Journeying With The Saints

Fellow Pilgrims, welcome back for another great reading from St. Francis de Sales. We are still on the topic of friendship and like I said in a previous episode, St. Francis really covers this topic very thoroughly. This is good because not enough people talk about healthy and holy friendships.

In fact, I think it's a topic that we don't talk about with our kids enough. Oftentimes, we wait until its too late to discuss friendship. When our kids are little, we steer them away from other kids we don't see as good influences for our children. We often don't tell them why, though. We just draw a boundary line.

Then, when our kids move into their teens and they get around friends we don't find good for them, we try to get them to end the friendship, but they buck against us. We haven't taught them what to look for in a friend and how to pick up on warning signs.

Most people believe that a good friend is just someone that you share interests with and that is like-minded in beliefs. That's not what makes a good friend.

I've had really good friends that I've dumped because they tried to charitably correct my behavior and they didn't agree with everything I was doing. I thought this made them a bad friend because they weren't "on my side." I couldn't have been more wrong.

I've also been on the flip-side of this where I tried to call a friend to higher standard and it was not well received. We'll talk about that after we hear St. Francis talk about the difference between true and false friendships. Let's open our books to Chapter Twenty of the Third Part.

Welcome back, Catholic Pilgrims, to another reading that covers the topic of friendship. Today, specifically, we will be hearing about true friendship. As you know, my daughter is a Focus Missionary at Berkeley. Most people turn up their nose when they hear that she is a missionary there, writing off the students as utter loss causes. I was worried about her safety when she first told me she was going to be sent there. But, we can't only go into places that are healthy and be missionaries. Christ said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

One of the things that has been striking to my daughter as she serves in this mission field is how little people understand what true friendship is. Most have never had a true friend, one that desires your good, raises you in virtue, and shares special memories with you.

So much of what she has done is to teach them how to be in friendship with one another.

Let's hear what St. Francis has to say by turning in our books to Chapter Nineteen of the Third Part.

Welcome, Catholic Pilgrims, to another day of talking about friendship. Today's topic is an interesting one, but I'm glad St. Francis is discussing it. It's about flirtations.

The other night, my family was watching the more recent Jumanji, the one staring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, and Jack Black.

In the movie, five high schoolers get sucked into the video game version of Jumanji and when they end up in the video game, they are all completely different people than who they are in real life. In real life, Dwayne Johnson's character is this super skinny germaphobe who is very introverted. In the game, he's this big muscled-up guy. In real life, Jack Black's character is this self-absorbed high-school beauty who is addicted to her phone.

They all have their personalities, just their external bodies are completely different from what they really are. It's pretty funny at certain parts.

Anyway, at one point in the video game, the five players have to make it past some bad guys and they come up with a plan to have the only girl in the group go and flirt with the bad guys so as to distract them. In real life, this girl is very shy and very awkward and so she's never flirted. Jack Black's character gives her a lesson in flirting and it's hilarious because all you see is a short, overweight man trying to teach the girl how to flip her hair, bat her eyes, and walk in an attractive way. Anyway, it doesn't go well, but it's pretty funny.

There is power in flirtation and so we must be careful with it. That's what St. Francis is going to talk to us about today. Grab your book and open to Chapter Eighteen of the Third Part.

Hello, fellow Pilgrims, my friends. Today, we start the first of six readings on friendship, so clearly this is something that St. Francis considers an important topic and not one that we often hear about.

For anyone that currently has or has had teenagers, you know that your kid can be heavily influenced by their friends—for good or for bad. Because acceptance is so important to humans, it is not unusual for us to become friends with someone just because they may accept us, even if they aren't necessarily good for us.

We teach our kids lots and lots of things, but often times, we neglect to teach them the truth of what a good friend is: A good friend is not just simply someone who accepts you. A good friend is someone who truly wills goodness for your life.

St. Francis is going to talk to us today about bad and frivolous friendships. So, let's turn to Chapter Seventeen of the Third Part.

Welcome, Catholic Pilgrims. We have another day where we are hearing about riches and poverty.

Many of you have heard my earthquake story that occurred when we were stationed in Turkey. If not, in summary, on October 30th, 2020, Izmir, Turkey was hit with a 7.0 magnitude earthquake that went on for 45 seconds. That is an eternity in earthquake time. My children and I happened to be on the 15th floor of our apartment high-rise and feeling the building sway and roll for that length of time was one of the most unsettling feelings you can possibly imagine. I figured at any minute the building was going to come down on us.

When the earthquake finished, I told my kids to run out of the building. I just wanted to get them out. So, we ran out with no shoes on and flew down the 15 flights of stairs to get out. What I didn't know at the time was that our building was designed to move that way to keep it flexible during an earthquake. It was designed by Japanese architects.

My husband's squadron was told to get to higher ground because there was fear of a tsunami coming (Izmir sits right on the Aegean Sea). And so, a group of Americans marched through town to higher ground. My kids and I, though, didn't have shoes.

I'll reflect on what happened when we got to higher ground as it pertains to our reading today. Let's turn to Chapter Sixteen in the Third Part.

Fellow Pilgrims, it's time for another reading. Something I wanted to note last time but forgot is that we hit the half-way mark in the book. That is cause for celebration. It's hard to believe we are already half-way through the book, but when you stick with things and you show up, even in little spurts, you can make it through anything.

I've never been what you would call a rich person. Growing up my parents struggled to get by but they did the things that needed to happen in order to advance their placement in this world. So, I grew up with not much and I've never been rich. I feel rich in that I have my health, my faith, my family, friends, and all my needs and wants met. I've never desired a fancy car or a huge house. I do like money for traveling, if I'm being honest.

There was one time in my life where I did feel rich and that's when I lived in Turkey. How did my husband and I handle that? Well, I'll explain on the other side of St. Francis talking to us about how to preserve real poverty while being actually rich. Let's turn to Chapter Fifteen of the Third Part.

Welcome back, Catholic Pilgrims. Today is another great day to read and learn from St. Francis.

Thomas Sowell, a great American economist, philosopher, and political commentator, writes and says many excellent things. He is truly a brilliant man. One of my favorite quotes of his, is, "I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money."

We hear pretty consistently that the rich are bad and that the government should take their money and give it to others. I hate this notion for several reasons:

1. We need the wealthy to create jobs. Taxing them to death kills innovation and business growth.
2. You remove charity when you force people to be "charitable."
3. Nobody wants their money taken from them and forcibly given to others, yet, we demand the rich not only do it, but we call them wicked if they don't love having their money stripped from them.

Is it wrong to be rich? No. Can being rich lead you to being greedy? Yes, but so can poverty. Greed doesn't become suddenly okay if you are poor. It's always wrong to want to strip from others what is rightfully theirs and what they have rightfully earned.

Our topic for today is on having a poverty of spirit in the midst of wealth. So, let's turn to Chapter Fourteen of the Third Part.

Hello, hello, Catholic Pilgrims. Welcome back. Last time we talked about the virtue of chastity and why its so important. Today, St. Francis is going to share with us the rules for preserving chastity. As like with last time, listener discretion is advised.

It is hard in this day and age to cultivate the virtue of chastity. A big reason for that is because of the devices we all carry around in our pockets.

We are going to read what St. Francis says and then discuss how we deal with this in the present age.

Let's open our books to Chapter Thirteen of the Third Part.

Hello, Catholic Pilgrims. Welcome back to another beautiful day with St. Francis.

Today, we are covering chastity, so you may want to be wary of younger ears being present.

've mentioned before that my Masters is in Applied Behavioral Science where I specialized in studying sexual violence crimes. It would be an understatement to say that I have dealt with unchastity on unprecedented levels.

It isn't pleasant I can tell you that. Sexual impurity has always been around, so its nothing new. What is new is the level at which chastity is scorned and ridiculed. In fact, being impure is not only encouraged, but celebrated and promoted on levels we've never seen before.

Consequently, this means that I had to deal with the fallout and rarely do people have to deal with the fallout and so they brush it off. Most people do not have to deal with the lives that have been destroyed by a world that has encouraged people in sexual impurity. One of the reasons that people don't have to deal with it is because our culture tells people these lies and then when people are broken and battered because of believing the lies, we don't want to listen or help because it makes us uncomfortable.

St. Francis is going to talk to us today about chastity and it's a subject very near and dear to my heart. Let's open to Chapter Twelve of the Third Part.

Welcome back, Catholic Pilgrims. Today, we are talking about obedience, which has become a very distasteful word in our culture.

There's a scene in the "Ten Commandments" where Moses says to Ramses, played by Yule Brenner, "Here His Word Rameses and obey!"

Ramses looks at Moses and says, "Obey?"

I just love how he says, "Obey." Such classic Yule Brenner.

There is this general feeling that if we are obedient to anything (other than our chosen political party) that we are somehow shackled and oppressed.

People complain about having to obey Church laws.

People complain about having to be obedient to the Pope or any superior, for that matter.

At the core of all of this, is a prideful independence. We only want to do what we want to do and obedience, it seems, is forced.

St. Francis is going to talk to us about obedience today, so let's open to Chapter Eleven of the Third Part.