This is the Art of Catholic. Welcome to the Art of Catholic Podcast. Thanks so much for joining me. On this episode, I want to address a very important question that I often get asked. Now, I just finished a bunch of Latin travel, which I was, you know, crisscrossing the country. Then I went on an incredible pilgrimage to Fatima, Spain and lords with a really great group of people. But there was this recurring question that always came up and it's always been coming up. For as long as I've been doing speaking events and going on the road,ely, what do we do when we have a spouse, a child, a brother, a sister, a friend, or whomever that has left the faith? And this is something that all of us deal with in some way, shape, or form, and it's heartbreaking. Because there's often a large feeling of personal guilt involved with the people who ask, because I mean, lots of times they just weren't living the faith very well when they were raising their children, for example. And they're now anguishing over their lack of practicing the faith that led to their children's spiritual apathy. And that's frankly a very hard pill to swallow, particularly as a parent. Now, of course, you know, the elephant in the room is that many Catholics simply were not properly cataclyzed over the last couple of generations. They didn't know their faith, and so they weren't living it properly. Now, that's not an excuse, but it's true. Now, but once people rediscover the truth and the beauty and the goodness of the Catholic faith, they're like, well was it I ever taught this? Like how come I didn't know this?

And a lot of times it can even lead to some anger over what was missed in their formation. And again, it's not like, you know, they had zero culpability. Because the resources have always been there. The teaching has already been there. And a lot of people have been living the faith their entire lives. They have been faithful to the teachings of the church in spite of what instruction they may or may not have received in their parish or Catholic school. But we have to recognize that a lot of people simply were not taught the faith. Particularly, I would say, the ins and outs of real Catholic prayer in the spiritual life. I mean, think about it. Like, how many people were ever really taught how to practice authentic Catholic meditation or even know what real contemplative prayer is? How many people even know the basic forms of prayer that are in the catechism? Like, we learn our fathers and our Hail Mary's. We, I mean, you might even know the Memorare by heart.

You can sing the Regina Chelle,

you can recite a litany or two,

but a real interior life,

like a real focus on serious relationship with the Lord.

The problem is, I mean, that's pretty rare.

Even today, it's rare for Catholics.

You know, for too long,

I think, you know, the focus has been been basically on a kind of somewhat juvenile sacramental prep and moving kids and adults along through baptism confession, your first communion, confirmation, it's the whole assembly line. Like that has to change. You know, all I have is kind of personal and kind of anecdotal information for people that are running OCIA programs around the United States. But it appears that while a lot of people come into the church, a large number of them fall away rather quickly. I saw this in my own RCIA group, you know, back in the late 90s, all these people who came in and I'm pretty talk on good RCIA formation formation program and even they fell away. A lot of them. And I think a huge part of the reason is because we don't focus upon and show how all the graces that come through the sacraments are meant to drive a real interior relationship with the Lord. We need to teach candidates and catacumins to really pray. We need to show them that the path of holiness is there for the taking. Like they're meant to go down this. And that the sacraments of initiation are just that. They're initiation. They're just the beginning of this movement toward divine life, a movement towards literal st. hood. Yeah, I've probably told this story before on this podcast somewhere, but the night that I came into the church back in 98, I'll never forget there was this guy Ryan in my R CIA class. And I mean, he was basically kind of still undecided right at the Easter vigil.

And I'm thinking to myself, man, you got to make a decision.

I mean, he hadn't been baptized yet.

And he turned, I'll never forget this.

He turned and he said, you know, if I'm going to do this, I want to be a saint.

And it really struck me because I didn't really think in terms. So when I was coming into the church, I wasn't thinking in terms of St. Hood. I was thinking in terms of learning all the things that I needed to know in order to be a Catholic. St. Hood, you know, I'd heard about him. I'd read the books, you know, it's a word to you at that point in the process. But I have to hand it to him. I mean, he already saw like it's all about St.hood. And I would say if you just came into the church or you're looking at the church or maybe you're, you know, well into your neophyte year or your two or three years and whatever it is, realize St.hood is the goal. It's not just to be good. It's not just to be a practicing Catholic. We are literally made to become saints. The only people in heaven are saints. This is one of the reasons why I started the science of St. Hood. And I tell people all the time, I stole that title from St. Augustine. He talks about the science of saints. St. Catherine of St. Anna talks about the holy science of love. There is so much more to our growth and holiness than just receiving the sacraments. There is a path of development that we have to engage in or all the grace that are in the sacraments is going to be wasted. That's not true just for new people coming into the church. This is true for every single one of us. Now, this is why Jesus Christ calls the spiritual life. You know, growing intimacy with him, the one thing necessary in Luke 42. Because if we don't have a real relationship with the Lord, guys, we're in a heap of trouble. And I'm not just talking about the end of our lives when we're standing before him at our personal judgment. It's about our lives now. And why wouldn't we want to be in relationship with the person who made us and loves us more than anyone else? You know, not really focusing on our interior life is pretty nuts when you get down to it. We have to focus on this. I'll pause my little rant to get off my soapbox on this. But far too many Catholics frankly do not have a life of prayer. For those of us who have it, we need to show them the way. We need to demonstrate this in our own lives and teach them while we focus on growing ourselves as well. But let's return to the question that I posed at the beginning of the show. What do we do when our loved ones have left the faith? Because regardless of the reasons behind their departure, it's heartbreaking, right? Because these people are walking away from the very source of eternal life and we're beside ourselves as to what to do. And because we're so worried, the typical reaction is often to kind of nag or cajole and strategically place evangelistic books on a coffee table in a desperate effort to light a spark in the heart of the wayward. And you know, we'll even put like a big, you know, bookmark with a picture of our lady sticking out from a particular page. So, you know, they'll go to the right place to read. If they'll just read what I underlined on page 72, I know they'll head right to confession. Let's be honest, how many times has that actually worked? So, what do we do? They, how do we get them back? How do we get them to desire divine life and return wholeheartedly to the sacraments? And the first thing to say on this is, we have to acknowledge there's no silver bullet. Okay, every person has a free will. You could have the perfect household. You could teach all the right stuff. You could live it in perfect to perfection as a saint. And that doesn't mean that your kid or your spouse or whomever is going to make the same decision you did. We have to accept that. Every person can choose to simply reject God and ultimately we can't control that. Not only that, but everything. Everything is a matter of grace. The only reason I'm a Catholic today is because of grace. Repentance and salvation, conversion, all of that is the work of the Holy Spirit. And this is something we have to keep in mind as we worry and we labor for the salvation of others because ultimately it's God's work. Now, as said, as members of the body of Christ, we have a death in an even powerful role. In fact, just like any good parent, God desires that we participate in His work of saving souls and drawing them back into His family. And I would propose that as Catholics, we possess a very powerful spiritual battle plan that has the ability to break through the defenses of even the most like obstinate prodigal Now, it's not a guarantee again, there's no silver bullet, but this is like, we have some powerful weapons that are disposal, okay? And I'm gonna warn you right now though, it's not easy, okay, it's gonna require something of us. Even so, it's incredibly effective. So if you're serious about unleashing the powerful mercy of God in your loved ones' lives, here's kind of a step-by-step master plan that we can follow. The first thing you have to do is look in the mirror. In other words, do a kind of a self-assessment and see whether or not any of your own behavior is turning the other person away. Because again, oftentimes we get so worried and anxious that we do things that repel our loved ones instead of inviting them in. It's really easy to do this, especially when you get on fire with a faith and you're like, why can't you just see this? Just do this thing and everything will be okay. And we just don't recognize that they're just not there yet. And so we end up turning them away. So we have to look in the mirror. And what I really mean by that is making sure that we are personally growing in holiness. What I'm talking about here is, you know, fully focusing on your spiritual growth that will help you to, you know, dampen that anger and relieve your anxiety, because the anxiety, when we get anxious over the, you know, the salvation of our loved ones, what do we do? We nag, we get impatient, it leads to anger. We don't want that, right? We have to focus on spiritual growth, which will fill us with the merciful love of Jesus Christ. And we always have to remember, you know, God, God stooped down to our level. We have to remember this with regard to our loved ones. There is a time when we are stooping down to theirs. Okay? Again, it doesn't happen overnight. And it takes a lot of humility, frankly, to realize that we might be part of the problem that our loved ones aren't coming back to the faith. And since humility is the taproot of all the virtues, it's an absolute necessity to exercise it. So we have to take a hard look at ourselves. We have to always remember that every person, like every person ever created is literally made for what we have in Jesus Christ. God designed us for him. So the more we resemble him, the more we grow in the interior life, the more we're going to attract people to the faith. All right, And the primary way that we achieve this humility that we grow in holiness is step two on this little battle plan. And that is prayer. The sacraments are obviously foundational to the Catholic faith. But at St. Alphonse, as LaGour said, prayer is the surest way to salvation. And I would say that he doesn't just mean that for us before our loved ones as well, right? Intercessory prayer. Now, what should that look like, right? How should prayer be done? And I would start with the fact that no matter what, we cannot forget the intercession and power of our Lady. Mary is the mother of God, which means she's our mother as well, since we're part of his family. And we'll dig more into Mary, you know, perhaps in a later episode, I've already done some on her, but we have to remember that as our mother, she plays a pivotal role. So just like back in the Old Testament where she was the Queen Mother in the Davidic Kingdom, was interceding on behalf of the brother of Solomon. For example, Mary intercedes for us. She is the Queen Mother. And so she intercedes for the needs of her loved ones and she loves us. And this is her whole role. So we can always entrust our loved ones to her. So Mary, certainly. Also, like millions of parents and spouses, keep begging you to say Monica to intercede for your lost children and loved ones. She is certainly a very powerful, powerful ally. I mean, if she could bring her profligate son, St. Augustine, back into the faith, she can help bring yours as well. Don't ever stop those novenas. But don't forget that in order to truly evangelize, we must first be evangelized. You can't give what you don't have. So we have to first focus upon ourselves and make sure that our personal relationship with the Lord is growing and maturing. Because if you're growing and maturing in the faith and you're becoming more loving, do you think that the people around you aren't going to notice that? Of course they will. And this growth happens primarily through prayer, particularly authentic Catholic meditation. You have to have a life of meditative prayer. I use this quote all the time. See, now, Faunze Saguori paraphrasing basically St. Teresa Vavila says that if you don't have a regular life of mental prayer, so meditative prayer, you don't need demons to carry you to hell. You carry yourself there in your own hands. Okay, we have to have it. And if you're looking for a basic primer on prayer that goes over vocal, meditative, and contemplative prayer, as well as topics like dryness, distractions, silence. If you're a reader, you can check out my book, Prayer Works, Getting a Grip on Catholic Spirituality. You can find that on scienceofsainthood.com, Amazon, or wherever. Another option is to sign up for the free trial of the first course in the Science of Sainthood, which is titled Introduction to Real Prayer. This is a powerful video course that will walk you step by step through everything you need to engage in deep, meaningful prayer that will transform your relationship with the Lord because you're learning really how to converse with Him. And again, it's totally free. And there are links in the show notes for both the book and the free course, so you can check it out there. One way or the other, prayer is huge. If we're going to be a reservoir of love to others, we have to first tap into the living waters of Christ's love and draw it out of ourselves. That happens primarily through prayer. The reality is that if you don't have a real life of prayer, you're just never going to grow in holiness. I mean, and to be perfectly honest, you're kind of fooling yourself that you, if you think you're living the Catholic life and you're not conversing with God, right? Yeah. Most Catholics don't even realize how serious a lack of prayer life is to their salvation. Now, the doctor of prayer, St. Tree Savia, says that meditation is the basis for acquiring all the virtues and to undertake it is a matter of life and death for all Christians. And you're like, whoa, why? Well, because real prayer brings us more into contact with God. It's literally our relationship with him. You hear people talk about my relationship with God and you know I have a relationship with Jesus Christ and you're like, what is the relationship? Prayer is that relationship, okay? If you're not praying, you don't have it. But it also, when you have this life of prayer, it allows the Lord to move more powerfully through us as well. So prayer helps us to crush our self-centered attitude and begin to put the other person first. It helps us to die to our own desires and shower others with Christ like love. And this is a huge point. People don't come into or return to the church because they were beaten into submission through apologetic arguments. They don't come into the church because they were drug by the arm or they were nagged to death. They come into the church, back to the church, because of love. They come back through relationship. Hey, I'm not sure I would have ever become a Catholic. Had it not been for the one Catholic family I knew, leading me by the hand and getting me into our CIA. They are a wild and woolly Irish Catholic family in Chicago and I'm forever indebted to them. And once I moved to Stubanville and started the R CIA at Franciscan University, it was the patient care of my local R CIA sponsor, Mike, that helped me to get over all the final hurdles that remained in the last few months before I was received into the church. He was and is the truest of friends. I love him dearly. Yeah, this is really important to understand because I can and I did read all kinds of books, right? I could come to all kinds of theological conclusions. I did all that stuff, but I'm still a human. I still needed other humans to guide and welcome me into the Catholic family. And my point is that you simply cannot separate humanity out of the process. Our relationship with those people who are considering or reconsidering the church is pivotal. But again, we have to realize that we can't offer others a truly loving relationship without a deeply personal relationship with love himself. So in other words, if we're going to love others into relationship with the Lord, we already have to have that love. We have to have that relationship with him. Again, prayer is that relationship with him. And as the saints show us so powerfully, a deep, prayerful relationship with God, it takes us to a different level. It fuels our ascent to God. It's literally the thing that makes us like the one we love. The Catechism says that prayer restores man to God's likeness and enables him to share in the power of God's love. And that's pretty much the whole goal of the spiritual life, right? It's about becoming like Jesus Christ. But here's where things kind of get difficult. Because if the goal of the Christian life is to become like Christ and extend his love to the rest of the world as part of his mystical body, what does it really look like? Does it only consist in asking and petitioning for those people living in darkness? Or is there a little more to it? And the answer is, yeah, there's more. In fact, there's a lot more. And you can sum it up in one word, sacrifice. In fact, as we're going to see, it's really sacrifice that puts your prayer life on steroids. Now even so, I know it's a term that makes us squirm. I'm squirm too. But if you are serious about reclaiming lost souls, sacrifice is a key. And in fact, if you say you love someone and you aren't willing to sacrifice for them, do you really love them? Now what do I mean by that? What do I mean by sacrifice? Practically speaking. Well, basically I'm talking about offering them not just our prayers, but our bodies for others. Like your bodies, like how? Mortification. The voluntary self denial. I don't know, now you're really squirming hard. You're like shuddering maybe, but hang with me here. Why is offering or, you know, mortifying our bodies and offering penitential sacrifice for others so powerful? Well, basically, it's because when you offer yourself up in sacrifice, you're doing exactly what it is that Jesus Christ did for us on the cross. Yes, He prayed. Yes, He taught. But he also gave up his own body for us. And when we offer up mortifications for those we love, we're not only imitating him, we're wielding his very power. Why? Well, because we're united to him through the sacraments. Remember, we're a union of body and soul. Okay, we're not simply spiritual beings floating around like angels. And that means if we're truly going to make a gift of our full selves, just like Jesus Christ, our body must necessarily be involved. Now, certainly, there's a kind of spiritual interior suffering that we can undergo without visual bodily, bodily suffering. But I'm talking about voluntary bodily mortification and penance done out of love for the other person. Okay, this is basically, this is all we're talking about. We're talking about acts of love. That's what penance and mortification are. They're acts of love. As the great Jesuit father John Harden said, we love only to the degree that we are willing to suffer. Now Romans 8 17, St. Paul says that we are fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. Christ is always our perfect example. He was beaten, bloodied, and crucified for us. His exterior suffering was horrific, right? And it was a manifestation of his interior sacrificial love. He gave it all up, a body and spirit for us. And we're called to do the same thing. Okay, we're called to offer up our whole selves, body and soul in sacrificial love. And it's extremely powerful, not because of us, right? But because we're wielding the power of Jesus Christ. So joined him through the sacraments were basically tapping into the saving power of the cross, the ultimate source of sacrificial saving love. And realize when I'm talking about sacrifice, I'm not saying you're go rambo on yourself. And if you're a millennial or a Gen Z, you're like, who's rambo? You can look it up, all right? I'm not saying you have to like, dawn the heriest of hair shirts or only consume bread and water for the rest of your life. In fact, I would advise against it. I'm talking about modifications that are sustainable on a daily basis. Because even small things, like turn down the hot water in the shower for a minute and say, a hail Mary, don't have that second cup of coffee. Eat all the cauliflower on your plate. These kinds of things can be incredibly powerful, especially the cauliflower. I hate that stuff. Why? Because there's sacrificial actions driven by love for neighbor that unleashed the powerful mercy of Jesus Christ. There are ways that we can participate in the salvific suffering of Jesus Christ. It was members of his mystical body were wielding the power of his crucified and risen body. And of course not only would this sacrificial love help lead other people to conversion, it's gonna help us in our salvation as well. You know, Christ told St. Catharine of Siena, those who are willing to lose their own consolation for their neighbor's welfare, receive and gain me and their neighbors, And so they enjoy the graciousness of my charity at all times. All right? So there you go. There's our battle plan to bring our loved ones back in the arms of God. You know, look in the mirror, make sure that we're not the cause of pushing people away. Engage in real transformational prayer, a particularly meditative prayer. That's something that every one of us is supposed to be doing, even right now. Then three, begin to offer small sacrifices in union with Christ. Okay, these are seriously powerful means that pave the way for the Holy Spirit to penetrate the hearts of our lost loved ones and also move us closer to Christ as well. One final thing with regard to all of this, it's really important. Don't get frustrated if things don't happen right away. Most of the time they won't. Conversion normally takes time. It's a process. Everybody has different wounds. Everybody has different issues. St. John Henry Newman said that we all have what he calls antecedent considerations that play into our conversion process. Basically what he means is we've all got baggage. We've all got barriers that have to be overcome so that we can move more fully into or back into the love of God. But as you're waiting and praying and sacrificing, also never forget that the Lord loves your loved ones even more than you do, and He is always showering them with powerful graces to draw them close. In fact, He loves them so much that He gave His only child so that your children and loved ones can experience His overwhelming love for all eternity. So give your family and friends over to Jesus and his mother, and in even your darkest moments of anguishing over the salvation of loved ones who seem so far away from the faith, don't forget the words of Christ himself. With men, this is impossible. But with God, all things are possible. And in closing, I want to remind you that if you're, again, if you're wondering what a real life of prayer looks like and practically speaking how to do it, go check out the free trial for introduction to real prayer at scienceofsainthood.com. Get their links down below. In fact, if you're listening and you're in the United States, you can just text the word, pray to the number 66866. You put in your name and your email when prompted, we'll send you the course. Okay. Again, text, pray to 66866. Again, if you're a reader, check out prayer works, get in a grip on Catholic spirituality. Now, there are links down below. So let's close this episode, like we always do with the powerful words of St. Paul and

Roman's 1212, which are always so incredibly apropos to our topic.

So say it with me, guys.

Rejoice in hope.

Endure in affliction.

Persevere.

In prayer.