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8: Down To Earth – with Keith Nester
3 Plays1 year ago
Born again Catholic Keith Nester walks us through the key points of his conversion to the Way, the Truth, and the Life: Jesus Christ.
The website and resources referenced can be found here:
https://dbqarch.org/archdiocesan-euch...
https://www.eucharisticrevival.org/
Keith Nester
https://youtube.com/@KeithNester?si=E...
http://down2earthministry.org/
The Rosary Crew
https://youtube.com/@RosaryCrewwithKe...
Catholic Feedback Podcast
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLd1JNVhwUBcVVNGFgo4x0a6d_iXX5zLr0&si=cftiRQiP4rOQnhKa
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Hosts and Guest
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Speaker
you
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Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome once again to the DeBucharistic Revival podcast.
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Speaker
My name is Father Jacob Rouse, and I'm the pastor of Notre Dame Parish in Cresco, Iowa, and it is a joy to be joined by Father Kevin Earlywine.
Keith's Background and Conversion
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Father Kevin, can you explain who you are and where you're at?
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I'm your brother priest and co-host of this podcast.
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I'm Father Kevin Earlywine at St.
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Patrick's Catholic Church in Hampton and St.
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Mary's in Ackley, Iowa.
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And we, as the co-hosts, are blessed to be joined by a guest, Keith Nestor, who lives in here in the Archdiocese of Dubuque in the Cedar Rapids area.
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So, Keith, welcome.
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And if you want to give a little introduction to yourself, kind of where you're at and what you're doing these days, that sort of thing.
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Well, thanks for having me.
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I appreciate both of you guys for reaching out to me, fathers.
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And yeah, I live in Cedar Rapids, but I went to a school in Dubuque, actually, at University of Dubuque and University of Dubuque Theological Seminary up there.
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So I'm familiar with Dubuque and it's...
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It's an honor to be here.
Mission and Ministry Activities
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I am a convert to the Catholic faith.
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I came into the church in 2017 after 22 years in Protestant ministry in various roles and a few different denominations.
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So I am now I'm the executive director of down to earth ministry.
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which is a teaching ministry that is devoted to teaching the Catholic faith in a down-to-earth kind of way.
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People describe it sometimes as a practical rubber-meets-the-road sort of approach to the Catholic faith.
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I'm not...
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trying to be this deep theologian that's going to tickle the ears of everyone who wants to learn about what St.
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Thomas Aquinas had for breakfast on Tuesdays or anything like that.
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I like to talk about the scriptures.
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I like to pray the rosary with people.
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I like to share Catholic apologetics on more of a practical level and help people to...
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grow in their faith as best they can.
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My main mission, I would say, is to help people who have made the decision that they want to become Catholic to help them with that transition and also to help Catholics have a more deeper appreciation for what they have as Catholics.
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Speaker
That's excellent.
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Could you share a little bit more?
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What does some of that practically look like, that ministry?
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I know I've joined in.
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I know you have a YouTube channel where you pray the rosary.
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I've joined you for that.
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But what else does it look like?
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Is it like a podcast or episodes or traveling and giving talks or a combination of all of them?
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All of them.
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So I have two different podcasts.
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I have one that's monthly.
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It's called Catholic Feedback, where I will...
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Take an issue of Catholicism and connect it to everyday life.
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So I might do some devotional things.
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I might do some doctrinal things or an apologetics question.
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A lot of times I'll take questions from people or I'll interview guests and talk about those things.
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I also have a weekly podcast called Unpacking the Mass.
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where I walk through the readings for the upcoming week's Sunday.
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And it's basically a, it would be sort of the equivalent of what I would do as a Protestant pastor preaching on those readings.
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So that kind of scratches my preaching itch.
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But I tell people, I'm like, this is not to replace your priest's homily.
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It's to prepare you for it.
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So I just walk through the readings.
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And we talk through them or I talk through them and share some insights about them or some things that might help the person be prepared so that when they come to Mass for the main event to hear from their priest, they have ears to hear and a heart ready to receive.
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So that's
Journey to Catholicism
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every week.
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And then every day on the Rosary Crew YouTube channel, we pray the Rosary live stream every day.
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We've been doing that for almost four years every single day.
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And then I also make other content to related to different things related to the faith.
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And I have a couple of books I've written and I like to travel around and give talks and, and connect with people.
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So it's, it's, it's quite a bit actually, and it's evolved over the years, but it's a, it's a ton of fun.
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I'm absolutely honored to be able to do what I do.
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I love it.
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And I'm just so thankful for the opportunity.
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Mm hmm.
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Excellent.
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When I googled your name before the podcast, you know how they have those frequently asked questions, and then you can do a little drop down.
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One of them is, is Keith Nestor a Catholic?
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And I think we've unequivocally answered yes.
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But the fact that it's even being asked, I think it demands not an explanation, but what is kind of your journey?
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I guess you're
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Spark Notes version of how you said you were a Protestant minister for a while.
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What denomination and then what kind of led you to joining the Catholic Church?
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So I grew up the son of a Protestant pastor.
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My dad is a United Methodist pastor.
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He's retired now.
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So I grew up in the church, in the Methodist church.
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And eventually I'll kind of keep it, like you said, the Sparks note version.
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I went into ministry in 1995.
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I was like 20 years old and I became a youth pastor at a Methodist church in Davenport, Iowa.
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And I was there for 13 years.
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I loved it.
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And I was like on track to, to, to do other things, but I really like just loved being at that little church that eventually grew to a pretty big church.
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And while I was there,
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I did a lot of work with people that were coming into the faith, new people.
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And it amazed me how many people were coming in that said, well, we were Catholic, but we never heard about Jesus or read the Bible or anything like that.
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And that's what we seem to be getting here at your church.
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So I would say probably 80% of the people that joined our church as it began to grow would describe themselves as ex-Catholics.
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And my wife was that way.
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When I met my wife, she was raised Catholic-ish.
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in Philadelphia.
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She didn't really go to mass, but she went to Catholic school.
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And when I met her, I brought her with me to my Protestant megachurch I was going to.
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And she was like, this is awesome.
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I've never seen anything like this before.
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So she walked away from the Catholic church and we began our life together and our ministry together.
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Well, while I was there, I met a man in Davenport
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who was going to help me with some graphic design work.
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And when I went to meet with him, I noticed that in his home, he had all these Catholic looking things, you know, there were statues and icons and a little bowl of water by the door and all this kind of stuff.
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And I was like, what is the deal with this guy?
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But he talked like he knew Jesus, you know, he talked like me and he seemed to have this on fire faith in God.
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And so I just was like, okay, I got to ask you this question.
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What's with all this Catholic stuff?
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And he just,
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That question really changed my life because he had a conversation with me about his Catholic faith, and he was the first person that I ever met who was Catholic that knew his faith.
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And not only was he able to explain his faith to me and defend his faith from me, because I was like, I'm converting this guy.
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But he was able to challenge me in my faith with a lot of things that I had never thought of.
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So that opened the door to learning a lot of things about the Catholic Church.
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And it took a long time.
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I mean, it was quite the journey.
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Because for me, it was, you know, obviously to quit my job and upend my family would, you know,
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that's a lot.
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And there was some struggles with that, but ultimately I found myself in a place where I,
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I was dealing with a lot of the fallout in our Protestant denomination that comes from a lack of authority.
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And when everyone just sort of does their own thing in the faith and has their own version of Christianity, I knew that wasn't right.
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And those questions and watching the circus that was happening in my denomination and how it's splintered apart and all of that, it led me back to those conversations I'd had with my friend Devin
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And the things I'd learned about the Catholic church.
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And then ultimately I had a couple of what I don't know that I'd call them mystical experiences, but I had some pretty powerful experiences that go beyond just thinking about things that led me to a point in time where, you know, it was really through the Eucharist.
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I felt like the Lord was saying to me, okay, this is your moment.
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Are you going to do this?
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And that was in 2017.
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Yeah, that was a good year, by the way.
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I was ordained to preach in 2017.
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There you go.
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Awesome.
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Good things happened in that year.
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The Lord's at work.
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So obviously, we want to delve into the Eucharist and kind of
Perception and Challenges of Faith
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what led you.
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But before that, I'm always curious to hear a little more.
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What were some of your perceptions, especially with dealing with ex-Catholics and everything like that?
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what was your perception of Catholicism like?
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And particularly now that you are Catholic, some of the misconceptions, maybe you believe, you know, things you thought Catholics believe that you now maybe realize were erroneous and wrong.
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Like what was kind of your perception pre that experience with your friend Devin and the mystical experiences and stuff?
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Well, I believe that most Catholics...
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didn't really understand what it meant to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, that they didn't have a strong sense of, of the Bible and of a faith that was centered on Christ redeeming work that, that for Catholics, it was just simply a religion, a hollow religion.
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And it was, it was based around things that weren't really, uh,
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Central to the gospel.
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So to me, I kind of equated Catholicism with like first century Judaism.
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So when you see like how Jesus dealt with the Pharisees who were so concerned about following the rules, but didn't really love God.
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That's how I kind of viewed the Catholics.
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They had all these weird, goofy rules about...
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different feasts and things you could do and not do.
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And all these weird prayers, they had these statues and all this stuff that just seems so foreign to me from a biblical perspective.
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So I didn't feel like we were really part of the same thing.
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And it felt like, you know, in a lot of the churches that I went to, um, talked about how, um,
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Catholicism was just this hollow religious system.
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And what you really needed was conversion to Jesus Christ.
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And I saw those two things as being separate.
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And then, of course, you know, there were some doctrinal things that once I started having these conversations with Devin, where I was like, okay, I need to convert him.
00:10:56
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You know, I started to challenge him on things like the papacy on, on the Eucharist on, um,
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things like the Mary stuff, all these things that are sort of the normal run-of-the-mill Protestant objections.
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I walked through all of those.
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Speaker
But it was funny because Devin, he just sort of knocked those things down pretty quickly.
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Speaker
And what was really cool was he used the Bible to do it.
00:11:19
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And that's something that stuck with me.
00:11:21
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And I continue to do that to this day when I'm interacting with Protestants who are coming at me with their anti-Catholic arguments.
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So to me, when people are like, well, I'm not...
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I'm not, you know, on track with Catholicism because I'm a Bible-believing Christian.
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I said, well, I'm a Bible-believing Christian, too.
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Let's open the Bible together and let's look at it, you know?
00:11:41
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Yeah, yeah.
00:11:43
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I love that.
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I've used that language, personal relationship with Jesus Christ and conversion.
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And in my homilies and in my...
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my interaction with people too.
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Cause I, I love that, that when, when we come to the mother church, we see that both of those are there.
00:12:04
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I need, I need to be converted every day, you know, I need to be converted to Jesus Christ and the father's will.
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And he's the personal savior of my heart.
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At the same time, I have what I think is a very robust religious system that I ascribe to as well.
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And I think they can go hand in hand.
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And that's one of the cool things about belonging to the church.
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Yeah.
00:12:25
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Oh, I agree with that 100%.
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I mean, I think there are certain terms and terminologies that a lot of anti-Catholics have co-opted, and Catholics have bought into this too.
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I mean, you'll meet a Catholic sometimes who will say, well, I'm not Christian, I'm Catholic.
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Yes.
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And you're like, what are you talking about?
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Or they'll say, well, I'm not born again.
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I'm a Catholic.
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And we have these weird terms that we've assigned to various derivatives in the church or in Christianity as though they're not Catholic.
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But we as Catholics need to own those things because they started with us.
00:12:58
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Catholics are absolutely 100% called to be born again.
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That's what our baptism is about.
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We absolutely have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
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That's the Eucharist.
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I mean, how more personal can you get?
00:13:09
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And we absolutely are called to conversion and
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Absolutely.
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We are Christians.
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We are the original Christians.
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So I think we have to reclaim some of these things that we've surrendered over because of the cultural terminology, because these are things that are part of who we are.
00:13:32
Speaker
Amen.
00:13:32
Speaker
Yeah.
Family's Reaction to Conversion
00:13:34
Speaker
So speaking of that, yeah, if you wouldn't mind, let's dig in a little more and share a little more about kind of the nitty gritty of your conversion, as much as you're willing to share, of course, but especially with an eye towards what role did the Eucharist play in that, both during your conversion and then post becoming Catholic, you know, kind of your change in relationship with the Eucharist.
00:13:55
Speaker
Well, I think the Eucharist is one of those areas that when Catholics are interacting with Protestants who are very focused on the Bible, the Eucharist is a really great place to go to begin that conversation because the biblical language about the Eucharist is pretty hard to understand.
00:14:15
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to ignore.
00:14:17
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So when Jesus talks about my flesh is true food, my blood is true drink, and the whole John 6 discourse and the things in 1 Corinthians that talk about eating and drinking unworthily, there's a lot of biblical language that talks about the Eucharist.
00:14:31
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And of course, as it relates to the Passover lamb and those things, how it all goes together.
00:14:36
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So that's a gateway, I think, for
00:14:40
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for me when it came time to, well, where's that in the Bible?
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You know, every conversation is going to go there.
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When you're talking to someone who's not a Catholic, they're going to want to know where's that in the Bible.
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And one of the first things that you can do is take them to the Eucharist in the Bible.
00:14:55
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So that was something that helped me to open my eyes to viewing Catholicism and the Bible, not as though they were contradictory, but as though they went together.
00:15:06
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:15:09
Speaker
And then as I was walking through my own personal conversion journey, I was becoming more and more convinced that Catholicism was true.
00:15:18
Speaker
I was becoming more and more convinced that, that I couldn't stay where I was, but I had a lot of unknowns.
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I had a lot of, of things that I wasn't sure how they were going to fit together.
00:15:29
Speaker
And I remember, um,
00:15:34
Speaker
I had a conversation with my dad one time about this and he just said to me, Keith, you just can't quit your job and become Catholic.
00:15:40
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You know, there's gotta be a way like you, I think he understood that I was there theologically and spiritually, but practically, what does that look like for a guy in his early forties with three kids and a career in ministry and not much else that he can do?
00:15:55
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What does that look like to just walk away
00:15:58
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and become Catholic.
00:16:00
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So I had this floating around in my mind of, okay, well, what's the way, what's the way?
00:16:06
Speaker
And I had an experience where I woke up one morning and the Lord put something on my heart that I couldn't get out of my mind.
00:16:19
Speaker
And he put Steve Ray on my heart.
00:16:22
Speaker
See, if you don't know who Steve Ray is, he's a convert to the Catholic faith.
00:16:25
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I'd watched a couple of his videos on YouTube.
00:16:28
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he's really like a maniac for the Catholic faith.
00:16:30
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He was an anti-Catholic Protestant Baptist, and then he became Catholic.
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Speaker
And now he's, he's on fire for his faith.
00:16:36
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And I'd watched a couple of his videos, but I didn't really know him or much about him.
00:16:40
Speaker
And I just felt like the Lord was saying, you need to talk to Steve Ray.
00:16:42
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You need to talk to Steve Ray.
00:16:44
Speaker
And I was like, that's just strange.
00:16:45
Speaker
What am I going to do with that?
00:16:46
Speaker
I don't know how to get ahold of him.
00:16:47
Speaker
Well, that evening I was scheduled to have dinner with one of my friends who's a Catholic and
00:16:52
Speaker
in Iowa city.
00:16:53
Speaker
And I drove down from Cedar Rapids.
00:16:54
Speaker
He drove over from Davenport and we met at this, at this place in Iowa city.
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Speaker
He walks in before he sits down.
00:17:01
Speaker
He, his wife texts him and says, show this to Keith.
00:17:04
Speaker
Steve Ray is going to be in, you know,
00:17:07
Speaker
in Sylvis, Illinois tonight, you guys need to go.
00:17:10
Speaker
And I flipped out, you guys.
00:17:11
Speaker
I was like, oh my goodness, I have to go to this.
00:17:13
Speaker
And I told Greg, I said, that morning I had this thing with the Lord.
00:17:17
Speaker
So long story short, we got in the car, we drove all the way over to Sylvis, Illinois, Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish.
00:17:23
Speaker
They're having mass as we go in before Steve's talk.
00:17:27
Speaker
And I'm just like gutted by this at this time.
00:17:30
Speaker
I've really been through a lot of things in my life and in my ministry and this journey.
00:17:34
Speaker
I'm skipping kind of to the end here.
00:17:36
Speaker
And
00:17:37
Speaker
I went up to receive my blessing because, of course, I couldn't receive the Eucharist.
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Speaker
And as I went up there, I crossed my arms.
00:17:45
Speaker
Father Peter gave me a blessing.
00:17:48
Speaker
And I went over to the side, and I just knelt down.
00:17:54
Speaker
I hit my knees, and I looked up at the crucifix.
00:17:56
Speaker
And this is why people are receiving the Eucharist.
00:17:59
Speaker
And I prayed this prayer.
00:18:00
Speaker
I said, Jesus, if you want me to become Catholic, I will do it, but you've got to make a way.
00:18:05
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:18:06
Speaker
And like, this is one of those experiences I'm talking about from the, the, the, the crucifix as people are receiving the Eucharist right next to me.
00:18:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:16
Speaker
He spoke to me and he said, I am the way the truth and the life.
00:18:22
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You don't need me to make a way.
00:18:24
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You just need me.
00:18:26
Speaker
And it was like, at that moment, I'm seeing the Eucharist right there.
00:18:29
Speaker
And I'm recognizing that look, all of the things that I'm worried about,
00:18:34
Speaker
all of the things that I want to have figured out before I can do this, none of those things matter as long as I get to receive Jesus in the Eucharist.
00:18:42
Speaker
If I get Jesus in the Eucharist and I lose everything else in my life, I win.
00:18:48
Speaker
And that's what I understood discipleship to mean forever, right?
00:18:52
Speaker
Jesus above all.
00:18:53
Speaker
But when he was revealing himself to me through the Catholic faith and in the Eucharist specifically, he was saying, well, here I am.
00:19:00
Speaker
You know, here I am.
00:19:02
Speaker
I'm here for you and I'm available to you, but you've got to turn your back on everything else.
00:19:06
Speaker
You got to walk away.
00:19:08
Speaker
And Jesus says, you know, whoever puts his hand to the plow and turns back is not fit for service in the kingdom.
00:19:12
Speaker
And I was really put on the spot with that.
00:19:14
Speaker
Like, okay, if you're the way.
00:19:16
Speaker
And I just need you, and you're available to me.
00:19:19
Speaker
That's the beautiful thing about the Eucharist, is that it's not this lofty pie-in-the-sky thing that's inaccessible to us.
00:19:27
Speaker
Jesus makes himself accessible to us in the Eucharist every single day.
00:19:31
Speaker
The only thing keeping us from him is us.
00:19:34
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:19:34
Speaker
He's holding nothing back from us.
00:19:36
Speaker
We all say, I want more of God.
00:19:38
Speaker
I want more of God.
00:19:39
Speaker
You have as much God as you want because he's offered you everything.
00:19:43
Speaker
And I recognize that in the moment in that Eucharist.
00:19:46
Speaker
And that was the night I told, I told my friends, we were driving home.
00:19:49
Speaker
I said, that's it.
00:19:50
Speaker
I got to do this.
00:19:51
Speaker
And I went home that night and I told my wife, I said, Hey,
00:19:56
Speaker
you know, I have to, I have to quit.
00:19:58
Speaker
I have to become Catholic.
00:19:59
Speaker
I don't know what's going to happen.
00:20:00
Speaker
I don't have, I don't have the answers, but I know that I have the answer in Jesus Christ in the church.
00:20:06
Speaker
So I'm sorry, I started preaching there a little bit.
00:20:09
Speaker
That'll happen.
00:20:10
Speaker
That's beautiful.
00:20:11
Speaker
No, thank you.
00:20:11
Speaker
I think that's, I'm so glad whether your, your father used the language explicitly or not, or it was implied, he said, or just, it was in your heart.
00:20:20
Speaker
It's not practical.
00:20:22
Speaker
And that's so true.
00:20:23
Speaker
I think of the apostles.
00:20:24
Speaker
I mean, in the readings this Sunday, Peter, we talk about his mother-in-law, which means that he had a wife.
00:20:29
Speaker
And you could say that for all the apostles who, when he said, follow me simply, oh, it's not practical.
00:20:36
Speaker
We got boats.
00:20:37
Speaker
We got dirty nets.
00:20:38
Speaker
We got to clean.
00:20:39
Speaker
Like, it's not practical.
00:20:40
Speaker
Of course, it's not practical to follow Jesus and completely turn your life around.
00:20:44
Speaker
And what I also like is I'm sure there's plenty of opportunities in your before your catechesis to the Catholic Church is you you probably were all trusting of if the Lord led you to do something crazy, like build another youth room or expand the church parking lot.
00:21:03
Speaker
You'd be like, OK, Lord, you're going to provide.
00:21:05
Speaker
I know.
00:21:06
Speaker
But to actually like change lanes and change your your creed in a way, that's that takes a lot of faith as well to completely jump to another place.
00:21:17
Speaker
I'm curious what what relate you've mentioned your father and then your wife's faith journey as well for our listeners who could be anything from a.
00:21:26
Speaker
you know, one of your former congregants, or it could be devoutly Catholic themselves, but what kind of relationship, either positives or troubles?
00:21:34
Speaker
Because when I'm sure the apostles themselves had people that were like, are you crazy?
00:21:38
Speaker
You're going to follow that nutty rabbi?
00:21:40
Speaker
Are you sure?
00:21:42
Speaker
Or some people embraced it wholeheartedly.
00:21:43
Speaker
Have you had any positive or negative experiences with relationships?
00:21:47
Speaker
Oh, yes.
00:21:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yes to all that.
00:21:51
Speaker
You know, my dad has sort of, I mean, he kind of accepts it and we're fine.
00:21:57
Speaker
He doesn't agree with it.
00:21:58
Speaker
We will have our kind of theological tussles here and there.
00:22:02
Speaker
But on the whole, I think he understands that this is what I'm doing because I feel this is...
00:22:10
Speaker
this is the most faithful way I can be a disciple of Jesus Christ.
00:22:13
Speaker
So he doesn't like, he's not like disowned me or anything like that.
00:22:17
Speaker
My wife, when I went home and told my wife who, you know, she was raised Catholic.
00:22:22
Speaker
She had a lot of baggage from the Catholic church.
00:22:24
Speaker
She did not have a great experience growing up in Northeast Philadelphia, Catholic education, you know?
00:22:32
Speaker
And she loved our church experience.
00:22:34
Speaker
She loved our life.
00:22:35
Speaker
She loved our faith.
00:22:36
Speaker
She loved being the pastor's wife, you know, and all of that.
00:22:40
Speaker
When I told her I got to do this, she just kind of looked at me and said, well, I'm very proud of you.
00:22:47
Speaker
You know, I've seen that you have been searching for God and that you're for you to be willing to do this.
00:22:51
Speaker
Something must be going on because she knew how important my ministry was to me.
00:22:55
Speaker
She knew that that was my identity and that was my life.
00:22:57
Speaker
And she'd seen me kind of struggle through this for a while.
00:23:00
Speaker
And so she said, I'm going to go where you go.
00:23:05
Speaker
And, and so she, she,
00:23:08
Speaker
basically reverted when I converted.
00:23:13
Speaker
But I will tell you this, it wasn't easy for her.
00:23:16
Speaker
She really struggled.
00:23:17
Speaker
It was not something she did because she wanted to become Catholic.
00:23:21
Speaker
It was something she did because she felt it was the right thing to do as my wife.
00:23:26
Speaker
And,
00:23:27
Speaker
That led to her own journey, which is that's its own story right there.
00:23:31
Speaker
And that's, you know, if you ever want to see her story, it's on my YouTube page.
00:23:34
Speaker
Also, it's called my side of the story, which hurt her side, you know, like Father Chris would tell me all the time when we would meet with when he would meet with Estelle and I, my wife, he would say her story is the real remarkable one.
00:23:47
Speaker
You know, he's like, you're just another one of those Protestant guys who read the church fathers and like kind of went, oh, that's cool.
00:23:53
Speaker
He's like, her story is the one that really is like has the power.
00:23:56
Speaker
And I think he's right.
00:23:58
Speaker
She had about.
00:24:00
Speaker
about a year of wrestling with God and all of that before the Lord did some pretty amazing things in her life to bring her into the faith as like in her heart.
00:24:11
Speaker
So it was tough though.
00:24:13
Speaker
You know, we had three teenage kids at the time that grew up only...
00:24:18
Speaker
going to church with us as pastors, kids, and they didn't understand.
00:24:21
Speaker
And they were like, what is this?
00:24:22
Speaker
They didn't, they didn't like it.
00:24:24
Speaker
They were like, we don't like this.
00:24:25
Speaker
Can we go back to our old church?
00:24:27
Speaker
And, you know, cause we couldn't just say, Hey, guess what?
00:24:29
Speaker
You guys are all Catholic.
00:24:30
Speaker
I mean, my kids were like 15, 17 and 18, you know?
00:24:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:35
Speaker
So, and they're still not Catholic.
00:24:36
Speaker
So there's, there's a lot of, of,
00:24:40
Speaker
you know, a lot of prayers and our family about that.
00:24:43
Speaker
But, um, and I, and I, you know, I've like a lot of people who go through something like this.
00:24:47
Speaker
I've, I've lost friends.
00:24:49
Speaker
I've kept friends.
00:24:50
Speaker
I have some people who don't know what to do with me.
00:24:52
Speaker
I have some people who think I'm crazy.
00:24:54
Speaker
And I have some people who are just like, Hey, Keith, whatever, you know, it's about Jesus.
00:24:58
Speaker
We don't care.
00:24:58
Speaker
We love you.
00:24:59
Speaker
So the gamut has been run with all of that.
00:25:05
Speaker
Wow.
00:25:06
Speaker
What a journey.
00:25:08
Speaker
Oh,
00:25:09
Speaker
Well, I wanted to go back a little bit to something you said.
00:25:12
Speaker
Thank you again for sharing.
00:25:13
Speaker
Sure.
00:25:13
Speaker
And, you know, prayers for your family and ongoing journey and everything.
00:25:16
Speaker
And it is a journey.
00:25:19
Speaker
But you said earlier at the beginning just about the biblical roots of the Eucharist.
00:25:23
Speaker
And I just wanted to highlight that again because I've found that to be such an amazing thing to discover because I think sometimes going into it, people can think Catholics just, you know, like our understanding of the Eucharist is something that we just developed in the Middle Ages, right?
00:25:38
Speaker
And then I remember when I was a young, clueless seminarian, a priest said to me, Father Dave Schatz, then vocations director of the archdiocese, he said something to me to the effect of I was doing some like independent little Bible study with him during one of our winter breaks at college.
00:25:57
Speaker
And I didn't have a class.
00:25:58
Speaker
So he's just he had this little independent Bible study thing for me.
00:26:01
Speaker
And he said something to the effect of you can't read the word of God apart from the Eucharist.
00:26:08
Speaker
I just thought at the time being a clueless seminary, like, you know, I hadn't, I was still in philosophy.
00:26:12
Speaker
I hadn't studied theology.
00:26:13
Speaker
I'm like, I thought that was a really weird statement.
00:26:15
Speaker
I'm like, what do you mean?
00:26:16
Speaker
Of course you can't, you know, like study the word of God.
00:26:18
Speaker
There's plenty here to study, whatever.
00:26:19
Speaker
He's like, you can't study it or understand.
00:26:22
Speaker
I forget exactly how he worded it, but, but really you can't read the word of God without the Eucharist.
00:26:26
Speaker
I'm like, that's weird.
00:26:27
Speaker
It wasn't until many years later that I really discovered what he meant, because then I started, like, I remember then studying what is the biblical roots of the Eucharist.
00:26:36
Speaker
And it was then, like, mind-blowing where I realized how much this really does tie, like, take, is so deeply rooted in the Word of God and, like, brings the entire story of all the covenants and...
00:26:47
Speaker
Like, you know, everything from going all the way back to, you know, like Cain and Abel making offerings to God of grain and of bread and like, and, you know, and all these images of offering, you know, and that Melchizedek's blessing using bread and wine to bless, to bless Isaac, excuse me, bless Abraham.
Biblical Roots and Church's Human Flaws
00:27:05
Speaker
And then just so and then like Abraham making peace with his father-in-law Laban by having this this prayerful covenantal meal where they eat a meal together and just like all this imagery of sacrifice, of making offering, especially grain offering and of course, offering of animals as well.
00:27:21
Speaker
And just like the closeness to bread and wine and connected with all that, like those images of sacrifice and offering.
00:27:27
Speaker
And of course, the Passover being a huge part of that, the Paschal lamb, which really ties a lot of stuff in the Old Testament together and the offering of sacrifice.
00:27:35
Speaker
And then, of course, how Jesus then established the Eucharist in a Paschal meal in the Passover meal.
00:27:40
Speaker
And then, of course, his own offering on the cross.
00:27:42
Speaker
It was just like...
00:27:44
Speaker
mind-blowing and and and also just the biblical understanding of how god was present in those things and how jesus like was taking all of that and this covenantal language and said this is the the meal of the new covenant right take this all of you this is my body this is my blood i myself am the sacrificial lamb at the passover meal establishing the new covenant and this is how you partake of the new covenant um you know and then of course real presence jesus really truly present in that and
00:28:08
Speaker
So many layers.
00:28:08
Speaker
And it was just mind blowing how much that just brought it all together, you know.
00:28:14
Speaker
And so, yeah, I just you mentioned that and it just like that that strikes a chord with me.
00:28:19
Speaker
And I found that to be really true.
00:28:21
Speaker
Like when you start talking about the biblical roots of it, people begin to realize how deeply biblical Catholicism, specifically through the Eucharist, is.
00:28:30
Speaker
Amen to that.
00:28:31
Speaker
Amen to that.
00:28:32
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:33
Speaker
It's crazy the things that you experience like that when you see it, you can't unsee it.
00:28:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:28:41
Speaker
And that's what I've discovered.
00:28:42
Speaker
It's like when I see those things in the text and other things in the text too that are so Catholic, I just kind of look at them.
00:28:49
Speaker
I'm like, how can we be missing this?
00:28:53
Speaker
But it just reveals that
00:28:55
Speaker
people approach the Bible through the lens of what they already bring to the table.
00:29:01
Speaker
And a lot of people are taught their particular interpretations by those who have them.
00:29:08
Speaker
So if you grow up in a, in a, let's say you grow up in a, um,
00:29:13
Speaker
like a Pentecostal charismatic kind of a upbringing, you're told certain things about certain interpretations that are going to lead you to believe that verses mean this or verses mean that same thing with reform theology or Armenian theology or whatever it is.
00:29:30
Speaker
And, and when we, when we come to the table with those things as Catholics, we have something that the others don't in the fact that we have the authority of the church and
00:29:43
Speaker
Because Catholicism isn't just another denomination.
00:29:46
Speaker
That's another thing that I think people have to understand is that the Catholic Church is not just one of all of these different denominations that exist and you just kind of go eeny, meeny, miny, moe, this one.
00:29:59
Speaker
The Catholic Church is the denominator.
00:30:01
Speaker
It's the one that everything else split apart from.
00:30:03
Speaker
And that's just objective truth.
00:30:05
Speaker
That's something that people have to recognize.
00:30:10
Speaker
And I know people will try to
00:30:13
Speaker
quibble with that.
00:30:15
Speaker
But you get into conversations about objective history and things, whether you believe it or not, there's no question that early Christianity was the Catholic Church.
00:30:26
Speaker
So I think that gives the Catholic Church
00:30:31
Speaker
something to bring to the table that these other denominations don't have when they try to say, but the Bible says this, the Bible says that.
00:30:38
Speaker
It's that authority that Christ gave to his church.
00:30:42
Speaker
So that sets the context for how we even read those texts.
00:30:50
Speaker
I'm glad you brought in the, not only the authority and authority is, I think that word itself can have some baggage because authority implies being told what to do, but actually it's a,
00:31:01
Speaker
It's guidelines, you know, it's how we interpret things and it keeps us safe and in line, I think.
00:31:07
Speaker
But how did you deal with the human side of the church?
00:31:11
Speaker
I remember in a philosophy class my freshman year at a community college, anytime religion brought up, got brought up, there's one classmate that said, well, yeah, that's irrelevant because of the Crusades.
00:31:23
Speaker
And I wish I I'm glad I didn't know at the time, but I could have said once I actually learned like, well, which crusade there was 10 of them and they each have different intentions.
00:31:33
Speaker
But there's when you bring in the church and the history and all the fallen men who've led it, you know, like how did you did you have to personally like wrestle with that kind of thing?
00:31:43
Speaker
Well, I think, I mean, obviously nobody likes that there are sinful human beings that occupy places of authority in the church, but that's always been that way.
00:31:54
Speaker
And here's the other thing.
00:31:57
Speaker
Everybody has that.
00:31:58
Speaker
So there's no organization or group that can say that every part of their group is all perfect.
00:32:06
Speaker
No one has that.
00:32:07
Speaker
And that's never been the claim of the Catholic church, which I think is the most important thing to say is that the church has never claimed to be impeccable from a personal standpoint of the people who are in charge of it.
00:32:20
Speaker
What's, what's, what's different about Catholicism is that it has the truth.
00:32:25
Speaker
Right.
00:32:26
Speaker
and the fullness of the truth.
00:32:28
Speaker
But the human element is troubling to people.
00:32:31
Speaker
It really is.
00:32:32
Speaker
And it's troubling to me too.
00:32:34
Speaker
But it's not just about the big things of sinful bishops and popes over the years.
00:32:41
Speaker
That's all there, obviously.
00:32:44
Speaker
The thing I struggle with more is the human element just within my own heart of what I'm bringing to it.
00:32:51
Speaker
Because I go, man, how can I be Catholic when I struggle with things?
00:32:55
Speaker
Or
00:32:56
Speaker
You know, being Catholic, does that mean that we all have to get along with each other?
00:33:01
Speaker
And when we see human beings are still human beings just because they're Catholic, and we have to remember that.
00:33:07
Speaker
But it does make it tougher.
00:33:09
Speaker
But we have this goal to strive for holiness, and at least we have a standard of what that is in its fullness.
00:33:17
Speaker
So I think that we have to remember that
00:33:21
Speaker
This is nothing new.
00:33:22
Speaker
I mean, the angels in heaven rebelled, a third of them.
00:33:25
Speaker
So free will and rebellion goes all the way back to before we were even a thing, human beings.
00:33:32
Speaker
And it's never not been that way.
00:33:33
Speaker
So I don't think it's fair.
00:33:36
Speaker
to make Catholicism bear the brunt of that argument of, well, because of the Crusades, Catholicism can't be true.
00:33:44
Speaker
When for that matter, you could say, well, then the nation of Israel couldn't be true either.
00:33:48
Speaker
Or the disciples of Jesus couldn't be true because we have Judas and we have Peter and we have, you know, James and John arguing with each other.
00:33:56
Speaker
I mean, everywhere you look where there are human beings, you're going to have that.
00:34:00
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:34:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm really glad you brought that up because it's everyone who's listening right now has their own journey, no matter if they feel like they're home in the church or if they're struggling with very real reality of religious trauma.
00:34:14
Speaker
it's, it's not, it's not a book that you can read.
00:34:16
Speaker
I mean, you can throw a catechism at someone and tell them to read it cover to cover, but every single person's journey.
00:34:21
Speaker
And that's where we come back again to the personal relationship with Jesus through the Holy spirit.
00:34:26
Speaker
You're being led to discover the truth that subsists in the Catholic church through your own.
00:34:33
Speaker
It's like when the Jesus heals the blind, one of the blind men, he sometimes he just raises his hand and speaks from across the yard.
00:34:41
Speaker
And another time he,
00:34:43
Speaker
He has to try a couple of times and spit and make mud.
00:34:46
Speaker
And that's what I think is cool about not only our healing, but also our journey is so individual and so unique.
00:34:52
Speaker
And yours obviously is unique as well as Estelle, your wife.
00:34:57
Speaker
And just adding on to the human baggage, I sometimes have people tell me, well, Father, I don't like to go to Mass because there's all these sinners there.
00:35:05
Speaker
And the snarky side of me wants to be like, oh, and you're so great to deal with yourself.
00:35:11
Speaker
But exactly to your point of like, that's what I tell people too, is like,
00:35:15
Speaker
Why I need, you know, because some people say spiritual, but not religious.
00:35:18
Speaker
And I'm like, but that's why we need mass.
00:35:20
Speaker
Like, it's exactly for me, it's going to mass and like, because I, I now have a philosophy and a theology degree.
00:35:27
Speaker
So I'm really good at justifying my own sinful, selfish vices, right?
00:35:31
Speaker
Because I can put a nice theological veneer on it to justify whatever I want, basically.
00:35:37
Speaker
So having this thing outside of myself that is the Catholic religion, the mass, you know, that that calls me outside of myself, it pulls me these prayers given to me, this tradition given to me that that pulls me outside of myself that calls out my sinfulness and and is constantly pulling me outside of myself and putting me in community with other people that I have to learn how to love.
00:35:56
Speaker
Right.
00:35:57
Speaker
Because it's really easy to love someone if you never, ever have to deal with them.
00:36:00
Speaker
Right.
00:36:01
Speaker
Yeah.
00:36:02
Speaker
Like I'm really good at loving my neighbor if I see them only once a year.
00:36:06
Speaker
um you know and i or i don't have to deal with them the daily grind of life right um so anyway so just like to that thing of like it's it's like that i see like the church and the mass it's like it's the forge where sinners are uh you know being made forged into saints and it's uh but we're still in the midst of the process and to go really biblically i'm currently doing a bible study in my parish we're going through genesis right now in exodus
00:36:30
Speaker
And one thing I talked about with Genesis is it's not a book of saints like we think of like a modern book of saints.
00:36:36
Speaker
In other words, here's a bunch of really sinful, broken, fallen people, sinful humanity that God then engages with who literally wrestle with God.
00:36:46
Speaker
Right.
00:36:47
Speaker
And so I keep talking about how we just finished Jacob, a.k.a.
00:36:50
Speaker
Israel, and how he and I said how basically how Jacob is a lying, cheating scoundrel.
00:36:56
Speaker
who God made into a man of God through these encounters with him.
00:37:00
Speaker
But it's like, but we see the messy journey, right?
00:37:03
Speaker
That he wasn't always a likable guy.
00:37:05
Speaker
And you can, I mean, pick whatever biblical person, David, you know, King David and so on, that engages our sinful humanity.
00:37:13
Speaker
So...
Encouragement for Protestants and Catholics
00:37:15
Speaker
So I have two follow up questions for you, Keith.
00:37:18
Speaker
Number one, what would you say?
00:37:21
Speaker
So like if it's say there's maybe someone who's Protestant who's listening, someone not Catholic, they love their church, they're going to it's beautiful, it's good.
00:37:30
Speaker
Um,
00:37:31
Speaker
What would you say to them of why they should consider Catholicism leaving their big, beautiful church with their super immersive community is great preaching to go down the road, say to the, you know, the small Catholic church down the road that's small and got a bunch of old people and maybe has boring homilies.
00:37:48
Speaker
That's a great question.
00:37:50
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:51
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:51
Speaker
I mean, I almost said, well, that's what I had to do.
00:37:53
Speaker
But our church is not small with boring homilies.
00:37:57
Speaker
My Catholic church is awesome.
00:37:58
Speaker
But that's what we're there.
00:38:00
Speaker
What you described is unfortunately what a lot of people talk to me about.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:07
Speaker
And, you know, it's and I'm not here to cast aspersions on, you know, the liturgy wars and all that kind of stuff and what the church needs to do.
00:38:16
Speaker
I have no say in what the church does, but I have a say in what I do.
00:38:22
Speaker
and what I want to do is I want to worship God in spirit and truth, and that means the fullness of the truth.
00:38:28
Speaker
That means I want to have as much of him as I can possibly have, and it's not about what I prefer or what gratifies me in my preferences.
00:38:40
Speaker
It's about what's true, and to me, that's where we have to have that conversation, and it might be tougher for you
00:38:49
Speaker
to walk through that practically because it's going to be hard to make that move.
00:38:54
Speaker
Now, what I'll also tell you is this, what you're going to experience even in
00:39:01
Speaker
I don't know.
00:39:02
Speaker
I hate saying this, but I think you guys all know what I mean.
00:39:04
Speaker
Even in the worst Catholic church.
00:39:06
Speaker
Okay.
00:39:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:39:07
Speaker
Like, and when I say that, I'm not talking about like a bad, I'm just talking about compared to your experience as a Protestant.
00:39:13
Speaker
When you compare that, that's your standard of awesome contemporary music and community and all that stuff and engaging preaching and all of the things, you know, and the coffee bar and all the great stuff, the programs.
00:39:23
Speaker
If that's the best and you go to the opposite end of the spectrum with the Catholic church, I will tell you this as a guy who did that forever and love that.
00:39:32
Speaker
I mean, I, I was a worship leader.
00:39:34
Speaker
I love all that stuff.
00:39:37
Speaker
I would, I,
00:39:38
Speaker
would never trade even my worst experience in a Catholic parish to go back to the best experience I had in a Protestant church.
00:39:47
Speaker
And that's not disrespectful to the Protestants.
00:39:49
Speaker
That's because of what I've found in Catholicism.
00:39:52
Speaker
It's not about trying to find the best experience.
00:39:55
Speaker
It's about trying to find the truth.
00:39:56
Speaker
But here's the beautiful thing.
00:39:58
Speaker
When you discover Christ and his church and the sacraments, then even in the midst of that kind of desert experience you might be experiencing at a Catholic parish that's just not doing it awesome, that's better than whatever you're going to get anywhere else.
00:40:14
Speaker
I mean, it's such a weird thing.
00:40:17
Speaker
And I know that's hard to understand for people who are in that place.
00:40:20
Speaker
They're like, how can you say that?
00:40:22
Speaker
But I'm telling you, because it's not about...
00:40:26
Speaker
your personal experience anymore.
00:40:28
Speaker
When, when to become Catholic means to become part of something bigger.
00:40:32
Speaker
And here's the other thing that people have to realize.
00:40:34
Speaker
It's not about your local church as a Catholic.
00:40:39
Speaker
That's not the be all end all.
00:40:41
Speaker
It's not about your priest.
00:40:42
Speaker
He's not the be all end all.
00:40:44
Speaker
It's not about the music.
00:40:45
Speaker
There's not about the liturgy there.
00:40:46
Speaker
It's not about all of it's about you are in Christ church.
00:40:50
Speaker
Right?
00:40:51
Speaker
And you belong to something bigger than that.
00:40:53
Speaker
So you can be a Catholic that goes to kind of a crummy local parish where everything's kind of lame, but you're still part of his church.
00:41:00
Speaker
You're still getting the sacraments.
00:41:01
Speaker
You're still participating in the fullness of the faith.
00:41:05
Speaker
That's better than going someplace that has a really cool, awesome experience that you can get jazzed up about.
00:41:12
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:41:13
Speaker
Does that make sense?
00:41:14
Speaker
Did I say anything disrespectful?
00:41:15
Speaker
I hope not.
00:41:17
Speaker
No, thank you for sharing.
00:41:18
Speaker
No, I think you very much do people's experience.
00:41:22
Speaker
Your second thing, Kevin.
00:41:23
Speaker
We just had our tabernacle polished and it made me think when you were just speaking that some tabernacles are 120 years old when the parish was founded and they're dull and the wood is either eaten away or whatever and some tabernacles are incredibly beautiful with a marble high altar and everything, but
00:41:41
Speaker
The sacrament is inside.
00:41:42
Speaker
It's what, you know, it's, I don't know.
00:41:44
Speaker
I thought that was a cool.
00:41:46
Speaker
Don't get me wrong.
00:41:47
Speaker
I'm not, I'm not advocating that priests and bishops should just be like, ah, we don't care.
00:41:53
Speaker
Just do whatever.
00:41:54
Speaker
I'm not advocating for that.
00:41:55
Speaker
I think the Catholic church should be the most beautiful, reverent church.
00:41:59
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:42:20
Speaker
And I feel like that the priest is just mailing in the homily that, you know, it doesn't matter if we have good music or crappy music.
00:42:27
Speaker
It doesn't matter if this place is beautiful.
00:42:28
Speaker
It doesn't, none of those things matter because we're Catholic.
00:42:31
Speaker
So, you know, whatever I, that drives me up a wall.
00:42:35
Speaker
I think, I think we need to do the very best we can do.
00:42:37
Speaker
We should be out doing everybody else in terms of the things that really matter because we have all the resources.
00:42:43
Speaker
We have the goods.
00:42:44
Speaker
We have the fullness of the faith.
00:42:45
Speaker
We have the Eucharist.
00:42:46
Speaker
Why do we wrap it in, you know,
00:42:50
Speaker
just mid lame kind of half heartedness.
00:42:55
Speaker
I don't appreciate that at all.
00:42:56
Speaker
So for me, my, my antidote to all of that is to make everything as, as just over the top Catholic as it can be.
00:43:07
Speaker
So I'm not, I'm not one, you know, and I don't, I don't know you guys, I don't know your parishes.
00:43:11
Speaker
So, you know, you can get mad at me if you want.
00:43:12
Speaker
I don't think like, I'm the kind of person that's like,
00:43:17
Speaker
let's make it just over the top Catholic.
00:43:19
Speaker
Let's not try to make the Catholic church look like the Protestant church.
00:43:23
Speaker
Let's not try to make the Catholic church look like the world and be relevant and, and, and cute and clever.
00:43:28
Speaker
Let's just be boldly, authentically Catholic.
00:43:32
Speaker
And that's going to do way more for people, even who are coming from a Protestant background and engaging the world.
00:43:39
Speaker
We need to be that, that voice crying out in the wilderness, not faded into the, to the fabric of society.
00:43:46
Speaker
It sounds like your graphic design friend didn't, from the beginning of your story, he did not dial down his Catholic decoration in his home.
00:43:54
Speaker
And that's, those images are what started to speak to your heart.
00:43:57
Speaker
So here you go.
00:43:58
Speaker
There's your point.
00:43:58
Speaker
A hundred percent.
00:44:00
Speaker
You had a second follow-up question?
00:44:02
Speaker
Yes, I do.
00:44:02
Speaker
But just before I say that, I just want to add to that.
00:44:05
Speaker
I think I shared this back in our first episode of the podcast, but just to what you're saying, Keith, of just like, what was the line you said?
00:44:13
Speaker
Even the kind of the lowest experienced Catholic mass is still better.
00:44:18
Speaker
Well, I don't know if better is right, but it's because it's more in the truth than even a fantastic.
00:44:23
Speaker
So to me,
00:44:25
Speaker
When I was in college is when I grew up Catholic, but it wasn't until college that I came to believe in this idea of the real presence of the Eucharist.
00:44:32
Speaker
And it was through that experience of falling in love and realizing...
00:44:37
Speaker
if this is really what we say it is, like that that bread and wine really truly becomes Jesus Christ present to us, body, blood, soul, and divinity, then like this experience of him is the most profound intimate encounter with the living God I can have here on this earth.
00:44:52
Speaker
So if this is really what we say it is, and this is the church that I can get it in,
00:44:56
Speaker
then there's no other place I want to be.
00:44:57
Speaker
There's no other place I can be.
00:44:59
Speaker
Right.
00:45:00
Speaker
And, and like taking that a step further, it's all of a sudden, then of course, like you said, we want great preaching.
00:45:05
Speaker
We want great music, but in some ways that takes somewhat of a back seat.
00:45:09
Speaker
Like, so even if the, even if the music's terrible and the preaching's boring or whatever, it's like, there is still something so incredibly profound and beautiful that's happening here.
00:45:18
Speaker
Of course, all of the music, the preaching is supposed to be in support of that mystery and can should, and we should raise our standards on that.
00:45:24
Speaker
But even if that's all terrible, it's what is at the heart of this is I am receiving, I am uniting my sinful self to the cross of Jesus Christ, having this mystical communion with his sacrifice on the cross.
00:45:36
Speaker
And in exchange, I receive the fullness of God into my very being, my heart and soul and in my flesh and blood.
00:45:42
Speaker
Right.
00:45:43
Speaker
And especially as a college student, you know, being very aware of the temptations of the flesh, like that was just like, I need that divine flesh in my sinful flesh.
00:45:51
Speaker
And like, um,
00:45:52
Speaker
yeah, to me, that's where it's like, that's what like puts it all in perspective to like support what you're saying.
00:45:58
Speaker
So yeah.
00:46:00
Speaker
So my second follow-up question is, so now more directed to Catholics.
00:46:05
Speaker
So we're in this time of Eucharistic revival.
00:46:08
Speaker
What is like, as we're in the season of Eucharistic revival, we're trying to inspire hearts to really know this beautiful mystery that we're talking about of the Eucharist.
00:46:16
Speaker
I guess what, what might you want to leave them with or what,
00:46:19
Speaker
What word or phrase or, you know, or what, what, I guess, what would you want to say to the, to, to just Catholics out there who might be listening, whether they're devoted Catholics or just maybe they're kind of average and the pew just kind of going along with this stuff.
00:46:30
Speaker
What, what, what message you want to say?
00:46:32
Speaker
I think it goes back to what we said in the beginning that you have as much of Jesus as you want and he's made himself available to you without limit.
00:46:43
Speaker
Are you taking advantage of that?
00:46:45
Speaker
Are you receiving the invitation?
00:46:48
Speaker
He's invited you to abide in him and he'll come in and abide in you.
00:46:53
Speaker
So maybe what that looks like practically for somebody is, hey, I've just been kind of going through the motions in my Catholic faith.
00:47:01
Speaker
What do I need to do to step that up?
00:47:02
Speaker
Well,
00:47:03
Speaker
Maybe maybe you're going to start going to daily mass once a week, you know, maybe twice a week.
00:47:09
Speaker
Maybe maybe you're going to spend some time in Eucharistic adoration and you're going to plan your week around that.
00:47:15
Speaker
You're not just going to hope that you can get over there when you can on the way home from something else.
00:47:18
Speaker
If you don't have too much else going on.
00:47:20
Speaker
No, you're going to say this is what I'm doing Friday night.
00:47:23
Speaker
or whatever.
00:47:25
Speaker
Find a way to put yourself in the presence of the Eucharist more and be open to what God wants to do in your life, and you'll be amazed at what can happen.
00:47:36
Speaker
Amen.
00:47:38
Speaker
And I think by the time this podcast airs, I think we will just have been starting into Lent.
00:47:43
Speaker
Is that correct, Father Jacob?
00:47:44
Speaker
Yes.
00:47:46
Speaker
Yes.
00:47:46
Speaker
So it's a perfect time for anyone listening out there.
00:47:49
Speaker
It's a perfect time to make those very commitments.
00:47:52
Speaker
What is it?
00:47:52
Speaker
You know, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.
00:47:54
Speaker
This is a season where we... It's a season of refocusing, of revitalizing, of kind of where the church universal goes on sort of this retreat prayer experience together.
00:48:03
Speaker
Let's enter in and how do we...
00:48:05
Speaker
uh, kind of renew all of this and, and deepen our prayer.
00:48:07
Speaker
So this is a perfect time to make those commitments.
00:48:10
Speaker
Think about how do I want to step it up?
00:48:11
Speaker
So, um, yeah.
00:48:13
Speaker
Father Jacob, did you have anything you wanted to add to that?
00:48:17
Speaker
I don't think so.
00:48:18
Speaker
This has been a great, uh, and very enlightening conversation.
00:48:20
Speaker
And, um,
00:48:22
Speaker
I'm very happy that we had Mr. Nestor with us.
00:48:25
Speaker
So for everyone listening, in the show notes, I'm going to put some of the resources that we've mentioned and we've continued to
Upcoming Talks and Resources
00:48:34
Speaker
post.
00:48:34
Speaker
But if you just Google Keith Nestor, N-E-S-T-E-R, you'll find him.
00:48:40
Speaker
You'll find me.
00:48:41
Speaker
There you go.
00:48:42
Speaker
Whether he wants you or not, if you do that, you're going to get inundated.
00:48:46
Speaker
Yeah, well, you kind of shared a lot of your stuff at the beginning, but is there anything else you want to plug, either resources or any upcoming events or anything you want to put in a plug for?
00:48:56
Speaker
Well, I will.
00:48:57
Speaker
So first of all, I do have a couple of events coming up in the archdiocese that I would love to invite people to if they want to come.
00:49:05
Speaker
On February 26th, I'm going to be at the Basilica in Dyersville.
00:49:10
Speaker
Father Podasky has invited me to come and be part of his mission that he's doing there.
00:49:15
Speaker
So on the 26th at 7 o'clock, I'll be there.
00:49:18
Speaker
And then in March on the 10th, 11th and 12th, I'll be giving talks at St.
00:49:24
Speaker
Joseph, the worker in Dubuque.
00:49:26
Speaker
Each of those nights at 6 p.m.
00:49:29
Speaker
So I'll be sharing my conversion story the first night there.
00:49:33
Speaker
And then a few other things following.
00:49:35
Speaker
One of the talks I'm going to give is about how to evangelize your family.
00:49:38
Speaker
You know, everyone's always asking the question, how do we get our kids back?
00:49:41
Speaker
And what do we do?
00:49:42
Speaker
We're going to I'm not saying we're going to solve that, but we're going to talk about it.
00:49:47
Speaker
And then also, if you want to pray the rosary with me every day, I pray on YouTube.
00:49:51
Speaker
I have two YouTube channels, just Keith Nestor, where that's where I do unpacking the mass.
00:49:56
Speaker
But then I also have Rosary Crew with Keith Nestor.
00:49:58
Speaker
And that's where we do our daily live stream rosary.
00:50:01
Speaker
And that's at five o'clock central every day, Monday through Friday, Saturdays and Sundays.
00:50:04
Speaker
We do it earlier in the morning.
00:50:05
Speaker
But we've been doing it every day for almost four years now.
00:50:09
Speaker
And it's awesome.
00:50:10
Speaker
So anybody can jump in there and do that.
00:50:13
Speaker
I got a couple of books on Amazon too.
00:50:15
Speaker
People can go out and get, and there's plenty of things out there.
00:50:18
Speaker
Can you repeat the second YouTube channel?
00:50:20
Speaker
I think our streaming cut off for a minute.
00:50:23
Speaker
It's just called Rosary Crew with Keith Nestor.
00:50:26
Speaker
Cool.
00:50:28
Speaker
Thank you.
00:50:28
Speaker
And Father Jacob, you'll put that information in the show notes, as you said, right?
00:50:32
Speaker
Will do.
00:50:34
Speaker
Awesome.
00:50:34
Speaker
Well, Keith, thank you so much for joining us in our DeBucharistic Revival podcast, inspiring people of the Archdiocese of Dubuque to enter more deeply into this season of Eucharistic Revival.
00:50:45
Speaker
Well, thank you for having me.
00:50:46
Speaker
It's been an honor.
00:50:47
Speaker
Yeah, thank you.
00:50:49
Speaker
Thank you, everyone, and have a great start to your Lent.
00:50:55
Speaker
Thank you.