Satisfying an Aching Heart - Colin Nykaza

00:01 - Speaker 1 So it's this initial powerful experience that I had through the suffering of feeling so unloved and so undesirable, and her revealing to me how desirable I actually am and how loved and beautiful I actually am. And then, when she brought me to her son, god himself, that even hit a different level, because we know that only God can satisfy the ache in the human heart for all the desires that we're looking for. Hi, I'm Colin Nykaza, director of Evangelization at St Patrick's Cathedral, and that really entails just me kind of really reaching out and serving a lot of the volunteers here, getting events going and, more importantly, trying to help people encounter God, the Father, through Christ, and this is my faith story. 00:39 - Speaker 2 Welcome to Faithly Stories, the podcast that brings you inspiring tales from conversations with church leaders as they navigate the peaks and valleys of their faith journeys through their ministry work and everyday life. Join us as we delve into their challenges, moments of encouragement and answered prayers. The Faithly Stories podcast is brought to you by Faithly, an online community committed to empowering church leaders, pastors, staff and volunteers. Learn more at faithlyco. Get ready to be uplifted and inspired as we unveil the heart of faith through stories from the front lines of ministry. On the Faithly Stories podcast. 01:21 - Speaker 3 Could you tell me how your faith journey started? 01:24 - Speaker 1 Sure. So I was blessed to be born in a family that was very Catholic and so I grew up. Catholic Wasn't always the best example of living a Christian life, so I didn't really take it as seriously as I do now, especially in middle school and high school and early college. But it was around sophomore year of college I started to experience certain sufferings and go through different things which caused me to pray more and it was kind of beautiful. 01:48 You always see how God kind of uses the cross to bring him closer to you, and that's what kind of happened to me. And it was around sophomore year of college that I just really honestly had a very powerful experience and encounter with the Blessed Virgin Mary and it was really beautiful through Our Lady of Fatima, and really ultimately what it did, is it brought me all she really did, is brought me so much closer to her son Jesus. And that was the initial start for me, like just realizing in a much more powerful and real way that I know God's real, I know his love is real and I knew that I wanted to be part of that love and receive and accept that love, and so it really started around that time. 02:27 - Speaker 3 So I don't have any Catholic background. Could you, if you're open to it, just share what was the struggling you were going through and what does it mean that she led you to Christ? 02:43 - Speaker 1 So well, what was started is that? To kind of give you some background, I have O, ocd and I didn't really know that I had OCD until during COVID really and really high helicopter view of what this is. Because, really misunderstood out there, a lot of people think OCD is just about, you know, keeping things clean or getting things in a row, and those are symptoms and aspects that could be part of it. But depending on your situation, it actually could be a lot worse. One way I like to explain it is that we don't realize it, but the human mind has many thoughts a day, as the human heart has beats. We're constantly thinking. This is why we dream at night. It's because our minds don't stop. For most people, without my condition, those thoughts will just go across the sky like clouds, like it's no big deal. But with some, with my condition, what could happen is that one of those thoughts could get latched into your thought process and you can't let it go. And, depending on how bad your situation is, that one thought no matter how irrational it is, unimportant it may be, actually is it gets lodged into your emotional state deep down and it can cause tremendous depression, tremendous anxiety and tremendous fear. So what happened to me? So I had that my entire life. So a lot of the suffering that I went through, I would say is normal aspects of what everybody can go through and suffer through, but for me, with my condition, it would be like times 50 because of the condition that I had. 03:55 So the particular time sophomore year of college just like anybody else, I want to get married, I want to have kids. I'm looking for love, intimacy, union, communion. I want to be seen. I want to have kids. I'm looking for love, intimacy, union, communion. I want to be seen, I want to be noticed. And up until my life, until then, I was really spoon-fed through. Our culture and all of us are is that you have to look a certain way and be a certain way to find the love that you're looking for right. So I was really vain. In a way, I was really working on my body image, working out all the time trying to, and what I was really just trying to do, of course, was just I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be loved, I wanted to be noticed. And right around sophomore year of college, I started to lose my hair, and at the time it was so devastating for me because I was, because the lie that was in my OCD and that's why I brought up the OCD was that was being kind of spoon fed to me is that now that I'm losing my hair, now that I'm going to be looking different than what the culture expects me to look, I'm not going to find the love that I'm looking for, I'm not going to be satisfied in that area and find my wife and have kids and all that type of stuff All lies. But I was convinced in it, which caused me to pray more and it was beautiful. 04:58 What happened when I was praying more especially through getting to know the Blessed virgin mary a little better. What ended up happening was I had this, this beautiful experience. I'm not a mystic. I didn't see her, I didn't hear her, but it was a very beautiful, real internal reality is that when I was praying one day, I encountered her love and it was so beautiful for me in this moment of my life where I felt so undesirable, I felt ugly, I felt like I'm especially women are not going to want to be with me or whatever. 05:27 Whatever the lives were being sunk, sunk in into my heart at that time. Here's the most beautiful woman that's ever existed, allowing me to encounter her love at a way, to the way that all I can explain of what I felt internally is that she was kind of telling me like how, not only she's like, I've chosen you, you are desirable, you are beautiful. Oh, not only she's like I've chosen you, you are desirable, you are beautiful, you are. And not only, more importantly, my son loves you more than you could possibly imagine. And she brought me to her son, and so it's this initial powerful experience that I had, through the suffering of feeling so unloved and so undesirable, and her revealing to me how desirable I actually am and how loved I am, beautiful I actually am. And then, when she brought me to her son God himself that even hit a different level, because we know that only God can satisfy the ache in the human heart for all the desires that we're looking for. And that's kind of like a health doctor view of what I experienced. 06:17 - Speaker 3 So I'm going to ask a question out of ignorance. When you say the Virgin Mary led you to her son, was this like in a dream or vision or a thought? Or you're reading something about the Blessed Virgin Mary Like what was the interaction? 06:30 - Speaker 1 Yeah, so at the time I was reading about Our Lady of Fatima. Basically, there was a book that I had about the different apparitions from Our Lady. That's been happening ever since, really since her son ascended into heaven, and there's documented apparitions like there's like Our Lady of Lourdes, where she appeared to Saint Bernadette, there's Our Lady of Guadalupe, when she appeared to Juan Diego, and one of them is Our Lady of Fatima, where she appeared to three children in 1917 in Fatima, portugal, and I was reading about that, and so there was this particular line where she, when she was speaking to the children and she asked the children are you willing to? There's like many different apparitions and many different conversations, but the particular one that affected me very powerfully is when I was reading about it is when she asked the children are you willing to suffer for the conversion of sinners and for reparation for sins committed against God and right. 07:17 When I read that line, all I can tell you is I felt this beautiful grace of love being like poured into my body. It was this warmth, it was this love. It was real. Of course, it was really the Holy Spirit, I think, with the understanding that it was a gift that was being granted to me through Our Lady and it just rocked my world, where I just felt the Holy Spirit's and the Father's love and Our Lady's love and Jesus' love so concretely, so powerfully in my heart and I just started to cry and bawl and it was so healing and refreshing and that was the initial encounter, if you will, that I had. It's like first I really encountered Our Lady and then all she did was bring me to her son and then, once you encounter the love of Jesus and God the Father, the rest is history. There's no turning back when your heart tastes that reality. 08:05 - Speaker 3 So something I never realized until last year reading the Gospels, was every time Mary is mentioned and the angel speaks to her. She treasured it, she considered it and she had this preciousness in her heart that I didn't realize when reading the Scriptures. Didn't realize when reading the scriptures and I mean I don't know how blasphemous or not it is in the catholic faith but I realized like, like, genetically, like jesus only had mary's dna right, so like, oh, that's where I feel, like that's where his heart came from, from his mother and the love and I was like, wow, that's why jesus was so compassionate, right and and so again, I'm just super curious at, like the Catholic doctrine of like what is like Because also, like how often is Joseph mentioned? 08:52 Because in the Protestant tradition it's kind of like an afterthought or like a nativity scene and then we never talk about Jesus' parents. But I realize the dynamic between a parent and a child is so important and Jesus being human, like that's a really important part that I feel like I never dove into a church, so could you kind of expound? 09:10 - Speaker 1 on that? Yeah, totally, it's a great question and it's so misunderstood out there. Because, you're right, we all know having a mother and a father is very important. It's part of the human experience, it's where we learn, it's where we are taught, it's where we learn, it's where we are taught, it's where our faith comes from, our knowledge comes from and it forms us to the human beings that we are. And it's also, if you realize it, it's where our confidence comes from. It's where our identity comes from. 09:33 And the Catholic Church. It's so important to understand that all the church in Christ was trying to do was to reveal the love of the Father. And then you also see that he gave his mother to us at the cross. You, when he said to john woman, behold your son, son, behold your mother. Right, he's trying to heal and establish the father mother wounds that started from the fall at the in the garden right. And so what happens is the closer you become to god, your true identity comes from that. 10:01 There's such a confusion of identity. There's a crisis in identity out there. We think identity is based off a job or sexuality or whatever, and now we see there's so many different misunderstandings of what identity is. But the reality is is that we are sons and daughters of a father right. We are brothers and sisters of Christ. We, when you understand the spousal analogy of the church, we are spouses of the Holy Spirit. That's who we are, that's our core identity, sons and daughters of a father. 10:26 Now, in order for Jesus as a human being to be formed, in that, even as God, god the Father purposely put him with St Joseph as an adopted father, with the Blessed Virgin Mary, and he was formed under the household of a father and a mother. And it's beautiful and that's where Jesus was taught all about God. And, of course, he was God and he knew a lot and he had different experiences than any of us, of course being God, but his formation came from Joseph and came from Mary, and so his confidence, his understanding of sonship, came from the beautiful relationship of being a son of St Joseph and a son of Our Lady, and that's very real and practical and very heavily involved in the theology and even the prayer life of the Catholic Church. 11:08 - Speaker 3 So one mind-blowing thing I saw this week and it's kind of crazy, because every time I do a podcast, god gives me something to use. On the podcast, this pastor was talking about Father's Day, but we don't honor stepfathers and he mentioned Joseph was a stepfather and I was like, oh my goodness, that's so true. Like to like love a son that is yours, but like you adopted. And then the whole idea of like the father in heaven adopting us, and it just culminated into this beautiful story. And the reason why I bring it up is like I want to ask you a personal question, like how is your relationship to your father and how has that like shaped? 11:41 - Speaker 1 you so sadly, my dad passed during COVID and he you know my relationship with my father growing up was very good, but it was also very broken, like like many of us. So, just like anybody else it was they had. He was such a good father in a lot of ways and a lot of ways through his own brokenness, as he was not such a great father and so that affected a lot. I mean it affected a lot of like the wounds that I have, the insecurities that I have, the weaknesses I have, and it's like it's not and it's not about like me not taking like it's. You know, it always starts from the fall Right, but my parents are a mess because their parents were a mess, because their parents were a mess and it goes all the way back to the Adam and Eve beginning and this is what Jesus came to try to heal. 12:26 So for my own father in life, I'm very, I'm so thankful for the faith, because what it taught me and what the father god, the father showed me is that to have that like he gave me great parents and that was a beautiful gift, but it was also broken parents, but he was like but that's okay, we all got, we're not supposed to. Necessarily we can't heal each other. We can heal each other, but only god can really do it. So what I'm trying to say is that when I got closer to God, the Father, and got closer to Our Lady as my mother, that's where a lot of my healing came from, from any brokenness that I experienced from my upbringing and weaknesses of that or any brokenness of that. But I had enough foundation of that understanding relationship that came from my parents. 13:03 - Speaker 3 Was there any specific thing that you were struggling with your father, so like with me? It wasn't until like a little bit after college, when I was like 21, 22, I saw my dad as a sinner like me. But I realized how much worse of a sinner I am because I know all my faults. So it kind of opened the door to be like more open to my dad. But it wasn't until like a couple couple years ago where I actively engaged in a relationship at 40. Um, it's just, I'm a slow learner and so like I realized, oh, how to love a broken man who I looked up as a father, but like there were again a mishmash of good and bad, but just honoring him was such a transformative thing for me too, of like, okay, I don't need him to be like our father in heaven, but I do need to honor him. And then honoring him I learned so much, so like I wonder how that resonates with you no, totally, and it's in the. 13:53 - Speaker 1 You know I was, I was studying to be a priest for many years and it was really during that period of time we're just like when my, my prayer life was deepening, my relationship with god was deepening, that there was a new level of compassion and empathy that I had towards both my dad and my mom, and it's like recognizing my own brokenness and where I need help and recognize, because you know, when you're a kid, like they're the authoritative figure and they're like you know they're, they're the be end and all. And then, and so it's easy to like get angry and frustrated for things that happened, but then it's like, no, they were just broken like anybody else, and it's like so the honoring of this is my dad, like this is the one that the God, the father, has chosen for my whole being to come through and with my mom and my dad and it's. And so, if anything, it changed. It gave me much more compassion, much more empathy, and in teaching me that like and it's also just like you know, I hope to be a father one day and recognize that I hope my kids if I, if, god willing, I, have kids is a similar aspect of like no, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna mess up as a father. All my wounds, all of my brokenness, all of my you know is gonna affect my kids, and I gotta recognize that and almost be okay with it, because we need a savior. 14:59 That's the whole point. Right, like if, if we could do this on our own, jesus wouldn't need to die on the cross. This is not a checklist to do. We can't do it. Jesus was clear, and so, in the theology and the beautiful understanding relationship with God, it takes off the pressure and it takes off the like I'm doing the best that I can with Christ by me, and that's good enough. And so that's what really helped me see that in my parents, especially when I was getting closer to God good enough. And so that's what really helped me see that in my parents especially when I was getting closer to God. 15:26 - Speaker 3 So one humbling moment for me was, again growing up, I had a lot of bitterness and like unforgiveness issues with my mom and dad. But then, as I turned 40, 40 is such a weird number because it's such a biblical number but, like I realized, oh man, a lot of my issues and weaknesses is also stemming from my parents, as in, like, I'm a lot like my dad, even though I don't want to admit it, and I'm a lot like my mom. And that was a humbling moment of like Danny, you're not better. You're like, literally, you have their DNA, so their issues are your issues. So I'm just curious to you, like, what are some of the good qualities and not so good qualities that you feel like, wow, I'm a lot like my parents? 16:03 - Speaker 1 I mean, both my parents were very loving and compassionate growing up and it's like so having that like my dad. Just it was the very small little things that he like he knew me very well and he knew what, like what made me happy and what made me calm. So he was attentive in areas that were really helpful to like to make sure that I felt safe, and then similar to with my mom. So like those, I think those are some qualities of attentiveness in a way that I got from my parents, but at the same time that's also when they were struggling with their own sin. Then that attentiveness went away and that's when I that's where a lot of my wounds came from, where it was just like because they weren't able to be there for me at this moment in a very crucial part of my life, or vice versa, you know, and and so that I can see that too it causes. 16:47 When I look at my, my upbringing, I can see the different aspects of my dad left for a little bit for like a year, kind of almost disappeared, like, and he was going through his own stuff and it was reconciled and everything ends up being okay. But that was a very formative year. You know it's and in the sense of like feeling unsafe, not sharing what's going on, you know. But then when he was back he was, he was able to help heal and be more attentive. So I see what it taught me, what they taught me just from my own experience, is that attentiveness is very important and being present is very important and knowing the person in front of you and making sure that your child's being seen is very important, and I experienced that just from the ins and outs of my parents. Do you have siblings? I is very important and I experienced that just from the ins and outs of my parents. Do you have siblings? 17:28 - Speaker 3 I have three sisters Older I mean. 17:29 - Speaker 2 I'm an only boy. 17:29 - Speaker 1 Yeah, so it was a tough childhood but I love it. Now They've taught me well. Yeah, I've got three. I have two older, one younger sister Totally, yeah, we do, especially the older that we get, we definitely do talk about it. And you know, like one of my sisters, like she went off to college. She just went off to college. She was in and out of the family. She was always my sister and always part of the family, but you could tell that she was kind of distant. That was her way of escaping and forming herself. Others handled it differently. We all handled it differently. The older you get, the more you become your own person and the more you're trying to even fit in the relationship of the family that you grew up in. So, yeah, no, we've definitely talked about those different aspects. 18:11 - Speaker 3 But that's also why I'm realizing more and more how crucial family is. Like you mentioned it, like God chose our family for us, like we honestly didn't even have a choice to be born, like we're born thrown into this, like you know, like mess. But even in in the common struggle, if you're able to kind of come together through the healing process, I realize healing together is actually the worthwhile thing about family. But I don't know how you, where you are with your family right now no, totally, and it's, you know it's. 18:38 - Speaker 1 It's harder the older you get, right, because I I got once. Two sisters are in pennsylvania so I only see them a few times a year. The the ones in Connecticut I see a little more often because they're closer to my mom, so we were able to get together for Christmas, like this past Christmas and stuff. So there's definitely I know just getting together and being together itself is healing. When it comes to just showing, Because with the family it's like I'm blessed that we're still all in contact, Because I know there's a lot of families out there, a lot of friends of mine, whose families they don't really talk and they don't really get together or there's some pretty bad breakups in the sense of like they're not even talking to each other because of a various thing that happened and I'm blessed that I don't. I'm still very much in contact with my sisters and my mom and I could tell every time we get together it's just we're all adults now and it's a different level of family and intimacy that's happening. 19:31 So what do you do for the St Patrick Cathedral? So, director of vandalization, which a lot of it involves, I run all the. There's like 70 plus electors here. So I do a lot of organizing that. There's a lot of Eucharistic ministers of the Holy Eucharist here, extraordinary ministers of the Holy Eucharist. 19:45 - Speaker 3 One second sorry, I don't want to cut you off, but you're using a lot of terms I'm new to, so if you can, just hand on. No, it's okay, it's brand new. 19:52 - Speaker 1 So basically, lectors are the like. We have about eight, seven to eight masses here every single day and we in the Catholic mass you have a lay person will do the readings, so they're known as lectors. So it's always usually a reading from the Old Testament and a reading from the New Testament, and the gospel is written by the priest at the Mass as well. So because of those eight Masses we have 70 lectors to be able to make sure that every Mass has somebody reading those readings With the Eucharistic Extraordinary Min ministry of the holy communion is that we also um at every mass. Uh, we pass out we the bread. We believe that the, the white host, literally becomes the body, blood, soul and divinity of jesus christ, god himself. We believe that it is actually jesus in the flesh and so everybody um is able to who's catholic receive the eucharist, because god is asking, asks us to receive them. At the last supper he he said you know, do this in memory of me and stuff the bread and the wine. And so we have lay people because there's so many people that there we help hand out the Eucharist to the other people in the church. Also, there's a lot of volunteers that I oversee, so there's a lot of homeless outreaches and everything from. You know we get 2,500 people at a mass. We get 2,500 people at a mass. We need 2,500 missiles to be able to put in the pews so they can read during the mass the different readings. So make sure all those keep changed throughout the year because there's different times and seasons. There's the Christmas season, there's the Easter season, but there are different readings. So it's quite an operation. When it comes to just having all that be organized, I mean just to give you an example in December we had 2 million people pass through St Patrick's Cathedral just in the month of December because everyone goes to see the Rockefeller Center tree and then they go see the creche and so all of our masses were just jammed packed, 2,500 people. 21:37 So just making sure that all that stuff is operational is part of what I do. So you're basically COO of the facial and there's other positions where people like there's people above me who are even more in that I'm more with the volunteers aspect of it, but there's like 90 people who work here. So there's even higher levels above me that are like really the CEOs and I'm kind of like more on the intricate of like lectors, ems, volunteers. It's like a niche in the make sure the operations run smooth in those areas. Are you still pursuing the priesthood? And to make sure the operations run smooth in those areas. Are you still pursuing the priesthood? So no, I left the seminary and I'm currently in the dating scene. So no, I'm discerning marriage now and pursuing marriage now. 22:14 - Speaker 3 So again, I love my questions around the ignorance. What is seminary of the priesthood like? Because I went to seminary and I was a pastor for a bit, but that's more on the Protestant side and the only real imagery I have is Father Stu with Mark Wahlberg and what he went through. So could you just describe what it's like and expectations and what you actually learned there? 22:34 - Speaker 1 Jared Dawes. It's really beautiful because what happens is when you're in seminary, what happens is there's a very important relationship aspect of the church. So when you become, if you put it this way, the main vocation for every single human being is marriage with God. And you see this biblically right. The Bible begins the marriage between Adam and Eve right, and it ends with the marriage between the new Adam and the new Eve in the book of Revelation right, and it's really beautiful. If you look at that as a whole, you'll see that God was trying to reveal to us the reality of this beautiful marriage, like in the Old Testament. You know hosea he talks a lot about how you know the jewish people was his wife and he was the bridegroom right and husband. And, like all that language in the new testament, we've all these analogies of trying to explain the relationship between god and man. We got vine and branch, sheep and shepherd. What's the most common analogy used? Bridegroom and bride. Where's jesus when he performs his first miracle wedding feast at cana? Not a coincidence. How is heaven explained in the book of Revelation as this huge wedding banquet? The marriage we're all looking for is marriage with God right, and he wanted that to be so clear and obvious to us. He creates male and female and he's calling us to marriage on earth. So in the Catholic church we believe that there's like three different aspects and paths to heaven, to that marriage with God. There's marriage between a husband and wife, a man and woman, and that's your path to the marriage. So the wife is supposed to help the husband to get to heaven, the husband is supposed to help the wife to get to heaven, becoming a total gift. And that marriage is going to lead you to the ultimate marriage. 23:57 If you become a priest in the Catholic church, you marry the church, your bride. This is why the church is called bride and this is why we call the priests father, because the marriage between the church and the priest is so powerful, beautiful, real, that they have numerous spiritual children being born, and that's why we call the priest father. And when you become a consecrated nun, who do you marry? Who is the woman marrying? But Jesus Christ, the bridegroom. This is why, even at their final vows, they wear a white veil, they wear wedding rings, and the love between the two is so powerful that numerous spiritual children are born. And this is why we call Mother Teresa Mother Teresa because she had numerous spiritual children. 24:37 So when you become a priest, what you start doing is you start dating the church, if you will, and so you're starting to. You're starting to discern the process of like, and it's on both ways. Am I called to the priesthood? And so it's an intense moment of giving your life to. But you're just dating. You're not signing your life away, you're not. You're not ordained. 24:56 It takes seven years, six years to become an ordained priest. Right, like it's a lot of study. So you're studying theology and so there's aspects. The four aspects that John Paul II really set up through the church is human formation, intellectual formation, pastoral formation, and I'm missing one of them. But basically it's like you hit each four aspects. So you put a lot of time into study, you put a lot of time into prayer, you put a lot of time on healing your own wounds. Become whole yourself, because you can't give what you don't have of time on healing your own wounds. Become whole yourself because you can't give what you don't have. If you're completely whole and broken, it's going to be very hard for you to minister and help people who are broken, not saying you have to be perfect and then all of a sudden you're but you know what I'm saying. So that's what seminary is. It's dating in the sense of the church and being around others who are forming you and helping you discern that process. 25:43 A lot of school, a lot of prayer experience, a lot of pastoral experience, going to nursing homes, going to hospitals, going to parishes, kind of living a life of a priest in a way, with being taught. Where do nuns get training? So basically, so it's a little different for them. They do have theology, but it's a different. It depends on the order. 26:05 So, for example, we have the sisters of life here in new york and we and mother theresa's nuns. They'll, they'll start living the life of a nun with with some, with schooling, with when they, since it comes to being taught theology, but it's really more the aspects of living the day in, day out, of living the life of a nun. And they even have a longer process where first years there's like the novitiate and this and there's different processes of like. You'll take vows for just a year or two and live that life and then you'll discern afterwards am I being called to this? Can I continue living this until your final vows are taken? Uh, so it's usually the area that that order is in, so in depending on in new york or california or florida, depending on where that order is, you get formed there. 26:47 - Speaker 3 I'm really curious as to what the Catholic perspective is on the Reformation. It's a great question, so basically, you know the church. 26:54 - Speaker 1 we always have to remember that the beauty of the church is that it's made with broken people. So what we believe, when Jesus says to Peter, you are, peter, on this rock, I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail and when he says, I give you the keys, it's a very important aspect for us because we know that we can't mess up the church unless we separate ourselves from the church. Right, because then that's the promise, because we're all broken, and thank God, because we're all broken human beings and God knows that we're all broken human beings. So we believe in the Catholic faith where there is a divine blessing, if you will, to like to make like no matter what the individual does, it stays as a whole when it comes to the fullness of the Roman Catholic Church and not just the Catholic Church. 27:39 So with Reformation, martin Luther I think he was right on a lot of areas where he, the church, individuals, the church, were doing a lot of messed up stuff and it was not OK Rightfully so was trying to point that out and get stuff fixed. Where I, where we, feel like he fell short is that he left the catholic church and instead of trying to heal it from within, he started his own thing and that, and so that's where we separate an opinion of like. That's where he fell short, but like, we all know that like individuals at that time especially, were doing some messed up stuff, stuff, and it needed to be pointed out and it needed to be fixed. And if you know church history, that's never going to go away. I mean, you see this in every aspect, every religion. There are some amazing priests and there are some not so amazing priests. There are some amazing bishops and there are not so amazing bishops, and that's just the human nature, the fallen nature of human. 28:28 - Speaker 3 so that's how we kind of look at the reformation when it comes to yeah, so the reason why I asked is because, like two years ago, I kind of had like reset everything that I knew about, everything, right, and then I just started with a simple name jesus historical figure, true, okay, read the gospels. 28:44 What did he say? I believe the scriptures are like faithful witnesses, and it like led me to this simpler understanding. And so then when I started getting to like the early church fathers and traditions and like the catholic church, something interesting like like a nagging question kept bothering me of like so like the united states, you know, one man's rebellion is another man's, like patriot right or revolution, and I was like, yeah, but if you're born out of rebellion, you know what happens your children are going to continue using that at the same cycle. So that brought me back to like the reformation of like maybe the split wasn't such a good idea, because now, when you see all the protestant denominations, they only exist out of splits. But the counterpoint that I'm still struggling with is, if there ever is this striving for a reunification with the church, right, catholic church, like is there ways to bring reform or is the catholic church? 29:39 because the catholic church is also very hierarchical and like governmental, like how do you see any possibility of reform happening together in compromise, or is this too far gone? 29:53 - Speaker 1 It's a really good question. There's different aspects of. Personally, I do a lot of documental work and I've been doing it for years and years and years, and I think it's very important to work together. And so, basically, the Catholic institution is the institution that Christ founded from the beginning, right 2,000 plus years ago. That has not changed at all. It's like it's still. We believe, the lineage is still there. So when a bishop gets ordained a bishop and he ordains priests, that blessing started with Jesus at the Last Supper making those men priests and making those men bishops. You know what I'm saying? And that's still there. 30:31 So there's only reconciliation when it's in the sense of like if a Protestant decided to come back into the fold of the Catholic Church, right. However, with that being said, that doesn't mean we can't work together, we can't love together, we can't be together and do ministry together. You know what I mean. So the theologies are always going to be what it is, because it's just and it kind of what you said. 30:52 Like once you split, that's part of the problem. Like, that's why I like when this with Luther, it's like once you split it, once you, that's it. You can split it a billion more times and that's what happened, right Cause like, why Like? Why not Like? If that's OK, then I can start my own church, you can start your own church, anybody can start their own church, right. And so that's, that's the, that's the divisions that happened and you're seeing that being filtered down through. But the good thing is, in a sense, is that the Catholic Church is still as solid as a rock. That's why he meant as from the beginning. But that doesn't mean again, I, we got to love each other. We we've got to start communicating, we've got to I'm so thankful for my pastor like my friends who are evangelical pastors and mormons and like and you know the other faiths buddhists. Like we've got to talk, we've got to love each other, like we are all human and we are all you know. 31:39 - Speaker 3 Yeah, I say there's only one kind of humankind right, like race is actually a man-made contract. Anyway, I might end this. But so I guess my question is so, like in the protestant tradition, like there's a lot of like denominations and theology, does the catholic church, by all the churches, abide by like one doctrinal thing given by um, or are sanctioned by the pope and the vatican, or are there different beliefs within the whole of the catholic church? 32:06 - Speaker 1 it's a good question. There's different beliefs, so basically there's also a big misunderstanding about when it comes to the infallibility of the Pope. When the Pope is infallible, when the process, it's only on faith and morals, right. So there's very specific things that will never change, because we believe that the Holy Spirit revealed that Christ is the way of the truth and the life and he reveals the fullness of the truth through the Holy Spirit and that's only faith. So that means that, like there's always certain aspects that are infallible, that will never change and can't change, for example, like the definition of marriage, man and woman, like there's a lot of confusion out there. It doesn't matter what Pope so-and-so says, or bishops, not everything they say is infallible. Only on certain aspects is he fallible, and that's usually with the other college of cardinals altogether. So there's that, that's that's the definitive. Then, when it comes to theology, there's there's like there's saint thomas aquinas, and there's a whole thomistic thought on different aspects of theology. There's also saint augustine, that's another. So there's thomists, there's aug, so there's Thomists, there's Augustine, there's all these different. 33:06 As long as you're on the boat, there's some freedom and you might not agree on every theological aspect. When it comes to like, for example, did Our Lady die or did she not die? And then was assumed we believe that she, she, we know that she is that she assumed into heaven, like that. That's the concrete, like theological, infallible realities that our lady is in body, soul and spirit in heaven right now. Did she die? How did that happen? What did that look like? St Thomas was saying this, st Augustine was saying this. So it gets into the nitty gritty of splitting hairs, but, like that stuff, there's freedom to like maneuver. 33:49 - Speaker 3 So I guess my main question is do all the parishes kind of believe in one thing, or is there's like different flavors? 34:03 - Speaker 1 in the main reality, that we we believe in the holy trinity, we believe jesus is the son of god, we believe that he is the way, the truth and life, the door that gets us to the father, all done through the power of the holy spirit. We believe that the eucharist uh is, is the body, blood, soul and divinity of jesus, that the seven sacraments are concrete, uh, portals of grace, of encountering god. There's so, within that there's like foundational principle, like if I go to mass here versus going to mass in Italy, even if it's a different language, I know what's going on. It's the same mass right Now. 34:28 There's different charisms that vary across the world and different parishes, like some are more into Mary theology, some are more into like there's different orders and there's different groups and there's different. Some are more charismatic, people are more inclined to pray in tongues and pray over people and have an experience, the Norvus Ordo Mass and that type of aspect. And then there's some who are more traditional, where it's more of the Latin Mass. They're being fed by the music, by the Latin, by the beauty of that, and both are okay as long as you're on the boat. So there's various sort of things like that. 35:03 - Speaker 3 no, that's helpful because in my mind I thought what you're saying is affirming what I thought was like the catholic church. We're talking about burgers, right? Catholic church is like mcdonald's like in different countries you'll have like the core menus are the same but other like add-ons, but in the protestant tradition they're all like different burger joints. That's why, like, it's a very different experience when you go to different churches of different denominations. But in the Catholic Church I guess you can, I can kind of see Catholic as like one denomination, right. 35:31 - Speaker 1 Exactly right, and that's. That's a great example. Like McDonald's, the core menus there there might be a variety of, like the toys are going to be different from you know, in the Happy Meal in Japan versus here, you know. So, yeah, that's exactly right. 35:44 - Speaker 3 A couple of last questions. Have you been to the Vatican Many times? 35:48 - Speaker 1 yeah, Many times. 35:48 - Speaker 3 Oh yeah, I've never been, so could you kind of share to somebody that's interested in visiting, like where I should go and also what is like the historical, like how did the Vatican become the Vatican? 36:00 - Speaker 1 the historical like how did the Vatican become the Vatican? It's good. I mean, I'd probably be able to do things probably much better historians out there to give the absolute details, but basically what we do know, what I know, is that, like so, peter was crucified upside down in Peter's square, and so that is the foundational where. So when Jesus says to Peter, you are the rock where I build my church, especially when he was crucified upside down, so right in the middle of the square there, we know Peter was crucified there and that's where a lot of the things were starting to get formed around that particular area in Rome. And then there's a lot of church history of when the Vatican was built, when and all that. So when you go, I mean, first of all, rome is just absolutely beautiful and if you're into history, the history there is just incredible. The church is there, uh, the, and so in the vatican, it's just we know that, it's just with the pope and the college of cardinals. 36:51 When there's any big when, when the pope calls everyone together, it always happens there. It's the central location, it's the central headquarters, if you will, of the all 1.5 billion catholics in the world. Right and the, and the pope is the, he's there, he's the c, you know he's the guy, you know um and so that. But like so, when you go in, you're going to see just the beauty of the history, of 2 000 years of art, of the structure, and you can. And, for example, when the new pope, whenever there's a new pope, it's the college of cardinals that get together and they get together in the sistine chapel and they vote right. And so you got to go see the Sistine Chapel and see the beautiful art, the Michelangelo, knowing that that was happening in that very sacred space. That's why they have such beautiful art there in such beautiful sacred spaces. And so I would go see, definitely go to the Vatican, go see the Sistine Chapel, see the different churches all around parts of Rome. There's so much to stew and see there. Thanks for that no, no. 37:42 - Speaker 3 I have another question. What was like the most profound thing for you, though, like personally um just going around? 37:49 - Speaker 1 I in the history. I mean, it's just, uh, just knowing that, like, for 2 000 years, the tradition of the church also, like, peter's bones are in under the main altar, right, and it's just like, and it's just to me. I'm a very literal person. At times I'm very like, concrete, like the beautiful. What I love about the sacraments, all this. 38:10 A sacrament is a physical sign that reveals an invisible reality, right, so, for example, for baptism, it has to be like and matter matters. 38:19 Because, like, we're human beings, right, we learn in and through the senses, through our physical touch, physical hearing, physical seeing. This is how it gets absorbed into our minds and hearts and we learn and we encounter and we grow in relation with each other. Right, and that's very important to me. And so, when it comes to the Catholic Church, that's what I love about the sacraments no-transcript was built around it and it's like, no, no, it's just beautiful to me, I think, because I, I like the, the tangible reality of it and the lineage from christ himself, and there's no break I need for me, I need that, I need it just, it makes because, like, what the heck do I know? 39:28 Like in the sense of like, I need a history of somebody who said who was god telling me what's what? Because I was born in 1981, influenced by my family, influenced by my culture, influenced by like what do I know? You know what I mean? It's just like like the relativism in a sense kind of drives me crazy in ways, cause it's like what's true for you is maybe not true for me, then what's true, and that's what I really appreciate when it comes to the church. I need that backbone of like, if that makes sense. 39:54 - Speaker 3 No, that makes complete sense, cause it's one thing to like believe in, like a concept, but when you actually see it in real life, it's like I tell people when they're following their dreams, and then when their dream comes true, you're just like astonished that like this idea you had is like in front of you and you could feel it and touch it and it's part of your life so I completely, and I think that's just how god created. 40:14 I feel like I created out of a self-expression, yeah, and so like for us to be part and touch. Because one last thing is this I feel like all of us who are like longing for love, right, no matter where we find it spiritually, I think there's always going to be a wound, and that's why marriage is so like beautiful, because there's another body that God provides where you could feel a physical presence until. Well, I don't know about the Catholic faith, but in the Protestant faith we believe Jesus is coming back bodily, right. Well, I don't know about the catholic faith, but in the proselytizing. 40:42 We believe jesus is coming back bodily right, and so we're gonna, yeah, and so we're gonna be reunited in a bottle form, and so that's why it's so important that like like, even like virtual church kind of like, rubs me the wrong way. I get sometimes we kind of have to do what we have to do but like right, there's a difference in like this physical presence that's so important for humans 100, and that's why the Catholic Mass has bells. 41:00 - Speaker 1 It's got smells, it's got incense, it's got water, it's got wine, it's got bread. We're hearing the gospel. It's a physical experience and it's very important. We stand, we sit, we shake. You know what I mean. It's all part of human experience and relation. 41:18 - Speaker 3 Yeah, I realize the five senses actually shape our sixth sense, which is the spiritual sense exactly so yeah, like we can go on the rabbit hole of that, but it's gonna go on forever. 41:27 - Speaker 1 Uh, last two questions what are you hoping for faithfully? I think it's great, I mean just having conversations like this and you can have conversations with people in like-minded fields who are not necessarily in your city, in your state and like, and so I think it's great, I think it's a great opportunity to uh to communicate, because communication is obviously we know it's extremely important, the more, like you know, I have a very good mutual friend of past, pastor adam durso. I, when I first uh, you know was a beautiful reality, like the first time I really met him and others was through the lewis palau, uh, when lewis palau was here in the city and when we first started, you know, you know, becoming friends, I think there was a lot of skepticism on his part towards catholics. And then he admits it and it's just like and, and I and I was just kind of like it's a little different for the catholic church because we're just like, we're, we're, you know, we're a little more open, I think, to then some some, because I think protestants some protest, protestant denominations are very strict on theology when it comes to so anyway, the point being that when I met with Adam, that relationship was me and him sitting down, talking and he got to a point one day. 42:34 It was so funny and beautiful and he tells a story. He was like man I don't even know how to say this, but I feel like you're more saved than I am story. He was like he's like man cause like I don't even know how to say this, but I feel like you're more saved than I am. It was like it was just a beautiful relationship, but that took communication, that took spending time. I think what this platform can do is help all different denominations get together, talk to each other and realize you're going to notice that 90 of the stuff we agree jesus, love the father you know we have the theology is always going to be separate, but like we can talk together, we can grow a relationship, we can work together, we can help people get closer to christ together last question how can we be praying for you and your family? 43:14 I mean, yeah, please pray for my work here at saint patrick's cathedral. A lot, a lot of people it's a lot of you know it's like a little diocese with itself. There's definitely spiritual warfare and it's all that stuff's very real. Of course, when a lot of people it's a lot of you know it's like a little diocese with itself, there's definitely spiritual warfare and all that stuff's very real. Of course, a lot of good things are happening with the prayer For my family. Yeah, just you know, just my family's going through whatever the family's going through, so just you know. More importantly, I really want my family, as it ended, to really encounter the love of God and so maybe just keep continuing praying for that, that they really encounter and know who they are as sons and daughters of a loving father, because it changes everything when you know you're loved. That's where healing begins, that's when your confidence starts coming in. I'm seeing that more and more in many different aspects of young adults, my family, so praying for that. 43:56 - Speaker 3 Thank you, that was great, amen, that's it for the podcast. Bye guys, okay. 44:23 - Speaker 2 Thank you for tuning in to the Faith you. That was great, amen. That's it for the podcast. Bye guys. Okay, volunteers. The Faithly Digital Platform offers innovative and practical tools and resources to enhance connection, foster collaboration and promote growth within the church and ministry space. Remember to subscribe, rate and review our podcast to help reach more listeners like you. Stay tuned for more uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. More uplifting tales from the front lines of ministry on the Faithly Podcast. Stay bold, stay faithful and never underestimate the power of your own story.