Catching Foxes

Have you ever found your faith ...stalled? You see other people having "experiences" of God, but you are running on E with the gas light on and there seems to be no station in sight to refuel your faith. After dancing around the whole super-sensitive college student thing, Luke tells Gomer how recently in a time of rather dramatic prayer, he told God that he hates Him and hates feeling this way. If you can relate, then you should give this episode a listen.

In the end, we talk about the new Marvel movie, Captain America 3: Civil War, which I'm taking my wife and another couple out on a date to go see, and yes, I'm taking off of work to do it.

I'm trying to build something big and beautiful at my parish called The Pentecost Vigil. It consists of gathering a bunch of Jesus followers in the church and begging God for an outpouring of the Holy Spirit on our parish and in our city. It is a time of praise and intercession AND I WANT YOU TO BE A PART OF IT!

Starting today, Friday, May 6, I would love it if you started praying for your own parish's renewal by taking up the Novena to the Holy Spirit and praying it till the Vigil. Also, if you can get some people in your parish together for the prayer vigil, head over to our old friend Fr. Dave Pivonka's website www.thewildgooseisloose.com for more resources and you can register your parish in this worldwide Vigil. 

So for 9 days will you join us in fasting, prayer and praise in order to allow God's anointing to fall on our Church?

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Kenn Cramer is the Senior Director of Parish Life for the St Paul Mission who, alongside his wife Laura, the Director of Religious Education and all around financial planner and bookkeeper, ministers to the needs of the Native American Nakoda and A'aninin people living on a reservation in Montana. 

Kenn explains how his community of 4,000 is 80% Catholic, but only 4% ever step foot in a Church outside of his or her own baptism and funeral. The community is has a 75% unemployment rate and a barely subsistent life. There is a widespread sense of hopelessness and a lack of personal dignity, which leads to crushingly high levels of suicide, drug addition and alcohol abuse.

And in the midst of such poverty, Kenn has encountered the utter uniqueness of these people and the Church's dire need of them in her life. "How can the body of Christ function missing an entire limb?" Yet that is what is happening in the Third World poverty of these reservations in the middle of the world's richest nation.

Congress Raids Ancestral Native American Lands with Defense Bill

Natives Against John McCain: An investigation into living conditions in the Navajo nation of the southwestern United States

Diocese of Gallup serves the nation’s largest reservation: The Diocese of Gallup has a rich history, especially when it comes to the many Native American tribes contained within its borders. These tribes, including Navajo, Zuni, Hopi, Apache, and Pueblo peoples, form a unique and important part of the Diocese… The purpose of this office is to assess and meet the spiritual needs of the Native American members of the Diocese.

Pine Ridge Reservation, the Poorest in the country: From 1980 to 2000, the counties that make up Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota comprised the poorest of our nation's 3,143 counties. The 2000 census found them the third poorest, not because things got better on Pine Ridge, but because things got worse on two other South Dakota Indian Reservations.

Extreme Poverty: The poverty on Pine Ridge can be described in no other terms than third world. It is common to find homes overcrowded, as those with homes take in whoever needs a roof over their heads. Many homes are without running water, and without sewer.

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The State Legislature of North Carolina passed a law that interferes with a Charlotte discrimination bill that, in part, allowed for transgendered people to choose which bathroom and locker room to use. Donald Trump thinks North Carolina should have left well enough alone, and Ted Cruz is all for the law.

(Also, This episode has chapters... although I forgot to URL them. If you have a podcast app that supports chapters, I think you should be able to skip around.)

• 00:00:01    Bill in North Carolina
• 00:01:37    Isn’t America Exploding Already
• 00:04:54    The Extremes aren’t extreme anymore
• 00:06:08    Luke bashes the anti-trans meme
• 00:09:35     Gomer goes epistemological on Transgenderism
• 00:14:15    Luke is so done with people who think they own truth
• 00:20:44    Gomer offers some stolen advice
• 00:21:29    JD Flynn is so great
• 00:24:11    Christianity, GOP and Left/Right Dualism
• 00:29:16    Obama is not the Devil
• 00:33:20    Joy of Love and Consciences
• 00:41:55    The Boss and Bathrooms
• 00:443:01    Brave New World
• 00:45:54    I Hate The Benedict Option
• 00:49:01    Star Wars Rogue One
• 00:51:00    Music Recommendations
• 00:54:55    That Catholic Couple YouTube Interview
• 00:55:35    Dadness
• 00:56:44    Closing Remarks!

Luke launches into pure rage mode, but against the anti-trans memes that are going around, because it sounds like we're saying, "Here. Let me tell you how dumb you are. Now join our side!"

Gomer dives a little bit into the Left/Right Dualism in America that is so divisive, and why the GOP chose to make Abortion a central platform issue since the 80's.

Then we talk Rogue One, a Star Wars Story.

Also, on Saturday, April 24th, at Noon Central Time, we will be interviewed by That Catholic Couple live on YouTube. 

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Why do some ministries die and some thrive? Lisa Brenninkmeyer, author and founder of Walking With Purpose shares with us how she built a grassroots women's ministry and not just another program. Leadership training and mentoring form the backbone of Walking With Purpose and are precisely what makes it so powerful. The show starts off with me, your old pal Gomer, thank you, our beautiful listeners, for being amazing. LayEvangelist.com is a continued experiment in bringing about the new evangelization and as we expand our number of shows to, you know, more than one, we hope that it can change your life, your faith and your city.

Then Lisa, out of no where, just starts affirming Luke, which made me very uncomfortable, because, it's Luke.

We dive into the Call, Revival, and even our recent interview with good, old Father Dave Pivonka of www.thewildgooseisloose.com. 

Lisa brings up a very good point about the Church and women. Often teachers and preachers tend to focus on chastity when the girls are young, and maternity when the girls become women. They are basically locked in a sexual viewpoint. Lisa's presentations are powerful because she goes beyond sexual value or maternity and focuses on the foundation: my identity as a woman in Christ. Thus her ministry is wide open to women of all vocations and backgrounds.

Oh yeah, she's that good. This is one of my favorite interviews yet.

#Blessed

From the website...

• Walking with Purpose is a women’s Catholic Bible study program.

• Walking with Purpose endeavors to meet women where they are, giving them practical Biblical teaching that is consistent with Church doctrine and uses the Catechism of the Catholic Church as an additional resource. All materials have received the imprimatur from the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

• Walking with Purpose aims to bring women to a deeper personal relationship with Jesus Christ by offering personal study and small group discussion that link our everyday challenges and struggles with the solutions given to us through the teachings of Christ and the Catholic Church.

• Walking with Purpose has three elements: at-home study, weekly small group meetings (if in the parish-based or small group programs), and a monthly talk on relevant course material. Most courses contain 22 lessons; one short course contains six lessons.

• Walking with Purpose has over 130 parishes involved in our Leadership Training Program in the United States, Europe and Canada and has helped thousands of women grow closer to Christ.

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Luke and I start out with the Qatar death scandal involving the World Cup, but don't worry, plenty of people die, Qatar and FIFA authorities assure us. Just not on the same project. At the same time. At all. Then I mock the worship of Sports (#1 of America's Top 7 Gods) and Luke pivots the conversation to a quote from Archbishop Chaput:

I express how I get nervous with quotes like these because, to be honest, a fear of technology is essentially a fear of our native strength. Robots, AI, and all these iPhones are extensions of our selves, they are our creations. Anywho, Zygmunt Bauman's thesis sounds interesting, so here's a link to his book Liquid Modernity that benefits our ministry. And we shouldn't fear them.

Now on to Mars, ELON MUSK, GET MY FAT ASS TO MARS!

Then we talk about our upcoming two guests: Sergio Bermundez and Lisa Brenninkmeyer from Walking With Purpose.

Then Gomer pulls out the GREATEST ANSWER OF ALL TIME WHY LUKE HAS BAD TASTE IN MUSIC/BEER. Thanks 'Stina!

Finally, we end with the New Evangelization and why we aren't really implementing it and how Gomer has no patience for this.

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