And in a class with Alastair McIntyre in Notre Dame, he told me that he liked his work because it was inside work with no heavy lifting.

And that's true, that's true, but there's deeper reasons to appreciate being a Catholic intellectual.

So what I'm going to be talking about basically are three different aspects.

So first, what I'll call some remote preparation. And secondly, the,

what I'll call finding the vocation to the intellectual life. And then thirdly, embracing

the vocation to the intellectual life. So my own vocation to the intellectual life started very early. I was in fourth grade,

and I was with a friend named Kinna McDonald. He was the sixth of six children. And somehow we got

talking and all of a sudden the subject of abortion came up. And he took the pro-choice side,

and I took the pro-life side and he said to me

so hold on you're telling me that you think one single cell is a human being equal to you

or me and I thought well well no I mean not one cell I mean no you're right okay not one cell and he goes well

how about two cells or three cells or five is there you tell me that's equal to you or me

and I thought well I guess not and he goes well that's why I'm for a choice right just a handful

of cells don't really have value or dignity and and so it started me to wonder and I thought I don't know how to answer that. That's that's really puzzling to me

And then that summer I went to summer camp in Kamp nor Wester up in Lopez Island and up at the camp I went into the bathroom and is you know in many camp bathrooms is graffiti all over the walls and it looked at the camp, I went into the bathroom and in many camp bathrooms, there's graffiti all over the walls.

And it looked at the graffiti, and then there was a question there.

And the question was, can God make a rock?

He can't lift?

And I thought, can God make it work?

And I thought, well, I thought, well, God can do everything, right?

God's omnipot.

So of course you can make a rock he can't lift.

...