That's wonderful. That's wonderful. Well, what a gift, and what a great act of catholic schools and a beautiful priest, and how wonderful that you were able to say yes, and what a blessing to also, I think, just have that experience that this is my home, that's what Jesus is, our right, and he makes a home for us in his side in the Eucharist. And we just have to look through and beyond in a way, all kind of the messiness, all of our own human messiness, the messiness of the church, just to see Christ embracing us. And I think that's really beautiful. And you're right. And that's the destination of Exodus 90. Right. Is to leave behind the slavery of Egypt and then to encounter the loving arms of Jesus Christ, to whom, Lord, should we go?
[00:24:05] Speaker A: You have the words of everlasting life. There is no alternative.
[00:24:08] Speaker B: That's so beautiful. Well, we will take a break and then we'll come back.
[00:24:19] 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.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Catholic Theology show. I'm your host, Michael Doffenay. And today we are joined by Jared Stout, who is the director of content for Exodus. Is it Exodus or Exodus 90?
[00:24:58] Speaker A: It's Exodus.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Just Exodus. Right. So it's not just 90 days, it's. It's a way of life.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:25:04] Speaker B: And who's also graduate and earned his PhD with Ave Maria in 2009 and has served on the faculty at the Gustin Institute, University of Mary, St. John Viani Seminary, and the Institute of Catholic Culture. Again, just thanks so much for being on the show, Jared.
[00:25:18] Speaker A: It brings me a lot of joy to be back here after all these years.
[00:25:21] Speaker B: That's great. And I'm so appreciative of your work with Exodus 90. And I also think how wonderful that Exodus 90, now, Exodus also takes good theology so seriously that they would hire a theologian to help advance their mission. And I think this is so important that we're human beings.
The rationalists were wrong, thinking that we're only minds, but there's a kind of false piety that can kind of as though we're only hearts.
That's not true. Right.
The truth is actually incredibly desirous.
It's overwhelming how good and beautiful the truth is. And so I think that sense about making our practices in line with the truth, but then also making the truth in line with us because it becomes practical and meaningful and beautiful.
[00:26:19] Speaker A: I think beauty might be the integrating factor here between truth and the body is that we should come to a delight in the truth. Too often we are distracted with all these other images, and Pope Benedict spoke of them even as a kind of vanity, that there is a surface beauty that men find even as they're enslaved to pornography. Why are they enslaved? Because they find something that is good there, but it's disordered, and we have to fall in love with the beauty of Christ, a much deeper beauty.
[00:26:51] Speaker B: Yeah. And I love that sense, too, of the fraternal community helping men connect, have accountability partners. I think sometimes moving from, I think, kind of like bad habits, addictions tend to flourish among. With kind of accessibility, anonymity, secrecy, and shame. And in different ways, you're creating a culture in which we can kind of move from anonymity and accessibility to, actually limitation and to really connection and to kind of like, saying, I'm part of this group. I'm doing this with the rest of these men. And at the same time, again, losing the sense of secrecy and shame, which is, oh, you too, struggle with that.
It's okay not to be perfect. C. S. Lewis, in the screw tape letters, in his letter 29 on courage and cowardice, he actually says, many men during the first world war discovered their own cowardice for the first time, their genuine cowardice, and at that time, discovered the whole moral order. When we can actually recognize that just, oh, I actually failed. Like, oh, but I don't have to hide in shame, because I'm just. Because I can actually admit that I failed. And when I can admit that I failed, then I can recognize there is a moral order. And, of course, the beauty of our faith is that what really holds together truth, goodness, and beauty is not just our own perception, but is God's merciful love. It's. Right. It's the heart of Jesus poured out for us.
That's the mercy that actually gives me hope.
[00:28:32] Speaker A: And it's one thing to go to confession, but even know, we try to keep that as hidden as we can, of course. And so there is something to bringing it out in the light and to know that I am not struggling towards holiness alone. A lot of guys do feel alone in this. And so it is, I think, significant that we can say we are doing this together, bring it out in the light, and to really, I think, shift away from an exclusive focus on just the things we're struggling with. Right. Because sometimes when that happens, we become obsessed with the sin. And to say, you know, if you're struggling in one area, why don't you try self denial in another area?
[00:29:16] Speaker B: Beautiful.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: It strengthens the will, firms up a general kind of discipline of self.
[00:29:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And so you wrote a book, how the Eucharist can save civilization. Just came out in 2023. Right. With Tan Publishing. And so tell us a little bit about the book. And I think it has a three part structure, maybe just, would you mind walking us through it kind of again, how can the bishops have called these years for a eucharistic revival? How can we revive ourselves? Maybe we're on life support. How can we revive our faith through coming to see the Eucharist in a new way?
[00:29:54] Speaker A: Well, my focus for a very long time, even all the way back to my undergraduate studies and catholic studies, has been on culture. And culture can sound kind of highfaluting. You think of culture as going to the opera or whatever, but culture fundamentally is a way of life, the way that we live with other people every day. And I think that's part of the reason I've been drawn into Exodus 90, forming these daily practices. But it's also why I wrote a book on the Eucharist. I mean, in part, it's to really redeem myself after writing a book about beer, the beer option, brewing a catholic culture yesterday and today. But why did I write that book? Because I wanted to show that if we could get beer right, we can get anything right. And that means integrated into a life of faith so that everything that I do is ordered towards God. Everything that I do is consistent with my faith. And so, in a way, how the Eucharist can save civilization is a sequel to the beer option to say, let's look at eating and drinking from a much higher level of how it can redeem and sanctify everything else. So the thesis of the book is that we're not going to have eucharistic revival, and I did start writing it before that was announced, but we're not going to have that kind of revival in the church unless we live a eucharistic life every single day. Our lives should be at least pointing us towards the Eucharist and flowing from the Eucharist. Right. If Sunday is truly the Lord's day, it's the center of time, and I should carry the grace of the Eucharist with me throughout the entire week, but already be anticipating the next one. I mean, that's why Friday is a day of penance, a day of the crucifixion, so that I can offer myself in renewal, to be able to receive the Eucharist in a way in which I'm truly prepared the next Sunday.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So you do talk a little bit about food, land, drink, work.
Why does that kind of help force or help develop the first part of the book? I think it's right source and then summit. And what's the last part?
[00:32:02] Speaker A: The christian life. So the source and summit of the christian life. Those are the three sections. Sorry, you did ask me that, and I didn't answer.
[00:32:08] Speaker B: No worries. But let's just maybe just say a few words about the source then, right?
[00:32:12] Speaker A: So I would say that one of the key problems of modern life and culture is that we're secular. And secularism is not simply a denial of faith, but it does kind of keep it within its own realm. You can be a Christian over there, but keep your opinions to yourself. You keep all that within the boundaries of the church property.
And what I want to show is that the Eucharist helps to overcome secularism because it's so much rooted within human nature and also human culture. God does not save us just by speaking words to us. He doesn't save us from the outside. Right. He comes within, but not only within humanity, but he comes also within us to save us from within. So I do look at just the very origins of food and drink, right? Because the Eucharist involves eating and drinking, and we do not eat and drink like animals, so we work. They don't.
[00:33:10] Speaker B: Right.
[00:33:10] Speaker A: They're just kind of forage. Right. So we actually cultivate the earth, kind of bring it to perfection. You cannot find wine just kind of growing out on the vine. You have to harvest the grapes. Through human work and rationality, we turn them into wine, and we bring that to the Eucharist. Right. So it's not even the fruits of nature that we're bringing to the Eucharist. It's the fruits of our work that we are bringing. But we also eat in communion with other people.
And when you look at ancient religion, whether it was israelite religion or even in other cultures, there was a kind of sacred eating that was a part of festivity that has continued within catholic culture. But I think in our secularism today, we've really lost sight of that. So wanted to really recover those human dimensions that God has chosen to draw up and take into our salvation.
[00:34:00] Speaker B: So then, now let's move to the next part of the book, right, the summit. How, as we take all these kind of sources and we see them taken up into the eucharistic sacrifice.
[00:34:10] Speaker A: Well, when you look at the title of the book, how the Eucharist can save civilization, the way that God saves civilization is by not caring that much about civilization. Because if he did, it's like we would have a know. Jesus said, my kingdom is not of this world. Because the reason we'd have a problem is because everything in this world passes away.
So the summit is not actually a christian civilization. The summit is communion with God.
God cares about us. He cares about saving our souls, but as part of a communion that goes beyond ourselves, of course. So why isn't the Eucharist saving our civilization right now? And I think a lot of it has to do with obstacles that we have put up between us and the graces that God wants to give us and that are there. They're actually being poured out to us in the Eucharist, and we're not receiving them. In a way, I think we have a communion cris.
We know that very few Catholics actually go to confession, and yet everyone feels like they have to go to communion every time they go to mass. But the church says that you only have to go to communion, receive the Eucharist once a year in the pascal season, and you only have to go to confession once a year in Lent. But those two things are connected.
If you are receiving the Eucharist regularly, you need to go to confession regularly, because our sins kind of build up as these obstacles. But I think also, if we're not leading a life of prayer, well, then it's hard to spiritually enter into the mass. And to get the most out of it in the book, I recommend making a conscious decision to receive the Eucharist. Let's break out of the routine habit of thinking we just go. That's just what we do. No, this is an infinite gift. I mean, Jesus has poured out everything he has in this, his body, his soul, and his divinity. So we come into communion with the Father through the Holy Spirit. When we receive the body and blood of Christ, the solution to every problem we have is right there in the Eucharist, but we're not availing ourselves of it.
[00:36:12] Speaker B: That's very beautifully put. I love this line that Father John Ricciardo, who's been on the podcast a couple of times, and he spoke about this line from catechesis, treden on John Paul II's letter on catechesis, and where he talks about that evangelization should be kind of being overwhelmed by the proclamation of Jesus's love, Jesus'death, for us, and then the invitation to make a decision to entrust ourselves to Jesus. And that aspect of evangelization becomes the heart of catechesis, which is reminding us of the overwhelming mystery of God's love in Jesus Christ, and then making a decision to entrust ourselves to him. And then in a way that just some ways then forms the heart of theology, which is deeper penetration into the mysteries in order to. It just reminds me that, right, that's really what every mass is that invitation. It's kind of like every time we see our children, every time we see our wife, even the nuptial embrace, these sorts of different things are really the sort of things we should be overwhelmed by the mystery, and we should make a decision to entrust ourselves to the gift of the other person. And so I think that's a really neat idea, to think that every time we go to mass, we could make a conscious decision, one, to go to mass. But secondly, I would make a conscious decision right now. Not in a scrupulous way. Not in a scrupulous way. Jesus says, and we say, the centurion said, and we repeat his words to Jesus where he said, Lord, I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the word and I shall be healed. So we have a fundamental sense of we're always unworthy and God makes us worthy. But we also do have know we have the extra gift of confession when we can make use of that, as the catechism encourages us on a regular basis. I think it was St. John Paul II who went to confession twice a know. It's like, well, if John Paul II needed to go to confession twice a week, probably wouldn't hurt me to go occasionally.
So these are good things, but just that idea of really making that decision. I encourage people, if you struggle with faith in the Eucharist, just maybe ask God to help you have faith in the Eucharist, and then make an act of faith. Kind of say like, I'm going to make a decision to believe in the Eucharist. I'm going to make a decision to trust my wife. I'm going to make a decision to trust people in my life. I'm going to make a decision to trust you, Jesus.
[00:38:51] Speaker A: You know where I learned that? It was in the byzantine divine liturgy. They recite a prayer before receiving communion that I think would really help us and the latin church as well. O Lord, I believe and profess that you are truly Christ, the son of the living God, who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first. Accept me today as a partaker of your sacred mystery of Christ.
You see it there, right? That profession of belief. I really do believe that you are here, right? We have to have faith to receive the Lord fruitfully in the Eucharist. We have to acknowledge that we are a sinner. There it is, right in that prayer. And then we ask him to receive us on that. Know, Lord, I am not worthy, that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word. You're recognizing that Jesus does need to say the word, right? That he is inviting us, and we should respond to that invitation.
[00:39:47] Speaker B: St. Bonaventure, in his treatment on the Eucharist, says there are three things that when we go to receive communion, we should make an act of faith that we actually believe that. I believe that Jesus, you are truly present, your body, blood, soul, and divinity. We should have a sense of a confession of our own sins. I am sorry for not loving you as much as I ought to have. And we should have an act of just entrustment to God's mercy that we have to then, in addition, is kind of have that act of just absolute love, right? That we love God, but not exactly with our own love. It's that entrustment to God's mercy that I love God, who loved me first.
[00:40:29] Speaker A: That's a winning formula right there, right? If we can remember those three things, faith, confession, and entrustment, that is the spirituality of the mass, I think, right there.
[00:40:37] Speaker B: That's great. So then we get to the last point, the christian life.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: Right? I quote John Sr. At the beginning of this section where he says, what is christian culture? And he answers, it is the mass. And I think it's true. When you think of all the things that we really value about christian civilization, whether it is the beautiful churches or the great art or even something like the university, here we are at a Catholic university. Where did that come from? Well, it grew out in Paris, right, of Notre Dame Cathedral. You had the chancellor of the cathedral, who was chancellor of the university. And so it is not an exaggeration to say that western civilization grew out of the mass surrounding the altar. And so sometimes people have even laughed at the book title. Isn't that quaint, how the Eucharist can save civilization? And I answer, I'm dead serious. Right. I know that it can save civilization because it has.
When western civilization collapsed in its prior iteration, it was built back up out of the monasteries and the cathedrals, forming schools, forming hospitals, gregorian chants, sacred art, all of it came from there. The university is growing out of those monastery schools. It grew out of the Eucharist.
Now, will God save our civilization through the Eucharist? I don't know. And that's know it's Ken in the, the Eucharist can save civilization. Tan Book said, well, should we say will save civilization? I said, no, because it is a question mark. We have to cooperate with those graces that are there. But in this section, I look at the different ways in which the Eucharist can shape space and time in relationships through this. And one of the things that kind of stands out would be even our attention to the poor. Right. Paul talked about discerning the body in one Corinthians, and he said, if you do not kind of eat worthily, you eat to your own condemnation. And he says, this is why some of you are sick and even dying.
But there's some good evidence that in the text, it's not only discerning our Lord's presence in the body, but it's also discerning the members of the, at Matthew's gospel, of course, the very famous judgment scene of separating the sheep and the goats.
Lord, when did we see you hungry?
And the response is, but, Lord, we even ate and drank with you. And I think we can see in that text that there's evidence like, but, Lord, we were there. We received your body in the Eucharist. What do you mean that we didn't recognize you out in the world? And that should really make us think, are we eating the body when we come to mass, but then not discerning the body outside of mass? And is that creating a disconnect to lead a eucharistic life? I mean, the Eucharist has to be the beating heart of everything that we do.
And our lives need to revolve around the altar, just like back in the day when civilization was built up by the monks.
But that has to come into the workplace. It has to obviously be in the house of the domestic church, and it needs to come out in attention to the poor.
[00:43:54] Speaker B: Well, that's really just a great summary of the christian life and of what Christ has given us in the gift of himself on the cross and his resurrection and the gift of his holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins and the renewal of the world and the renewal of our souls. And when I say renewal of the world, I mean not just the renewal of this world, but really ultimately a new heavens and a new earth, and that, that really should transform everything, right? The way we eat, the way we drink, everything has meaning and purpose because God became a man and dwelt among us, right? This is everything that has meaning and purpose, our suffering, other people, everything that we do, no matter how, I don't know, empty. It may feel at times maybe lacking purpose, maybe it seems like we're stuck in a monotonous routine. No, God has entered into all of that, and that's know, C. S. Lewis talks about this in this mere Christianity. I love this because Lewis isn't even a Roman Catholic, but even just as an Anglican of sorts, he was able to recognize. He's like, yeah, God could have saved us in other ways, but he chose to save us through faith, baptism, and Eucharist, right? And therefore, because he says God likes matter, he invented it.
But that also means that matter matters. And that if the matter of the Eucharist matters, then all matter matters. No corner of the universe is ultimately, it's only under Satan's lies and deception and this meaninglessness if we allow it to be, if we don't invite the light of Christ in. And I think that's just.
I just love that. And the key thing is we also know that God wants to save us.
Civilizations may come and go, but human beings are forever.
[00:45:45] Speaker A: And that's why I think culture is more immediate, right? Because there is a culture of the family. There can be a culture even surrounding the parish. If you have a shared way of life around the parish in civilization, ultimately should be ordered towards eternal life. And that's not to deny the natural goods, right? But natural goods need to be ordered towards supernatural goods. Goes back to the dissertation that I wrote here on the virtue of religion, right? God is the ultimate end of everything that we do.
But we can live a eucharistic culture right now, insofar as everything, all of our relationships work, the things that I mentioned before are ordered towards God. And then they can last. These relationships, if they flow from the Eucharist, they don't just pass away. And the work that we do will bear fruit into eternal life. And this is even what Jesus tells us, if you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will not die. And I will raise you up on the last day. And so we are, I think, sowing seed for eternal life by living this eucharistic culture.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think a beautiful theme about that, too, is that because it's not pelagian, as you pointed, this is not just pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. This is actually, we're living in the Eucharist. We're living in the crucified heart of Jesus. Right, with the sacred heart of Jesus. So this also means that when we offer our family life, when we offer our work from the Eucharist to the Eucharist from Sunday to Sunday, and all these different things, what that means is that all of our failures, all of the failures at work, the failures at home, the sufferings, the misunderstandings, the brokenness, the failed projects, the failed relationships, all that, too, has meaning and purpose. No tear.
No tear. That has been shed or drop of blood that has been shed is forgotten in Christ. And so I think it's just that we always want to remember that this isn't kind of perfectionism or idealism. This is just the kind of, really the beautiful mystery of God's love on the cross.
[00:47:45] Speaker A: He is living it with us. Right. Because what happens in the Eucharist, the two become one flesh, and so we are yoked with Christ, and so he is living those things with us and redeeming them, but we are also living them as Christ, because the two have become one. And so we now are Christ in the world. We are his tabernacle, his presence. And this is how God will save civilization at some point. I mean, if the world doesn't end, I have confidence that at some point he will save civilization. But it is sanctifying the world through his presence that we bring out into it, so that everything is transformed through this extension of the Eucharist, through us, into the world.
[00:48:27] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for really diving into that topic. I do have three questions I'd like to ask you. Ask all our guests whenever possible. So what's a book you're reading?
[00:48:36] Speaker A: Bishop Vardin's new book on chastity, which I would recommend to everyone.
[00:48:42] Speaker B: Great. And what is a spiritual practice that you use, maybe on a daily basis or something, to help draw closer to God?
[00:48:50] Speaker A: I'm a Benedictine oblate, and so I would recommend praying the divine office.
[00:48:56] Speaker B: Very good. And that's also known as the liturgy, the hours. Is there a liturgy of the hour that you think is maybe the kind of you might say to begin with for people that might be interested?
[00:49:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you can just look up the liturgy of the hours even online. I think it's like divineoffice.org, or you can even begin with the magnificat, kind of the abbreviated versions. I think that's fine. There is the old monastic diurnal for somebody who really wants to go deep, but that's probably not where you would begin.
[00:49:23] Speaker B: Okay. And the last question. What's a belief that you held about God that you later learned was false, and what was the truth you discovered?
[00:49:33] Speaker A: Oh, boy.
Wish you had given me that one in advance.
Something that I thought was false.
Augustine tried to conceive of God as an extended body, like an infinite body.
And I would say something that really just strikes me deep into my soul is the contemplation of eternity. And so I think there's a temptation to look at eternity in the same kind of way of this maybe not God extending as a body infinitely, but extending as time infinitely. And that's been very difficult for me. So I think coming to understand eternity as a divine now that never ends, never begins, and never mean, that definitely continues to blow my mind and to shake me to the core of my being.
[00:50:28] Speaker B: Well, thank you so much for that. And again, we've been talking with Professor Jared Stout, director of content for Exodus, and looking at the role of Exodus 90, Exodus and the Eucharist. Jared Stout's author of many books, many articles, but has written recently how the Eucharist can save civilization with Tan Publishing and again, a 2009 doctoral graduate of Ave University. We're so proud of you and thank you for coming back and being with us today on the show.
[00:50:59] Speaker A: Oh, it's been such a pleasure to be here.
[00:51:00] Speaker B: Thank you. Is there a place, by the way, that people who might be interested in learning more about you or your work could go to?
[00:51:06] Speaker A: Well, I do continue to blog at exodus 90. Com, but my personal blog is buildingcatholicculture.com.
[00:51:12] Speaker B: Buildingcatholicculture.com excellent. Thanks again for being on the show, and thank you so much for listening or viewing with us today.
Again, if you enjoy the Catholic Theology show, please consider liking us or subscribing to our show and sharing us with your family and friends, and we will see you in the Eucharist. Thank you.
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