Ever wondered what goes on in the mind of a priest when preparing a sermon? Join us for a laugh-filled conversation with Father Matthew Pearson as we navigate the art of storytelling and humor in sermons. Father Matthew gives us a peek into the challenges and joys of crafting homilies that are both impactful and concise, respecting the Pope’s guidance. We also share light-hearted moments about balancing family chaos during church services, painting a vivid picture of real-life parenting adventures in a spiritual setting. It’s a delightful mix of faith, family, and fun that will warm your heart and tickle your funny bone.

Curious about how historical philosophies influence modern Christian views on labor and dignity? We reflect on how figures like John Paul II and Mother Teresa have shaped our understanding of work as a means of glorifying God, despite the toil introduced by sin. This episode also touches on the journey of striving for Christian virtue and perfection, highlighting the balance between human effort and divine grace. With heartfelt personal experiences and theological insights, we connect time-honored wisdom to today’s practices of positive self-talk and personal growth.

Art, faith, and the unexpected meet in our exploration of documentary filmmaking as a spiritual journey. Discover how trusting the creative process can lead to authentic storytelling, as illustrated by the memorable encounter with “Orange Jacket Man.” His skepticism and reflection on faith bring depth to our conversation on aligning personal desires with God’s will. We share stories of spiritual growth, the release of false expectations, and the pursuit of peace through prayer. From the profound impact of eloquent speakers to the excitement of the upcoming National Eucharistic Congress, this episode is a rich tapestry of faith, creativity, and community.

 

Topics in This Episode

• (00:00:00) Homily Lengths & Distractions in Mass
• (00:07:00) Balancing Prayer With Your Vocation
• (00:08:25) What are We Drinking?
• (00:09:10) The Fruits and Dignity of Labor
• (00:17:55) Sharing Our Gifts to Build the Kingdom
• (00:22:38) Not Settling For Mediocrity
• (00:30:35) Praying Together
• (00:41:09) Renouncing Your Will
• (00:45:50) Our Dare to Believe Project
• (00:54:00) The Story of Production: Building from Bits and Pieces
• (00:55:00) Incorporating Faith into Video Production
• (01:08:17) A Letter and Testimonial Book from a Fan
• (01:11:26) 2 Messages from Avila
• (01:17:59) Discernment of God’s Will Through Prayer in Administration Roles
• (01:36:27) Understanding Communion and Common Union
• (01:47:01) Backflip’s National Eucharistic Congress Booth
• (01:49:34) Two Truths and a Lie

 

Links

• The Way by Josemaria Escriva
• Dare to Believe

 

Transcript

Ryan Freng: 0:06

hello and welcome back to the let’s backflip show. That was. That was a really good timing, right? I couldn’t quite tell. Hello and welcome back to the let’s backflip show. I’m ryan fring, co-creative director here at backflip and joining me, not as always, but I’m so happy to have you here today. Yeah, we get to hang out and chat as opposed to, uh, just normally. It’s not on camera, it’s me john, it’s my.

John Shoemaker: 0:28

This is. I think this is my maiden voyage in here. Oh yeah, I think I I think I have been online for many, many podcasts, but my schedule hasn’t worked such that I’ve been gone when we happen to have them in here.

Ryan Freng: 0:44

so yeah, for like the three that we’ve done this year.

John Shoemaker: 0:46

Here.

Ryan Freng: 0:47

I am, yeah, in the flesh. In the flesh, I’m happy that we’re here hanging out, and actually I’m happy we’re here hanging out with Father Matthew Pearson.

John Shoemaker: 0:55

Yes, Thanks for joining us.

Father Matthew Pearson: 0:56

Father. Thank you both. This is great, yeah, how you doing. You know can’t complain about too much. I mean, there’s plenty to complain about, but, as they say, it doesn’t do much good, and it’s true. But no, plenty to be happy about. And it’s great to be back here at the Backflip Studios. I feel like I’ve been here a lot actually in the last couple of years, which has been fun.

Ryan Freng: 1:15

I like it too that we got to hang out a little bit, and sometimes before the podcast I try not to talk to the person because I want to capture it all on podcast. Yeah, that was a fail today, but today, yeah, and just like with you, we’re just hanging out. So, yeah, I feel like it’s more enjoyable that way anyway.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:32

Yeah, I mean it’s kind of hard to tell where you’ve been on. Now we’re just kind of continuing where we’ve been going for the last 45 minutes.

John Shoemaker: 1:40

you know Well, my wife tells me that I will make a good old man someday because I tell the same stories over and over, so it doesn’t stress me out talking before the podcast. You’re a good old man now. We’re just going to say this again. We’re going to talk about it again.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:54

That is one of the funny things about being in the parish is that I hang out with so many different groups of people that it’s really like Father Vince, who probably has to endure the same stories. You know, cause we go to a lot of things together, yeah and so. But all the groups I go to, a lot of the stuff I say is new to them, but it might be old to him. He’s heard this nine times now or something. But you know it works, you know, yeah, yeah. Eventually I suppose I’ll run out of material. I have to keep having new, new experiences.

John Shoemaker: 2:25

You become like a comedian. You’re like. You’re like, oh, that didn’t hit with this audience.

Father Matthew Pearson: 2:28

Yeah that is a funny thing at uh. You know I heard in seminary. You know a priest should never really uh make a joke in a homily, but you can be humorous right. So it’s like a difference. You know you’ll go up there and go two priests walk into a bar.

Father Matthew Pearson: 2:45

You know you don’t want to do something like that probably in a homily, but you can at least probably there are other priests watching, yeah yeah, so you might not want to do that, but at the same time it’s funny that certain crowds just like a comedian might experience, certain crowds are more prone to laugh, you know, than others, which is kind of kind of odd, you know. Yeah and uh, it’s, it changes weekend to weekend too, you know yeah, we’re all.

Ryan Freng: 3:10

We’re all just here to be entertained, but you have to keep it. Uh, what under 12 minutes? What’s the?

Father Matthew Pearson: 3:15

well, now the pope came out and said eight.

Ryan Freng: 3:18

He’s like I love that I saw like a clip of it. It’s like come on, priests, don’t go along. So yeah, when people are falling asleep, right, right that’s great.

Father Matthew Pearson: 3:26

When I, when I started preaching you know, a couple years ago I was I was in that 12 to 15 minute range, closer to 12, you’re on fire. You’re like. I want to teach, I’m into it exactly they’re into it 12, 13 minutes and people can deal with that.

Father Matthew Pearson: 3:43

Anything under 15, people are going to, they’re not going to get too upset, but um, but over the you know, over a couple of years I’ve started honing. I feel like I’ve honed a little better, and so then I was coming in pretty regular like nine, 10, 11 minutes, and that’s pretty much where I’ve stayed, something like that. People wanting more, yeah, I mean, there’s’s something to that, but it’s also like you know, 10 minutes is a long time actually to develop something you know, and by the time you’ve developed it, it’s somewhat good to get out while you’re ahead. You know it’s like, okay, here’s your two, three ideas, here’s how they fit, here’s something for you to do.

Ryan Freng: 4:22

Okay, now let’s think about this for a minute or two and then we’ll please stay for the creed and yeah, and to be honest, like to be, you know, a parent and have a family. Uh, I’m just hoping osmosis will happen, that I hear these words and later they will impact me at the time, like this was last week. I think it was one of my kids. I was holding the baby, reached out and grabbed the hair from the woman in front of me.

Father Matthew Pearson: 4:44

So I had to like fight that.

Ryan Freng: 4:46

And then one of the kids was like who farted, who farted? I’m like two things I don’t know, but just be quiet. And then, like it was like each of my kids each had a thing and I’m like trying to mitigate that and I’m like I’m just just going to bask in the sun and I know that I’m going to get a suntan. I just may not experience it right now.

Father Matthew Pearson: 5:08

Yeah, no, it’s a. It’s a challenge for parents for sure. I mean, you know, just to pay attention to mass for people that are not, you know, bothered by kids. You know it’s a challenge for a lot of people. I mean, you know, when I counsel people, a lot of things they feel like they struggle with is getting distracted and masked. They feel like they’re struggling and I mean, usually what I’ll tell them is well, distraction is kind of just part of life, but that just goes to show you how hard it is for a person by themselves to pay attention versus somebody who’s got a part-time job going on at the same time. So, yeah, I don’t know, you know a part-time job going on, you know, at the same time. So, yeah, I don’t know it’s. Yeah, hats off to the parents who, you know it’s another impetus on priests. From what I’ve gathered from some parents have talked to me about this.

Father Matthew Pearson: 5:53

You know it’s also part of why we want to have mass at a reasonable amount of time is because, yeah, I mean, if you want, families yeah if you want families to be there, you know, know, not that obviously they should be there for the glory of God and all these things, but there is a human element here that is important to take into account, that, yeah, once you, you know, get past an hour of trying to get kids to sit, still in some way, you know, it becomes almost unmanageable after that. So, yeah, I think that’s important.

Ryan Freng: 6:29

Yeah, we’re feeding the spirit. And then we got to. You know, get out of there, get the donut feed the body.

Father Matthew Pearson: 6:33

Well, yeah, you know that’s a, yeah, it’s a community. I remember I talked to somebody one time and you know I forget what it was about or how they got to this but it was like, you know, I feel like I should have spent, you know, more time in prayer or something like that, and I was like, well, you know, technically, yeah, to be in jesus presence is the best thing, right, that is objectively the best thing for our souls to be in his presence, but we also there’s also other rhythms to life, because if that were the outright good, well then you would never leave the church, you know, like, if you really broke it down like that and we would just say mass over and over and over again. You know so, but the church never asked us for that, right, because it knows that part of our experience of god is also in the rhythms of life. Yeah, I heard a good talk and encouragement.

John Shoemaker: 7:27

Uh, one time about you know that that more, even of a good thing, more is not an objective. It’s not an objective reality truth that it is always good to have more. Like, well, what do you need? More prayer? Like, how could more prayer not if? If you’re ignoring your vocation to fatherhood because you are like living like a, a monk, like a contemplative monk or something right, you know, like take it to the extreme and you can see, well, yeah, that doesn’t work. Your wife wants time with you, your kids never you. You’re in the church praying all the time. Yep, how is that bad? It actually is bad because you’re ignoring your vocation. What you’ve been called to Was that Jason? Yeah, he’s seen.

Ryan Freng: 8:13

Maybe he gave that talk to another thing. Yeah, I think I’ve heard that from you, which I value as my old man, wise, your dad, your grandpa. We always get those. Um, this is a happy hour. I forgot. We haven’t been drinking in the happy hour forever, but this time we are. Uh, god bless our catholic faith, um, and our ability to drink. But, uh, we have manhattans. These are our favorite manhattans from, I was telling you, our friend, um, luke kirsting. Oh yeah, um, so it’s got four roses carpano, antica and luxardo cherries. So only the best, only the best, bougie. No, thank you guys cheers yeah cheers to you guys.

Ryan Freng: 8:53

It’s awesome, and if you’re at home and you have a libation as well, let us know I I might be able to see. I don’t know what’s going on. Luke will just shout, shout.

Father Matthew Pearson: 9:04

some comments in. Yeah, the guy in the chair. They’ll start flooding in, don’t you?

Ryan Freng: 9:09

worry what you were saying too. With this conversation we’re talking about faith in the life of the lay person and in the real world. Like Jose Maria Escriva, whatever it has, it’s not the way, but whatever yeah.

John Shoemaker: 9:24

Is it the?

Father Matthew Pearson: 9:25

way.

Ryan Freng: 9:25

Okay, I’ve I’ve recently, like over the last three weeks, learned a little bit more about jose maria escriva, because it was his feast day a couple weeks ago, and then in the book that we’re reading right now, which is, uh, we’re looking at jp2s I forget what it is, but it’s on the human dignity of work, which was the 40-year anniversary of dude opus a. No, the 40-year anniversary of something is the sixth writing about the dignity of work, or something like that. I should probably.

Father Matthew Pearson: 9:58

Well, there is a document dignitatis humane, the dignity of of man, you know, and so I’m sure it’s. I believe it’s in there that they would have addressed that and this is like almost the 40th anniversary of jp2’s work.

Ryan Freng: 10:10

But he’s one of the critics not critics, but one of the people who is reflecting on jp2’s work was bringing up jose maria escriva and the idea of the contemplative life. So, the contemplative, contemplative life. We think like, oh, we’re off, we’re monastic, we’re hermits, we’re contemplating and just doing that. Well, then comes uh, saint thomas aquinas, I believe, who’s like hey, our contemplative work has to have fruit for the world. You know, I’m not saying what that fruit is, but you know, contemplation in the world, uh, not just separated from the world. And then jose maria escriva built on that for the way, person of like, what does it look like when you’re farming, or when you’re doing your industry, or you’re working with your kids, or you’re making dinner? What does the contemplative, contemplative life look like there?

Father Matthew Pearson: 11:01

yeah, yeah, I mean I’m encouraged by yeah it’s, it’s all about, um, it’s taking account of the fact that god desires, right, that every person bears fruit for the kingdom of heaven, and you’re able to bear fruit by the mere fact that you’re baptized, and so baptism applies to everybody. You know, obviously he was baptized, so the idea it’s kind of an, you know it’s a centuries long development, but it’s always been there. But you know, the church goes through different phases where, you know, sometimes it gets, you know, emphasizes one thing over over another, and so a lot of what you’re talking about here is like from the last couple hundred years. You know, the big thing to remember here is, uh, you know, karl Marx put out his, uh, communist manifesto 1848, I believe, and so that’s a. That’s a big thing to do with labor, you know. So you have this whole thing with labor class systems throughout Europe. You have your, you know the the Lords. You know, so you have this whole thing with labor class systems throughout Europe. You have your, you know the the Lords. You know you have an aristocratic society and you have people working for the fruits of the upper echelon Right, and so that becomes a problem for him. There’s also a ton of stuff with capitalism at the same time, like, no, you have to protect these people are taking the risk because it’s their wealth. So these two things are happening.

Father Matthew Pearson: 12:29

In you know, early 1800s, these kind of philosophical ideas are at battle or at war with each other, and so then the church naturally has to make a, the church has to give the Christian worldview on these issues, and so then you have this development into the 20th century, and then it’s ultimately really, you know, john Paul really gets it out there in a big way. So, like the whole, uh, there’s a feast day, may 1st May day, which is a huge, like kind of communist, uh, holiday. You might say, right, and so then what did they put on that day? I don’t think it was John Paul that did it, but I’d have to look it up but May 1st becomes the Feast of St Joseph the Worker, because they’re trying to say, in contradiction to sort of some, not just communists, but just work is difficult, you know, and if you think you’re just working for somebody else and that there’s not inherent dignity in what you’re doing, it’s going to make you. It’s going to make you very, uh, you know, frustrated and you’re going to develop hatred in your heart, you know, which is ultimately what happens in these cases.

Father Matthew Pearson: 13:40

And so what it did is it same thing, with St Jose Maria saying, no, you can sanctify something that you objectively might not like, which is actually, if you take it straight from the gospel, what’s the thing we dislike probably the most forgiving our enemies, right? So it’s saying the Christian life is about love and you can love things even that you dislike. You know, and that’s kind of the the shift that that happened at saint rosary was big on that, you know. But even before him, saint therese, uh, mother theresa, small things with great love, yes, yes, so small things. She says small things, but what she’s saying is difficult things, yeah, difficult things that seem insignificant.

Ryan Freng: 14:27

I think about that daily because answering email or whatever, it’s like the shallows or the what’s somebody call that, Like something storm or something. It’s like all those things that come up and frustrate. You don’t feel like you’re doing good work or you’re moving things forward. And you may not be, but you could do those things with great love, or you know those difficult things like that. I feel like that inspires.

Father Matthew Pearson: 14:51

Yeah, yeah, you need perseverance, you need courage. I think I mean that is the definition of courage, both in a human sense and a supernatural sense. Is doing difficult things, persevering in difficulty, you know so yeah, forgiving somebody you don’t want to forgive is doing difficult things, persevering in difficulty, you know. So yeah, forgiving somebody you don’t want to forgive it’s, in some ways it’s much more enjoyable to have a vendetta against somebody, like emotionally. It makes us actually we sort of feel better.

Ryan Freng: 15:18

That’s our kind of our, I think we know, and we see that in ourselves, or I see that in myself sometimes, but we see that in other people too where it’s like that person just has a problem with everything, like that’s just a thing, and like to be an entrepreneur, kind of like what we do, and to be Christian and Catholic, like I feel like the positive self-talk, cognitive behavioral therapy, it’s all built into the faith, it’s all preached through the gospel, through the old Testament, through the gospel, through the old testament, through the whole bible. Um, but now we have a lot of these businessy ideas that are like positive self-talk, like talk, you know, say that you can do it, not that you can’t, right, and we’ve always had that, like with work we were talking about, with dignity, right, like you have dignity because, um, uh, the it’s not the command. I’m going to pull up some of these quotes that are really really good, but essentially work being made for us. You know, adam being given dominion over the earth, right.

Father Matthew Pearson: 16:17

That’s a, and that’s a biblical concept, right, you know. The idea, though, is that, in the Old Testament, or in that context of Adam in the garden you know, there’s obviously a ton of interpretations you could do, but the simplest one, the one that I’ve preached about this, the simplest concept, is to realize that man was created to glorify God Right, that was his whole purpose. Glorify God right, that was his whole purpose. The way that that’s depicted in the book of Genesis is the care of a garden, which is a place of life. In other words, to be godly, to worship God, is to sort of nourish life. That’s it. To the extent you’re nourishing life, you are glorifying God, and so that’s so in that sense. That’s the work that Adam set out to do. What sin did is made that work laborious, you know. It made it not enjoyable. So the whole purpose of the gospel is to get us back to we want to glorify God with, with joy, with willingness, as opposed to like labor, you know, know where it becomes, a drudgery though it is.

Ryan Freng: 17:28

So that’s why we live, we practice the faith is because you’re developing those virtues that make it easier, you know, and being made in the image and likeness of god and being given dominion, you know again. So to get back to that, that labor, that work is of God. So it’s, it is the dignity of God in work that we are being given. So to actually have that perspective when it’s hard, it’s really hard to do, I think so there’s a bit of a segue from uh.

John Shoemaker: 17:58

So I’ve talked with a lot of different friends over over time about like I’ve never identified a lot with like Opus Dei kind of spirituality that like you know, which just means work of God, by the way.

Father Matthew Pearson: 18:10

Okay.

John Shoemaker: 18:11

Well, but but the general sentiment that I get with the group is just like I just, you know, you know that’s and it’s good, like it’s a good way to think about your life, and it was like a quiet, simple head down get your work done, life is a good life, is a life well lived. But when you, but also there is this desire sometimes. So a friend of mine was talking about this, about like, yeah, sometimes I just feel like, uh, just be easier to just, you know, hang up this thing and just go be a plumber and just you know, whatever. Still talking about working, but what he’s talking about is like leaving, leaving aside the stresses of, like, greater work, yep, you know, and so I’m segwaying us into, you know, the work that we’ve done together oh, yeah, yeah the exciting projects that we get to do.

John Shoemaker: 19:04

There are the work. There is the work that, the projects that feel a little bit more like drudgery and you have to engage with them to be like, no, this is good, there’s a goodness in it. But to set aside, you know when, what I, what I connected to, for me is like the, the talents, the parable of the talents, and like, well, did you just take the one that you had and just bury it? You know, cause you didn’t want to lose? Like, if we don’t, if we have things that we are capable of doing and we don’t use them to multiply, right, then we’re also not doing that. You know I’m like well, what about the greater work? What about the, the and it is? You know I’m like what about the greater work? What about the, the and it is?

John Shoemaker: 19:46

You know there is usually often reward with it, the flashier, bigger things. You know like more consolation when we’re doing, you know, the dare to believe series that we’ll talk about a little bit today. Um, to me it’s like there’s nothing more satisfying. You’re just like yeah, this is amazing I’m. I know that I’m doing work for the kingdom, whatever, and but you have to like toe that line and you have to walk that razor’s edge perfectly, because not every project is like that. Yeah, some of them are like more just okay, this is this thing and. But also there are mental challenges with like and there’s like personal challenges with clients and all all this stuff that it takes and sometimes it.

John Shoemaker: 20:35

What I’m saying is like. There there’s often this like pull in either direction. I mean, that’s just like. The devil’s tactic is always to just pull us in one direction or the other. He didn’t want us balanced. He wants us either chasing all the way like only extravagant things, or just hanging it all up and being like you know, maybe I’ll just go this way. The inclination in the back of my mind when I like look at those is like. Actually both of those are either about like glory and pride or easy extremes. You know, like easy not have to engage with hard work.

Ryan Freng: 21:10

So again finding that, like we say, making donuts, like doing a tutorial video or you know, a health interchange system marketing, people might be like, well, that’s boring or that’s not interesting, but like we steal from the kind of church where like, well, we’re gonna make that true, good and beautiful. Yeah, I don’t necessarily know what that means, but like even this thing should have some of that dignity now.

John Shoemaker: 21:32

It might not be well, that’s amazing like dare to believe, but and it could be me, you know, just trying to uh shoo it in. Is that the phrase I’m looking for? Shoehorn, umhorn, shoehorn, anyway, forcing it to fit. But I think there actually is a good truth and value to it. We talk about dignity a lot here because I’m like, well, yeah, why not use a great concept of dignity when we do work? Let’s say we’re selling cars for somebody like dignity. We’re not going to have, you know, scantily clad women crawling all over the car to sell it that way. That’s not dignified. Also, I’m not going to have you like looking really bad, with like no lighting and bad audio and standing out in front of your grocery store shouting at the camera. That’s also not dignity. Like that also is bad. Like our, even if it works, our, our drive for quality is is about like no, you can be better.

Father Matthew Pearson: 22:32

Well, and I want to present you as the best and that is a uh, I mean I call it a like a christian worldview or biblical world worldview, but at the same time even from a, a secular standpoint. In some ways secular world does this better because they’re trying to set themselves apart for the selling of whatever their product is Right, but they don’t settle for mediocrity. You know, because if I don’t believe in the product, by putting the extra effort to make it whatever, you know to take it that next level, well then how do I expect a customer to believe in it? You know. So that concept needs to be from a Christian standpoint. That concept goes into all the little things. You know. If I know that this little thing can glorify God, well then it shouldn’t be mediocre. You know that’s where we sort of expand.

John Shoemaker: 23:25

You know that’s where we sort of you can get expand, you know so fired up about this, like within the catholic church and catholic christian projects that’s why we’re going to the congress. Like and I’ve heard this critique about you know christian music too like like it’s not good just because it’s christian, correct, it could be really poor quality. Yeah, like, yeah, just having the identity of catholic or christian as the product doesn’t make it inherently good. Well, and this?

Father Matthew Pearson: 23:54

is a. This is a critique too of uh, you know how the faith is taught. In some respects, this has become a thing. Bishop baron’s been huge on this in the last decade. Um, you know, you can go back and look at his old videos, um, you know, from 10, eight, nine, 10 years ago, and he’s talking about, like theology books at Catholic high schools, you know, and he’s like these are not, these are mediocre books. And he’s like he essentially kind of launched this thing now to like we, if we’re going to expect our young people to take the faith seriously, part of why they’re not taking it seriously is because we’ve put a mediocre vehicle in front of them and they pick up on that. You know they it’s not that the content it might not be all right or good, but the vehicle at which it’s given feels like it’s unimportant, you know, and that that has a huge impact.

John Shoemaker: 24:51

I think it comes from desire to be loving and, you know, like nice to people, right, uh, and then what happens is we lose the like, valuable, critical, you know, critiquing component of like this isn’t good, this isn’t done well, well, go ahead.

Father Matthew Pearson: 25:12

Well, no, but like it’s something you should apply to yourself too. Yeah, so you could. You could objectively say I’m, I’m living a good life, like I’m doing okay, you know. Like. You know like you guys you got families, like you’re taking care of them, you’re raising your children. You’re doing, objectively doing good things. But you should never say I’m good Like I can just coast it in. Now.

Father Matthew Pearson: 25:34

The rest of my life, the Christian life, is about what you know. Let me seek the Lord and ask him what he wants me to do. What can I improve? How can I, you know, increase virtue and get rid of vice? How can I develop my relationship with God and neighbor? Like, how can I? In other words, how do I love more? How can I do that? And that means you have to examine the little things. You know. It’s like you know, you’re like going back to the you know the big video we made, where it’s like we had to go through some of those or any edit. Really, okay, it’s good, but like, what else is it missing? What else does it need? It’s not there yet. Let’s continue to refine, let’s, let’s ask God for guidance. Let’s, you know, let’s put our heads together and think about something. How will maybe this piece of interview make it better at this point? You know, and that is a healthy, it’s a striving for perfection which actually is the Christian model and Christian perfection.

Ryan Freng: 26:32

We’ll continue into the dare to believe stuff. We did have a question, oh boy, From Mama Shoemaker, or not a question, but a comment. Love JP2’s work. When we’re talking about JP2. Also think about what Constantine said years earlier. I’m not super familiar with that. I’m not super familiar with Constantine. So, Amy, it’s like a quiz If you’re still listening. Yeah, I’d love to hear more context, or maybe you know dignity of work.

Father Matthew Pearson: 26:56

Well, I mean Constantine’s like 4th century Right. He’s Roman emperor, right, and I don’t know what he now all those guys were coming out of. They were formed very much by that, uh oh, now the name’s escaping me. Um, not like Plato Aristotle.

Father Matthew Pearson: 27:12

Well, it’s that world, but it’s a system of philosophy. Stoicism, stoicism, yeah. So stoicism is essentially the human version of like what we would call the striving for Christian virtue and perfection, essentially the human version of like what we would call the striving for christian virtue and perfection. Stoicism is just a human, um, philosophical overlay of that idea, where you hold yourself to discipline but you also hold yourself to a flourishing of your person. The whole purpose of your discipline and adhering to a kind of a set of rules and morals and principles is that you might live the best life you know. And there’s tons of stuff from stoicism that actually applies well to Christianity.

Father Matthew Pearson: 27:54

There’s some things that don’t also, but, um, but in general it was. The first is a human attempt at developing a virtuous life, and so we want to take that same human attempt, but we overlay it with a supernatural character, which is the grace of the Holy spirit, you know, and realizing that we cannot on our own, become good. That’s the, that’s the biggest difference is that they thought if you just do these things, you’ll be good. Now, objectively, they were probably pretty cool people, but you’ll be good now, objectively, they were probably pretty cool people, but you can’t, you can’t save yourself with that. You know, that’s the difference, you know.

Ryan Freng: 28:32

Oh, that that makes me think of it too. Just, I don’t know how relative it is, but the idea that we were saved, uh, we’re being saved and we will be saved. How salvation works, right? Christ died for us. We’re like working on it now, doing what we can in the equation, and then you know when Christ comes again.

Father Matthew Pearson: 28:52

Well, again back to the garden idea of working in a garden that Adam was doing. Jesus uses tons of these like farming analogies or parables. So the idea of like the mustard seed right, so in some ways it’s planted, it’s growing, it’s continuing to grow and then there will be a harvest of the fruit of the plant. You know. So that that’s built into creation that’s another way we can see how god works is through creation, so well and there’s an interesting like.

John Shoemaker: 29:25

We have to be in um collaboration that’s not the word I’m looking for, um but we have to be in willingness, participants, because it’s not gonna work out without our participation. But also, there’s not a lot that we can.

John Shoemaker: 29:44

We can, we’re not making it grow Like we have to do the work Right, but then, like God still has, you know, the power over whether this thing happens or not. You know, like the endeavors that we, that we go on like, and that’s kind of we’ve been doing a lot of work in the business recently and like, yes, we have to put the work in, but then also there’s the element of like lest I forget, like I don’t have control over whether all these things happen or not. You know, like I have to be there, participating, putting in the work, and then I’m waiting for God’s blessing Right.

Ryan Freng: 30:22

And well, and we’ve been working, yeah, like you said, like on a business, and it might have been a conversation with you at like one of these gala dinners or something I thought it was there, and we’re talking about this and maybe you suggested it. Or, as another priest is like, well, did you guys pray about it? And we’re like, oh my gosh, how dumb are we. You know, the three of us owners are Catholic and like we pray separately, but we don’t pray together in our management and stuff. And I think it was Scott was like I’m making the commitment to you. Now you know we’ll do that or whatever. So we committed again. Maybe it was you, maybe it wasn’t, I don’t know we were talking to somebody.

John Shoemaker: 31:00

Maybe it was like at Well, father was here late one evening after everyone else left and he’s like hey, should we uh do uh? Oh yeah, we blessed the studio.

Father Matthew Pearson: 31:10

I was like, let’s do it. Yeah, oh, yeah, that’s right.

Ryan Freng: 31:12

But now now we like approach, like every leadership uh pulse meeting or management meeting, like every week we just rotate in prayer. We’re like, all right, somebody open us in prayer and it just like it just sets a tone that we’re not doing this. You know, it’s not a yoke that we’re carrying by ourselves right.

Father Matthew Pearson: 31:29

Well, that’s like I had a. We had a calendar meeting yesterday, which you know people hate, myself included, but a meeting about calendars, yeah, just building out the calendar, you know, looking ahead, building I had a committee on committees.

Father Matthew Pearson: 31:43

Oh yeah, there you go, city one time yeah, that was a big thing back in the day, the committee management committee, but I just, you know, I was going to say a prayer, but I, as I kind of got to the meeting, I was like, you know, it’s laborious and it’s like business-y, right, so it’s not, it’s not, it doesn’t feel like a spiritual thing, but that’s what you want to still consecrate those times to let God guide the work, right.

Father Matthew Pearson: 32:08

And so I, uh, I opened it with just a really quick prayer of from the rising of the sun to its setting, may the name of the Lord be praised, which is a Psalm, you know, and we prayed a lot in, uh, you know, the office of readings and things, but that is a whole concept of giving thanks to God from the rising of the sun until it’s setting. The ordering of days is his work. I love it, and so we’re ordering days, so he should bless, he’s going to bless the days that we’re about to order, you know, and we need to ask him to do that. He’s going to do it anyway in some respects, but it’s better that we ask him, you know, it’s better that we recognize he’s doing it, you know that’s that’s good for us.

Ryan Freng: 32:48

The parent wants the kid to reach out to. You know, be a part of that relationship.

Father Matthew Pearson: 32:53

One of the just on that real quick, there’s a, the cathedral in Newark, new Jersey. It it has. It’s a huge sacred heart cathedral, beautiful cathedral, and this is where I got this from. They have, you know, these huge transepts on the side, and this transept is east and this transept is west. What’s a transept Like in another area? Well, it’s like the churches are built in like a cross shape, yeah, so then the sides of the cross, essentially, are called transepts and the middle is called the uh, the nave, you know, like the body, like navel, you know, and then the sides are called transepts.

Father Matthew Pearson: 33:37

And so on the one transept, in the big flower, you know, rose window, on that side was the name Yezu. In the big flower, you know, rose window, on that side was the name yesu, and then on the other side, same window, was christi, you know, and it was because of that psalm. So from the rising of the sun, so, as the sun rises in the east, jesus, the sun shines through jesus in that window. And then on the other side, when it’s setting, it shines through christ. So from the rising of the sun to its setting, may the name of the lord be praised. So that was very intentional architecture. Oh, I love. And design. Yeah, really really cool. Wow, yeah, so that’s always stuck with me, so I try to mix that in when I can’t we guild our churches right.

Ryan Freng: 34:20

Uh, the analogy, the farming analogy, faith of a mustard seed, move mountains. I like I’m, I’m inspired maybe, but also I’m like dang, is my faith like? Not even the size of a mustard seed? You know, like you, and maybe it’s because you expect, or I expect, something to happen, like praying for a sick friend, like man, if only I had a little bit of faith I could heal this friend. But maybe that’s like egotistical or something.

John Shoemaker: 34:47

I think it’s like you know you don’t receive what you ask for because you don’t know what the what the will of the father is, or I’m not getting that quote correct. I just felt like, yeah, we, it’s like praying, what am I? Yeah, all right, I can give you one of those you know, oh yeah, praying expectantly and and passionately.

Father Matthew Pearson: 35:07

That’s how you tell you’re married. See that, put the coaster down.

John Shoemaker: 35:10

Come on, she’s gonna yell at me but praying, praying expectantly and passionately, uh, in line with the will of the father, like right. You know, we were talking about the chosen, just recently the latest, no, no spoilers here no spoilers, you know like jesus was gonna do what he, what the father wanted him to do, yeah, and not anything else. And like so how do you know?

Ryan Freng: 35:37

that. That’s where I’m like marketed. Somebody died or gets injured to where they’re gonna die, and somebody else is like, heal them, yeah. And then he has a great response yeah, so I’m like, yeah, I want that same.

John Shoemaker: 35:51

Wondering, you know, is my faith like less than a mustard seed, uh, or is it that I don’t know the will of the father perfectly yet and maybe you know that’s like a lifelong like yeah, if you pray for what the father wills, he’s asking you to like pray for it, to reach out to make the work happen, and he won’t do it like. Another quote I’m jumping around a bit is a cs lewis quote that he does, uh, s Lewis quote that he does blunderingly and slowly through us what he could do in the blink of an eye, perfectly in the blink of an eye, or something like well, I love that he delights in like we’re using us, yeah, but we don’t always respond the right way and we don’t always ask for what we should because we don’t know.

Father Matthew Pearson: 36:40

Yeah, Well, the other thing that, if you want to take it to a more simple understanding, is that god does tell us what he wants. You know, like that was the whole purpose of jesus speaking to us in the flesh, as he’s telling us what is the will of god, and you can break it down to a couple simple things love the lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, soul and strength. Right the great, you know, that was the old Shema, the old command of the Old Testament, which Jesus says, repeats in the New Testament. And then he says and the second is like it, you know, love your neighbor as yourself. So then, the will of God is to love God and love your neighbor. That’s it Right of God is to love God and love your neighbor, that’s it right, that is the full expression of the will of God. And to believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, right, like that, you know that’s, that is the gospel, the heart of the gospel. So then, what you, the way you apply that, how do I know I’m doing the will of God, if you’re keeping yourself in a state of grace, which is loving God and loving your neighbor, meaning you have not sinned grievously against God or your neighbor and if you have, you’ve confessed it. If you’ve done that, you are doing the will of God Right, like so, st Irenaeus, I think you know the will of God is man.

Father Matthew Pearson: 38:00

Or he says the glory of God it could be synonyms in some respects or he says the glory of God, it could be synonyms in some respects. The glory of God, he said, or you could say the will of God is for man to be fully alive, which implies you have the Holy Spirit, you’re in a state of grace, in other words, you’re in friendship with God. So if you’re there, you are doing the will of God. And then those other little things should I take the interstate or take the back roads? You know like those types of decisions are. In some ways they both could become the will of God. You know like they, in those things they can sort of become trivial, like I want to take this friend out to eat. What restaurant do I go to? Are those things the will of God? In some sense, yes, but if you’re in a state of grace, you’re going to choose the right thing.

Ryan Freng: 38:49

You know, it’s that idea and I think, yeah, the challenge is, like, you know, highway or restaurant or whatever is seemingly more trivial. Maybe it’s not trivial but in most cases likely. But a friend who’s sick, right, you know, you think of that and I think I have a good, good sense and understanding to have. Like God, why do you permit, you know, bad things to happen, like that’s kind of a core of what we’re talking about with the will of God, such that greater things can happen or the glory of God can be understood right In my life or somebody else’s life, or in the world or whatever. What have you? But it’s still. It’s like that human, like okay, so I’m, I’m supposed to do something, I’m supposed to work, and I don’t get consolation. So then how do I deal with not getting consolation? You know, and I think maybe that’s challenging, like, yeah, you know, just ask and you, you will receive. Like you know, we’ve been given a command to do great things right, and then I feel like I just just feel my friend.

Father Matthew Pearson: 39:56

Well, that’s hard, yeah, and that’s everybody, that’s probably everybody experiences that, you know yes, so I’m tempted to go a direction, but I hope I don’t talk too long. But so the the desire for consolation, yeah, is itself like an attachment that we, that ultimately God wants us to detach from, because the desire for a certain outcome is, in a weird way, a desire that god cannot take care of it. It’s, it’s, mixed. You know, it’s not that god. You know, it’s not that. You know the, the fact that you might want a different outcome, like we were talking about earlier testing.

Father Matthew Pearson: 40:40

God, yeah so like, for example, I think mother teresa sort of did this too, but you could say something like okay, I want my desire for this sinful inclination to go away. That’s a good thing to ask for right. I want my desire for praise, which isn’t objectively sinful. Someone says like you guys run a great videography company, you run, run. You know it’s like if I want to give you a compliment, you know that’s going to feel good, you know cause you’re doing something that’s laudable or honorable or whatever. You have a beautiful family. Like these types of things. Those are things that, um, to take a step in the spiritual life, would you would start asking God that, lord, I don’t even need those. You can take those away from me too, and I’m still going. You know I don’t even need that consolation. So like that would be a step. But then what if you went to the point like mother Teresa did, lord, I don’t need any consolation. You know that’s the dark night of the soul, yeah.

Ryan Freng: 41:52

It like the dark night of the soul.

Father Matthew Pearson: 41:53

Yeah, her experience it’s. It’s similar to that, but it’s more of a. A emptying is what it is. It’s an emptying of self, a freeing of expectation. So talk about renouncing your will. Yeah, you see. So in some ways, the will of god is that you renounce your will.

Ryan Freng: 42:01

That’s really the will of god. That’s probably what it is, because I’m like, okay, I’m gonna pray, I’m expecting this to happen. Didn’t happen.

Father Matthew Pearson: 42:07

What the heck. But what I’ve told people, a way to a way to kind of hold these things in tension is that you would say, when you pray, pray as though God has already done it. That’s, that’s the first thing.

John Shoemaker: 42:22

So if you’re praying for a healing praise, though like you’re almost thanking God, Thank you for healing this person Well, and I don’t mean to cut you off, no, no Also understanding that the primary goal is that this person would see salvation Correct Above all else. That’s true, that is the thing, and I don’t understand any of this perfectly, and so that’s what I want. And if a miraculous healing makes that more plausible, then let that be done. And if, but if that’s not the path that leads the best for salvation for this individual or for the witness that they may be to other people’s lives because of what they’re enduring, or whatever it is and I want that to happen but then the challenge where we’re really splitting hairs is like it’s hard then to be like well, how do I pray in a way that’s not wishy-washy?

John Shoemaker: 43:23

right to be like well, you know, whatever you want, god, like, I’m just kind of whatever you want, like, what about the? Like, the pray expectantly, you know, like in the, in the authority that we what, to whatever extent, we’ve been given in the name of jesus, yeah, but then be able to accept whatever it is that happens, right, like you know st ignatius addressed this idea.

Father Matthew Pearson: 43:47

You know there’s kind of this. You want to pray in a way oh shoot, now I’m blanking on the phrase he used but essentially you want to pray in a way that you are maybe it’s like abandonment, it’s a book title, but I think saying nation she uses as a prayer structure like you want to have a abandonment to divine providence. So every time you pray, you pray essentially as the our father prayer, which is thy will be done. So, lord, I want this person to be healed, but if they’re not, you will be glorified. If they are, you will be glorified both, both. You know thy will be done.

Father Matthew Pearson: 44:26

You know it’s this kind of it feels wishy-washy Glorify yourself, yes, yeah, exactly. If this will glorify your name, then it will happen. But my love for you will not change at all based on the outcome of this situation. Even, lord, I’m driving in the car of this person. They’re going to take the interstate or the highway, they’re gonna take me to subway or they’re gonna take me to jimmy john’s. Whichever one happens, I am abandoned to whichever one because you’re going to be praised either way, you know. So there’s a certain, maybe split of hairs, but it’s also a uh. It’s saying you trust god. That’s why he uses that providence word. That providence word’s a big one in prayer. You have to trust god. You know that he knows better and he wants things more than you do.

John Shoemaker: 45:14

He wants the salvation and the healing of people more than you do, you know this other friend of mine points out that, uh, I believe it’s in psalm 23, that it’s in Psalm 23, that it’s, you know, lead us in the paths of righteousness.

Father Matthew Pearson: 45:27

Yeah.

John Shoemaker: 45:28

That it’s plural, like there are multiple paths to righteousness, you know. So there’s some decision making, some choices that we make that are not super consequential. There’s still paths to righteousness. There are paths that don’t lead there.

Ryan Freng: 45:50

That’s true, right there are different ways to get where you’re going, so kind of along that line and kind of going back to the dignity of work and what projects we’ve been working at, part of it that we’ve been talking about and we’ve been developing for the businesses actually doing what is true, good and beautiful and some of that, you know, we try to bring that attitude to all work that we do. But then we also get these projects like the data relief project, yeah, um, which, like I don’t know if we call you the godfather or you know it was. It was great because, like I mean, we had an idea of like your ordination and like telling this very unique, special story of ordination, and then it’s like one thing led to another and then we have this completely kind of different thing, but it came out of, you know, uh, your desire to share this unique perspective on this experience, um, and that gets to something that itself is true, good and beautiful. And we’re seeing like I don’t know for what we’re at now, but like over 160,000 views on YouTube, which doesn’t sound like a lot and to viral TikTok people, it’s not sure, but in our world and circles it’s kind of a big deal, because I’ve talked to people like Augustine Institute and formed and Ignatius press, and, like I’ve talked to lots of people in the industry around in the Catholic world and they’re all like, oh, I saw that that was great.

Ryan Freng: 47:13

So they have organically experienced this thing that we created about the Eucharist dare to believe with a prompt that, oh, actually is my, my backpack in here, oh crap, I have all my things over here, check this out. So we’ve got some stickers for the Eucharistic Congress. What if it was all true? Oh, wow, very cool. Mark it so as to win First Corinthians 924. Paraphrased, but the. What if it was all true?

Father Matthew Pearson: 47:43

and that prompt. Isn’t that a cool tagline? I forget where that even. Well, it was kind of inspired by the question.

John Shoemaker: 47:51

That’s right.

Father Matthew Pearson: 47:51

Yeah, it was true man on the street and that was Bishop’s favorite part is that you know the interviews we did, you know, when we asked. Well, we asked a number of a couple of questions or whatever to people, um, but then we kind of just gave them this thought experiment. To most of them it was a thought experiment yeah we didn’t talk.

Father Matthew Pearson: 48:10

I mean, we only talked to maybe one or two what I was practicing catholics, um, but the idea of like, well, just humor us. What, if this were true? Like what, what do you think that would mean for you? And that was where we got some of our best footage. You know what I mean. Like I knew that project was going to be good.

Father Matthew Pearson: 48:29

This is the thing you know, part about like what we just said about prayer, but about that about the project we did, you know, just like divine Providence, abandonment to divine Providence went into that project going, it might go this way, it might go that way, it might go away, I don’t know. And actually that’s a funny crossover with like documentary style things is that sometimes you go in with a generic prompt but then the material takes you and that’s sort of the fun of it. You know it’s like it becomes a piece of artwork in that sense that you didn’t know what it was going to look like when you started it. You had a generic idea. It’ll look something like this, but the fun is discovering as you go what it becomes. But I knew it was going to be good when literally the first person we talked to on state street was a fallen away Catholic right.

Father Matthew Pearson: 49:20

You know, 19 year old girl, whatever she was, and. But I knew, as soon as that happened, I knew that the thing was going to be blessed, because that was who I was looking for, you know, in the project and the somewhat the prompt of the project. So the fact that we randomly picked somebody, like, literally set up the camera and said, all right, let me grab somebody, or you went on grab someone. We thought it would be brutal, but it was not brutal.

Father Matthew Pearson: 49:45

And to think that the first person was the exact demographic that has been abandoned in some ways, which is went to catholic school, however many years she said she didn’t say where, but presumably somewhere in wisconsin and the fact that she got out of there and just didn’t get it, you know, she it didn’t take, it didn’t take, she was given sort of the basic, mediocre textbook, whatever, maybe, and you know, like the whole teaching. Well, what if? Like what they actually told you, what if it were true, yeah, that we’re talking real flesh and blood, it wasn’t just a right, a catchphrase, you know. And so that I’m thankful to that girl too.

John Shoemaker: 50:29

You know who knows where she is now, but like and and what a blessing, yeah well, to have that conversation, yeah I I’ve thought a lot about, you know, projects like these that we’ve done, where I think it is a thing that helps keep me grounded because, like, I have these like dreams of like it going bigger and further. And you know the goal. The hope is that we can actually turn this into more of a series. The goal of going out to the National Eucharistic Congress is to see if we can connect with a few other dioceses to be like would you like to bring this project to your diocese? That’d be cool and do an episode in different dioceses until we have several episodes and then we have a series and then that series can go out and be a thing.

John Shoemaker: 51:15

Yeah, and so that’s the big, exciting idea. The smaller idea that is like, no, this is actually very valuable and full of dignity. As well as, like those four or five people that were more affected when we had that on the street interview, I’m like hopefully there’s seeds that are still sure, still going on there. You know, like we presented it in a way that it wasn’t presented when they were younger in school. Right, right, right and like that, right there, it’s kind of that whole like would you know jesus have still come if there was only one person.

John Shoemaker: 51:48

You know if it’s only that person that this project affects, like that’s awesome.

Ryan Freng: 51:54

That’s a good way of thinking and we’re trying to produce something that in itself is a naturally evangelical. You know it evangelizes because it’s kind of telling Christ, the story of Christ in our lives and the lives of other people. But then in the actual working of it you know it like you’re like, exactly like you’re saying it has this evangelical proponent to it and so it’s stuff like this it gets us really fired up and really excited. But there’s still the work that we need to do the contacting, the calling, the talking, the deal making, whatever it is. You know, still offering it up. But it just it feels a little different too, and it’s when all of these components of it can be really and maybe it’s just spirit led and maybe the challenge is like’s easier in this project. But how do you do that when making donuts, when when in that you know?

Father Matthew Pearson: 52:50

that’s another work, that’s another piece of the project where I I felt, like you know, sometimes you look for signs god will give you like little insights into what he’s doing. But you know, the project was a bit unorthodox in some ways. You know, we just kind of started and then we came up with the idea and then, thankfully, bishop said, yeah, let’s try it. You know, but then there was just kind of a. It was, I wouldn’t say haphazard, but we just had, oh, let’s try this now, maybe it’s interview that, and then let’s just get some pieces. And then we still didn’t know what it was going to be. But then, even then, just not having any clue how it was going to be received, but yet the whole thing turned out to be.

Father Matthew Pearson: 53:32

You get to the finish line, you’re like whoa, that was a successful thing. And in some ways the whole process lended itself to it not being successful. You know, like not that it wasn’t. You know, not from a production standpoint, but just a you know where’s this gonna go? Who wants to watch this, who’s gonna watch this? There was that ambiguity, but yet it worked, you know. So that’s what I also look for, those things where it’s like you know what’s what’s interesting with that, wants to work at work.

Ryan Freng: 54:00

You know, and, like you have a media background and a great love of movies, and I feel like that is like the story of production, like that is what production looks like, and even to the point where, like on our side of the table, we don’t know what it’s going to look like, but we’re like, yeah, we know the pieces and we have these pieces and we figure out the pieces and it’s it’s almost like like what is that? Those derby cars? Right, like here’s kind of the components. You build your derby car as best you can and it’ll go fast, and you’re like, right, well, I don’t know how I’m gonna get from here to here, but I have the pieces and I know I’m gonna get there.

Ryan Freng: 54:37

You know, uh, and I feel like that’s often how we view production, and so when you have that, we’re like, okay, here’s some idea on the story, and then what do we do? We’re going to interview these couple of people, and then we do mail on the street and what are we going to get? I have no idea. But I’m confident that we can take those pieces that we know will be valuable and put them together in a way that functions in a way that, at the end of the project, is this enjoyable, consumable thing that we expect right, yeah, and that and what you just described is is a type of faith.

Father Matthew Pearson: 55:16

Actually, you know, and that’s part of why people like art is because art is an expression of faith. It could be human, you know. But it’s like, why do so-and-so like to go into the production studio to record a new album? And they’re like, oh, I know that I we have the, the soundtrack, but we don’t know the lyrics yet. Or we have the lyrics, but we don’t know what music we’re gonna. You know what beat we’re gonna write to it. Those pieces are like you’re having faith that the ultimate conclusion is going to be a positive one, but yet you don’t know. But yet you’re walking. We walk by faith and not by sin. You move in a way that is without a clear vision, but you move in a way where you know, know that there’s something you know that’s that’s faithful living. You know, and we do it in human ways. You know a lot of the world does this. They just they balk, unfortunately, sometimes at doing it in a supernatural way or with the terminology of faith and supernatural.

John Shoemaker: 56:20

Right it’s, it’s funny because I, I, I, the term, the, the word that we use a lot, you know, is trust, which is, you know, is like yeah, we’re asking for our clients to like, have faith in us and trust in us, and they’re taking risk, yep, maybe like secular documentary, mini documentary, promo sort of project, because it is always the same and there are times where clients are like is always the same and there are times where clients are like well, do we have a script or whatever? And you’re like I mean, it’s not a scripted piece. There are scripted things that we do, but this one is more docu style and we’ll outline it just like we did on this project. There was a rough outline, yeah, but you’re like, I don’t know what we’re gonna get. I’m going to make it off of the sound bites that we get.

John Shoemaker: 57:04

Yeah, and’m not. And I’ve been on productions where there are teams who don’t have the trust factor with themselves or other clients or anything, and they will not break the script with the scripted questions and then they’ll even ask the natural interview subject to deliver. Can you say this, right, you know Right? And it’s just like ah, it just doesn’t hit the same way as being like well, I’m just going to trust that we’re going to get content and I can turn it into something that impacts you, and and we’re finding a lot of success in that. Well, that’s like.

Father Matthew Pearson: 57:43

Well, that’s like my. You know, in some ways the favorite character of the documentary, orange jacket man, you know, as we affectionately called him I forget his name.

Ryan Freng: 57:52

I’m sure we can look it up, but no, he doesn’t have a name. Yeah.

Father Matthew Pearson: 57:55

Yeah, Orange jacket, man, and uh, or vest right, or yeah, maybe it was like a, it’s a puffy, but like but there’s no way we could have scripted what he said.

Father Matthew Pearson: 58:07

You know he was kind of the antagonist right and didn’t believe in anything, but we could have never scripted like, do I think it’s essential? No, you know, we never would have written that if we were going to script it. It was just his very like, it was his personality and really where he was and sort of his gruff like nah, yeah, that’s how he lived his life, that’s how he spoke to people and it came across in a good way in the documentary to show us there are people that just look at the eucharist like that and obviously it’s sad but it’s real you know, what was mind-blowing still about his interview was that presented the hypothetical question what if it was all true?

Father Matthew Pearson: 58:50

oh, yeah, he was still able to get.

John Shoemaker: 58:52

Well, it was true. I guess I go to church more.

Father Matthew Pearson: 58:56

Yeah, that’s right. That’s right.

John Shoemaker: 58:57

Yeah, you know, it makes sense he could still, and and what it is is it’s pascal’s wager, he could still make pascal’s wager and I think that’s like the the, the genius of this, that that uncovered itself as we worked on the project is that, like that’s where the modern audience is. You’re not trusting of things or not trusting of authority or whatever. But maybe we can get people to make pascal’sager, which is, and then the bishop put the words to it organically as well, and he’s such an eloquent speaker. It was like well, what would you say, bishop, to a Catholic, you know? And we were like, going for the model of well, let’s model this. Like what does the rabbi do with you know? Like what does the teacher do?

Father Matthew Pearson: 59:45

And he just rattled off that well and that’s, and that’s where we got the title for the whole thing was from his little you know, and I’m sure he’s pulling that from somewhere, I mean it’s it’s reminiscent of john paul ii, just how he spoke, you know. You know, uh, I I saw it on a youtube video, but it it was, you know, when he was in Denver, apparently in English, you know, and it’s just such a funny, you know, it’s almost like being a politician that you just say these catchphrases, but people love them. But he was just like, you know, old people believe in Christ. You know, young people believe in Christ. You know, you know parents, he just went through the whole. Basically, I don’t care who you are, believe in Christ christ. You know, you know parents.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:00:25

He just went through the whole. Basically, I don’t care who you are, believe in christ. You know, like, and it became, you know, so that’s where I think bishop got it from, like, dare to believe in this, yeah, and he was kind of channeling that and we don’t have to keep, we don’t have to go into a big john paul thing. But john paul man, I didn’t grow, I mean, I he was towards the end of my, you know, but I didn’t even know he was pope because I was such a young kid. But I’m beginning to see, in various ways as a priest, like the impact that he had, you know, just in like what a blessed person this was. Just from what he talked about and just how he loved people is just kind of cool.

Ryan Freng: 1:01:06

I wonder about that. I wonder if we’re kind of redesigning the project too, as we were discussing this, because originally there was some input from the Bishop of you know kind of, here’s the five additional episodes that I like to see, and, like the priesthood and and other things in the faith, we kind of hit on the Euchar and and other things in the faith. Uh, we kind of hit on the Eucharist and the first one very impactful, uh, concept and discussion, but more so Pascal’s wager and the dare to believe concept, like what about other concepts of the faith that we can talk to people about and be like what if it was true? Right, so you know what if it was true, right, so you know what if jesus did come?

John Shoemaker: 1:01:49

and well, so was the messiah. There is a connectedness to the different uh topics, and I think this is actually the meeting that you and I had, father, when no one else was available. Um, where.

Ryan Freng: 1:02:03

So you’re telling me you’ve already figured this out. Well, not perfectly, which is good in any form of documentary, it’s not perfectly fleshed out.

John Shoemaker: 1:02:10

But but the connectedness, like if you just go, uh, if this, then this, then this, then you know right, and so it was like, okay, so if you start the eucharist, if this is true, then you need to have the mass, you know, because you need that, that place of sacrifice, you need that altar to complete the, you know, the vision, to complete the covenant, and then that’s an episode, and then if the mass needs to be a thing, then we must have a priest to conduct that sacrifice. You know, and you could kind of like build it that way.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:02:46

Yeah, it’s a tarantino, you build it from the, from the ending backwards, right, but because originally I think we were going the other direction and we were going to start with priesthood. You know, we were going to start with priesthood and then we’re going to maybe develop into mass and then into the eucharist. But then the bishop was like, well, well, the Eucharist, it’s the, you know, uh, eucharistic revival. So it’s like, yeah, great, I’m, I’m with you, but I do think that there is a. You know, when I talk to Protestants or I talk to you know, you talk to the faithful.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:03:19

Believing in the Eucharist inherently implies that you believe there’s something different about me than you in the priesthood. You know like you inherently believe in that. And if you believe in that, this would be maybe the fourth tier if you believe in that, you believe in the power of the holy spirit working through the bishops of the church and through the pope, which means you believe in a larger concept of what the church is right, we’ve got the apostolic nature right. But also, just in, you know, when I one thing I emphasize to people at times you, you know, when we say church, unfortunately in 2024, when you say church, you imply a name, like a denomination, you know, a nomin, a nominal of some kind. So there’s a name for every type of church.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:04:11

But really, biblically and in the life of the church, theologically, church is one thing and it will always be one thing, and it’s the one body of christ who believes in jesus christ risen from the dead. That’s what the church is just like. That’s what ancient israel was. They were ones that believed in the one true god. You know so that it comes with a whole. So you see, it’s like a daisy chain, right, these things all go together and they lead to an ultimate truth, which is christ himself. You know so, but yet these pieces are important right and that connectedness and the wager.

Ryan Freng: 1:04:50

I think you know, if you talk to a reasonable person, I think that we get to okay. But if that was true, what would that be? And that’s powerful, a powerful reflection. Yeah, I think, if you’re honest, like you know, someone could ask me like what if god didn’t exist? How would you live? You know you’d probably be like. You know someone could ask me like what if God didn’t exist? How would you live? You know you’d probably be like well then I would probably seek another moral, uh paradigm such that I could live a useful, fruitful, good life, because that seems to be positive to me or whatever you know. So certainly an exercise anyone can do. We do have a question from your other mama, baby mama. Actually it’s a comment.

Ryan Freng: 1:05:31

The end of the Cantalamesa Holy Spirit prayer, and this goes back to the prayer discussion we’re having. I want what you want. I want it because you want it, I want it when you want it and I want it as you want it, like to give yourself up to the will of God in your prayer. Yeah, it’s the unity of your desires.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:05:48

Yeah, it’s again, it’s a yeah, I want to desire what God wants to desire, which, when you take that to the full end, you know, nth degree you want to become love, just like he is, just like God is love, you know.

Ryan Freng: 1:06:10

So then you become that, you’re transformed. That’s the whole purpose of the sacraments. When you’re getting rid of like that expectation and control and you know, like being married, like when somebody has an expectation that is uncommunicated, like that is like the root of so many problems, yeah, and I think with prayer, like I’m looking for consolation and like I’m trying to hold on and I’m trying to put some limits on god. So to be able to give that up then positions me and it essentially opens my mind and my heart for the will of god, you know, or to receive what yeah, the things that cause people the most frustration, anxiety and fear are these false ideas of that they can control something.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:06:46

That’s what causes, you know, why is so-and-so not like this in my family? Why isn’t my marriage like this? Why aren’t my kids like that? Why isn’t my job like that? These are all these things people put in their mind that they’re sort of entertaining the fantasy of controlling that the way they want to. And if they just stopped doing that they would actually be at peace. You know it’s it’s kind of simple, but yeah, it’s very difficult for us to do because the only way you can.

Ryan Freng: 1:07:13

Well, it’s simple in concept, difficult in practice, right, right, right, yeah, we do have a Leanne Henry uh comments yeah, my whole family on the street. We have to get people swag. We got, yeah, we gotta, we gotta. We have to give people swag. Yeah, we got to make sure John’s on every episode, because people show up. Not controlling everything in any project allows surprises, more genuine and meaningful outcome. It allows for the blend of profound interventions that would not have been considered in conception. That’s interesting too. That’s very profound intervention.

John Shoemaker: 1:07:40

I’ve got to give my aunt Lee some props, because she always claims this fame and she does deserve it. Some props, yes, because she always claims this fame and she does deserve it. So my parents went on an anniversary trip when I was like in first grade and my sister was in kindergarten and one of the things she did to keep us occupied that week is had us design the backdrop, write a script for like a movie, and we filmed it on like a vhs camera about like my sister and I going, oh, look at that dream vacation thing. So she my aunt lee claims she started the career, yeah, she’s the start of the career seed of that.

Ryan Freng: 1:08:15

Yeah, that’s fantastic. So, uh, we have this book sitting here, um, joe and gloria, it. You know it. It’s kind of, but this showed up on my desk one time, I think. When mail comes to the office and it’s not addressed to somebody specific, scott will put it in my office, and it’s often because I kind of control, control, I kind of manage a lot of the shipping that happens.

Ryan Freng: 1:08:42

So it’s often crap for me, but this was just for backflip and it came with this letter, which was really cool, um, and basically it is somebody who saw our dare to believe project and the work that we’re doing, um, and we wanted to share his story. So it’s an elderly man whose wife passed away, uh, in 2015, after their 52nd year anniversary, um, and he basically was inspired to write a book about their life, cool Um, and how God has worked in their lives and in agreement in, uh, immigrants. What is it? Story of love, love, joy, happiness, beauty, pleasures, freedom. He wants, he wants it all right, so it’s like joan gloria.

Ryan Freng: 1:09:28

So I feel like I’ve read like eight pages, like when I first got it, um, but this is just, you know, like I’m so thankful to just have this person reach out and write a letter, print a letter, sign a letter, mail the book, um, and I don’t know if maybe between the lines there’s like, hey, maybe this is a story that could be made into a film or something. But just somebody wanting to, you know, connecting with, dare to believe and then sharing their personal, you know, like evangelizing right, how God has worked in their life and the beauty of him and his marriage or his wife, wanting to share that with us and just being like, you know, god bless your team and please do not stop. There’s nothing more important than what you were doing in this time we are experiencing. Wow, just, you know, and you can read this later, but I thought that gave me goosebumps.

John Shoemaker: 1:10:23

That’s like one of those things where you have no idea how it affects. It affects somebody, yeah, if if that’s it, if the product stops here, oh yeah, what an amazing impact.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:10:33

Yeah, um and yeah, it’s just that’s or even just to bring whatever you know great things might be in this story. Yeah, bring it into your guys’s world. Maybe that’s part of divine properties, you know it’s like. This is a story that needs to be told. It’s going to inspire married couples or just family life or who knows. But this is kind of the fun of letting God be God and letting us just kind of he wants to bring us into his world. You know he wants to bring us into. He’s always going to do something more exciting and more joyful than we could ever dream up and if you just give yourself over to that, that’s a much better way to live.

Ryan Freng: 1:11:10

I love that so much too, cause like he wants to bring us into his world versus like I don’t want to bring God into my world, like I don’t want to put my restraints and my ideas and whatever on God I can, that sounds terrible.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:11:20

I can mix, I can mix two stories together here that come from the same place. But it was, uh, I did uh like a month, uh, trying to learn Spanish in Avila, spain, several years ago, and we hung out with these Carmelite sisters that lived there. So St Teresa of Avila, from Avila, obviously, was a Carmelite, and so they’re living in the same exact place she lived. So there was something very wild about that. So we went and we visited them, for, like, they’re behind grates, you know. So we visited these two that could speak English and one of them said we only met with them for an hour To be clear.

Ryan Freng: 1:11:57

They’re like cloistered so you can’t go into a meeting room with them. But they’re just behind something. They’re not like in cages, correct?

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:12:05

Yeah, so there’s a meeting room that has just like little. I mean you can still see them very clearly, but there’s just the concept is that they’re still in the cloister. And but the one said you know you’re going to have a lot of ideas as pastors and priests and you know it’s good to have a lot of ideas, but when you have all your ideas, make sure you’re asking in prayer which thing God actually wants you to do. You know, and that goes a long way you know when you do that it and now I’m blanking on the second part I was going to tell you sorry, guys, mixing two stories yeah, shoot, what was the other thing I was going to tell you?

Ryan Freng: 1:12:47

We had just talked about, uh, us being welcome or being brought into god’s world, as opposed to oh yes, that’s it, that’s it so then.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:12:51

So that’s avala with those nuns. So always seek, you know, be open to what god might want you to do, not the things you want to do, you know, but take the things you want to do to him and say which ones you want me to do, you know. So that’s first thing from satirist or from this carmelite sister. And then saint teresa of avila has this concept that I’ve taken very seriously, my priesthood, because I’ll go visit people when they’re dying, and all these wild things, or someone in a hard time, or just something good, you know, like you know hanging out with the kids at recess, whatever it might be. But the concept is that she said we often say take God with you wherever you go. You know you’re going to go grocery shopping. Take God with you, invite God into your day, or, like here, you’d say, lord, I want you to be here at this podcast, or whatever. You know.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:13:39

It’s not that St Teresa said. She said no, no, god wants to do those things, said. She said uh, no, no, god wants to do those things. He’s bringing you with him. So god wants to go to the person. He’s going to go anyway, he’s already there. He’s bringing you to that person’s bedside. He’s bringing you to that recess with the kids, whatever it might be, so like you guys can do this with your, you know it’s it’s god who wants to be there to comfort your wives or to just love your wives and your children. He’s going to do that. But he wants to bring you into it. You know he’s inviting you into the, into the beauty of what he’s doing in love and in grace. So that’s a better way of thinking about life.

Ryan Freng: 1:14:21

So how do you pray that Cause right, cause, obviously, god be with me, god come with me, like that’s something that’s easy to kind of mentally get my head around. But how do you say like, okay, I’m going to go do this, god, let me be with you. Is that, is that maybe what it is Like? Something like that may be with you, let me accompany you in this.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:14:40

Well it’s, I will be done in some sense, Like you know, but it’s’s more trying to say god’s will is that you’re with him. Yeah, that’s a better way of understanding it. The will of god is that you are united to him.

John Shoemaker: 1:14:52

So the uh, it reminds me of the um, the encouragement and prayer that like, well, you know prayer is, it’s, it’s the, it’s the spirit within you seeking to connect with, with God. You know, like so, when we lament about you know our troubles with prayer or whatever, you know, like you can, just you can kind of calm down a little bit and be like, yes, there’s a value to discipline, but there’s also, like you know, trust that like the spirit is, like your desires to pray and then your dissatisfaction with your ability and stuff. Like you know, like God has that in hand. You know that he’s, he’s inspiring that connection that you’re desiring more of.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:15:39

And St Paul I mean St Paul gives us essentially this theology it’s in him we live, live, move and have our being. You see, so like, if that’s true, like we live in him, with him, and it’s through him we have our being, if that’s true, then anything we do is him. You see, like, even those who resist now it’s still not going to do that and it’s going to. You know, so like, in a weird way even, like even demons are in relationship with God because he created them, but they’re in the worst kind of relationship because they are in some sense, they’re consumed by hatred that he is a part of them, that they live in him and move in him and have being through him. That’s what torments them.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:16:29

So we want obviously the opposite. We want that to bring us joy and peace. But God this is what we mean God is the creator of all things, you know. So this is where you have to. You know, when you talk about, like, the full horsepower and spirituality of of the church, this is what we’re getting at is that, yeah, we think we’re in control, we think we’re doing these things and, yeah, we are making decisions, but we can only make decisions because God created us to be able to make decisions, so why would we want not want those decisions to correspond with him every time? You see what I mean.

Ryan Freng: 1:17:01

Yeah Well and this I mean, mean this gets into a really interesting area. You, you know, you, as a recently minted parochial administrator. Yes, you’re running a multi-million dollar corporation not corporation, but a business or organization um, you know, maybe with not a ton of business experience, right, because you’re trained as, as priest, you’re trained to be pastoral and you’re not necessarily trained to be an administrator, although there’s I’m sure there’s a lot of training, additional training that goes into that. But thinking about this and we’ve worked in projects where our partners are spiritual, you know, catholic, and they’ve been like, well, I prayed about this and and therefore this way, um, it just makes me think about the difficult line there and I wonder, like, if you have a unique, what your perspective is when being an administrator, like and being pastoral and being like, well, I am here and this, you know, I am the administrator of the parish, I’m the. The buck stops here, I’m the boss, um, but it’s god’s will be done, and if you disagree with me, are you disagreeing with god? You?

Ryan Freng: 1:18:21

know, like, I feel, like it’s very quick to be like I prayed about it and so we should go in this direction. But somebody might have prayed about it and think they should go in a different direction. Yeah right, how do you source you know?

John Shoemaker: 1:18:30

And clearly our opinion is that, yes, that it is. It gets used wrongly at times. Where you know it can be used wrongly, someone’s like well, you know, I prayed about this and we have some experience and and it’s like well. Also, back to the work discussion we talked about like well, if that’s all that it takes, then why are we doing all this work? Yeah, we’re working at all. I don’t need to work like god will just do it. So like just tell me what it is and then we’ll just do that. No, that’s not how life works. Like. We’ve been given talent, we spent a lot of time working on it, gaining experience over years, and we’re uniting natural talent and ability, which, arguably, is a gift that we’ve been given with the will of God. You know, together it’s both things, yeah, not like trumping each other with like. Together it’s both things, yeah, and not like trumping each other with like well, I pray it harder.

Ryan Freng: 1:19:29

You know well, in that case it’s like we’re peers or we’re collaborators. You know, in this case you are the administrator or the the boss. So so it is different there, but I’m sure, I’m sure this is a regular thing you think about or talk with your fellow priests or the bishop or Well.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:19:47

But yeah, I mean, like, even before I was an administrator, you might say you could apply this like is this the right homily to preach? Is this the right topic? Did I really seek the Lord’s face on, like, what exactly I should preach about? And to some extent there is. I apply the same principles I’ve kind of mentioned. It’s like, lord, do you want, you know, do you want me to preach about? This seems like a good thing to preach about. All right, I’m gonna do it.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:20:16

But there’s other times where I’ve done that and then maybe, as I get closer to sunday, it might feel like, you know, know, I think, cause, again, I’m praying, right, so, like I’m, I’m just my mind is disposed to let God put thoughts in my mind, you know, and to move to bring something to my attention. That’s what I’m. In some ways, I’m like I’m a viewer, right, I’m waiting for God to hit something, you know, hit a light, and I go, okay, even if it’s a little D, you’re discerning, yep, exactly. And so there’s been times where I’ve moved and changed things. Like I just preached, um, a funeral the other day, um, and I had kind of the guy was really really great guy, but I was going to preach about him being a gentleman and him being open to others, because that’s what the family sort of describes. I was going to talk about how there’s a great Christian way of living and I was going to say, like this is how we all want to live, we want to have, we want to walk into a room and see who needs us, who can we be of service to? Who in our community needs something? What does God need? You know, be like being a great neighbor, being a great gentleman, and so that was kind of the concept I was going to go with. And then, like maybe the day before, I remembered that this guy had issues with his eyesight. So then I took that same concept and I developed it more into like open Lord opens our eyes, you know. So like he went, walked into a room. He had to be able to see people to help him, right. So I went that direction because I felt like God brought that to my mind and that it seemed like the right way to go. So I talked about Jesus, you know, and healing all these blind people in the Gospels. So that’s a way and I think for administrative purposes, for business stuff, you know the same concept applies Grace builds on nature is the classic concept, meaning you should run a parish like, according to normal business practices, um, and then, occasionally grace will.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:22:21

When there’s moments for grace, god will make those known and you might take a risk or something. You know you might, but even business people take risks. You know what I mean. Away from normal practices. But I think in general a business or a parish runs according to normal business practices, but you are so in a sense, a human way, human way. But then you’re open and you hope that the parish community is open and seeking what God desires to do. That might not be part of the norm, so that’s kind of how I take it. It’s gonna apply it well, that being open.

Ryan Freng: 1:22:56

I think that’s tough too, especially parishioners. You know I can speak for myself and my family, like my extended family, building st anne’s in um bristol or not bristol, it’s. Um, it’s kenosha area. What is it? Oh, racine? No, it’s, it’s. It’s just a little south of uh kenosha. Oh, why can’t I think of it? Uh, saint anne’s blanket, it’ll come to me.

Ryan Freng: 1:23:23

Yeah, um, so building that church with a particular pastor with his particular charisms and then being given a new pastor. And now they’ve built their church and it’s beautiful. Um, it’s the congregation faces each other, which kind of sucks. Um, and it was. It was kind of off of the pastor’s perspective of like we are community together, we’re building this together, whatnot? It makes mass awkward. Um, and so the current pastor is raising funds to reorient everything um kind of reposition the tabernacle and altar, place the altar in a better place, up, you know, at the, the top, the head, um, instead of kind of like in I don’t know, lower in the nave. Um, now that I know all these fancy terms. Um, and then turn all the the pews so that they face one direction. And that was great consternation to my family because they also need like building.

Ryan Freng: 1:24:18

Phase two previously was going to be additional education rooms, six additional, uh, faith formation rooms. So right now they’re kind of doing them in halls and kind of off in corners and things like that. So that’s not great, but they’re very disappointed and still disappointed in that. You know, and I guess that makes me just think about that. It’s not, you know, it’s not just one sided, it’s got to be both sided. And part of what we do as parishioners or as members is to be open to trust in our pastor, certainly, but the guidance of the Holy spirit in that as well. And especially when we don’t disagree, like I think it’s easy, when it’s like, oh, I agree and good things are happening, thanks God. But if we disagree, to also be like, okay, well, you know well it’s like I think I mean there’s.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:25:11

There has to be a normal. Like you know, god is not going to protect people from making bad decisions. You know what I mean. So this is why that line grace builds on nature is a real concept that you want to apply. So you, you want your people, your administrators, to already be, in a human sense or natural sense, have good judgment, good emotional balance, certain amount of intelligence. You know like these would be excellent at their job.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:25:41

Just yeah, yeah, you would hope, right yeah and then you hope grace, you’re describing yourself exactly. I was hoping someone would pick up on that, but you would. Then you hope grace affects that, but it’s no different. Take sports, or something you wouldn’t expect that if a priest is ordained that all of a sudden, because he prays to god to be good at basketball but he has no athleticism, that all of a sudden he would be good at basketball because he’s now a priest, right? Right, it applies in the same way of natural talents with just managing people, personality.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:26:16

You know certain business concepts taking advice, applying that advice. You know answering emails, structuring projects. I mean all the stuff you guys do here. You know it’s like those are things that not everyone has, those that skillset, right, not everyone has to have that skillset, but if you, if you have that skillset, ideally this is where the church has struggled Ideally certain skillsets or, as St Paul would talk about them, charisms.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:26:43

You know, not everyone is meant to be a bishop, not everyone is meant to be a catechist or a musician, but the ones that are based on their talents they should be. You know what I mean. It’s like you’re supposed to be, because now God can use that talent and that natural talent, whatever it might be, and grace builds on that natural talent and then you can really do stuff like take john paul you know same thing, like he was gonna be good at whatever he did publicly, thank god. He became a priest and then became a bishop and then became the pope. You see what I mean? He was always going to be good at, like, expressing himself, because that was his natural talent. But then grace built upon that and look what you saw. You see, I mean that’s the idea.

Ryan Freng: 1:27:29

That’s the idea yeah, we’re talking with our recently minted parochial, parochial vicar.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:27:33

No jet vicar general oh yeah, the Reverend, tate the reverend.

Ryan Freng: 1:27:38

Tate. Yeah, well, I have a great picture from Holy Name Heights. They have all their classes and he’s got a great oh man, that’s a little Father Tate picture there. But we were just ruminating about this too and I was like we have a lot of friends who are young priests and they’re like put into these or given these roles where they don’t have necessarily all the business experience and managing multi-million dollar corporate not corporations, organizations I keep wanting to say corporations, but organizations and there’s a challenge there. And we’re like kind of ruminating and dreaming like is there a retired, some kind of retired business training person who could be like hey, here’s, you know, here’s a great way to set up goals and to help train your staff to be united in these goals, because certainly it’s like salvation and getting to heaven, right.

Ryan Freng: 1:28:34

Those are kind of nebulous, though, and you break it down very pastorally and I’m sure priests are more skilled at breaking that down pastorally too. Okay, what does that look like daily? How do we do that in our lives? But then it’s like, okay, well, now we have this $1 million fund and this is breaking over here and this is happening and your staff may have that expertise, your staff may not, but if, at the very least, you have some of those goals and those mission being set in a clear way. It’s like, well, you know what? Maintenance is number two to our mission right now and what is our mission? Well, this is our mission. It’s very clearly defined and this is this and here’s how we operate that.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:29:12

So we were having some drinks and like that would be cool, maybe, maybe, if I ever get experience in this and an old and retired and can just donate my time, and there are, I mean, there are groups that do things like this, but and there’s been an attempt, I mean that’s the thing the church ran for a certain way for a long time and, at least in America, you know it kind of had a certain structure, has certain rhythm, and it worked fine. You know, like some of the other older priests, they tell you, 50 years ago well, maybe not it’s 2024 now, but like, maybe 70 years ago, the pastor of a parish, he handled all the money, literally, he was the bank and he paid the bills. He was trusted by everybody to take their money and use it for the glory of God, take care of the church with my money, pay the bills with my money, and then you find a way to spend this money to spread the gospel. Yes, certainly Right, that was just not.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:30:11

You know, within the last hundred years, that that was the concept, and now we’re in a whole different world. So, and priesthood has been tricky in this way, like there’s a changing along with as this has happened throughout the history of church too. But the church has to grow and change with the world around it, you know. And now we find ourselves in a world where churches are very much small business setups, and so the principles of running a good, strong small business to effectively accomplish your goals. People always say these feel like these are too bureaucratic, or these terms yeah right, but yet we are. We can’t escape that. But yet that’s not all we are. That’s what we can always hold up is that we’re not just that, it’s like even your own, you know, even a household or whatever.

John Shoemaker: 1:31:02

What I was thinking about is, I think, many people, you know it’s that idea of like, well, I didn’t sign up for this, you know, yeah, yeah, uh, you know, well, I my, what I want to do is be a husband and a father. I didn’t want to, you know, be a a water heater technician and fix drywall and do gardening and weeding of a driveway.

Ryan Freng: 1:31:29

Or even for me like an argument litigator. I don’t want to litigate arguments.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:31:33

Or these people that have a child with a disability Right.

John Shoemaker: 1:31:36

They have to learn how to become a medical person, and you would speak to this better, have to learn how to become a medical person, and so forgive it in that regard. You know, and you would speak to this better. But you know like, oh, my vocation to the priesthood, you know, like, well, what I wanted to do was do these priestly duties. I didn’t want to be, like you know, negotiating like utilities bills and yeah, stuff like that, but but we have responsibilities that do get handed to us, that we just have to take on and again to bring it full circle.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:32:08

it’s like you know, to do any vocation requires you trust in divine providence and that I don’t care what God throws at me, I’m going to glorify him in whatever he asks of me. There’s risk there, because you don’t know what God’s going to ask of you. You know I’ve talked about this in a couple of homilies, but you know, a lot of us like to follow Jesus, but not a lot of us like to follow Jesus all that closely. And you might say why? Well, because the closer you are just like in any environment, the closer you are to the guy who gives the orders, he might ask you to do something. You see what I mean. Like he might say, hey, hey, are you in? I can see you now, but if you hang back in the crowd, he’s not going to call you out, usually, right.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:32:53

So then there is that concept too of like, if whatever you’re going to go, do be open to be right up front, like God, call on you, let him give you something. You know, because it’s him who wants to bring you to something he’s doing Right, and that you have to have faith to believe that that is better than anything you’re going to come up with. You know what I mean. That’s a better way to live life. To go to your Paschal’s thing, it’s like not only is it true that’s the better reason to choose it and it’s ordered towards love, but it’s a way better way to live your life, like 100 than any other way you could. Any other philosophy, any other way of thinking. That’s the better way to live your life.

Ryan Freng: 1:33:32

You know, yeah, I had a good friend who was single for a long time and is now married and we’ve journeyed together through a lot of our lives and he’s like I figured it out.

Ryan Freng: 1:33:43

I figured out what marriage is. It’s like it’s about negotiating, and I was like no, I was like no, no, no, because you know, that is so kind of uh, self-focused, like you want to get an equal amount that they get right, right. And I was like it’s not, know, it’s not that give and take, it’s like give and give. And like when you have that perspective of, yeah, I’m going to sacrifice, you know I’m going to give and that’s that’s the perspective that I’m going to have, then it’s like freeing, uh and I it’s it’s weird to understand that in like one area but then to not execute on it. You know, like having conversation with my friend about that and then like just sucking as a husband, you know, and being like, oh, you’re in a bad mood and now I’m going to be in a bad mood because you’re in a bad mood, and like you know, I don’t want to be mean to you Like how does that make any sense?

John Shoemaker: 1:34:36

Well, we’re clearly we can. That’s also the the lie of like modern society and like, and actually the rejection of faith. The church anything is like. Well, there are people that do bad things and make mistakes, you know. Therefore, the church is bad yeah, so like well, actually it.

John Shoemaker: 1:34:58

It’s consistent with reality to be weak and also understand what it is that we should be doing. You know, to be striving for right and to not just be like, no, I’m well. There’s another full circle thing like I’m good enough, I’m, yeah, I’m good right here. You know, like no, I’m, I’m not where I want to be, but I also understand intellectually what it’s how I’m supposed to be.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:35:20

Right, yeah, right, no. And I mean, yeah, it’s true that the church, the church lives within reality as a salvation, as a salvific, you know the the arc of salvation within the turbulent waters of whatever culture it’s in. And so you look at, yeah, bad people in the church doing bad things Well yeah, bad people in the church doing bad things, well yeah, at the exact same time that the whole society was just doing terrible and bad things. You know. So those people, in some mysterious way, were still felt called to that, you know, to something else. You know, even though they end up making mistakes and sins and everything. But you know it, uh, god still did graceful things with all that, you know. And evil also run amok too. But, yeah, it’s, uh, there is a mystery here that we are asked to enter into. I mean, it’s the biblical story, you know salvation versus our desire to destroy. You know this is the desire to destroy. You know this is the whole biblical concept. So, yeah, you see it in various ways.

Ryan Freng: 1:36:26

We saw it here, you know we do have another question, but maybe we won’t answer it what happens when one is taught that only Catholics have the right to grace, to be worthy of participating in communion, not just, not as just described as the church? Maybe there would probably need to be some more fleshing out there, a topic for the different no, no, I got this one. I’m good at this one because there are two different things, like the right to grace, but then to be worthy to participate in community yeah, they’re really sick.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:36:57

Yeah, what they’re getting at is like, why can’t I receive community? So like, yeah, that’s the concept is I’ll try to do it quick if the church is the body of christ and you become a member of the body of christ through baptism, so any father, son, holy spirit, makes you a child of god in the one church. See, like, just because you’re baptized, father, son, holy spirit, the presbyterian church, you’re part of the same body because there’s only one body, there’s only one covenant, the new covenant in the blood of christ. So you’re baptized into that. Therefore you are a part of the body of christ and therefore you are entitled, upon professing faith in that covenant, the church, and in the real presence of christ, you are entitled to have communion with that body because you’re a member of that body. So then you receive Holy Communion.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:37:50

So, but in professing of that faith, well, yeah, but because of communion is because you have a common union with the full profession of the whole gospel of Christ. So that can only exist in a singular form. That’s the whole point of truth is that truth is singular and the church, one church, has that truth. So until you profess that fully, you can’t have common union with the church and therefore, therefore, holy communion with the flesh and blood of god so that’s what’s interesting.

Ryan Freng: 1:38:26

It’s like it’s not that necessarily, and I mean it is somewhat like that you are not deserving because you don’t have the perspective. It is that you are not entering in.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:38:35

You don’t have that common union, exactly shared, yeah, fullness of uh, acceptance or yeah, I mean it’s it’s, it’s a spiritual reality, you know, because are there people? Are there people taking the eucharist? That probably shouldn’t be, perhaps right, but that’s in some ways that’s on them, yeah, but the point is, is that they, if you’re receiving communion, you are professing the fullness of the faith, the creed on Sunday, which the Catholic, nicene Creed, apostolic Creed or Apostles’ Creed. So you have common union that entitles you in a certain way even though none of us are worthy of God’s grace, but he gives it freely but it entitles you to have holy common union, to receive the flesh and blood of Christ because you belong to the body of Christ. So that’s the shortish theology of that, but that’s one of my favorite things to teach, actually that little chunk, not just about communion but getting people to see how they belong to Christ.

John Shoemaker: 1:39:38

Well chosen for the beginning of this series. Right, right dare to believe.

Ryan Freng: 1:39:44

Well, and hopefully, yeah, we can continue with that too and if we get other people we’d love to, you know, continue to get you to be involved talking to people, but I got nothing but time now. So I mean, so there’s, there’s also maybe a an us first day question here too, and like part of it is like to common union, to be in communion, like when we have grave sin we can’t receive or we shouldn’t receive correct and have have I done that in the past absolutely correct. You know, like I I’m hopeful that I went to confession, um, and at least confess that you know that’s a really, that’s a really good point, because I think it’s a breaking of that common.

John Shoemaker: 1:40:21

Yeah, people like people outside the Catholic church probably don’t really. It’s just like the hypocrisy that people see and they’re like unhappy about it and they’re like I don’t like this because of that. And a lot of times what’s misunderstood is like, yeah, nobody in the Catholic church was OK with that either. Right, we’re not okay with that. In fact, catholics who are, you know, in in this state of like grave sin or in you know, habitual sin or for or don’t believe or whatever, also should not partake in that and so we’re also not participating right at certain times or whatever. And people don’t know that and it just feels like, well, they’re not allowing.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:41:07

It doesn’t sound like it feels exclusionary Right, but really what it is is, it’s the full sense of what was in the Old Testament the ritual laws that made you unclean to enter the temple. So what then God did? Said no. What makes you truly unclean is what the temple, yeah. So what then god did? Said no. What makes you truly unclean is what’s in the heart yeah. So therefore, if you commit a grave sin with your heart, you sin against god, you sin against neighbor in a grievous way that that takes, that makes you ritually impure, so, in other words, it steals away your ability to worship yeah, we’re we’re pulling away.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:41:44

Yeah, in that exactly. Yeah, it’s our, yeah, it’s a choice we’ve made, right, but it makes you unfit for worship until such time you become purified. That’s what confession is. But come back and give me. But worship, the fullness of worship, is to be in holy common union with the flesh and blood of God who came to save us, you know. So it’s like this does really all come together in a very kind of sometimes simple, depending how it’s explained, but also profound, which also makes it very engaging.

Ryan Freng: 1:42:14

you know it’s typically like the high schoolers, but you know they’ll go for communion and then they just receive a blessing and I’m like, oh crap, when was the last time I went to confession? You know like, how am I? Am I good?

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:42:24

Okay, I think I’m, I’m, I’m pretty good, I think I’m good, but you want to have an active conscience, though, of saying God will let you know if you’ve screwed up. You know, and you should know technically that’s the definition of mortal sin. As you’re doing it, you know, so it’s like you know that that’s a good conscience. Actually, you know it’s people that are doing evil, right, that don’t think it’s evil.

Ryan Freng: 1:42:45

That’s when you’re in a bad place, very bad well and you know we’ll probably start wrapping up soon but like shame, uh, somebody’s like we should bring back shame.

Ryan Freng: 1:42:54

People used to do a lot less because they were shame, you know, because of shame.

Ryan Freng: 1:42:57

And now we don’t have that and I was like, well, I think there’s maybe two different ways that we’re looking at this idea of shame.

Ryan Freng: 1:43:02

Right, like when I do something that my you know soul reels against you know, like what is human? Uh, given to us by god, you know a directionality, and when we are turning away from that, we experience some shame. Like when we do something like that, it’s like the moral truth that is in our body, that is in our soul, that we understand, and that shame is so that we don’t harm ourselves again or more or whatnot. Now, if we’ve done something and somebody makes fun of us and we feel shame because somebody made fun of us, and then that hurts, you know, that’s different and that is like the idea of shaming, which tends to not be fruitful, tends to be bullying, and this idea of this external source of condemnation versus an internal response to a moral truth or theological truth or whatnot. That should help to bring us back into communion, right, and there’s those two ideas there’s, you know, a lot of different ideas in there.

John Shoemaker: 1:44:05

You know there’s like conscience which plays into it. There’s um, but yeah, the, the, the bad shame is like the accuser, the accuser of the brethren, like, which is he’s trying to convince you you’re not good enough, you never will be. Like, which is he’s trying to convince you you’re not good enough, you never will be. But then the healthy side of it is, you know, the invitation of like, like you know you make mistakes, you’re, you’re not good enough, but I will make you new, you know, and redeem you. Um, yeah, one is one is like inviting you back in no matter, no matter what.

John Shoemaker: 1:44:42

But it’s not just like you know, yeah, yeah, keep doing whatever you’re doing, yeah, but also it’s not the accuser of like you can never, you’re never gonna be worthy of anything yeah, shame is.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:44:56

Shame is the most lived reality, but it’s not ultimate reality. The ultimate reality is that god is love and that overpowers shame, but yet we live our lives objectively. We do things that are shameful all the time, but that is not your ultimate identity. That’s the biblical story. That’s, ultimately, what salvation is. Is that we’re recognizing that there is something very bad happening sin, which is shame, and that needs salvation, that needs rescuing. And so then, the whole idea that christ dies for that is that, yeah, okay. Well, we thought this ruled the world, but it doesn’t. You know, it seemed as though it did, and people throw in the towel on religion all the time because they think sin wins in the end. In some respects, no matter how hard I try, I can’t get over whatever. But ultimately, the biblical story and the story of people, the saints, is that no, actually love does win out. It is more powerful.

Ryan Freng: 1:45:57

That’s you know, that makes me think about the perspective we’re talking about, instead of being like. You know, no matter how hard I try, I can’t win. I can’t beat this. You know, god, I need you to come take this away with you know whatever.

Ryan Freng: 1:46:09

But like, again shifting that perspective of like I need to go where God wants you know to be with me, or where God is Right, and that perspective then is less of well. Why aren’t you helping me with this I’m is right and that perspective then is less of well. Why aren’t you helping me with this I’m out? You know, like this faith stuff doesn’t work, but it’s. It switches that perspective to not being me and myself and my control to I have to give that up and I have to pursue god and god’s will. So, yeah, I like how we can tie that back together absolutely, um, all right, so we do like to play this game. Can you hit the game? Oh boy, are you ready for this? I don’t think you’ll hear it. So we’re going to play two truths and a lie. We’ll give you a second to think and while we do, I’m going to have John pitch the Eucharistic Congress that we’re going to next week.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:46:55

Yes.

Ryan Freng: 1:46:56

And if you want to write something down, I can get you a piece of paper. No, that’s all right. Okay, all right.

John Shoemaker: 1:47:00

Yes, okay. So we are going to the National Eucharistic Congress in Indiana next week. Our company, backflip, will have a booth there, booth 725. Come find us in the booth, come find us in the exhibition hall. We are going to be featuring one particular project dare to believe, the dare to believe series. There may be some t-shirts available for uh door prizes. If you spin the wheel, uh, we might be doing a bigger giveaway of an entire marketing plan analysis. So, still, putting that together, um, we’ll be giving away other things. We have some sweet stickers that Ryan has on his laptop now. Yeah, right there, what if it were all true? So, yeah, come find us there.

John Shoemaker: 1:47:54

And, you know, for people who aren’t going, if you have connections or if you want to send anyone our way, please do that too. We’re trying to just connect. There’s going to be a lot of people there and it’s not just like catholic work, but there’s, you know, other people with businesses and who work at other companies and stuff, and we want to connect with them, uh, and just do more great work, whether it’s for their business in the world or whether it’s with their church or diocese or organization or whatever. So, hope to see there. We’ll, hopefully we’ll post things from from there too. We’ll share some snippets and be great. We’ll shoot a little bit of video and do we?

Ryan Freng: 1:48:32

are you coming down? We’ll see, we’ll see. I’m gonna see if I can be a busy man, yeah maybe a day or two.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:48:37

I think might be possible, but I have to, I’ll have to check, yeah, but yeah, I think it would be nice to come see the booth, you know, at least for the half a day or a day. Yeah, so stand by.

Ryan Freng: 1:48:48

I’ll check. Yeah, all right, so you ready? You got your two three’s in a lie. Uh, yeah, let me think here and I’ll give the little rules real quick. So father’s gonna tell us three things about himself. Um, I guess I didn’t give you that caveat before, but three things about himself. I guess I didn’t give you that caveat before, but three things about himself. And we have to pick what the lie is. And if you’re at home, you’re watching, you’re participating and you guessed correctly, we will send you some awesome swag. You just have to send us your address. I was going to say this this is actually from St Ambrose. See the joy. That’s some good stuff. Oh nice, but we have our backflip.

Ryan Freng: 1:49:18

It’s been, it’s wet, but yeah we’ll give you a new one the let’s make awesome, uh, backflip happy hour coaster so you can drink and keep your table nice and clean. Yeah, that’s right, that’s right.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:49:31

So all right, you’re ready, let’s do it. Two truths and a lie, all right. So my first job was on a farm and I fell in cow manure.

Ryan Freng: 1:49:46

I was born at home and I had a paper route, Nice and simple. First job was on a farm and you fell in cow manure. Born at home is number two and you had a paper route. When you’re a baby like an infant.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:49:59

No, no, I was a young man, 11 years old. That’d be’d be cool yeah, it was cool.

John Shoemaker: 1:50:08

Oh, it’s tricky. It’s tricky when the first one is long. It’s tricky when they’re short because there’s not a lot of context to go on. Yeah, let’s build out this context. So so, born at home and working on a farm seem like they go together.

Ryan Freng: 1:50:25

Those rural families like to you know, uh, you can’t have a paper route as a bird on the farm right, because like that’s too far to go on the country you’re working on the farm you can’t have a paper route, like were you gonna ride your bike 50 miles or whatever for four houses?

John Shoemaker: 1:50:40

Okay, so the I’m going to go with paper route is the lie.

Ryan Freng: 1:50:45

Yeah, and we do. We’ll have a little stream delay, so I’ll just vamp a little bit. You guys can guess who are watching. Oh, let, there’s no paper out. No way, no paper out, no way. That’s great, she’s very sure. Let’s see. How do we get to backflip? How do I, how do I use Facebook guys? Here comes the um. Yeah, I muted myself earlier.

John Shoemaker: 1:51:10

Um although he did say he was riding a bike. He rode a bike around Janesville the other the other day. He was just telling me that yeah.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:51:26

But then he also said he was huffing and puffing and sweating and stuff.

Ryan Freng: 1:51:27

So well, this was also. You know, this was about 20 years ago. You don’t have your middle school youthful energy. No man, we were at constance on the square last night and you should come hang out with us in two weeks if you want to come. We’re gonna do it again.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:51:36

Yeah, I’ve only been to one of those and I don’t know. I was just sitting on this picnic blanket all night with it was like I’m getting bit by mosquitoes and I was like why do people like this?

Ryan Freng: 1:51:45

you know that was a long time ago. We had sushi and wine. Oh, it was great. Um, but his kids. He only had two kids, the youngest though, and they they have like endless energy, like, if you can bottle that up and sell it, I will. I will be the first to buy it. They were we go um lee, leanne, harvey, is it leanne? Or just lee, lee, lee and lee and um first name henry. Uh, no, paper route. Do we have any other guesses? Celia, oh, celia blau, let’s see, is that that’s got to be like related to you, right?

John Shoemaker: 1:52:19

yeah, she was working with us.

Ryan Freng: 1:52:20

Oh, that, that’s gotta be like related to you, right? Yeah, she was working with us. Oh, that was. That’s Celia. What’s up, celia?

John Shoemaker: 1:52:24

Yeah, she was a PA on a shoot with us recently. We have many members of the of Luke’s family, immediate and extended.

Ryan Freng: 1:52:33

this business runs on Luke’s family Way to go. The blood of the Blau and I guess it’s Blau and Kolariski. Huh, all right, I mean, my guess is that Paper Out too, but you guessed Paper Out and we guessed Paper Out, so I’m going to go. Whatever you think, I’m going to go. Born at Home. You weren’t born at home. What?

John Shoemaker: 1:52:52

do you got to guess?

Ryan Freng: 1:52:53

Yeah, what’s your guess, Luke?

John Shoemaker: 1:52:54

I was also going to go, not Born at Home.

Ryan Freng: 1:52:58

I mean it wasn’t that popular of a thing. I mean it used to be popular and then kind of our Western medicine made it really unpopular, but now it’s more popular. Like six of my seven were born at home. Oh really Wow.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:53:11

Yeah, yeah, but they got so many more options now for like home. What do they call them, midwives? I?

Ryan Freng: 1:53:17

guess, maybe Joe and Casey watching what?

John Shoemaker: 1:53:22

They’re watching. A couple people are watching.

Ryan Freng: 1:53:24

Oh, I guess is that a thing? Facebook tells me what’s up.

John Shoemaker: 1:53:26

Welcome thanks for hanging welcome.

Ryan Freng: 1:53:28

We’re almost done, yeah welcome, welcome to the the end. Um, all right, do the grand reveal the grand reveal.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:53:34

So yeah, the lie is born at home oh, okay yeah, so I did. Yeah, my first job was on a farm as a kid, even though we lived in the city. But uh and uh. Yeah, I had a paper route for like three years.

John Shoemaker: 1:53:47

After you fell in that manure you’re like no more paper route is the way.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:53:50

Yeah, it’s a better way. No, it was great, just. Uh. Yeah, I mean, I guess, because it was terrible. That’s why, like four, you know, but just slipped in the you know just, and they had to hose me off, you were working as a four-year-old exactly so that, yeah, essentially my job was to get out of my mom’s hair for the weekend. Saturday, you know, go play on the farm she would.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:54:12

she worked with this lady who’s you know lived on a farm and uh, she would take me out there eight in the morning on a saturday and just drop me off and I would just run around the farm and just, yeah, pretend I was working. But I was getting making good money back then dollar an hour so for a four-year-old in the mid nineties that was big cash. Oh my gosh, I could buy Tootsie rolls for days.

Ryan Freng: 1:54:35

I mean, tootsie rolls haven’t really, uh, grown in cost, I feel like.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:54:39

I mean, knights of Columbus are just so there was a store around the corner for me that they sold Tootsie rolls like five different colors for one penny Right. So I remember one time I had a dollar and I was like I’m going to buy a hundred, but then I had to learn. Well, I had to learn that I uh, I learned about tax at a young age. So I’m thinking I’m walking in here, I’m getting, I’m coming home with a hundred, but I only had come home with 95. Cause there’s a little tax rate or whatever. It was 96. So they had to charge four cent tax or whatever. I was like what kind of crazy show is this.

Ryan Freng: 1:55:14

We had a candy lady, uh, in Rhode Island. It was like over the hill and we’d like went to. It was like over the hill and we like went to. We were allowed to go to by ourselves.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:55:24

It was like in her basement now that I think about that candy lady. Huh, that’s what you had to call her.

Ryan Freng: 1:55:27

It was the candy lady. Yeah, like the same same exact deal you could buy for pennies or whatever. Um, anyway, on that note, thanks for tuning in everyone.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:55:36

Thanks for coming and thank you father matthew, thanks so much, this was awesome yeah, hopefully we do get to hang out with you down in indianapolis.

Ryan Freng: 1:55:43

We can share. I mean share you and kind of your creative that’d be fun.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:55:48

I mean it would be. I think I I might as well do it. You guys talk me into it. Yeah, yeah, let me, uh, I like it.

Ryan Freng: 1:55:54

Let me move some things and I like it busy people who make things happen like that, like yeah, I was impressed well, it’s like you know you can.

Father Matthew Pearson: 1:56:01

I’m always impressed. Well, it’s like you know you can’t ever be so busy. I mean, that’s the thing with Same thing with your projects. I mean, there’s deadlines for certain things. You probably have more deadlines than I do, but you know, if you can’t do it today, well, you’ll do it in three days, you know. So it’s like it’s going to get done and maybe and maybe it just doesn’t happen as soon as you want it to.

Ryan Freng: 1:56:19

But I feel like busy people know how to find time, like, or maybe entrepreneurial people know how to find time. Sure, if a friend who’s like, yeah, let’s hang out, or I was like let’s hang out, and they’re like, yeah, we’ll hang out in a year, like jokingly because of their schedule, and I was like, in the next two weeks, you tell us when you can hang out and me and the wife are there, you go.

John Shoemaker: 1:56:37

Yeah.

Ryan Freng: 1:56:38

Like four days later they’re like we can do this. They were like we’re there. Yeah, we’ll move some stuff around, We’ll make it happen. Yeah, uh, again, thank you for coming. Thanks for hanging out. Uh, don’t know who we’re going to have on next, but you should tune in. Follow the socials, uh, from the conference. If you are going to the conference, please do check us out. Otherwise, subscribe to the podcast. We’re everywhere that podcasts are sold, so hang in. That’s what we got. We’re out, god bless guys Thanks. Bye.