New Year New Changes Right?

That is the hope of most people at the start of a New Year. Often times we find ourselves giving up hope before we begin. We all know the obstacles and impediments that fill our hearts and keep us from becoming the men that Christ calls us to be. So why do we so often fail? The lack of action. True transformation calls for a plan. It can’t just be about desire. When desires meet action true transformation becomes a reality.

Listen in this week as John and Victor start a series on True Transformation and focus on one of the gifts of the Church that can help: Fasting. If we are going to be rid of the things that keep us from Christ we must be willing to make an act of the will to choose the better part. Grab a seat as the guys discuss fasting as one of the most powerful ways to find lasting transformation in your life.

Learn more about our pilgrimage to Greece & Turkey

Episode Transcript:

Welcome back to the pew, everybody. I’m your host, John Edwards, and here across the table from me, as always, is my co-hosted cohort, Victor Adams. 

John, a new year has shown up and that’s additional for our, what is it, seven years now? Man, I lost count. I think we started this in. Yeah, I think it’s 2018 or something. We have to go back and look. Or people that followed it long enough could probably Google it and see. But yeah, it’s been seven or eight years, right.

I think I remember when we were first starting this, we’re like, you know, we’re like, by what show? 20? We’re like, I don’t know what we going to talk about after this. That’s right. Yeah. I remember as we were coming to the end of that bag of sins, right, that we had the first 50 episodes or whatever, and we were getting through it pretty good. And a lot of them were the same thing, right? Like ten of them were confession and five were drinking too much and others were work stress. And we started going, oh, man, oh man, what are we going to do next?

And Deacon Jeff used to actually tell us when we were recording back then in his studio over at what used to be St. Louis. It’s now over at St. Anne’s but he used to tell us, Look, I’ve got 500 episodes. Don’t worry about it. God will give you something to talk about. And, man, he was right. I mean, we’re here on, I think this is number 311 or 312. You know, something like that. So, so Lord does provide.

And I’m looking forward to another year of doing this with you, man. I mean, 2025 here, here we come. And I know it’s that time of year where people start to look for, okay, what am I going to do differently in my life? And you know, we, we kind of always have this hope that as the calendar turns, our habits will turn, our lives will change, wisdom will finally show up.

Yeah, that’s. Yeah, right. Like something magical will happen. Lord, will I be smart this year? Yeah, yeah. It’s like when I was doing drugs a lot, it was just like, okay, well, you know, married, I’ll stop. And I didn’t. And Jacob was born. Oh, I’m going to be dad now. I’ll stop And I didn’t. It’s. We always kind of wait for life to happen to us, right? And then, and then, you know, it never really does. Like you. You just kind of. Life doesn’t change you, you change yourselves. And that’s the call of the Christian life. So I know we’re going to talk about that today.

Before we get started, I just wanted to say a couple things. One, thank you again to everybody that gave donation donations. Not donuts or donations, donations there at the end of the end of the year. You know, we really had a successful campaign through I Give Catholic and there at the end of the year. So thank you to all you that gave.

For those of you that have become new donors, we had a lot of those. Thank you for that. Becoming monthly partners in the pew. That’s going to help us continue to move forward. So thank you for your. Yes. And folks, any of you out there that have been on the fence about it you know, every bit of that of your donations goes to help us continue to help families and men to find healing and restoration and to build these places and parishes across the country.

So if you’re interested in joining us as a partner of the pew, that means somebody who gives to us on a monthly basis, you can do so by going to justaguyonthepugew.com There’s a donate button on the side of the screen and in the top, so you can check that.

Also want to remind everybody that we do have the pilgrimage coming up to Greece and Turkey with Father James Clark. It does include a four night or four day gnc cruise. You’re going to go to Mykonos and all these different islands. You’re going to go to Greece and Turkey. You’re going to see all the places over there where Paul preached and where he taught. And you’re going to see the seven churches of Revelation, the house where Mary lived throughout her last days, and also on Patmos, the grotto where St. John wrote Revelation.

So there’s a lot to do there. It’s going to be amazing. Not only the culture and the food of Greece and some of the mythology and all that stuff too, but it’s going to be a great time to grow and your faith and in relationships and make friendships with people from all over the country and around the world. So, folks, we have a few spots left open. It is filling up fast. So join us. You can do that. If you want to go to Greece and Turkey with us, you can do that by heading over to justagoutonthepew.com clicking our events, bookme and pilgrimage page, you’ll see that in the top menu, click that, scroll down past the calendar, and right there you can download the brochure. You can register right there and everything. But the trip is filling up fast. So if you want to go with us please go ahead and register as soon as possible so you can ensure your spot.

Finally, I just want to say, folks, a lot of people have emailed in lately asking if we have open dates. And yes, we do. We have a few in May, a couple in June and July, and then the latter half of the year, September through the end of the year, we have some spots there too. But with my work with the JP2 Healing center, we’re also doing events there too. So our calendar does tend to fill up fast. So if you want to start a men’s group or you have something you want us to come and be a part of related to men’s ministry or to your parish, we’d be glad to do that. Reach out as soon as you can through our website at Just a Guy in the Pew. Com. Click any of those, find out more tabs on the page, fill out the form, schedule a call with me and we can figure out how we can help you. But just want to let people know we do have some open dates if you desire to bring us in.

So, Victor, that’s all I wanted to say there. Thanks folks for listening to that. Now we’re going to jump into our topic and we were, you know, started to get into a second ago just talking about change and the desires people have. And I know I have things in my life that over this period of really since my last event with the JPD Healing center of the Year was November 14th and 16th, that was our last ministry speaking event. Like, there’s been things in my life that I was really looking forward to. You know, like I wanted to rest at the end of the year. I wanted to really pour into my family since I’m going a lot of weekends of the year.

And one of our The employee we had, Derek, you know, he decided to go on another ministry. And so I’ve actually spent a lot of the last three weeks a little stressed with things, just trying that. We had applicants come in and find the time to really engage people and interview people. Have you narrowed it down yet? Yeah, actually I did. I hired someone, a lovely lady from out in Nebraska. She’s worked with the John Paul, the Healing second healing center before. Shes had a lot of ministry experience, so we had a lot of great applicants. Thank you to all of you that applied.

You know, that. Just a lot of prayer and discernment in my usual mode of operandi. Modus of operandi or whatever is, oh, gosh, I lost somebody. I just need a warm body. Like, I don’t care if you’re a serial killer. You’re hired, you know? And so I really wanted to be more prayerful and spend a lot of time praying, discerning, interviewing people, all that. So we did and I was able to, you know, interview everybody, give everybody equal amounts of time to hear their hearts, to get to know them a little bit. And then, you know, the Lord led me to the right person, I feel for the job.

So we did that. But in the midst of that, like, through some of the stress, Jacob breaking his arm, like, all that different stuff we had going on then the regular kind of rushing around of everything. Christmas was family house, family events. Yes, yeah, yeah. Like, all that kind of stuff. Angel’s getting ready to go on a retreat that’s a week long. There’s a lot of stuff going on. You know, like, I sometimes turn to things when I’m stressed out. Whether it’s, you know, just being angry and moody or something, you know, or. Or maybe to too many libations or whatever.

I started thinking about all that and then started thinking about our last episode. Right. We talked about a lot of things during Advent and letting the Lord into our hearts and all of that. Christmas has come, and now we’re, you know, we’re moving into. Into 20, 25. But the last episode we did that came out last week was really on what do you desire? And these desires of your heart, like that one. Your desires are put there by God, like, you know, your holy desires, even our distorted desires have a good and holy desire below them.

And then we talked about, like, after that, like, what it means. Okay. So if you kind of realize what your desires are, and you sit down and write those down, and you look at what God’s desires really are, a lot of times those are going to match up. You could form a plan, but then to enact that plan, it requires you to take action. And so as I was thinking further about that and just praying in my own life and my own situations I started looking at, like, I want to help people.

Like, the one thing people want to know Is like, I don’t want to just be preached at. Like, what do I need to apply to my life? Like, how do I do it? And I think that’s one thing we’ve always tried to concentrate on this show with, is not just to say, hey, you need to be better and good luck with that, but to give people steps to actually achieving what they want to do in their life.

And I would say that, like, you know, if we want true transformation, and this is what this next couple of episodes are going to be about, is true transformation in our life, which we’re all usually looking to do at the beginning of a new year it doesn’t always stick, but hopefully we can put these principles into place that help us to prolong that and to keep it going and make real change and true transformation in our life.

We have to start really looking at what we want. And like I said last time we talked about, we have to take action alongside God’s grace. If you’re talking about desires, our number one desire should be to be a saint. When you’re a Christian, when you give your life to Christ, there’s a way that you feel you’re called to live. There’s something that, that when that has made you turn away or at least begin to turn away from the world and say, I don’t want this anymore. I want this.

So what that this is is I want to be with God forever in heaven. If that means that’s what I want, then technically what that means is I want sanctity, I want to be a saint. Now that doesn’t mean you wait till you die and then you’re a saint. It’s a way that you live now that prepares you to become a saint. You know, as you, as you pass, whether it’s through purgatory or whether you’ve lived a saintly life and you get straight to heaven, I don’t know. I mean, that’s for each and every one of us to, and the Lord to sort out.

But the thing is, like, when you talk about everything else, well, I really desire this. I desire this. I desire to better myself. Whether it’s health wise or the way I behave or the type person that I am, that all still falls under that one desire. Like, I want to be good, I want to be holy, I want to be virtuous. I want to be whatever something in my heart tells me I should be, which is more. Our hearts are always telling us we’re supposed to be more than we are. There’s something that’s intuitive inside that tells us that.

So that may seem very impossible to a lot of people. It certainly did for me for a very long time. And sometimes it still does. When I’m in the middle of my own mistakes and my own brokenness and all those things, sainthood seems like a very distant thing. Impossible, distant a pipe dream. But it really isn’t. And the church, in her wisdom, gives us a lot of ways to start achieving this. They are not easy. That’s why the Christian life, when you’re truly living, it is not something that’s easy, that you can set on autopilot, and it just happens to you. It’s something that’s very difficult.

So I want to talk about that today. And just a little bit like, how at the start of this new year, do we change? And what actions do I take? And I think there’s a couple things we have to realize in that as we get started here and we get started talking about, you know, how to implement real change in your life.

Well, yeah, and kind of what you’re referring to is like adapting to a new self, a new perception of the self that I’ve always wanted to be, but for some reason I was incapable of, or thought I was incapable of. Wherefore like, well, I know I should stop doing this. I know I should be more active in my prayer life. I know I should read more. I know I should study more. But there’s something that holds us back from really plugging that in.

Well, we may do it for like a week or two, you know, and be intent on that. But then all of a sudden, it’s like we just find ourselves pulled back. Like, anything going, you know, working out or whatever else. You know, there’s always this motivation that I need to improve myself. I need to improve not just yourself, but internal self as well as external self. And we’re going to talk about that. I know, later. But the thing is, we all struggle with it. We’re all human. We’re all in the midst of the world and the sufferings that come from living in the world. But we do have the ability, with the help of the Holy Spirit, to live rightly.

Sure. And that’s really the thing that I want to talk about today. We have to realize a couple of things. We’re talking about being a saint versus living in the world, that they want two different things. Right. The call of the world is really the world of flesh and devil. I should say is to self indulgence. Right? We live in a world that says, like, get what you want when you want, live the way you want to, do whatever you want to do to yourself, to others, to your body. The world tells you to treat your body like an environment. Amusement park and all these things. And that’s not the call of Christ.

The call of Christ in the life of virtue actually call us not to self indulgence, but to self denial, to tempering our desires, this virtue of temperance, to choosing what is good for us and what is not and what we’re going to partake in and what is not. And really the way that You come to do that is by fasting.

And it’s so funny, Victor. I love to read and stuff like that too. And it’s been difficult lately because I’m writing a book and, and there’s deadlines with that. So a lot of times when I want to read, I’m like, well, I need to be spending that time writing, not reading. Because there are things that, you know, I’ve made a commitment to do to get this out in a certain time for publishing and all that. And a lot of times I’ll get in a book and I’ll start reading it and then I’ll put it down and I’ll start another one. And I’ve got like, probably 10 books in my room right now that are halfway read.

So as I was in this period and stuff here around Christmas and between Thanksgiving and Christmas with the stuff I described earlier I just was like, man, I really feel like I need to read something. And of course I’m always in scripture, but sometimes it’s great to hear insights from the people that have gone before us and priests and monks or deacons or sisters or just insightful lay people, gifted lay people, all that stuff.

So I started this book a while back called how to find God and discover your true self in the process. For those watching at home, it looks like this. It’s hard to find. It’s a handbook for Christians and it’s written by Dom Hubert van Zeller, which, which was a monk. But you can call St. Paul’s Bookstore. In Memphis maybe, yeah, she might be able to get it. I think I had to get it off of some, like, weird website with very hard to find books.

So it’s originally put out by Sophia Institute Press. But Dom Hubert van zeller lived from 1905 to 1984, wrote books on spirituality and prayer that offered straightforward advice to people seeking to love and serve God.

So I started reading this and he’s got a lot of language of the 30s and 40s. So sometimes you have to stop and go, like, what does all that mean? Like, he’s speaking in a way that, like, I have to get out a dictionary and like, figure out what some words mean that just aren’t in the English language often anymore.

But I started to pick this up and it’s so funny how God can lead us to the things we need at certain times. Because I was like, well, I’ll start reading this at the doctor one day with Jacob while he was in there getting his arm looked at and stuff. And and I was just like, wow. He started to talk about purifying oneself and really making the changes in your life that you want. And he talked about, he started talking about penance and fasting.

And so that’s what, like, I thought in this first series of true transformation we’re going to talk about over the next couple weeks that we needed to talk about was fasting. Some people may say, like, well, why not prayer? Like, prayer should be the first thing. Well, a lot of times I assume that people are praying. Now, obviously a lot of people aren’t praying, but generally people have some sort of prayer in their life. And we’re certainly going to talk about prayer in another episode and how to live a more prayerful life and how to have more of an impactful prayer life.

But I just thought fasting is something that’s harder for people to do. And so he begins to talk about this. The way that we start to move away from self indulgence in the world and towards self denial is a great gift of the church is fasting. And we hear about it in scripture in the Old Testament. Like, they’ll say, go and pray and fast and then return to me. You know, Jesus talks about the only way that some things can be cast out is through prayer and fasting. When the disciples fail to be able to cast out a demon in someone that like, they had so many times before and they go to Jesus and he says, some things can only be cast out by prayer and fasting.

So as we start to look at this type this time of year and the things in our life, we’re all looking for change. And we all know like, really what it is that the Lord is wanting for us to get rid of in our life or to get control of in our life. I certainly know the things that I’ve told my wife and my children. I realize some of these things are distractions, some of these things are a crutch, and I want to get rid of them.

And I think that’s why the Lord led me to this portion of this guy’s book, is because it was all about fasting. And so, you know, fasting is the way to begin to say no to the desire of the flesh and the ways of the world. If there are things that you’re trying to change, your weight, your selfishness, your anger, your addictions then fasting is a way to do it. It’s a way to start this journey towards sanctity.

And so Dom humor Van Zeller. I’ve got some quotes here from the book. And what I was reading, what he starts to talk about is that sanctity is not penance. And again, he’s talking about fasting here. When he talks about penance, says sanctity or sainthood, if you will, is not penance and penance. Fasting is not sanctity. But sanctity seeks to express its spirit in penance, and penance seeks to find its fulfillment in sanctity.

So what he’s saying here really is like, okay, they’re not the same things. But sainthood seeks to express itself in the spirit of penance. So, like, I’m choosing to not live in ways anymore that call me away from this life of virtue and this life of Christ. And penance or fasting seeks to find its fulfillment in sanctity. So how do I live out the life of a saint? By choosing the good and not the bad? Or choosing the way of the Lord and not the ways of the world?

So he talks about how these go hand in hand. That if our desires of our heart and what we talked about in the last episode are summed up in I want to be a saint. I want to be the man that God calls me to be for my family, for the world, for the church, for those, you know, for Christ chiefly. Then what I’m saying is I want to be a saint. And a big portion of becoming a saint is learning to deny oneself and to live in the way that we’re called to, which is very hard in the world.

But, you know, when you see this this is the problem. So many of us never try to deny ourselves. We kind of have, like we said with the hedging the bets episode. We try to kind of walk in both worlds and have our cake and eat it too. And what happens is we wind up letting our desires and our passions and our flesh control us versus us, controlling us. We don’t subdue our will. We let our passion subdue us.

And this is where we get in trouble. This is why we have so many people that are on opioids and drugs and alcohol and addicted to Porn and can’t get out of repetitive anger and unforgiveness and all these things is because we have slowly and gradually made choices that draw us closer into the world and what the world, the flesh, and the devil is asking of us. And we don’t realize, like, it’s not just like, you see an oncoming car, you jerked a wheel and you’re three lanes over and out of the way. It’s not a move that’s that quick. It’s a slow digression away from the direction we want to go.

When we start choosing the world and we start to become self indulgent again, where we start to look to self again. And the entire Christian life is a call to look outward at other people. Yes, we have to do that inner work that you were mentioning a minute ago, but we also have to realize that, like, Christ came as a gift and that we’re called to be a gift to the world. And we can’t do that when we’re. So we’re indulging in things all the time because those things feed our selfish nature and they pull us away from what matters to Christ and to other people.

So this is why fasting is one of the best ways to kind of do this, but it’s also very difficult for men.

[Victor] Yeah, you talked about self indulgence. Had a flashback, because self indulgence can be on both sides. You know, I mentioned this to you before, like, when I was 20, you know, and people know I had a major back surgery. And it kind of clarified my life, my role of, you know, being more in depth through my faith journey.

But. And I’m from Pensacola, Florida, if anyone knows. In the mid-90s, there’s a thing called Brownsville Revival for people in the first assembly of God. I wasn’t a member of the church, but my friend was. He said, come. Come and watch this. So it was worship revival. Yeah, revival. It was like worship music revival. I mean, it was like, man, it was like going to rock concert.

So. And, you know, and. And of course, I was Presbyterian, and, you know, I was baptized and I went through confirmation. But, you know, the way that they said is, like, if you never had Jesus, accept your life, you’re not saved again. You know what I’m like, gosh, am I saved again? I don’t know.

You know, so the whole thought of, like I’m not safe. So I, you know, did the altar thing and all stuff. So what happened is the self indulgency went the other way for me because I was more getting my fix in the worship music, you know, getting up there singing all that stuff, you know, raising my hand, watching people fall out and, you know, place their hands on stuff.

And it got the point where I became enmeshed in the sense of like, well, I’m going to do. I want to do everything better than everybody else. Like a competition. If someone’s going to fast, I want to fast better. Yeah. If someone’s going to sing, I’m going to sing louder, you know. And it got to the point where I became almost a fanatic, John.

To where I wasn’t like, being warm to other people. I was being like kind of like that, that Pharisee to that tax, tax collector, saying at least God, thank you for allowing me to be who I am and not someone like that guy. Yeah. Who just came in here and he’s, he doesn’t, he’s not feeling the spirit, you know. Sure. Thank you for letting me, you know.

So, like going there, I got my, my fix. I wasn’t there for, for God anymore. I was there to, to feel good about myself and to feel some righteousness. Sure. You know, saying I am deserving of everything, you know. Yeah.

And I got to the point where I started like, even being critical with my family, you know, like, I broke my CDs and I just disassociated myself with a lot of people that were decent people, you know, because they weren’t. Yeah. They weren’t like the way that I was going to be.

And I realized I hurt a lot of people. So what I did is that, you know, in wisdom, you know, I realized out of my early 20s that that’s not the right way to live either. You know, you don’t go to mass to feel better about yourself. You go to mass to ask God to reveal himself to you more. Yeah, right.

To what more can I do? Live in mercy, Live in love, Live in hope, Live in charity. And I wasn’t living in any of those things. I wasn’t charitable to anybody. I wasn’t kind to anybody because I was very very rough on people.

[John] Sitting on a seat of judgment.

[Victor] Yeah. Very judgmental. I was very judgmental. And I realized that that is, I became sick in itself too. Because I went too far. Self indulgence this way. And because I was over here, I’m like, well, I’m doing better. Yeah. But I wasn’t sure.

[John] Well and that’s a good point. I mean, it can Go either way. I mean, extremes are extremes. And you know, I would say it both ways to people. When you talk about fasting, you’re not talking about throwing out everything. I mean, we still have to live in the world, right?

[Victor] Well, it’s not competition because I was doing like, I was competitive fasting, like, God, I’m going to do, I’m going to six days for what? It wasn’t for him, it was for me. Sure.

[John] Well and that’s like I’m saying, like we don’t like the extremes can be extreme either way. Right. And so you’re not. This isn’t about. I’m going to throw out everything in the world. We have to live in the world. And the call of Christians is to go into the world.

But as I was saying, like, when you fast, what you’re doing is you’re training your will to be able to subdue the passions that may be coming to you from the world. Right. Like, okay, when I get in the world, I can operate in it because I’ve trained myself to be able to say no to things. And what once may have been huge temptations or I may have gone down some crazy rabbit trail. I can enter into these places because I have fasted and I’ve seen the light in my life and I don’t need those things the way that I thought I did before.

Now that’s very different than saying like standing in the, in the seat of judgment and you’re just pushing people away because you’re perfect and they’re not. Right. Like, you don’t go all the way to where like everything in the world is evil and you’re the only thing that’s not.

[Victor] Yeah, that’s a good point to make.

[John] It’s is, is this is just about what are the things in my life. Like I really want this true transformation. I really know in my heart, like, I know the things that are keeping me from the next step on the journey towards sainthood. So how do I start to take those steps? And fasting is certainly why it’s certainly important to doing that.

The thing is, like, the reason so many men don’t do it is because we don’t like to deny ourselves.

[Victor] It’s fasting with purpose. Right?

[John] Right. We give into our wants and our desires. We want something, we buy it. We’re really stressed. We self medicate. Like, we feel like we have all the answers ourself and we don’t need anything else because we can just find whatever we need in the moment.

And so we start to look to these things of the world for comfort and for. For meaning and for serving a purpose that only Christ should serve in our life. Right? The things that we look for in the world, we’re actually looking for Christ is what happens.

So fasting allows us to reject those things and to really pull back and understand where we’ve allowed control to go in our lives. Because really a lot of things that we struggle with and that that self indulgence is really. We’ve allowed things of the world, the flesh and the devil, to control us, and we don’t realize it.

And I remember there was a guy I was friends with, I think it was back when I worked at Napa. He was an older man, he was probably in his 50s at the time. And I was smoking back then. I was in the midst of drinking and doing drugs and all that stuff. And I smoked all the time.

And I remember he was working in one of the stores I worked in. And he used to give me stuff all the time. He’d be like, if you wouldn’t spend all that money on beer, you’d be a millionaire one day. Or if you wouldn’t spend all that money, you’d spend it on cigarettes. And he’s like, those things are bad for you.

And I was like, well, how do you know Mr. So and so? And he’s like, because I smoked for 30 years or whatever, some long period of time like that. I said, oh, yeah, well, I’d quit, but it’s. Every time I try to, it’s hard. And he goes, yeah, it was hard for me too.

And I said, well, what, what made you quit? How did you quit? And he said, you know, I used to live up north, John. And he said man, I was. I remember one day, it was in the midst of a dead cold winter. He’s like, it was almost negative temperatures. It was in the single digits.

And he said, and I was sitting in my office and I was jonesing for a cigarette like I did all the time because I smoke like a chimney. And he said. So I finally just gave in and said, I’m gonna go outside. And like I had so many times in the past freezing my tail off to just go and spend three minutes hot boxing a cigarette until I got the urge again.

And he said, so I go, you know, put on my coat, take the trouble, go through the office, go downstairs, go down the elevator, go outside to this smoking section or area. And he said, and I’m freezing. Like, as soon as I open the door, the winter hits me in the face. I’m Like, God, it’s already col.

And he says, I’m sitting there fumbling with this cigarette and this lighter. I’m so cold, I can’t even hold my hand still enough to light it. And he said, I finally get it lit and I breathe in that and all of a sudden like I felt just like like that’s what I was looking for, that’s what I needed in that first puff of that cigarette.

And he said, and then I started to sit there and just, I was more and more cold, I was more and more shaky, I was more and more freezing. And he said, and I started to notice that there were tons of people that were walking in and out of the building, getting out of the cold, not subjecting themselves to this stuff.

And I finally, in that moment, it hit me and I thought, what am I doing? Like, what am I doing? I’m letting this little bitty, you know, 4 inch, 5 inch thing control my life. Like, it is freezing cold out here. No one in their right mind wants to spend any time out here other than what they have to getting to and fro.

But here I am coming down, you know, whatever, because this was in an old job. He had like eight floors of an office building. Taking the time to get my coat on, going down, getting out of the building to stand here, to hot box a cigarette so I can obtain some feeling that I need and then run back inside just to do it again 30 minutes from now.

And he said, but I watched all these other people going in and out of this building and they didn’t have this problem. They weren’t sitting out here freezing their tear off like an idiot in a snowstorm, like just to have this fixed.

And they started to realize, like, I had let my passions and other things control me in my decisions and the way I live my life. And that’s what happens is like Victor, when we don’t subject our worldly desires and the desires of our flesh to our will, we wind up being subject to them, right? We wind up being subject to them and our passions wind up controlling us. And that’s where so many of us are in our life right now, that’s where so many men are in particular, is that we kind of sit down sometime and go, how did I get here? Like, how did I even get here? 

And it’s because we have let go of the restraint control in our lives. Like we have given into the things of the world and we no longer fight back, we no longer take a stand. It’s just become modus Operandi. And you become a creature of habit. It’s like, why those nights when you just. You open a beer and it’s like a Tuesday or something, you’re like, why am I drinking right now? I’m at home by myself. Like, why am I. Why do I need this? And the fact is, we don’t. But we’ve allowed our minds and our bodies to believe that we have because we’ve simply gotten, like, lax, out of control. 

And he talks about that in the book. He’s like, what are three reasons we really don’t fast? And the first one he says is like, well, we wind up thinking that our fasting needs to be an interior disposition and not an exterior one. I don’t need any outside fasting because I just need to fast interiorly about things. So that’s why some guys go, I don’t need that other stuff because you don’t know what I’m doing inside and what I’m holding myself accountable to entire inside. Well, yeah, but if you’re. If. If everything’s still translating into bad behaviors and habits that are not helping you become a saint or helping you become a better man and dragging you down, then your interior fasting is not really doing anything right. 

So we need both. He makes that point. And the second thing he talks about is, like, some guys, they. They say, well, you know, well, life’s hard enough as it is. Living’s hard enough, right? Like, living’s hard enough. Like, why do I need to make it harder on myself? Like, God gave us alcohol. He turned water into wine. Not the other way around, the old Protestant joke and all that stuff. But, like, God gave us all these things. Why can’t I use it? Well, yeah, like anything else. God gave them to you for you to express temperance in, not to overindulge and to self indulge and to turn into a problem in your life, which I’ve certainly experienced in my own. 

So guys go like, well, life’s hard enough as it is. Why put more restraints on myself? That’s just going to make me be more angry and more. More you know, irritable and more this and more that. Well, yeah, it probably will in the beginning. But again, that’s the battle of subduing your will and not letting your will control you. And then the third thing is, like, his. The point he makes in the book is basically like, my life will become boring and meaningless, and I’ll never have fun and I’ll never have any of this stuff if I start to make all these decisions like I want to change my health and the way I look, so I got to lose weight, but then I can’t eat what I want anymore. And what good is life if I can’t have a chocolate bar when I want, or a bucket of fried chicken or whatever it is, or what’s life going to be like if I can’t drink when I want to, or smoke or watch porn or whatever it is? And so this is the call for true transformation is we have to start going like, dude, your life is never going to be what it’s supposed to be when you do all those things. And so he has a lot to say about these things too. 

But I want, I want to just kind of talk about. What we’re saying here is that like fasting is really an act of the will. And what happens when we become self indulgent is we basically handed our will over to the world, the flesh and the devil, and said, you tell me what’s good for me, you tell me what I need and you be in control. And when you’re living that way, you don’t give control over the proper authority in your life, who is Christ? And you wind up in these places where some of us may be, as we enter in this new year of like wanting this change, God is again putting that desire there. How do we start to achieve it through fasting?

Well you know the story you said about your co worker back in the day, Napa, you know, I think that’s a true realization for all of us. When we find ourselves doing something, we know it’s unhealthy and we go, why am I doing this? You know, And I think all of us say that all the time. We’re thinking that all the time. But we may not put the right course of actions into stopping it. You know, it took for him like a blizzard, you know, realize like, this is crazy, I could kill myself. Yeah, Frostbite I hear, because I want a cigarette. You know, but when it’s a nice summer day, you’re like you don’t think about it, you know. Yeah, but but kind of what you’re talking about is like, you know, when, when we subdue, subdue those things that are not healthy for us and we ask God to become part of that battle for us to, to reclaim our lives for, for living in his will. Its going to be difficult. You know, there’s going to be trials and tribulations and there’s going to Be suffering that’s going to be involved. 

But the thing is, you said there will be a joy that comes from that. You know the joy of like wow, I feel different. I feel like the stress, the worriness, all stuff, it’s not as in front of me as it is, you know, as it was before then. You know, stress is. Pressure is a realistic reality for all of us. Sure. But when you live in God’s will, it’s kind of like eh it comes, it comes and goes in various degrees and you realize that it’s not that moment of feeling isn’t for eternity. It’s just a moment. It’s there, it’ll disappear and it’ll be something else you gotta work towards. But when we live in our own will, we’re gonna really live in a sickness of ourselves. Sure. And self indulgency of any kind isn’t a healthy place to live. Whether it’s self righteousness or whether it’s depravity. Yeah. You know, and I think not to say that there’s a middle way. What I’m saying is that, that God is the way, you know, living Christ like is the way loving, you know, being merciful, being kind charitable. I mean that, that’s the way that, that fasting will reveal all those, those, those virtues to you. Yeah.

And that’s what I mean at the end of the day, like I said, like you’re saying what you’re really looking for is God. Like if you’re stressed, go to God, don’t go to the bottle. Yeah. You know, if you’re stressed, go to God, don’t go to porn, don’t go to whatever else you’re doing. Because all those are self medications that you’ve trained yourself to be involved in. Because of whatever you’re feeling in the moment. It doesn’t fix anything. Yeah. Whether I’m bored, angry, stressed, lazy, tired, like we look for something. 

And a lot of times like still in my life where I catch myself like maybe indulging in alcohol more than I should. A lot of times if I’m really honest with myself, I’m bored. And I’m bored. And there’s plenty of things to do besides picking up a beer or whatever. Like go read a book, go spend time with your family. You get in this mindset where it’s like if I don’t have this, then what is my life going to be? And that’s where the devil wants you to go. I mean it talks about in the book Dom Hubert van Zeller also says some things in the book about really, in particular about the devil. He says in here it is in the interest of the devil to present the relative harm so as to cramp the soul’s pursuit of the absolute good. So when you begin to think about fasting, it’s like, oh man, I’m denying myself and I’m not letting my house. And that just sounds painful and that sounds troublesome and I’m not going to be able to do it. And that’s why, because he’s saying it is in the interest of the devil, he’s presenting to you the harm you’re going to do to yourself so that you cramp or cut off your own soul’s pursuit of what is better for you. That’s what he’s saying there. And in fact this is the purpose of fasting. 

He goes on to say, by denying himself the satisfaction of physical appetites and by imposing a measure of hardship upon himself, a man trains his senses so that they are more ready to respond to the obedience placed over them by the will. This means that when the whole man sense and spirit is called upon to meet a crisis, he will not be greatly distracted by the rebellion of the flesh. He will be used to subduing it. That’s the whole purpose we’re talking about this, this episode. That’s for fasting. The devil’s going to tell you it’s too hard and you give in. What he’s saying is when we learn and we start to make ourselves fast from these things, we’re imposing hardships on ourselves. Not for pointlessness, right? Not to just prove I can do it. Right.

A lot of people will say, like I did exodus 90s to see if I could go 30 or 90 days or whatever without drinking or without watching TV. And Exodus 90 is a great thing and it’s helped a lot of people because it helps them to impose fasting. But the reason you do it is because you desire to get rid of things in your life that have you shackled and chained and aren’t making you the man you want to be. In fact are hindering you from being the man you want to be. You want to be rid of those. Not so you can get some medal at the end of your life or at the end of a 90 day period or whatever it may be and beat your chest and say, look what I was able to do. And then you go right back to your behaviors. What good is that? You spend 90 days basically at that point, torturing yourself just to go back to the same things. The point of fasting should be, I have a desire in my heart to be better. And there’s things in my life that aren’t allowing me to be better. I need to remove them.

And God in his grace and the church in their knowledge has pointed to fasting, that there aren’t things just to white knuckle it and grip it to see if I can do it and see if I’m a man. But they’ve given me these tools to show me that I can break free from these chains. I’ve allowed myself to be shackled to by the grace of God and by the desire of my own heart. But I have to shore up my will. And that’s what he’s saying that this means. When the whole man sense and spirit is called upon to meet a crisis, he will not be greatly distracted by the rebellion of the flesh. He will be used to subduing it.

That’s what it means to invite these voluntary fastings upon yourself is so that you train your senses so that you’re more ready to respond in obedience to your will. Inst. Obedience to the world. And so that’s what started to mean so much to me, is I was like, man, I really have some things I’ve let myself slip into here in the last portion of the year. And I give myself all excuses. Well, I travel all the time, and that’s why I’ve gained weight and my health isn’t what it is because airport junk food and on the move and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, I still have the ability to make choices. Or I’m really stressed out. And that’s why I’ve indulged in more whiskey or a few more beers than I normally do. Well that’s just an excuse. Like God was there the whole time waiting for me to go and speak to him about my stresses. So What we have to do is realize that it is an act of the will.

And so I want to address just quickly the last couple parts here about fasting and what people think. So that last point in particular that he made in the book about if I fast, then my life’s going to become boring and mundane, like it’s going to have no meaning. And I can’t have fun anymore. I can’t have joy. And that’s not true. You could still go out in the world. I know plenty of people that have quit drinking, and they’re still out at parties and things like that with people because they’ve learned that drinking isn’t the point. The social aspect and the friendships and the relationships are.

So there’s all kind of ways that you can get out there and do those things. But he talks about here actually the opposite of what people think most fasting is. They think it’s voluntary punishment of yourself and a life of boringness and all that stuff. But he says this. The man who fasts and gives up his luxuries is not condemning himself to a life of boredom and frustration. He is freeing himself of much that would otherwise tie him down. By renouncing the amusements of the world, a man enlarges his capacity for enjoyment. Just as unhappiness does not come from the lack of material things, but from the superfluity of material things, so happiness is not threatened by self denial so much as by self indulgence.

So what he’s saying is like, the devil tries to convince us, and that’s what he was saying earlier about. He’s presenting the harm it will cause ourselves to deny ourselves. Like, how horrible it would be not to get what we want is what the devil tries to show us. But he’s saying, in actuality, he said, you’re not condemning yourself to a life of boredom and freedom or frustration. You’re actually freeing yourself from so many things that are tying you down that you don’t even understand. Like, why do I continue to be angry and stressed out at my kids? Well, you’re drinking every night, and while you may feel used to that, your body feels horrible. You’ve gotten used to feeling horrible. And so what you think is normal is you’re not normal at all, right? And so your anger and your frustrations, all these are coming out on people.

So things that you’re choosing to do that may seem normal and needed in your life are chaining you down. He’s saying this actually frees you. And so this idea that, like, I need the amusements of the world to be happy, he’s saying, no, it’s actually by denying yourselves the amusement of the world that you start to break those chains and you start to realize that unhappiness comes from an overabundance of all this stuff that you’ve allowed yourself to partake in instead of denying of self, right? So the self indulgence leads to really unhappiness in the end, and self denial is what allows us to go. Like, I don’t need all these things. My happiness, my joy is found in the Lord.

So the very last thing I want to kind of read here quote wise, is from St. Leo the Great. That backs that up, he says. Backs up Don Hubert van Zeller’s thoughts in this book. He says, what can be more efficacious than fasting? By its observance, we are able to draw abstinence arise. To draw abstinence arise. Sorry, I got to start over. I’m reading too fast. What St. Leo says is, what can be more efficacious than fasting? By its Observance, we were able to draw abstinence arising in pure ideas, reasoned desires, right minded counsels by means of voluntarily imposed hardships. The desires of the body are restrained and the virtues of the spirit are renewed. There’s been so many times in my life, Victor, where I’ve allowed myself to kind of indulge in the things of the world. And I’m sitting here wondering why, man, why can I not come up with what the Lord wants to do on a podcast? Why am I struggling to get a talk together? Why do I find it hard to pray and to go to adoration, to Mass right now? And really what that’s pointing to is I have allowed all these other things in the world. I’m not fasting from those things. I’ve really allowed myself to overindulge in them and it numbs my senses to the voice of God in my life. 

And so what Saint Leo is saying here is that actual fasting allows you to draw near to God, to resist the devil, to rise above the persuasions of evil, and to find yourself again with pure ideas and reason, desires and right mounted counsels. And you’re finding yourself the virtues of the spirit renewed, which are numbed when you’re overindulging in things. So that’s what this episode’s about today. Like, if you want real change in your life, implement fasting. Start to look at the things in your life and start to go, you know what, I don’t need this, I’m going to start to fast from it. It doesn’t mean that you throw yourself completely into like, I’m never going to drink again or whatever. If that’s a problem, a real problem in your life and certainly you need to look at that. Or I’m never going to, you know, watch television again. Like you know, again, look at the severity of the problem in your life and find the equal answers for it or the equal solutions. 

But like, what you have to realize is there are going to be some people in your life that come to you. There may be so called friends in your life, like, hey man, what did you give up drinking? Like, we can’t fun anymore. Like you, like we all we do is drink and smoke cigars or do whatever and now we can’t have fun anymore. Like it’s awkward with you being there without you partaking in all this stuff, which is really a sign of their own guilt and their own need to change, but they’re not willing to do it so they put it on you for Making them feel uncomfortable. But what’s happening there is like, you’re starting to change and you’re going to feel that. And a great insight that Don Hubert Van Zeller said there too, at the end of his book was like, the disciples realized at some point that fasting and prayer was a life that we’re called to, and that some people tried to tell them, oh, you don’t need to fast, just pray. And what they started to understand was that the call of worldly prudence, like, actually urged a greater caution was all too often the call to come down from the cross altogether. Right? 

So that first invitation of I’ll just give yourself a break is actually the pulling of a nail to free a hand. And then eventually, as you pull the other nails to come completely off of the cross, that the Lord calls us to the cross of the difficult life of living as a Christian. So fasting is a need in our life. You want true transformation, then begin to say, these are problems in my life. I don’t want these problems anymore. So I’m going to start choosing to do something. Like, I’m going to make an active choice to do something different, and that choice is fasting. 

So, Victor, like the ways that we do that is start to look at our life. What is it that’s a problem? How can I stop engaging in that? How do I start if it’s slowly that’s needed? How do I bite a piece instead of trying to eat the whole cake at once? And how do I move forward in getting things out of my life that are keeping me from Christ? We’re going to talk about prayers. We move forward in this series. We’re going to talk about embracing the suffering. We’re going to talk about some other important things.

But the first thing you can do right now, in my opinion, if you really want to start 2025 and get rid of things in your life is, is to choose to subdue your will, to say, you know what? Those things in the world, the flesh and the devil, are not in control of me anymore. I am in control of my own life. And whatever I’m struggling with, I’ll surrender to Christ and I’ll offer up to him through this fasting.

And I totally agree with you on that perspective because when you fast, you fast for the right reason. You fast for you pray and you fast. You say, God, reveal the change that I’m seeking within myself, that can only come from you. Dont be like, fast to see how long I can fast. That’s not a competition who’s holier than the other person because again, that’s the way I went and that wasn’t a healthy way either. But to totally ignore fasting altogether is also. You’re losing an amazing gift that can be given to you when you really remove yourself from something that, that will, that has been an impediment for you a long time for spiritual growth. You know, seek that out right now. Think about what is it that, that that’s really my impediment for me that’s in my life that, that I know is something that’s keep me from being like more in depth in my spiritual life. What is that? You know, and, you know, and, and, and seek that out. Seek that with prayer and say, God, I, I need you, your guidance, you know, like allow in this process of fasting. Because I don’t, a lot of people don’t know how to fast or what that entails, you know, so. Yeah, and you can find more about it. I mean there’s all kind of spiritual writings on fasting. The catechism talks about it. Obviously you have, you know, the Google machine. You can figure out all that stuff. 

But I’m not just talking about fasting from food. I’m talking about fasting from the things in your life that are causing problems. You know, we’re talking about true transformation. There’s a difference between transformation and change. Sometimes change is only momentary. Transformation is something that lasts. Right? And that’s what we’re looking for in our life and our spiritual journey is not these fleeting moments of wishy washy and back and forth and hokey pokey spiritual life. It’s I want to be different. I’m going to be different. How do I do that? It’s by taking back control of my will, cutting out self indulgence in my life and starting to look at denying of self and things like that.

So folks, this has been a long episode. I know, longer than usual. It’s about 47 minutes. But this is a big subject and it’s a big, you know, thing that we’re trying to do in our lives right now and who we’re trying to invite you to as well. You know, this is the time of year where people often fail because they don’t have a real plan. They just say, I’m going to do this. And they throw something together. It gets hard and they quit. You can go to the Lord and like he said in Mark 9:29 to the disciples. Some things can only be driven out by prayer and fasting.

So if you’re praying, great, continue to do that and go deeper with the Lord in that. But add fasting and start to step away from the things in your life that are causing you trouble and struggle in your family, the life and in the world.

So, folks, thank you for this time. Again, you can follow, like and subscribe us by anything that you’re on, whether it’s Spotify, Apple YouTube, all of that. Please think about leaving us some reviews. Those help us get this mission in this ministry out to other people. Again, if you’re looking to bring us in or something, you can do all that at just scout in the pew. So let’s take this desire to truly transform Victor into fast to prayer and ask the Lord to help us with it.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Heavenly Father, the world, the flesh and the devil offer us so much distraction and so many things that we think will make us happy. So many of us have tried again and again those things that they offer and come up empty each time. Lord, help us to break the cycle in our habits that keep us returning to a well that will never, ever be full, a well that never offers us anything, that will help us truly transform. Help us turn our desires to you. Help us look at the things in our lives that are keeping us from you, and make an amendment and a decision right now in our lives to fast and to turn away from those things that are causing us to be away from you. Or the goal of our life is sainthood and the way that we reach there. One of the ways is through fasting. So help us through your grace and your mercy, to decide what needs to be out of our life to fast from those things so that we can be forever in heaven with you as a saint among saints.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.