Here we go. This is, okay, just gonna go.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.

I have had a number of conversations with a number of people who have told me about what

you might call, like, I don't know if they call them toxic relationships because we're not going

that. It's not at that degree. What it is is what you might call like a vampire relationship.

That sounds almost as bad, maybe even worse. What I mean is it's the kind of relationships

that are in your life that just kind of drain you. But they're also at the relationships where

you realize I kind of have a responsibility here, but it still drains me. So we all have those

friends, right? We have those friends or co-workers, even family members that, okay, I have a

responsibility to these friends, a responsibility to these co-workers or to these family members.

But man, they just, there's a massive drain on me. They take actually more than I have to offer.

And so the temptation, of course, in that kind of situation is like, how do I get rid of

that relationship? Now, if that's the call and that's the response that is adequate,

is the wise response to get rid of that relationship, then maybe that's there. There's a step before

that though that I invite you to contemplate and consider. And it's not to cut off the relationship,

but it's to establish some boundaries. Now, in this moment, I know a lot of times people are like,

but that seems like not a very Christian thing to do. Like, that's not what Jesus would do. Jesus

would be 100% available to 100% of the people 100% of the time. And then I would say, you need to

reach a Bible because that's not true. Jesus, of course, is very available to many people.

Now he is completely available to all people, right, in his glory. When he was united to humanity

on this earth, he's still united to humanity in heaven. That's a whole nother theological piece.

But when he's united in his humanity to his humanity on this earth, his humanity wasn't 100%

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