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Catholic talk that hits — Direct, and unfiltered; talking about the realities Catholics face in ordinary life. News, culture and Catholic thought without outrage journalism or controversy. Faith, without fluff. FIRE, with integrity.
You're about to get fire branded, baby. Welcome. Welcome, one and all. Welcome to this TikTok live session. This is fire branded.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for joining me tonight. I am your host, TJ Haynes, the undisputed technician of the truth, Catholic fire brand extraordinary coming at you tonight, darling. We're talking about what lit your fire fire, baby. What lit your Catholic fire? Was it a person?
Speaker 1:Was it something you read? Was it something you experienced? I'm gonna talk about a couple of things that tend to light a Catholic fire. Maybe if you're watching this, it might help you. Maybe it'll tell you some things to look for that will respark, rekindle, relight your Catholic fire.
Speaker 1:Maybe it needs to be relit. We're gonna talk also about why it needs to be relit. And then at a point, I'm going to invite some of you to join in on this live, which I don't often do. I'm gonna give that a try again tonight, see how that goes, and you can take an opportunity to tell me what you what lit your Catholic fire. Yes, sir.
Speaker 1:This is fire branded, and I am very happy that you're joining me. Thank you very much for doing so. Streamed live and recorded November 20 in the year of our lord 2025. Now let's get on with it. Mute that sucker, darling.
Speaker 1:Let's hit that rock and roll. We're talking about the microphone, not the music. Yeah. Microphone too hot. Can't touch it.
Speaker 1:Now what lit your Catholic fire? You know, it's easy for faith to grow cold. That's why I do what I do with stoking the embers. Catholic firebrand, the quiet ember. Right?
Speaker 1:Are you catching the theme? I'm trying to start the fire in Catholic hearts again, doing my small part in that. Really, it's it's God and the Holy Spirit through the church and through grace that does that. I'm just playing my small part. It's easy for faith to grow cold.
Speaker 1:You've heard me if you're following me on TikTok for a while, you've heard me say that dozens of times. Be bold or you will grow cold. It takes effort to stay hot, to stay glowing. But why should we stay glowing with this Catholic thing? It's just a philosophy.
Speaker 1:It's like a nice way to live. It's just furniture in your house. It's nice, but then you get bored with it, so you change it. Or you don't just change it. You get rid of it.
Speaker 1:What's the big deal? Man, have you got Catholicism all wrong, big dog? We're gonna talk about that in a little while too. Let's talk about Catholic fire. First, let's talk about the importance of of having a hot Catholic fire, having strong and bold Catholic identity.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about that for a minute. First of all, if you follow Stoking the Embers, which is both a website and a podcast, you might have caught a segment that I played in last weekend's episode. I had Fulton Sheen well, I didn't have him on. He's dead, but that would be great. My numbers would be through the roof if I actually had Fulton Sheen on my show.
Speaker 1:But what I had was a clip of Fulton Sheen. If you don't know, very famous Catholic broadcaster in the fifties and sixties. And Fulton Sheen was talking about how we are witnessing the end of Christendom. He talked about four cycles of destruction that the church witnessed. If you would like to know more about this is not a plug, folks.
Speaker 1:I don't get paid for what I do. So when I'm pointing you to a website, it's for you. It's not for me. If you would like to read more about that, do go to the link in my bio, which is my main website, and the article and it's it's not long, and it's an easy read, and it's real deep and real interesting, and there's a video segment there where I talk about Fulton with Fulton Sheen's quote. The article at the link in my bio is called the end of Christendom.
Speaker 1:What did Sheen mean? Because I'm not gonna explain the whole damn thing to you. You're just gonna have to go and read it. But Fulton Sheen went through four cycles of destruction and devastation that the church survived, lived through, and bounced back from. Let me just give you the rundown.
Speaker 1:The first was the fall of Rome, which was the fifth century. That was the first cycle of destruction that the church survived. The second was the corruption and breakdown of the of the earth the corruption and breakdown of the early middle ages around the tenth century. Moral decay infected the world and in in some ways, the clergy. Church survived that.
Speaker 1:Then there was the rupture of the reformation, the Protestant reformation. Christendom was torn apart, but the Counter Reformation kind of bounced the church back from that. Then there was the rise of modern secularism. Nineteenth century revolutions and and rationalism, quote unquote, rationalism, tried to bury God, but the church responded with clarified doctrine and new fire. What are we witnessing now in this next cycle of five hundred years?
Speaker 1:I just wanna be clear. This is not a predict well, it's pretty prophetic, but it's not like a prediction or a rule that the church has in some dusty tome in the Vatican where it says, the church will suffer for great tragedies. And I don't know why I made that wrong that guy, German. I had Benedict the sixteenth on the brain. And, these will be the four tragedies that the church will suffer every it's not that.
Speaker 1:Fulton Sheen was analyzing history, analyzing the time in which he lived, the signs of the time, they say, and therefore made this bold prediction that we are witnessing the end of Christendom. I agree. We are witnessing the end of Christendom. He's not saying we're witnessing the end of the church. What but the end of Christendom.
Speaker 1:What does that mean? Folks, again, I'm not sending you there for me. I'm sending you there for you. If you wanna know more about that, what he said and what he meant, go to the link in my bio. On the first on the first page, just scroll down just a hair.
Speaker 1:You're gonna see the article there. The end of Christendom, question mark? What did Sheen mean? Meaning Fulton Sheen. So I'm just going to sum up real real brief.
Speaker 1:We're witnessing the end of Christendom in that Christian culture is being eradicated. Right? Base if you're old enough, you have the perspective to know this as I do. Basic things that that what I call Christianized the secular culture are gone. There are here and there fights and struggles to remove God from the pledge of allegiance in schools.
Speaker 1:There are the secularization of public schools is just flat stupid. You can't say Merry Christmas. You can't have Christmas plays. We had Christmas plays and stuff when I was a little kid in public schools. You still had them here and there.
Speaker 1:They weren't, like, all over the place like in Catholic schools, but you still had them. Now you can't you can't say Christmas anything. You have to call it winter break. So it's things like that. Basic things like a man and a woman, like what marriage is and is not, Basic things that Christianized Western culture are being eradicated.
Speaker 1:Christians, it's not just Catholic Christians, but all Christians, are being made to look like the fools for believing the archaic things that we believe. Nonsense. We are witnessing the end of Christendom. And the time is now to take your faith much more seriously for your sake, for the sake of your soul, for the sake of winning your eternal destiny, for the sake of your families if you have family. Right?
Speaker 1:For the sake of the church, which will survive with or without you, to be frank, and for the sake of the world. The time is now to take your faith very, very seriously. So are you down with it? Then it's time to light that fire, man. Don't be ashamed of being Catholic.
Speaker 1:Don't listen to the nonsense that the haters tell you. Folks, I've been an evangelizer for a long time. Every every string and line of nonsense that you could possibly hear, I have heard dozens of times. So what? 99.9% of those hate comments I'll give you my thoughts on Freemasonry and the second samurai because I love your name.
Speaker 1:99.9% of those hate comments are ridiculous and baseless, or they're taken out of context. Forget it. I'm not gonna get into that. If you have questions about that, you're gonna have to hit me up on the side. The time is now to light that fire.
Speaker 1:I'm going to go to this comment, thoughts on Freemasonry. I'm gonna go to this comment because it comes to bear. Freemasonry is multilayered. It goes from just being like an ordinary social club, which really it isn't. It just pretends to be an ordinary social club, and then the deeper into Freemasonry you get, the more and more occult ish it is.
Speaker 1:Not just cult ish, occult ish. Right? Freemasonry philosophy is satanic at its root. Well, we don't worship Satan. No.
Speaker 1:But the things that you believe are satanic. You don't identify God. You refer to him almost like like the pagans did. Right? The great architect.
Speaker 1:Yeah. God is a great architect, but that's he's so much more than that. The equalization of all thoughts and ideas. All thoughts are equal. All ideas equally worthy.
Speaker 1:That is not true. There is objective truth in the entire realm of reality, and to deny and reject it is to open the door for the the very error we see in the culture today. That is all Freemasonry. Did the Freemasons invent it? I have no idea.
Speaker 1:They might have had a hand in it. They might have no hand in it at all. But it is Freemasonic philosophy. Intentionally or by coincidence, it doesn't matter. So Samurai says, I agree.
Speaker 1:I agree with what you've said, and I'm a devout Catholic, and Loki was Pope Francis. No. Pope Francis was not a Freemason. He said a lot of things specifically against Freemasonic philosophy. And the Jesuits, are they Freemasons?
Speaker 1:I I the order itself collectively is not. Are there Jesuits who are Freemasons? I don't know. I I mean, I guess it's possible, but I'm not a fan of the Jesuits these days. There are still some good ones, but as a whole, I am not a fan, and that is also as someone who is not a fan of of the Jesuits, I'm telling you, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:Are there Jesuits who are Freemasons? I guess it's possible, but I don't think so. Listen. Let me tell you the problem with the Jesuits. Okay?
Speaker 1:The Jesuits let their fire go cold. That's what happened. Because they move more and more into an attitude of progressiveness, and progressiveness is not theological liberalism. Believe it or not, the church's understanding of progressive is conservative. It's not departing from the truth.
Speaker 1:It's deepening our understanding of it. That's what progression or progressiveness is. But in around the fifties and sixties, political liberals started to hijack that term. By the seventies and eighties, it had taken root. Eighties and nineties, progressive meant liberal from the perspective of secular politics.
Speaker 1:But that is not what progressive means. Why did they hijack it? Because the term progressive carried a lot of respect to deepen our our understanding of truth. Not to move away from it, but in other words, to alter it, but to contribute to it. To contribute to the truth through a deeper understanding of it, but not to alter it, not to break away from it.
Speaker 1:So the Jesuits became more and more involved in what I am calling progressive theology. Not all of it is heterodoxy. Some of it is orthodoxy, and some of it is heterodoxy. And some of them flirt with heresy. They let their fire grow cold, and that that became the new identity of the modern day Jesuits.
Speaker 1:But are the Jesuits Freemasons? No. They believe in God. They believe in the holy trinity. I mean, they believe in everything that you would state in the apostles' creed, and I believe they believe it sincerely.
Speaker 1:Therefore, they couldn't be Freemasons. They're they're not even allowed to be Freemasons by the Freemasons for professing their faith. Understand? For professing what's in the creed, you can't believe those things if you're a Freemason. Anyway, moving on from that.
Speaker 1:So it's an sorry. I just had to pause there for the editing for later. So it's it's it's important to have a a it's important to stay lit and burning hot for your Catholic faith because you're in a world, you're living in a time that's going to blow your fire out, and it's going to tell you, it's going to convince you that Catholic stuff, no good. You don't need that. It's not important anymore.
Speaker 1:And because they're gonna sweeten the pot with things like ease and comfort and social acceptance, you're going to start believing it. Yeah. Maybe it really isn't that important. Mama is saying, honestly, what clicked in my head back into the church oh, what clicked my head back into the church, full throttle, was one of my friends just saying, well, you can't talk to those who have died. And I was like, what?
Speaker 1:I know I can. So, basically, what I think what mom is saying is somebody she was a casual Catholic, and then someone said something challenging against, I guess, the communion of saints, and praying for the dead, or praying through the intercession of the saints, and she took that personally. I think that's basically what mom is saying. I'm really doing these lives for you. So when I see comments and stuff, I wanna stop talking and acknowledge, you know, who's talking.
Speaker 1:I'm a cradle Catholic who's been away for twenty years. Coming back in full force now feels right. That's interesting. Coming back in full force now, and it feels right. Does feel right, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:God is calling an army into action. I'm not kidding you. My friends, you don't most of you don't know me, like, at all, and some of you only know me a little bit through my work. But I'm telling you, I've been in evangelization evangelization for a long time, teenagers, young adults, and grown people. I've seen a lot of facets of the church, and there are evangelizers with a lot more experience than me.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying I'm like the king, but I have a lot of experience. And what I have seen out there is just so mind boggling. Teenagers who have depth beyond their years, grown ups who are chasing after God with a hunger that does not make sense, Does not make sense. It's not natural. It's almost like the Holy Spirit slapped them across the face or something.
Speaker 1:And oftentimes, they don't even know where it came from either. It was just a strong calling, like a magnet. So I'm telling you, the holy spirit's on the move, and God is calling his children back into action. Mama, oh, thank you. By the way, mama liked the live, so I wanna encourage all of you.
Speaker 1:If you like what you're getting, go to catholicfirebrand.com. That's my personal newsletter. A newsletter means when I email something out, you instantly get it. There's no algorithm. And you this may have been of no interest to you.
Speaker 1:I mean, I wanna be super quick with this because I did wanna mention it at least once, and then I'll never mention it again. In that newsletter, I send it out once a week, once every two weeks. Everything that I publish across my publications, whether it's Stoking the Embers, which is the main one, or Coaching Catechetics, or the various podcasts that I do, I put up a newsletter. I put together a newsletter, which is a summary. Here's what I posted since the last newsletter.
Speaker 1:Here's what this is. Here's why you might be interested, and so on and so on. Here's where you can get it. Link. Link.
Speaker 1:Link. Link. Link. Catholicfirebrand.com. Not only does, not only do you get the the newsletter, but also you'll get an invite link to my Discord server.
Speaker 1:And my Discord server is happening. Okay? I'm gonna I'm scheduling live chats on there. We do general interaction. We talk about the we're just talking about theology in there today, theology topics and stuff.
Speaker 1:It's a way to build community without the insanity of social media and algorithms. It's a way to build community without impostors stepping into your life and ruining the party for everybody. As a member of catholicfirebrand.com, you get the invite link to my private Discord server, which is only open to people who are subscribed to my work. Okay? Catholicfiberend.com, consider it.
Speaker 1:Check it out. Give them give the algorithm the middle finger, because when I send something out in my newsletter, it goes directly to you. There's no algorithm deciding what you do or do not get to see. Alright. Let's get on with it.
Speaker 1:I guess this is the part of the show where I should just invite people up who want to speak. Hopefully, that works the way it's supposed to. So what sparked your Catholic fire? Understanding the importance of revitalizing your faith, taking your faith seriously, and not being ashamed or embarrassed about it. Because there's nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed about.
Speaker 1:Let's see. Sarah requested. Hello, Sarah. Can you hear me?
Speaker 2:I can. Can you hear me okay?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's a miracle. I can't believe this worked. I did this once before, like a month ago and the poor guy, he was so eager to get on. I let him on then I couldn't hear him.
Speaker 2:Oh, no.
Speaker 1:Yeah. I felt so terrible for him. And that and I felt especially terrible after the live was over, and I realized why I couldn't hear him. That was like a one two three fix had I known what what the problem was. Oh, man.
Speaker 1:I felt so bad. How are doing, Sarah? I'm glad you joined me tonight.
Speaker 2:I'm good. Yeah. Thank you. This is my first time jumping on and your content is amazing.
Speaker 1:So Oh, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Absolutely. I appreciate that. Yeah. I just I wanted to to jump on really quick because you were talking about, you know, what kinda lit our fire.
Speaker 2:And it was it was interesting. I I've always, been Catholic, but I haven't, you know, the last twenty years or so, I haven't been a practicing Catholic. And, something pulled me so hard back into the church. And it's just like, I can't even explain it. So when you were talking about how the Holy Spirit is calling us and how the Lord is calling us home.
Speaker 2:Oh, There's there's no question about that. I mean, it is it's like once I started praying the rosary again, it was over.
Speaker 1:Oh, well, you brought in the big guns there. So let me ask you. So you felt a draw, you felt a calling. And what was your follow through on that? The rosary?
Speaker 2:It was it was the rosary. It was the rosary because I was watching some, like, Pentecostal lives, and I love my brothers and sisters. I love them so Same. But there was there was some talk about, you know, Mary. I mean, there's always talk about Mary, but, So I was feeling very conflicted.
Speaker 2:And I said to myself, I said, I'm going to give myself thirty days. I'm going to pray the rosary for thirty days. I didn't even make it to the second day and it was over. Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, she is just
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it hasn't stopped since then. It just keeps intensifying more and more
Speaker 1:and more. How long was that that you started praying the rosary?
Speaker 2:It's been two years now.
Speaker 1:Okay. Yeah. The holy virgin is no joke. She's absolutely no joke.
Speaker 2:My goodness. Yeah. No. I mean, it's it's I can't even put it into words. I mean, when you're doing the rosary, it's like you go into a trance like state almost and there is nothing like it.
Speaker 2:And you don't know it unless you do it. You have to like commit to like a week and just try it. And it's like, you don't have a chance. You you just don't.
Speaker 1:So that's prudent advice. It's it's funny you say that because it's hard for me to, discipline myself in prayer. Believe it or not, I'm I'm I'm very prayerful, but it takes an effort. One of the things that I have to do when I fall out of a habit to get back into it, I have to promise to do it for at least a week. No matter how.
Speaker 1:For instance, the the rosary is very hard for me. I just I don't know what it is. I don't have a mind for it. Maybe it's a spiritual thing, and the devil's trying to keep me from it. I don't know.
Speaker 1:I can tell you though, Benedict the sixteenth also found the rosary very hard to do. So he yeah. He had to do it in two or three decades at a time. True. And he's he prayed the rosary all day every day for a long time, but he could not do the whole five decades.
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness. Yeah. That explains so much because when I like, after I had done it for a few days, it was like it was getting harder and harder to do. And I mean, when I say spiritual warfare, like anything to distract me, to make me fall asleep,
Speaker 1:to make
Speaker 2:me tired, to make me uninterested. I mean, just anything, and it's it's so spiritual. Yeah. There's no question about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It's very powerful. It does take you into another place. Mhmm. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It it it is an interface with the eternal. Sometimes, especially when you get into praying it meditatively, you might it might take you forty five minutes to pray the rosary, and you'll swear you've been sitting there five minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. You know, you'll
Speaker 1:you'll have experiences like that as you become more experienced, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. The rosary's rosary's no joke. I'll tell I'll tell you this, and I'll and I say this for the the benefit of everybody everybody else watching, especially for the heckling protestant who's in there, which I have no animosity toward protestants. I I really don't, but but I have animosity toward hecklers. So but anyway, in my lifetime, I have brought truly desperate causes to the rosary, like truly desperate, And that rosary has never failed me.
Speaker 1:Not once.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Not once. And the the other, these were periods where I had to be, you know, it wasn't like one rosary and done, but I'm convinced at least two of those desperate causes were small miracles that the holy virgin won for me through the rosary.
Speaker 2:There's there's no question about that. I mean, the graces that come with with praying the rosary. Mhmm. You know, and that's of course not why we do it, but the graces, I mean, are no there's no question There are huge graces that come from asking for her intercession. And and what I'm learning as I've been doing it longer and longer, she wants nothing more and nothing else than to bring us close to her son.
Speaker 2:That is it.
Speaker 1:Well, that is true.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this again, this is just my contribution. One of the most important things that I brought to the holy virgin was to bring me closer to her son. My my devotion to the blessed mother was was completely overhauled in, like, twenty seventeen, something like that. And this was one of the prayers that I brought to her to bring closer to the son. Well, let me tell you, I have never in my and I've been Catholic my whole life practicing.
Speaker 1:Never been more close to Jesus than I have been for the past, I guess, since since, like, 2017, 2018. A thousand percent closer to Jesus than I ever have been.
Speaker 2:That's so absolutely incredible. And, you know, the one thing that I've started to notice is every suffering that I have, just kind of connecting it to the suffering of Christ.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it it makes such a difference. Like, I mean, I don't even know a sliver, and it's so much to me.
Speaker 1:Mhmm. What do you mean by that exactly?
Speaker 2:Like, I don't even know a sliver about Jesus, about the apostles, about the Bible, about the saints, about heaven, about God. And it's still it's it's like, I feel like at this point, I feel like my mind's gonna explode. That's how much is out there. There's so much. Like, I feel like I could just read and pray all day and I would never know even a pinch of what there is to know.
Speaker 2:It's Oh, yeah. Crazy.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah. Unbelievable. Have you ever been moved by a piece of art or a song that just hit you?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1:Did you write that? You've so imagine seeing God face to face. If a song can make you do that, can make you go, woah, I just had that experience like last week. It's not like miraculous or anything like that. But, know, when something like just hits you for whatever reason, it just captures you and it just like, wow.
Speaker 1:And you're left without words, or it just moved you just the right time. It just stirred your soul very, very deeply. They say you can't see God face to face and live. Well, I believe that because I've been blown away by works of art or masterfully done cinema or or music, certain songs that that it's just like, oh my god. I just I just have no words to express what the song does in in my in my soul.
Speaker 1:That's art. Imagine seeing God face to face. Right? That's the depth of his beauty and his goodness and the truth. So when you're collecting this truth, right, these things that you're learning and experiencing, you have it exactly right.
Speaker 1:They're they're base barely shards and specks of dust of everything God has to offer in our experience now on earth, and oh boy, when we get to heaven. Because then we will see him face to face. Yes. And live.
Speaker 2:I I think that's where my true understanding of purgatory is coming in, where it's God's mercy and grace for us because, you know, with all this attachment to sin and the world and my humanly thoughts and all of that, How would I ever be prepared to see Christ in this way?
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's been
Speaker 1:pretty That's heavy. That's heavy. I love that. I love that. Sister, that's grace.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's that's that's grace. There's there's there's depth and wisdom in that. Yeah. That's grace.
Speaker 1:That that yeah. That was very powerful.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me up. Thank you
Speaker 1:so much.
Speaker 2:And I followed you, and I'm gonna continue to watch, but I'll drop so someone else can join. But thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Yes. Thank you so much for joining for coming in. That was a great conversation. I appreciate you. God bless you.
Speaker 2:God bless you.
Speaker 1:Bye Bye. I don't know how to make guests go away. I hope they know how to hang up. Anybody else requesting so far? Now that I know where the, requests live, I'll know what to check there.
Speaker 1:So ask to come on board, and I'll let you on. I'm gonna tell you another thing that relit my there are a couple of things. I'm gonna tell you about this priest that I met after I came out came home from the Marine Corps. He was at my parish, and I hadn't been at my home parish in a number of years. So he was a new he wasn't a young priest, but he was newly ordained.
Speaker 1:I think it was his first parish. And this man was so deep, and his homilies were so good. They weren't like Fulton Sheen, good, like explosive and performance and but they were so good, the substance of his homilies. And you saw the way he celebrated mass, you saw that he was in it. You know?
Speaker 1:It's like, my god, the faith the faith and life was in him. And he was charitable, and he did works of mercy, you know, soup kitchen, stuff like this. And in the confessional, he was like, oh, man, this priest is like something out of a storybook. Really, really deep. He he he was a little hard to manage sometimes sometimes, but he was just incredible.
Speaker 1:I was just, like, so I was such a super fan. I was, like, fixated on this man. I'm just out of the Marine Corps, you know. I went to master in the Marine Corps, but I wasn't taking my faith that seriously. You know?
Speaker 1:That was I didn't it wasn't a full and total lapse, but it was a lapse. And so this was me lapsed for all intents and purposes. Okay? I had been going to church, like, mostly, sorta, during the Marine Corps, but I was, you know, effectively lapsed. And here's this priest that, damn, if he didn't wake me up again, if he didn't just make me say, wow, not just over him, but over what had come out, what was what was alive in him.
Speaker 1:And his love for the oh my god. And his love for the mass was you watch him celebrate mass, man. I'm telling you, he was somewhere else. Also, he want I I took him as my spiritual director so we had more interactions and and stuff. This is why I got to know him a little better, and I know that sometimes he was a little bit hard to his personality is a little bit hard to manage, but nothing bad.
Speaker 1:You know? But one time, he was a very busy priest. He was always involved in something, you know, pastoral, ministerial. So he invited me to come and speak with him, you know, to to have our our meeting. It was kinda it was late.
Speaker 1:It was, like, 09:00, 10:00, something like that. And he was just finishing he he needed to finish his his divine office, his his his office, his hours. I don't remember if he was saying night prayer or evening prayer. I had no concept of what the liturgy of the hours was. And, he says, hey.
Speaker 1:Come come on inside. What's going on the church? Come pray with me. I thought that was just nice to be asked to pray with him in the church. Nobody was late.
Speaker 1:Nobody's in the church. You know? It's like we have it all to ourselves. You know? I thought that was just really cool.
Speaker 1:And he's asking me to come pray with him. Thought that was really nice. I don't think anyone had asked me to pray with him before in my life, actually, come to think of it. And he explained to me, I say this part, and then you say that part, and then we alternate. And then he he gave me the rundown of how we do the liturgy of the hours.
Speaker 1:First of all, the liturgy of the hours knocked me on my ass. It was like, this is prayer. But also the way he prayed it again like he was somewhere else. And I I was still living I was just back from the Marine Corps, so I wasn't living on my own. I was still in in my childhood home, right, with living with my mother and my brother.
Speaker 1:As soon as I got home, my mother says, so how did it go? And I said, my god, does that man know how to pray? That was the first thing I said. I I I swear, this is literal literal truth. How'd it go?
Speaker 1:My god, does that man know how to pray? And ever since then, I wanted to pray just like him. And and now I I do. I struggle with it sometimes with the discipline, but now I'm I'm kinda there. But, yeah, this guy, definitely was part of lighting the fire that that you're sharing in.
Speaker 1:I'm sharing it with you. You know? So sometimes it's people who light that fire in us. Sometimes it's people's personality, like Catholic personality, their their behavior, their charity, whatever. You know, it's funny that that protestant loudmouth who was just running his mouth that whole time, I invited him to come on, and I guess he wasn't feeling it.
Speaker 1:He didn't wanna come on. Oh, well. You're lost, my friend. Sometimes it's personality. Sometimes it's it's behavior, disposition.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's their habits. I mean, I'm telling them they're about their Catholicity, not like, you know, other habits that don't matter. I'm talking about their Catholicness. Right? Sometimes it's it's a speaker.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's a prayer that, by grace, just hits you over the head. You know, it could be a prayer you've heard a million time. Our father let's say you're just in a gathering and everyone says, look, let's say, our father, you're like, oh, okay. Whatever. Because this is not your thing.
Speaker 1:Right? This isn't what you do. Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.
Speaker 1:And you pause for a second. For some strange reason, thy will be done hit you. You don't know why. And then mysteriously, you have, like, a renewed understanding of the importance of God's will and the importance of serving it in your unique way. For whatever reason, all these things just come to you.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's such an act of grace through a prayer that you've maybe you've said a billion times that hits you just right at just the right time exactly when you're ready to receive what the Holy Spirit is giving you. Sometimes we're not ready to receive what the Holy Spirit wants to give us. Sometimes we're not ready to receive what we ask for. You better be careful. Mike Tyson said something that's very true that I have always believed.
Speaker 1:He said, sometimes God punishes you by giving you everything you ask for. Oh, yeah. That's true. That's true. We have to be ready for the things that we ask for, and oftentimes we're not.
Speaker 1:We're too ambitious. We're too prideful. We think big. Oh, god. Do I have stories like that?
Speaker 1:We think big beyond our pay grade. And that's okay. But God has to take the time to get us to where we're asking to be. Lord, grant me wisdom. You need to be humbled first.
Speaker 1:It's gonna take me about five of your years to humble you, to teach you humility. Then I can begin to teach you about wisdom. The Lord will grant the prayer that you asked for, but only when you're ready to receive it. The Holy Spirit has a lot of things he wants to offer you, but he has to get you there. You have to be ready to receive it.
Speaker 1:And just at that right time, literally at the very right moment. My friends, it is one moment in time in your life against the backdrop of all eternity comes down to that one speck of dust, that one moment where that is the right moment to give you what the Holy Spirit wants to give you. That split second in all eternity is the right moment to light that fire. Can you imagine the interest God takes in you? That against the backdrop of all time and all eternity, he waits for that split second moment.
Speaker 1:How interested in you must God be that he watches you that closely with that much anticipation, waiting, waiting, waiting in the Catholic faith. I'm browsing through the chats. Could you explain the reasons why Catholics Catholics ask the saints and Mary to pray for them. Okay. I can I'll go through that briefly.
Speaker 1:Here's the reasons. Why do we ask the saints for their intercession? The scripture says the prayers of the faithful I'm sorry. The prayers of the righteous availeth much. Right?
Speaker 1:Who's more righteous than the people who are already in heaven? Now scripture does talk about the people on earth being righteous. Well, yes, of course. Right? Some of us are righteous and some of us are not.
Speaker 1:Some of us are more righteous than others. So the prayers of the righteous on earth merit a great deal. Well, the people in heaven are the people who were on earth. Why would their prayers not merit anything? They don't need to pray for themselves.
Speaker 1:They've won their crown. But why would they pray why would suddenly listen. When you go to heaven, you are you, just without a body until the resurrection. But you are you, purified. You still have your sense of humor.
Speaker 1:You still have your memories. You still have your personality. Why wouldn't I bring my righteousness with me too? Righteousness is more important. It's more integral to the human person than their sense of humor, than even their memories.
Speaker 1:Right? You can still pray for the souls on Earth. Going to the saints for their intercession is similar to going to your older sibling, which I did many times. Going to your older sibling, hey, ask Ma to get me a bike for my birthday. Why don't you ask her?
Speaker 1:Because she doesn't like me as much. You know, I broke that window. I got into a fight with that kid. She likes you better. You ask her.
Speaker 1:She's gonna say no, but get her to say yes. Who's buying this bike for me? My brother? I know my mother's buying the bike. I know who's got the money.
Speaker 1:I know who's got the clout. I know who's writing the checks. I know who has the wealth. All my brother is doing is the intercession. He's not getting me the bike.
Speaker 1:So that's why Catholics pray to the saints. It's supported in scripture. You can look at it except Martin Luther removed those seven seven books from the Protestant's Bible, but it is supported in scripture. It's supported in sacred tradition. For fifteen, sixteen hundred years, that was a no brainer until it brought us in the reformation when one guy said, no, that's not true.
Speaker 1:Okay. One guy said it's not true, so I guess it's not true. It's an apostolic tradition, but one guy said it's not true, so it must not be. But I hope that it makes sense. I hope that and you can agree or disagree, but I'm I'm not trying to convince you, my friend.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to explain to you. You asked a very good question. I'm trying to give you a good answer. I hope that made it I hope it at least made sense whether or not it convinces you. Okay?
Speaker 1:Invite Freddie Krueger to coho. TikTok, listen to me. I know you're Chinese. I get it. But do you not know who Freddy Krueger is?
Speaker 1:Why would you ask me why would you prompt me to invite Freddy Krueger to cohost? I know you're Chinese. You guys do things like ninjas and Godzilla. Yes. I know Godzilla is Japanese, but it works for the joke.
Speaker 1:I know you do guys do ninjas in Godzilla. Here, we do Freddy Krueger, and he's very scary. Really, really scary. Why would you prompt me that? Freddy Krueger, I know that it's time for Freddy, and you're a popular guy.
Speaker 1:If you don't know yet, you're gonna find out why. And if you don't know where I got that rhyme from, then you're not as old as I am. But, I'm not going to be inviting you onto the show. I do have this nifty music I can play as I roll on out of here. Folks, I am the hardest working man in Catholic podcasting.
Speaker 1:I am all over the place. I'm writing articles. I'm doing podcasts. I'm doing these clips. I'm doing these live man, I am all over the place.
Speaker 1:So keep me in your prayers so the Lord can grant me the graces, the specific graces that an idiot like me needs to do the important work that I feel he has asked me to do. Say a hail Mary for me. Okay? And check me out at Stoking The Embers. That's the headquarters of where I do everything.
Speaker 1:You'll find Stoking The Embers at, the link is in my bio, actually. Stokingembers.com. And if you wanna get in on the gravy, catholicfirebrand.com. Super easy, free. Drop your email in there, and come on with it.
Speaker 1:Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Catholics of all ages, this has been an episode of Fire Branded. I have been your host, TJ Haynes, the undisputed technician of the truth. Thank you, Jesus. Catholic firebrand extraordinaire. God bless you.
Speaker 1:God be with you all. Signing out of here. Bye bye.