Transcript of Called to Heal the Brokenhearted w/ Fr. Mike Schmitz and Fr. John Riccardo

In this hyper connected social media culture, people are actually more disconnected than they've ever been. Half of our young people say they don't enjoy living. That's new. Just to ask the Lord, Lord, who's crying? Who is it in my life right now who's crying? And I probably don't have to look very far. It's just a question of, will I care enough to make time for you? I want to shout from the rooftops, like the gospel is this simple. God wants to say to you, you matter to me, to me, to God, the creator of the universe, you matter to me. That's why I made you. That's why I became a man. That's why I went to the cross like, You're worth dying for to me. I think every human person is longing to hear that message.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and welcome to the called podcast brought to you by the Catholic Initiative and produced in partnership with Ascension. In this podcast, we dive into the ways that God has called us to be his presence in the world, hearing real stories of mercy, courage, and compassion. We're getting started. Actually, today, we're talking about how to accompany and support those who are broken-hearted. Psalm 23 says, The Lord is close to those who are broken-hearted, and he saves those whose spirit is crushed. This isn't just poetic, but it's a promise and a reminder that God is with us when we experience brokenness, grief, pain, and loneliness. I'm here today with Father John Ricardo, who has been a priest for almost 30 years. He's worked in Parish Ministry and Missions, and is now the executive director of Acts 29, which equips parish leaders to mobilize the church for mission. As we get started, Father, I'm so glad that you're here. So grateful for your presence and your work. Can you tell us a little bit about the works of Acts 29?

I'd love to. First of all, let me just thank you for all the work you do, brother. It's great to be with you, and I'm super grateful for your ministry and just how God uses and works in and through you. So thanks. We're a small team of missionaries. There's 10 of us. I'm the only priest, and there's nine other laymen and women. We started back in 2019, and we do four main things. People can find out more information about us at ax29. Org, a-c-t-s-x-x-i-x. Org. But we do media, not on the scale that you do, but a fair amount. We do it very intentionally to give hope and inspiration because we're so conscious of the fact that so much media, not just secular, but unfortunately, even in the church, is not calming people down. It's actually causing confusion, division, anxiety. We don't want to bury our heads in the sand, but we also want to be able to look at everything through a biblical lens and be reminded of the fact that we don't have any reason to be anxious right now because God's not nervous right now. We do a fair amount with media.

We do a lot of work with priests, deacons, and bishops. We've been able to be with about 5,000 priests, bishops, and deacons over the last six years on retreat. It's given us a super privileged glimpse into the state of the priesthood, which I would say worldwide, from our experience, is maybe 60 % thriving and 40 % surviving. Even though they love the Lord, they love the church, but something's just not working well. Then we do what we call our leadership immersives, where we bring teams of leaders. It could be a bishop in his team, a pastor in his team, a ministry leader in her team into our office. We bring like 35 people at a time for a week, and we give away what we feel like God has given us to help people forever change the way they make decisions. Then we created something called the rescue project, which we can talk about because that's going to tie into what it is we're going to talk about, I think, today.

The goal behind this podcast, the mission behind this podcast is the fact that God has called us to be his hands and feet in the world, to the corporal works of mercy, the spiritual works of mercy, to be God's presence in this world. And so today, to be able to talk about, Okay, God's called for us to heal the broken-hearted. That category of people, broken-hearted, pretty big. But I would ask this close question, how would you define that? How would you define who are the broken-hearted?

Us. I think it's all of us in one way or another. I think the human heart is broken. I think every human heart is broken in one way or another. We just mask it in various ways, and some of us it better than others. But I think deep within every human being is this person that's screaming something like, does anybody see me? Not for what I have or what I can do or my talents or whatever. It could be the really wealthy people, but they oftentimes just feel like they're getting used for their money or for what they can do. It could be the homeless person on the street. It could be the girl who's in college who just moved from another place who doesn't know anybody yet. It It could be somebody who's grieving the loss of a loved one. It could be somebody who's battling suicidal temptations. It could be the addict. But I think we're all broken-hearted. I think the power that is the gospel, especially in the culture that we're living in right now, is I want to shout from the rooftops. The gospel is this simple. God wants to say to you, You matter to me, to me, to God, the creator of the universe.

You matter to me. That's why I made you. That's why I became a man. That's why I went to the cross. You're worth dying for to me. And I think every human person is longing to hear that message.

So I've heard you talk about, is it the new Great Depression? Yeah. Is it new? Are we experiencing it in a new way in our current state? Or is it like it's the old Great Depression, it's the Universal Great Depression? Or is there actually no, what we're experiencing now in our day and age is actually a new attack, an old attack on a new way? Maybe you'll say it like that.

Yeah. It's an expression I came across probably two, two and a half years ago, which is increasingly being used by a series of sociologist anyway. So what it's doing is it's trying to call attention to the mental health crisis that we're living in our country right now. So the first great depression is the economic depression in the '20s and the '30s. But the new great depression is what's going on, especially in our young people. And you know this better than me just because you work on college campus, but not just in our young people, because we're getting these rapid increase in what are often called deaths of despair. So Whether it's suicide, whether it's the opioid crisis, or whether it's the alcohol addiction. There's a woman who's been doing a set of research with eighth, 10th, and 12th graders over the last 30 plus years. She basically pulls 50,000 of our teenagers every year, and she poses statements to them, and three of the statements are, I can't do anything right. My life isn't meaningful, and I do not enjoy my life. When they first started doing this back in the, I think, early '90s, roughly one out of five kids said yes to that.

Two years ago, it was half.

Really?

Half of our young people say they don't enjoy living. That's new. In this hyper connected social culture, people are actually more disconnected than they've ever been, longing for relationship, longing for love, longing to be seen, longing to be known, not for who I appear to be or who I want to be, but actually for who I am, which sometimes isn't all that great.

Well, who I appear to be is always up there. I have to keep managing an impression. I have to keep managing how I appear because you have a social media, anything, it's all about what do people see? What do they think?

That's right.

But who I really am.

That's right. I think what's imperative on us who are disciples and in the church as a whole and us individually is to be mindful of this. I often hear the Lord pose the question to me, and we often pose it to others, too. Just ask, Lord, who is it in my life right now who's crying? Maybe not out loud, but they're crying. Who is it that you're calling me to pour into? Who is it you're calling me to walk alongside? Who is it you It might be inviting to just reach out to and encourage? I don't know about you. Increasingly, over the last number of years, every time somebody comes into my mind, I immediately reach out to them if I have their contact info and just say, Hey, you're on my mind. I'm praying for you right now. I have no idea if this is the Lord or if it's just me. I just want you to know you're not alone and I'm praying for you. If you need anything, please let me know.

I've received those texts from you.

It's uncanny how often the Lord does that. I'm grateful for it.

I do the same thing. I try to as often as I can because that's a... This is true. Whenever I have received those texts from you, it's always like, oh, my gosh. Usually what I'll do on this, I apologize. This is my confession right now. What I'll do is I'll be able to press it, you hold it down so you can see it, and then let it go. I want to be on red because it means so much. So I want to save it, to come back to it. In And even as I'm just reacting to this right now, I was going to ask you, because this is all about called, right? This is all about how are we the hands, feet, voice, face of Jesus, heart of Jesus in the world? I was going to ask you how to do that as a priest or how do you do that as a normal human being. The first thing I hear you say, first two things. One is ask the question, who's crying? Just to be able to be the person who's willing to be available. And then secondly, you just said, send a text.

I'm like, wow, that's minor, that's small. And here I am going like, wow, no, it wasn't minor for me. It's not minor for me. The reason I don't respond right away, typically, is because I'm like, no, I'm going to save this because it's meant so much. But that's my next question. It's along the same lines. I mean, you're already answering it. If we're called the Healed the Broken-Hearded, specifically, how do you do that as a priest? You mentioned one thing. But how do people just... How do we, as Christians, as followers of Jesus, how do we do it? It's so big. The problem is so big.

Yeah, it's so big. Let me give you a way, something to think about. I am increasingly of the mind. We are in Acts 29, increasingly of the mind. I know I've heard people, an evangelical Catholic talk about this, too. I've heard other people in the church talk about this, but I think we have to smash the paradigm that the parish is supposed to be the primary place of evangelization.

Yeah.

It's not to say that the parish isn't to be a place of evangelization. Of course it is. And of course, we want people to get in the sacruments. Of course we do. The problem is 90% of Catholic, at least baptized Catholic, don't go to Mass. Forget about everybody else.

Right.

In other words, you and I as priests, I don't know who's not here because they don't come to church. I don't know who to reach out to. But the people in the pews, they do. They work with them, they live with them, they go to school with them, their kids play sports with them. We know, the lay faithful in a particular way, know who it is in their lives on a daily basis is living the nightmare that is life apart from God.

This podcast is sponsored by this thing called the Catholic Initiative. One of the goals of Catholic Initiative is the idea of community hubs. This is where parishes become the center of both faith and social support. How do you think this vision addresses what you've called the New Great Depression?

It makes me immediately think of Dorothy Day. Dorothy Day, who was herself somebody who was broken-hearted, who has a profound encounter with God and becomes Catholic, goes on with a guy named Peter Morin to start the Catholic Workers Society, the Catholic worker movement. I often think of Dorothy Day as something like an agent of recreation. She's somebody who experienced in her own life God recreating her, and then she spent her whole life really pouring into people who are on the margins, who are similarly broken-hearted to her, who'd been discarded by the culture at large for various reasons and helping to recreate them. One of the things that the Catholic Catholic worker movement did was they started what were called Houses of Hospitality. The Houses of Hospitality were places in neighborhoods where people could come, where they could get a meal, they can encounter Christians, maybe they could hear the gospel, they could learn a little bit about the church, whatever. But the significant thing is it wasn't a church. It was actually just a gathering of disciples where people could come, and then through them, they got to church. I often think in this... The Houses of Hospitality started at the time of the first Great Depression.

I think we need new Houses of hospitality in the new Great Depression. The houses of hospitality might be parishes, but I think for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons, it's a high threshold to cross the front the front door of a church. But they'll cross the front door of someone's home who invites them into their home to talk to them about something. Again, maybe they're doing a rescue project, maybe they're doing Alpha, maybe they're doing a Bible study you do, whatever the case might be, don't worry. But we want to see our homes as these houses of hospitality which are entrusted to us to welcome in the broken-hearted and the lost so that we can pour into them, and then we can facilitate an encounter between them and God and the sacruments. I think house a hospitality community hubs, however we want to call them, the point is we're desperately in need of them, and we're desperately in need of new models. My challenge to anybody who's listening would simply be, Lord, are you asking me and my house or us in our house to become a community hub?

Yeah.

And give hope?

Yeah, you get fed by your parish. You get fed and formed, and you lead back there. But your home is your satellite mission, that place of... I guess it's just a place I have a friend named Annie Hickman. I don't know if you know Annie, but Annie had the notion. He said, I believe that when Jesus said, Love your neighbor, he actually literally meant that. The person who lives next door. And so what he and his wife have done is they will just invite people to a block party. Just come to a barbecue on Saturday. Because why? Because we want to get to know you. So come over here, get fed. Yeah, bring your whatever your cooler, bring you whatever your thing is. But we can't actually love our neighbors unless we come into contact with them. Are you in love it, you don't know. Yeah. House of Hospitality seem like that's a good That's a good step. Big step.

I think it's how ordained and lay work together. I'm of the mind that you can make the argument that Saint Paul's best friends are a married couple. I think it's Priscilla and Aquila because they show up everywhere Paul is. He's in at least three of the communities. They share the same trade. At one point in Romans, he writes to this couple and says, greet them and the church that meets in their house. They met in the house because you couldn't have a church building, obviously, yet. But I think it's more more profound than that for us today. It's like we need to see our homes, especially the lay faithful, need to see their homes as this is the place where the world meets the church. In order to get them to you or to get them to me or to get them to any other priest, we probably have to first get them to Christians who are just normal people. They love sports, they love music, they love whatever. But at the center of their life is God.

Jesus, yeah.

And it's evident. And that's actually what makes them most normal and most attractive. And so then how do we turn our homes and how do you and I as priests, how do we help awake that in those that we pastor and care for and then equip and mobilize the people in the pews who have the charism of hospitality, who have the gift of evangelization, who love to open up their homes. How do we help them to bring people into their home to be a place where those who are broken-hearted can come to know the Lord? I'll give you an example. I came across a story a set of years ago that It's just blown me away. There was a woman who was left the church as a junior high kid, goes to university, gets a doctorate, then becomes the head of a department at another university, and living a very contrary life sexually to the church's teaching, and is very opinionated and very much of the mind that the church scripture is not only misogynist, but is really harmful and is just backwards and is the enemy. I believe it was promise keepers, the men's movements, something like them came to the town where she was living.

She wrote an op-ed, if I remember, in the paper about how dangerous this organization was and nobody should go to this and the reasons why. But she had enough intellectual integrity to be open to reading mail when it came her way, even if it wasn't going to be popular. And so she got a letter from some guy who she expected was going to be very bombastic towards her because it had Reverend in the return envelope. So she opens it up and the gist of the letter said something like, Really appreciated your op-ed. I'd love to have a chance to sit down and talk with you. Would you be interested in meeting? And she looked at it and she thought to herself, what the heck? That's not what I expected. So she connected I'm going to be with this guy. She drives over to his house. She says she's sitting in his driveway thinking to herself, What in the world am I doing here? This guy is the enemy. I hate everything he stands for. I hate the book he uses. But she ended up going to the house and they had breakfast and the whole conversation was more or less him just asking, Just tell me about yourself.

I want to know who you are. And so they had this apparently very pleasant conversation. She was shocked. And they get done and he says, I love this. It was great. I'd love to have breakfast with you again if you want. So she said, I would, too. So she came back. Then they did this for, I don't know, 12, 18 months. They got together once a month for breakfast. She ends up leaving her lifestyle, coming back to faith, marries a pastor.

Really?

Now she and her husband, they run this home where it's just wide open to everybody in the neighborhood for anything they need, whether it's clothes or food, but most especially for hope. At one point, she says in one of the books she wrote, she says, Christian hospitality isn't concerned what the neighbors think about you because you know what the neighbors think about you. They're at your kitchen table and they feel safe and free, and they can talk to you, and you can talk to them. We need, I think, to learn how to do that in the Catholic Church. I think we're so programmed to think, Well, that's your work, Father Mike. That's why you do what you do, or that's my work. But it's not my work. It's my work to equip the people to do that. It's your work to equip people to do the work of ministry. That's what Paul says in Ephesians, anyway, not to do the work of ministry. And so in order, I think, to mobilize people to do that, one of the things that's really imperative on people like us and that you do a great job of, and we strive to do here, is we have to make sure we go back to basics.

And I always presume nobody has a clue what I'm talking about. I don't presume anybody has ever met Jesus. I presume he's a rumor for most people. Maybe they've learned about him, but they don't know him. Let's go back to basics. Let's preach in such a way so that people can get overwhelmed by who God is and what he's done for us and his son. They can be given an opportunity to surrender to him, and then we can mobilize them to go out and to go rescue other people in this world that's dying for God, even if they don't know it, and many people don't know it, but they're dying for God.

One thing, as you're I was describing this woman and now her husband, or even the Reverend before who met with her for breakfast, it reminded me of, I think it was my dad who had had... He upstairs in the house he grew up in. His grandparents lived up there. Right down the street, some cousins live down the street. And he has indicated a couple of times that I couldn't really talk to my mom and dad, but I could talk to my grandparents. I could talk to aunts and uncles. There was someone other than my parent that I could open my heart to. I often thought about, why is that? Is that just personality? Is it different ways that some parents raise their kids? Or is it like, no, actually, sometimes the parents' job is to... I'm really intentionally here forming you, and so I don't know if the kid feels safe or doesn't feel safe to share all the thoughts because I know what my mom and dad want me to be. But there is something, as I'm just hearing about that, Reverend, who invited her, and just, I I want to know about you.

And with this... There's an agenda, obviously, but no immediate agenda other than, I just want you to know that I care about you. And I can't do that. I'm thinking about this, and the only thing that would disqualify me from this, I'm just piecing this together because of what you said, the only thing that would disqualify me from doing that or being able to do that is if I don't have time or I'm not available. Because anyone, if I do have a heart for the Lord, if I do have a... I imagine everyone listening to this and some level has that sense of like, No, I believe God's called me. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to start. And that's the thing is, I don't know how to start. Well, the first thing, maybe the only prerequisite beyond, again, a love for others and a love for God is, am I available or not? And I know for myself, man, maybe you're yourself, too. It's just there's so many people and so little me. How do you know? How do you discern? Here's where I start?

Well, I think that's why we go back to the prayer piece of, Lord, where are you asking me to Who's crying? I find movies to be a really modern parables. There are things that people can easily connect with, and it's how I tend to think in cinematic scenes oftentimes. There's a scene in Hacksaw Ridge, which I find to be one of the most remarkable movies ever made, where the lead character, a guy named Desmond Doss, you've seen the movie, right? Yes. Doss is on the top of that ridge. Desmond Doss, for those who don't know the story, he's fighting a World War II. He's not a conscientious objector. He calls himself a conscientious cooperator. So he wants to be a combat medic. He won't touch a gun. He wants to save lives. And so he finds himself on the top of this ridge, which is 400 feet up in the air They're in the middle of a battle which the Allies thought they won. They didn't win. They're all retreating. But he makes a decision to stay. So everybody's repelling down off the ridge. He stays, and then he utters, in my mind, the most perfect prayer I've ever heard.

And he He simply says, what is it? He's talking to God. He says, What is it you want of me? I don't understand. I can't hear you. And as soon as he pray that from off stage, out in the battlefield, he hears this voice scream, medic, somebody help me. I use that oftentimes with priests and other lay leaders that we're working with, and I pray with it myself. We live on the ridge. That's where we are. We're surrounded by people who are bleeding out. Even if they don't know, they're bleeding out. Just to ask the Lord, Lord, who's crying? Who is it in my life right now who's crying? I probably don't have to look very far. And then it It becomes, like you just said, this is a really disturbing reality. It's just a question of, will I care enough to make time for you? I think the alarming answer for many of us is no. No, I won't. Because that's going to cost me something. Well, how long is this going to take? Well, it might take the rest of my life. I don't know. And like you said, I have a goal.

I ultimately want you to know that God loves you and that you matter to him and he sees you, but that's not going to be believable to you if you don't see that in me, if you don't know that I care, that I'm here, that you matter to me, that I'm willing to walk with you, I'm willing to listen to you As you were talking, it made me think of Pope Francis. He gave an incredible, you'll remember this, I'm sure, it was a speech to the bishops in Brazil back in, I think it was in 2013, and he was preaching on Emmaus, Jesus encountering the two travelers walking away from Jerusalem on Easter Sunday. And as he's speaking to the bishops about this, he talks about how the Lord is trying to lead them back to Jerusalem. And after he reveals himself and he vanishes, they say, We're not our hearts burning as he spoke to us. And he just challenges the bishops and all of us. He says, do we still have what it takes to warm people's hearts? Or have they just written us off? That's a question really worth lingering with. Do I have what it takes to warm somebody's I start?

Am I willing to invest my life in maybe just one person? Maybe as a couple in another couple, maybe as a couple with a series of couples in the neighborhood, maybe as a couple of college kids with a few people in our frat or our dorm or our sorority who we know are hungry, they're just waiting for somebody to invite them to something. What's the worst thing that happens when you invite somebody to something? They're not going to kill you. They just say, no.

No. Yeah.

Move on.

One of the things you're reminding me of in this is I always thought, growing up, when it comes to, okay, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, what Jesus said, the corporate works of mercy. I'm like, why I need to go find those people? The question here today is to heal the broken-hearted. You don't have to go far. As you're saying, It's like, I don't have to go find... Probably this. I'm most likely, here's the story of the woman who didn't like the promise keepers and the whole thing. A stranger reached out to her and he reached out to a stranger. Most likely, the people who are broken-hearted in our lives are actually people broken-hearted in our lives. I don't have to probably go far to find out who's the Lord trying to draw my heart to, draw my attention to, to share that time. I keep coming back to this. I don't know, maybe five years, six years ago, however long, I just was so convicted. I was at a big conference, and it was like the last talk before they get sent out. I was just I was just convicted by this sense of, I think you all think that in order to share the gospel, in order to bring the message of Jesus to the world, you have to have a microphone, you have to have a stage.

I'm convinced that that's not the answer. In our culture, it's not going to be the answer. Another microphone, another stage, it's family and friendships. That's what it's going to be. What redeems our culture, what brings the gospel, what wins the culture to the gospel is going to be friendships and family. We Which is, I just go back to this place that that seems to be the strategy of God himself, where God doesn't love you all. He loves you.

That's right.

No, I came for you. If we're going to be the love of Jesus in the world to heal the broken-hearted, it has to, in some level, be singular in some ways. I don't know. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah. I think it's just worth reminding everybody, by and large, every great movement in the church started from lay people, not from priests and bishops. It's almost in spite of priests and bishops, quite candidly. But I think we often expect, well, that's your job as an ordained man. My job is just to grow in virtue and hopefully be able to get to heaven. It's so much bigger than that. If I can, that's why we created the rescue project. We created this. The rescue project comes in a variety of different formats. In one version, it's a nine video experience. In another version, it's an audio challenge that we do with Hallow. In another version, we're doing something with the Nights of Columbus. But the rescue project is a series of videos which are available. Everything's for free because everything we do is for free. It's available at rescueproject. Us, and it's got three goals. It's to give people an opportunity to be overwhelmed by the gospel for the simple reason that I just don't think most people have ever been overwhelmed by the gospel. It's basically a presentation of the story with a zeroing in on what it is that Jesus has done for us.

Second, it's to give them a chance to surrender their lives to him, which should have happened in confirmation, but I mean, really, for how many of us did it happen in confirmation? And then third, it's to mobilize people for mission. And so the rescue project, it's in five languages, it's in 30 some countries. Ideally, it's done best in people's homes or on college campuses. Or in a dorm or in a frat because it's intended to be done in small groups. And so it's really simple. You just open up your home, you have a meal, you watch a talk, and then you talk about it. And the gospel changes lives. It's not because the production quality is really good, and it's certainly not because of me. It's just because the news of the gospel is life-changing and life-saving. And again, most people haven't heard it. Most people are living thinking we're talking about religion, which means a bunch of rules and regulations and this distant God, again, who's probably wanting to kill me. But instead, he killed his son, and somehow that makes it all good for me. I'm not sure how that actually works out.

And so we've We've got this incredible amount of healing that has to take place with regards to our understanding of who God is and then who we are to him, and that's what it's intended to do. A way is to reach out to the broken-hearted and those who are in our lives is to pray really deliberately about, Lord, are there people in my life you're inviting me to walk with right now? And whether it's through something like this, the rescue project, or whether it's through something... I mean, there's lots of great resources out there, like Alpha, whatever. Open up your home. Again, what's the worst thing that someone's going to say? No, I'm busy. Okay. Open some other people. But pray, Lord, who are you inviting me to? And I think most people are just waiting to be invited. Most people don't go to church because they're never invited. It's the number one reason. I'm thinking of a guy who... He was a guy in the parish where I served, a good friend of mine, and I was trying to get him to reach out to a young... This guy was a college athlete, a really successful man.

He had a couple of kids at the time. I knew he was really well respected by other young men in the parish, so he was probably close to 50 at the time. I said, You should reach out to somebody, ask the Lord, who should I reach out to, and just invite him out for coffee and talk with him. He said, I think I know exactly who it is. He said, I'm going to reach out to so and who played college football, who had a great family. All he got out of his mouth was, Would you like to go have, and he was going to say, Have coffee with me? But he never got that out of his mouth. All he got out was, Would you like to go have? And the guy said, Yes.

Just hungry. He was starving.

Yes, I want to spend time with you.

Yeah.

Yes. Then he just started to walk with him. They get together for coffee every month, and he would start to ask him about how How's life going? What's the challenges like in school? Hey, chastity has got to be hard on a college campus. You're a good-looking guy. You play sports. How's that going? How's the battle? How's your prayer life? What are you doing? And this kid just grew like crazy because somebody took the time to invest in him, and the kid wasn't sitting there going, Man, this guy's just constantly ripping my life apart. This guy's like, I just want I crave this. Even though he had a really good dad, I crave this because this guy is communicating to me who God is just by loving me.

Wow. That's such a good example. I always think of whenever it comes to reaching out, like you said, inviting someone to coffee, inviting someone to church, Come with me to Mass. I don't want to throw him under the bus, but my dad, I remember talking about this 20 years ago, maybe longer than that. Like, Yeah, we have to evangelize. At one point, he said, You're always bringing up, we need to evangelize. He said, I tell people all the time they need to go to church. No one's ever taking me up on it. I realized two things. One is, he wasn't saying, Hey, come with me to church. He was saying, You need to go to church. Secondly, he was coming from that place of like, Hey, I've got it all together, and I can see you don't, so you should go. About 15 years ago, he had a very powerful encounter with his own brokenness. That became a powerful encounter with God's love and just humility. He just has not only grown in humility and in his relationship with the Lord and with people around him, but he's taken that and invest in others. Now I see this.

It's so remarkable because he doesn't say, Hey, you should go to. It's, Would you come with me? It's exactly like this man. Would you come with me? And he comes from a place of, Yeah, I figured some things out, but I know myself. I have a broken heart. I know that I'm powerless in the face of some things and coming at like a brother more than anything else. I think there's something about that that's like, Wow, how do we approach others? Is that like, Listen, I've got something really good that you need. That's one way. Yeah, I'm a begger telling another becker where to find the food. That's absolutely good, as opposed to, I've got it figured out. Let me fix you. I wonder if a lot of times when it comes to this, when it comes to reaching out to broken-hearted, because we know the devastation that can be in some people's lives is just like, That's way too big for me. I have no way to fix this. Two questions. One is, is that what it's about? Is it about I walk with you and I somehow fix things because messes can get really messy?

Secondly, what are the ways people do it wrong? I mean, is there a way to do it wrong? What do you think?

Yeah, those are great questions. Mary in our team, she says all the time people aren't problems to be fixed. There are people to be loved, and so I'm not trying to fix you. I think the advantage that a disciple has is I do know what you want. Because I know you want God. You have to because God made you and he made you for himself. So I don't know that because I'm really smart. I know that because that's how God's revealed how he's made So whether you're searching for happiness and popularity or Fame or finances or pleasure, career, whatever it is, all of which can be good, what you want is God, and I know that. So I want to accompany you to him. But I'm not going to fix you. I'm probably, in fact, more broken than you are. I just know who to turn to, and I'm not sure you do. So I think that's an advantage that we have. Are there wrong ways to do it? Oh, my gosh, yes. One is to approach it from the perspective of, I'm going to fix you. Two is to do all the talking. I should be listening more than talking.

I want to know who you are. At least I should. I think about this with Jesus all the time. I think it's I think it's Frank Sheed in one of his books who makes the observation, The People Who Hang Around Jesus, prostitutes, tax collectors, and sinners. His comment is, These are people who are very easily bored. Heard, and they couldn't get enough of him. They loved his company. You have to know they loved his company because he cared about them and he communicated that And so somehow he must have been doing a ton of listening before he's pouring into them. And by the time he's pouring into them, they know this guy really cares about me in a way that nobody cares about me. And I don't think that's how most people think about us who are disciples of Jesus. They think we're trying to get notches on our belt or something like that. So a lot more listening than talking. And a lot of humility. Sometimes the best answer is, I don't know. Would you like me to go find out about that? I don't know. But I'll pray about that. I'll pray for you.

I'll try to find out what I can. Let's get together again next week. Rather than be the shell answer, man. I think another mistake that Catholics often make, I've heard several people use this image. We find out someone's somewhat remotely interested in Catholicism, and we reach down and then we hand them a stack of books. You got to read the catechism, you got to read the compendium to the catechism, you got to read 42. Here's the documents of Vatican II. I mean, lay off. They probably just need a small cup of water first, and then gradually just walk with them and see where their passion might be and then be attentive. Somebody used the image once of the The real art of accompanyment is something like playing the piano with both hands. I remember my first pastor, when he was hiring a new music director, he says, Just watch his left hand. Let's make sure he knows how to use his left hand. I thought, I don't play piano, but I knew enough to realize most people play strong with their right-hand and they don't know what to do well with their left. The image is, as I'm in a conversation with someone, I want to be listening to the Lord, that's my left hand, and I want to be listening to you.

Just learning that art of simultaneously, I'm attuned to both people I really want to hear from right now. In a conversation, you just get in the habit of asking the Holy spirit, show me what's happening here and help me to know what to ask. I do this all the time in confession. I'm sure you do, too. Give me images. Help me to know how to speak into this in a way that's going to resonate with this person because we're all unique and there's no cookie cutter solution, right?

Not only can I not answer a question, I don't know what they're really asking, but also we're talking right now about the broken-hearted, not about instructing the ignorant. I think that sometimes the disqualifier is, I don't know the catechism. I don't know the compendium. I don't know who... You said Frank Shee before. I don't know who that is. I don't know all the things. But healing the broken-hearted, my guess is, I'm going to ask this, is this accurate? When I say this, healing the broken-hearted has very little to do with answering people's questions as much as it is healing broken hearts. I don't know.

What do you- Yeah, I think that's so spot on. You asked who are the broken-hearted? I think one of the ways to get to what you just said is another way to think of the broken-hearted. How do you hate a broken heart? What does that even mean? I think oftentimes of just the word discouraged.

Yeah.

So the discouraged in a certain sense of the broken hearted, because to be discouraged is to lose heart, which means what? It's almost like I've got a hole in my heart and it's bleeding out. So what causes my heart to bleed out? Well, things like, I feel like I'm failure. I feel like I'm defined by the bad choices I've made. I feel like I'm an addict. I feel like nobody sees me. I feel like I'm only loved for what I do. I fear that if people really knew who I was, they would run. I mean, those are the things that cause us to get discouraged, right? Yeah. And I I think, again, as a brother or a sister walking with another individual, I don't care what you come across as. My presumption is going to be, you got wounds. My mom always used to say, there are a lot of beautiful people in chains. I've never forgotten that. She was one of them. There's a lot of beautiful people in chains. So some of us are just really good at our insecurities. But everybody's insecure and everybody's craving to know that they matter, and everybody's craving to know that, one, they are loved and that they can love.

Back to the enemy real quick. One of my favorite lines, I don't remember who says it, is, The enemy knows your name, but he calls you by your sin. The Father knows your sin, but he calls you by name. I'm thinking of a person I'm walking with right now who is going through a really hard time. Some things in their life have just come to light, feeling very ashamed, very defined by what's come to light. I just keep trying to speak into this person saying, That's not who you are. God doesn't see a beloved addict.

Yeah.

He sees a child whom he loves, who's worth fighting for and worth dying for. That's not who you are. I just want to speak truth into you. So that's part of this walking with a broken heart. It is just, I'm going to... So by saying, I'm going to speak truth into you, that's not I'm going to answer your questions. It's, I'm going to speak into your identity because that's the root problem for all of us. Like, who am I? And so we try to create identities in one way or another by working out or driving a certain car, wearing certain clothes, or boasting of our degrees, or whatever the case might be. But those things aren't our identity. I need to know at the core of who I am as a beloved son or a beloved daughter. And so as I'm walking with people who are broken-hearted, which is to say, Everybody, I'm going to be especially attentive to speak into your identity and who you are to God.

Who you are to God. Which to some degree means that the first broken heart is as accurate. The first broken heart that I need to let the needs to be healed or at least got his access to is my own.

You got to believe it.

Because I mean, how in the world... I mean, I can have answers, right? But how in the world can I demonstrate the love of God if I have refused the love? And not even just if I've not known the love of God, because we know God's love in all these different ways. But I mean, I've refused to let him love me as I am. I can tell you, Hey, God loves you as you are, but I need to perform. God loves you at your lowest, at your weakness, at your worst. But he really only is proud of me at my best. And it's like, Okay, what's going on here? How can I heal the broken-hearted if I don't let him heal mine?

Jesus says he commands us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. Selves, and I think that's exactly what most of us do. I loathe myself. I loathe myself. I hate myself some days, and I hate others as a result. I treat them exactly the way I treat myself. I think you're spot on. Mary, again, does this really powerful exercise. We're oftentimes bringing people into adoration, but you could do this anywhere. You could do it in a park. You could do it any place where you can be reflective. You're just going before the Father in a very particular way, and you're asking one question. The question is, Father, what do you call me?

What do you call me?

What name do you call me by? So he knows my name. He knows my name is John. But he often calls me. He calls me by a very particular name. And I've done this exercise I don't know, dozen times, probably. And I'll bet I've heard eight, nine different names. And some of them are names that heal wounds in my past. I was abused when I was a kid, really badly. And it left a horrific scar in my life. And one time I was praying this, and I felt like the Father said, I call you innocent. I mean, I've never felt innocent in my life because of what happened to me, I've always felt wrong, quite honestly. Not I've done bad, I'm wrong.

I'm wrong, yeah.

To hear that, just to hear the Father speak and to hear his tone is just extraordinarily healing. We've done this with bishops, we've done it with priests, we've done it with lay faithful. I hear people all the time say, I'm not going to hear anything. God doesn't talk like that. Oh, yes, he does, because he wants you to know who you are to him. To the degree, as you said, that that happens, then I'm going to be able to walk with others. Until then, I'm probably going to try to fix you because that's what I'm hoping God's going to do. That's what I wanted to do. Fix me. That's what I wanted to do. Exactly. That's an awesome insight. I'm glad you brought that up. I think we I'm thinking of a priest friend of mine when I was shortly after I was ordained, we were serving in a parish together, and we would always stand out in the gathering room, greet everybody, and he was coming out of Mass, and I'm waiting there, and somebody walks up to him right after Mass, and his homily was all about the love of God. This woman walks up to him and says, Love, love, love.

That's all you ever talk about. God is love. He looked at him or he looked at her and said, And I'm going to keep talking about it until I think you believe it.

Until you believe it.

But I don't think you believe it. I think that's one of the things we've heard so many times, God loves us. But I don't know that most people have ever really experienced, not just in their minds, but in their being, in their heart, to really know, not as a reward, but in the midst of all my screw-ups, in the midst of all my sin, in the midst of all my rebellion, in the midst of all my failure, for some absolutely unexplained reasonable reason, God loves me. And that's what changes life. That's not to say he's not going to let me stay where I am.

He's calling us higher.

But he loves me where I am.

Yeah.

And then he says, I have more for you. But first you need to know, I love you.

Yeah. I did a 30-day silent retreat my first year of seminary, which is a little quick. But when When we got there, I think it's something like the so is Ignatian. I always see the spiritual exercises. It was supposed to be the first day you pray with God's love for you. So did that, checked in with the retreat director the next day, and he said, I want you to stay there. Okay, two days. God's love for me. Third day. You have to stay here. Pray with this. Fourth day. I'm like, I'm falling behind. I'm going to have to do summer school here. The whole first week, I'm supposed to be into the Gospels already. But he had me. He's like, No. And I realized it was so wise. I had heard about God's love. I had heard about how much Jesus loves. I looked at the crucifix and was like, Yeah, that's how much you love me. But he's like, No, you have to stay here. You have to abide in here. I think about that virtually every week, if not every other day, where it's God's love for me is not just something I knew, it has to be something I know.

It's not just something I experience, it has to be something I live on a regular... I abide in, or else it's a memory. Because my heart is still broken.

Yeah. But at least it's able to approach him with confidence.

Yeah, yeah. Trust. Trust was one of the greatest graces of that retreat was- I'll bet. No matter what happens, God, I know I can trust you. Father, I'm so grateful for this time. There's a question at the end of every one of these called podcasts that I get to ask every one of our guests, and this is yours, that if someone came to you, and maybe people do this all the time already, but if someone to you and they asked, I want to live out God's presence in the world, but I have no idea where to start. What would you tell them?

I would say this is actually one of the things, so I'm 30 years ordained, I'm 60 years old. I think I'm actually just learning this. I think the last five, six years has been, I don't know if it's remedial coursework or if it's doctoral coursework, I don't know which one it is, but I feel like the Lord has taught me more over the last several years and taught us here in Acts more about what we would call the mission of the disciple. Because I think what happens for a lot of people is if they have an encounter with God, then they simply limit it to, now I got to work on virtue, I got to grow in Holiness, and then I just got to get out of here. But that's not the mission. First of all, the book doesn't end with us going up The book ends with him coming down and him remaking everything. There's going to be a new heaven and a new Earth, which means, I think what's significant for the question you asked, everything out there matters. God loves this world. So much that he made it and so much that he redeemed it, and one day he's going to remake everything, which means our mission now, living out his presence now, has to involve an internal mission, to be sure, that's Holiness, but an external mission, which is one, evangelization, telling other people what God has done.

But then this is the other part which comes to mind as you ask the question. It involves the work of recreation. You and I are at least close enough in age to remember when we used to sing, Let us build the city of God, which is a terrible song for a lot of reasons. But you can't build the city of God, but you are supposed to build for it.

Yeah.

You could be a college football coach, you could be an engineer, you could be a health care professional, you could be a farmer, you could be a stay-at-home dad, you could be a politician, you could be an actor. God puts us in very specific places, and he's blessed us with the gifts that he has. And so we go out into the world and engage in whatever we do on a daily basis. I think one of the ways that we live in the presence of God here and now is I want to do everything I do where I am in such a way that it's not just virtuous. Yes, it's going to be virtuous, but it's more than that. I'm going to try to bend it back into conformity with how God created it to be. So the enemy can't create. All he can do is deface God's creation. He just tries to distort and twist and pervert it. And now God puts us to be working models of his recreation into every dimension of human life, education, whatever. I'm supposed to do it, and as I do it, I want to bend it back. I'll give you an example.

A buddy of mine is a football coach. He used to be a college coach, now he's a pro coach. I heard him say one time, I spent the first half of my life living for me. I'm not living for me I'm living for God, I'm living for my family, and I'm living for the guys I coach. He's a work in progress like everybody else. But he knows it. I mean, he's serious about this. He's serious about God's put me where I am in this particular place where people are tempted to make of sports an idol, all about me, all about money, all about Fame, all about whatever. I want to try to harness us all those good things that are in sports, but to do it in such a way that I can help guys realize, no, that's not actually the end. The end is something a lot loftier than that. We're going to engage in sports in such a way that we do it with character, we do it with class, we do it with integrity, and we're always looking out for each other. As we do this, we're going to teach other people how to get the best out of really strong competition.

In doing so, he's going to change sports. I mean, that's his goal.

Yeah.

That's just a way to do it. I think that's how we start with, Lord, where have you planted me? We all know those places where we are that are defaced and twisted by the enemy. All right, help me to bend it back, mindful that I will never finish the job. It might cost me my life. I don't know. But I'm working for the kingdom. And as I'm doing so, I'm I'm giving other people permission to do the same, and I'm encouraging them and giving them hope and inspiring them to be courageous, too. And in doing so, then we make the world more genuinely human, because that's what we've really forgotten how to be, is genuinely human. As a result, we're broken-hearted.

Yeah. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for God. Would you mind closing us in a prayer? Would that be all right?

I'd love to. Yeah, let's pray. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy spirit.

Amen.

Father, we just pray in a very special way for anybody who's with us right now who is most intensely longing to know your love. You are the only one who is able to break through and to convince us of who you are and who we are to you. So we pray for those who feel farthest away, who feel defined by their past, who are looking for a life raft right now, who are craving hope. As only you can, we ask that you would speak to them, that you would call them by name, that you would show them who you are and who they are to you. Father, we thank you for this conversation. We thank you for creating us to be alive at this moment in history. We ask that you would help us to hear as your son hears and to see as your son sees, to pay a special attention to those in our lives who are crying right now, and to ever so gently ask if we can walk alongside them. And by your grace, facilitate an encounter with you who are love. So that their hearts might be healed. We ask it all in Jesus name.

Amen. Amen.

Father said, Holy spirit, Amen. If you want to learn more about Acts 29, just check out acts29. Org. That's A-C-T-S-X-X-I-X. Org. If this episode has inspired you, share with someone who needs encouragement today. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcast. If you have a question or a story of someone living out their calling to serve others, email us at info@thecatholicinitiative. Org. That's info@thecatholicinitiative. Org. Until next time, remember, we've all been called. Let's start answering it. God bless.