The Road to Rosary in a Year w/ Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR | Fr. Gregory Pine & Fr. Patrick Briscoe
February 24, 2025
Fr. Patrick: This is Father Patrick Briscoe.
Fr. Gregory: And this is Father Gregory Pine.
Fr. Patrick: Welcome to Godsplaining. Thanks to all who enjoy the show. We appreciate you more than you know. Be sure to like and subscribe to Godsplaining wherever you listen to your podcasts. How’s that for an introduction, Father Gregory?
Fr. Gregory: It was great. It had a rhyme.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah. So I was sort of feeling the groove there.
Fr. Gregory: I saw you feeling good, and I commend you for having felt it.
Fr. Patrick: Thank you. Well, sometimes when you try and use your words, words come out. You don’t always know what the other words are going to do. So you just ride it. It’s like snowboarding or snow skiing.
Fr. Gregory: Which both of us are adept at.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, exactly.
Fr. Patrick: Well, I’m actually a very good skier. That’s part of the lore.
Fr. Gregory: Nice.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah.
Fr. Gregory: But, like, in the middle of my street playing hockey with a piece of tape that we had rolled so compactly as to constitute, like, a ball, so…
Fr. Patrick: That’s a very Philadelphia story.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, exactly. Nice.
Fr. Patrick: Well, we didn’t come to introduce more lore today. That’s not the chief object of the episode. We have an amazing guest with us, Father Mark-Mary Ames…not Amés, which I tried to propose before the episode as a kind of alternative pronunciation.
Fr. Gregory: That’s his Swiss-German alter-ego.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah, high fluting and fancy. Now, the one and only Father Mark-Mary is gracing us with his presence. We’re so happy to have you here, brother. Welcome.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Thank you. Please don’t tell the first Father Mark Mary. That I’m the one and only Father Mark-Mary. [laughing] You know, EWTN has Father Mark-Mary, who’s been doing it a long time.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah, they have a Father Patrick Mary, too, as well. Yeah. Do they have a Father Gregory Maria?
Fr. Gregory: I don’t know. I live under a rock.
Fr. Patrick: Does he have a beard?
Fr. Gregory: Can’t rule it out.
Fr. Patrick: He might.
Fr. Gregory: Okay, well, we’re delighted to have you. You’re a known to many from contributions through Ascension Presents and through publications like Habits for Holiness and other things besides and present on the channels of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal. But the story goes back further. A long, long time ago, you were once a student at Franciscan University of Steubenville.
Fr. Mark-Mary: That’s true.
Fr. Gregory: And we overlapped there.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Correct.
Fr. Gregory: And I think we talk to each other maybe twice.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yes. Enough for me to remember you, but not enough for me to remember any of our interactions.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah. Or the content thereof. So here we are, eight years later, making up for lost time, lost conversation in lost content. So those are just some impressionistic details. But for those hoping to know you better. Yeah. A quick word. Who are you? Where do you come from and why is it great to be a Franciscan friar of the renewal?
Fr. Mark-Mary: Okay. So I am Father Mark-Mary from California, Southern California. But I’m out in New York right now, the Director of Priestly Studies and Director of Communications for the Friars of the Renewal. And what were some of the other questions?
Fr. Gregory: That’s basically the first two. The third is why it’s great to be…
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah. Why is it great to be a Franciscan Friar of the Renewal?
Fr. Gregory: It’s funny, the formulation of that question came by way of thinking of the Wheeling Naylor’s. I don’t know if you ever went to that triple-A hockey team.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I did not.
Fr. Gregory: Okay. I went once, but they have a cheer: “I said, it’s great to be wheeling naylor.” [laughing] So if you were to have a similar hype song about the CFR, what might be like the content of the verses, for instance, like, what are the things about it that are great?
Fr. Mark-Mary: I love the brothers. Yeah, that’s a big one. Yeah, well, it’s that’s a very good…
Fr. Patrick: It turns out that it’s a good help in religious life.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah, I think that is the particular gift of my community that was somewhat unexpected, was the fraternity and the gift of having these guys and have living life with them for a long time. We have the prayer. Of course we have the work. Of course, all of that. That’s in a lot of places. But yeah, I’m particularly just gifted with the brothers. It’s like a pretty cool thing to like, have a life experience where you’re like, surrounded by really good people, doing really good things. And there’s like a lot of experiences of hope and beauty and charity and all that sort of stuff. And I love that.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah.
Fr. Patrick: I my first experience of the Friars of the Renewal was when I was in high school. And I dragged my father to a Vocations holy hour.
Fr. Gregory: You drugged your father?
Fr. Patrick: I did. [laughing] I drugged him. Yeah, which is great, cause he’s a dentist, like, And usually he drugs people.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, exactly. The tables have turned.
Fr. Patrick: No, I. So I really wanted to go to this thing because I had heard about Father Groeschel, and I was just curious to hear him speak. And I went down to that to the cathedral with my dad, who humored me and said, Yeah, let’s go this thing. And I remember seeing he was very frail and in the wheelchair and all the rest. And I remember being very moved by the content of his talk. And I also remember thinking, I’m not going to be a Franciscan. [laughing] It was a really helpful moment. Yeah, it was clarifying.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I think it happens both ways. Yeah. [laughing] It’s an appreciation and also an experience of otherness. Yeah. Like I was deeply convicted of personal holiness and and marveled at the project and thought, that’s great for some people.
Fr. Gregory: It happens.
Fr. Mark-Mary: It does happen. And I do think that’s the I wonder if it’s is your ongoing experience of the friars like I like those guys. I don’t want to be one of them, you know, At least that can be our experience with Dominicans.
Fr. Patrick: Absolutely!
Fr. Gregory: I think it’s like. But how would I describe it? Like if I were to take a sabbatical in the United States of America for which I wasn’t responsible to produce some like book that people would read, People were like, Hey, you should take a sabbatical and you should just like, live in an edifying environment. I’d like ask if I could live at one of your houses. Feel free to say no. But yeah, whenever people ask like, Hey, religious life, men’s religious life in the United States, first words that I say are it’s, it’s rough. [laughing] And then the second thing I say is, think about the CFR’s.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Well, I appreciate that. Can I do a Franciscan thing and ask you, Dominicans about Franciscan something?
Fr. Patrick: Yeah, please.
Fr. Mark-Mary: So we say, and I communicate this and I’ve done it a lot that we don’t use our last names.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah.
Fr. Mark-Mary: And that the reason is like a matter of, like, humility is that in the early days, if, you know, you still had your last name, like you wouldn’t be leaving behind like your nobility, which is why it’s like Francis of Assisi and Anthony of Padua. And like, why I go by Father Mark-Mary not Father Ames or things like that. Is there any truth to that?
Fr. Patrick: I like that. So typically so we’ve been told of the custom in the US is that diocesan priests go by their last name. Father, last name… and the religious priests go by their religious name, but principally because it’s a name they take in religion. But I like your explanation for this. I’m adopting that.
Fr. Mark-Mary: When you profess vows, do you include your last name?
Fr. Gregory: Oh, gosh…we do.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Okay. Yeah. All right.
Fr. Patrick: You don’t.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Well, no, we don’t. We don’t. We also have, like, a pious renewal of vows every week. And so every week we redo it. And I’m Father Mark-Mary…Father. Mark-Mary Maximillian of Anaheim Hills. Is how I profess vows.
Fr. Patrick: Anaheim Hills, that’s great!
Fr. Gregory: Nice.
Fr. Patrick: We’ll start making the holy cards.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Please. Yeah, I appreciate that.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah. I think, like, often enough when you hang out with Dominicans, because, you know, so Franciscans came from the penitential tradition. Dominicans came from the canonical tradition. So there’s always like a little bit of a canonical anxiety in the background whenever you’re dealing with Dominicans. So like, somebody is like, Hey, let’s do something like free flowing and fun loving. And we’re like, Is it, will it be valid? [laughing]
Fr. Patrick: You know, are we allowed? Yeah.
Fr. Gregory: So when we profess our vows, we say every name that we’ve ever had. So it’s like baptismal name, religious name, last name, etc…So I think that that’s probably part of it. We’re just making sure that we’re binding ourselves according to the full measure of the law.
Fr. Mark-Mary: We recently had – so I’m a local superior of a friary, we call it local servants. So we had a meeting with all of our local servants. We had one of your Dominican candidates come and give us a talk on obedience and the rules.
Fr. Gregory: Nice.
Fr. Mark-Mary: We asked them about what do our things mean and I loved it!
Fr. Gregory: Looking around the table, See? See?
Fr. Patrick: We got to do the thing.
Fr. Mark-Mary: But he was also very kind of like. He was just very in touch with reality.
Fr. Gregory: Nice.
Fr. Patrick: Oh, that’s great.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah. And I. It was like. It was, like, refreshingly just a straight shooter.
Fr. Gregory: Nice.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah. I loved it.
Fr. Gregory: This pleases us.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I think one thing that happens to be, the reason I’m enjoying this so much is because when people when people come to the church or a young person who’s like, really starting to get into their into their faith, they can be tempted to believe that I have to embrace a particular tradition of spirituality. And then the temptation that can flow from that can be to assert that thing as if it’s the only thing. And part of what I have loved as a friar is getting to know so many other religious and getting genuinely to rejoice and celebrate their charism and to see and to marvel and to celebrate just how big the Church is. Because we’re very small and we make our worlds very small. And when we allow the traditions to, to grow and to expand and be bold, your heart grows and you realize just the full breadth of what Jesus is doing. So the other way I like to put it is that sin. Sin is very small and it’s boring and it’s dumb and it’s repetitive and it’s not creative. And the saints are very big and creative and responsive to God’s grace, and they’re all so different. And you just marvel and really delight and rejoice in it.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah. I mean, I take every opportunity to like, I’m like a Franciscan hype man. Like a sneaky Franciscan hype man.
Fr. Patrick: Listens to Poco.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, exactly. But when I had a car back in the day, whatever it was 15 years ago, I used to have an image of Saint Francis, Saint Dominic embracing from the Basilica of San Francesco in Assisi. It’s like a hug slash Eskimo kiss. It’s nice. It’s like a very face-close hug. [laughing] I think, like one thing that I appreciate. I mean, this is just cross lighting at this point. C.F. Canto 12 of the Paradiso. So one thing I love about Franciscan like poverty, specifically in the Franciscan charism, is that it’s ever so slightly discomforting in the sense that it forbids you from getting too comfortable. So it’s like apropos of the compartmentalization thing. It’s like I say, I’m a Dominican. I’m here for like prayer and study, for preaching and teaching. But that is like next to nothing to do with the poor. And so I can just dismiss them or ignore them or whatever, or it’s like, No, no, it doesn’t work that way, you know? And so, like when you see a Franciscan live evangelical poverty, an evangelical just abandoned the way that it’s envisioned in the Gospel, heard of it? It’s like, Oh, yeah. So. Yep. Thank you. That’s great. So it’s it’s just like a beautiful rebuke and like a beautiful encouragement.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah, Somebody said that, right? Sell all your things.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, I’ve heard this before. Go. Yeah. Sell all your things…follow me. Yeah.
Fr. Mark-Mary: It’s. We’ve. It’s not our first time meeting and spending time together, obviously. And one of the things I always find that somewhat surprising and encouraging is like, because I think we I can be and probably a lot of us can be intimidated by Dominicans.
Fr. Gregory: Hmm.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Because you guys are very smart. You know, a lot of like. You know, the right answers. And so we’re always afraid of not saying the right answer. So but instead of that, you guys are just very encouraging towards my community and the brothers, life. And I was like, Oh. That’s cool. Yeah, they don’t. They don’t. They don’t judge us as think we’re dumb. They, they encouraged by us. That’s cool.
Fr. Patrick: We’re like, we’re like porcupines, you know, amongst ourselves.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Okay.
Fr. Patrick: We do have a method of discourse. Maybe I would call it at the table in the refectory here at the House of Studies, where someone will assert something. And then the friar next to him will say.
“Well, actually”…
Fr. Gregory: It has become a trope.
Fr. Patrick: And now it’s a trope. And it’s a delightful mode of discourse.
Fr. Gregory: So what you fear happens sometimes, but we’re rooting it out over the course of 800 years. It’s just taking forever.
Fr. Patrick: And the porcupine point was we’re actually worse to ourselves.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah.
Fr. Mark-Mary: And on the flip side, I really like you guys.
Fr. Gregory: Nice.
Fr. Mark-Mary: And your, my interaction…
Fr. Patrick: Thank you!
Fr. Mark-Mary: Because there’s this whole thing I was kind of like I have a soft spot in my heart for the Sisters of Life. And I’ve had a chance to spend a good amount of time with them. But now I’ve been spending a good amount of time with your brothers, particularly of your province, and you guys are really climbing the ladder real quick, giving them a run for their money, maybe surpassing. It’s not a competition. But I am really grateful for you guys and how you live. And also I’m really grateful that there’s people out there who can answer the hard questions like, What does this mean? What does this happen? Like, let’s see if the Dominicans said anything about it. What’s this really mean?
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, I love when we get text messages. When you make mention on Poco Poco, like, a tough question comes up and you’re like, bro, I don’t know. Send the Dominicans.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah. Listen, the Godsplaining.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, [laughing] we’re here for it.
Fr. Patrick: One of your projects that we’re following very closely that we’re super excited about is “the Rosary in a Year.” Tell us about it. How did it kick off? That’s what I want to know. Where did, where did, where did your passion from… And what I really want to know is where did your passion for the rosary come from? Why was it important to you to do the Rosary in the Year and not the Divine Mercy Chaplet In a year, not the Litany of Trust in a year and not, you know, the Crown and the Franciscan crown or the Stations of the Cross in a year.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah.
Fr. Patrick: You know, you got options. So why the Rosary?
Fr. Mark-Mary: Well, because Ascension asked me to do rosary. [laughing]
Fr. Gregory: My man!
Fr. Mark-Mary: And first of all, thank you, Dominicans, for the popularization of the rosary.
Fr. Gregory: Hey, cheers to, cheers to us.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Thank you, Father Mike Schmitz, for the popularization of the In a Year series. [laughing]
Fr. Mark-Mary: So, you know, you guys were working on it for 800 years. He did it you know his part. Yeah yeah I get we get we’re talking about but you know actually it was the end of the year of the Bible in the year and we’re and I did a video called the rosary in a year which is actually reflecting my own experience with the Rosary and some of what I would have liked to have received, which maybe would have saved me from some of the like, maybe the initial mistakes I had actually in trying to pray the rosary. Because when I was in college, I didn’t begin at Franciscan. I began at the university out in California, had my conversion. I want to give everything to Jesus, follow Jesus. And one of the things that I learned quickly is like, you should pray the rosary every day. I never prayed the rosary before I read it, the Rosary family, there’s no formation. And so I just said, I’m going to pray the rosary every day. But I like to say I was praying. The rosary is probably a stretch. I’m like saying the rosary while I’m doing other things so that I can say I prayed the rosary when there was maybe not a lot of prayer there or maybe no prayer there. And so what ended up happening is I experienced the rosary as like a box to check and kind of like a burden and something that wasn’t actually bringing me to encounter our Lord, our Lady. And I kind of like I formed bad habits with it and also didn’t really form like a really like positive affinity for it. And so I kind of struggled to persevere in it. And so actually Rosary in the year is, is a little bit going back to like how how could we like, form somebody and teach somebody and like, like yeah, just like mentor them in praying the rosary and then so like, you know, the formation on what is prayer and like being in the presence of God. Like what do these words mean of the different prayers, the Hail Mary, the Glory Be, the sign of the cross, the Our Father, And then, you know, like what can meditating on the presentation, What does that mean? You know, a lot of people don’t actually know what that means. And so the rosary in the year is, is a lot of the formation on prayer, a lot of just a reminders of like what do these actually prayers mean, etc., while also simultaneously building up the prayer muscle. Because I do think in the year that we’re in, at least for somebody like me, when I was, you know, beginning actually praying, like in meditating, attempting to for 18 minutes or whatever it is, 15 minutes was it’s like maybe difficult, you know, it’s like running like a 5k, you know, it’s like people, you know, you can get there. But for some people might need to like build up the muscle. And so there is like there is actually the formation, but then also like a building up of how we are, how long like we’re praying. And so we start kind of small. And by the end of the year we’re just praying the rosary together.
Fr. Gregory: Okay. So I want to talk about the unlearn to learn. Uh, so folks just kind of sit in on whatever task and they acquire habits, and some of those habits might be good, some of those habits might be bad, or they might be in between, Uh, I’m thinking about, like, touch typing, so I never really learn to touch type. I think I’d made this beacon for like two weeks in fourth grade, and then I just kind of did my best with like two ish or three ish fingers on each hand, and I might have been like clipping along at 45 words per minute. But when I came here for formation of the house and studies, I heard people in the computer lab just flying. I remember listening to at the time, Brother Gabriel try to type, and I was like, That’s majestic. So, you know, like I just went online. I was like, Is there a touch typing program that’s free? And there was. And, you know, I went from 45 words per minute to like three words per minute because I was not disciplining my fingers to do the things. And then like eventually you surpassed where you were previously and you see the fruit thereof. But I think a lot of people have difficulty on learning to learn because they’ve already learned like, why learn again? So how do you motivate that? Because like, people are going to hear Rosary in a Year. They’re like, Listen, I can pray a rosary in 15 minutes. I don’t need 365 days of you telling me something else. Maybe I’ll like it. Maybe I won’t like it. But why unlearn to learn?
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah. And I’d appreciate you guys is like input on this as well, because I think maybe. I don’t know. I don’t think I’m actually insecure in the sense of like, I get it and I really believe it, but I am aware of the potential for misinterpreting, mishearing it. And I’ve done a video years ago about about this concept and like, it’s really hard for people not just to hear you’re telling me like not prayer the rosary every day. And that’s just not that’s not just not what we’re saying. It’s like…
Fr. Patrick: That’s what we’re going to title the episode.
Fr. Gregory: [laughing] Don’t pray for the Rosary ever again.
Fr. Mark-Mary: By the Rosary in a Year guy. Yeah, yeah. Like, yeah. Well you get some at least clicks on that.
Fr. Gregory: Exactly. Yeah.
Fr. Mark-Mary: But, but I think each I think you have to keep this rooted in reality and you have to be aware of like some insecurity and some fear driven approach to like our devotional life. And I think the idea of like, so if someone’s, you know, trying to pray the rosary every day, them hearing like, well, maybe actually let’s take a step back and then build up again, they just hear like, let’s take a step back and they get very, very you can get very insecure about that. But I just think it’s for me, I just think it’s real. I think here’s the facts. Like I’m trying or I was trying to pray the rosary every day and I wasn’t doing well. It it was very, very, very limited prayer. And the effects of it were, I do not like this. And it’s really, really hard for me to persevere. And it would have been really, really helpful for me to someone give me to give me the freedom to be like, okay, like, where are you at? What can we do here? Like, we have like, so, like very much like with the Rosary in a Year, the goal is to get to a place where people are praying the rosary every day and and even like the rosary of your podcast, if you are praying the rosary every day and it’s like efficacious and it’s like something that it’s working for you, like it doesn’t mean you like step back from that. But I think there are a lot of people who are maybe struggling or don’t know how to do it. And like building up makes sense. And I think we just do that with almost everything. You kind of teach and like, like step by step and kind of build the whole muscle. Did that answered the question, I think.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah and, and I want to ask a related thing. And so so for me, the rosary has always clicked and it’s been in many years, many years in my life, the rosary has been the only way that I’ve been able to pray. Like it’s just the only, the only thing that allows me to make sense of things. And it’s the kind of go to, you know, on sleepless nights and all the rest. And I think part of that’s because we prayed it growing up. We weren’t we weren’t the Pine family, but we did have a rule. We did have a rule that anytime we were in the car for longer than a half hour, we had to pray the rosary at some point. And that just shows you the genius of my mother to get some quiet time in the car on the kids. So I definitely think that was part of her strategy. But but so so I did I do have like core memories of the rosary. I would say so. So maybe that maybe that’s part of my my affection for it. But but the big question, I want the big question I want to ask is must everyone love the rosary? Like, do you do you have to you know, you’re suggesting like, oh, you can go to the gym and work out and, you know, if this thing is difficult for you, you can do it. So my playful question is to you, do people have to?
Fr. Mark-Mary: Playful question? It’s is the most controversial question I’ve been asked in a long time. [laughing]
Fr. Gregory: Precisely according to plan.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I do believe that our Catholic spirituality needs to be rooted in objective Truth, you know, and we are believers in objective Truth, like these objectively true Mass on Sunday is like, you know, an obligation. And the rosary does fit within the umbrella of devotionals and within the space of devotionals, there is freedom. There is not obligation, there’s not commitment. And you’re not bound by sin to do certain devotionals every day, including the rosary. Um, that being said, so I do think that there’s space and, you know, the rosary hasn’t existed forever, and there’s a lot of great saints who never prayed the rosary. That being said, I do think that the rosary is not just a devotional amongst devotional, that it is sort of the queen of devotionals and that there is a reason it has its privileged place. And there is a reason that in so many of like in when our Lady is is appearing that she’s inviting people to pray the rosary. There’s a reason the great Saints John Paul II, Mother Theresa, St. Padre Pio had reasons they had devotions to the rosary. And so I do think yes it’s not necessarily for everyone but I think you really want to I, I do think it’s worth fighting for and trying to develop a taste for. If you don’t have an immediate taste for it, I do you think it’s a there’s a particular genius to it but also particular grace to it. And so I would love for it to be for everybody. But also I want to be honest that it is a devotional. And so it’s not that everyone’s like obliged to it.
Fr. Gregory: I haven’t really thought about this clearly, so take this with them, whatever. Two grains of salt, two and a half grains of salt. But I think that like that’s helpful. It’s helpful for people to understand that there are different categories of Catholic practices. So there’s the obligatory so like the five precepts: Mass Sundays and Holy Days, receiving Holy Communion once a year, obviously you can receive more often, going to confession once a year if conscious of grace, then obviously you can go more often, you know, like church is fasting, abstinence is, and then supporting the temporal needs. But then the next would be like things to which the Church exhorts her sons and daughters. And I think a place that I often go for this is the encouragement of indulgences. So there, you know, the four acts that are that are ordinarily indulgenced
Fr. Mark-Mary: I don’t know any of them. [laughing]
Fr. Gregory: People get jazzed about plenary indulgence, which is a thing to get jazzed about for sure. And there are four acts that you can perform any day of the year which gain for you a plenary indulgence, provided that you do the other things which are required of you in those instances. So, 30 minutes of prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, making the Stations of the Cross in a public church or oratory, reading sacred scripture for 30 minutes and then reciting the Holy Rosary in common. So I think that like after the obligatory this, like, I don’t know, it’s like obliges, exhorts, you know, commends, allows, there’s like shades and like there are a lot of things that are kind of in that zone of optional. But it strikes me that as you describe the rosaries in the kind of top tier of not obligatory but whatever we’ve called it to this point, exhortation, commendation, something, thoughts?
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah, because what I’m sensitive to is this is like there is, particularly in zealous Catholic spaces, there is an understanding and there can be somewhat of an oversimplification like, okay, you need to pray the rosary. And there is a lot of people who are hearing this and who say, young person who’s new, they want to do the right thing. They’re hearing this again and again. You have to pray the rosary, you have to pray the rosary, you have to pray the rosary. And they’re just not maybe there yet and they can get like really it can be like it can it can just.
Fr. Patrick: It can be really discouraging.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah, exactly.
Fr. Patrick: It can be really sad about it. And so I think if anything, something’s really wrong.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah. And so I think it’s important to be able to speak to them, be like, Hey, okay, that’s like, that’s okay. Actually, if that’s where you’re at right now, we’re going to make a journey. There’s like space to kind of develop and to grow, but like, if that’s where you’re at, like you don’t feel like there’s enough to be like, there can be like a hiding of that or like an insecurity about, like, I’m …Like, just like, I think it’s just important to sort of have like the distinctions and the clarity, but also an understanding of like, I use the language like, do you use like exhorting? Like, yeah, like we want to get there though.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah.
Fr. Patrick: So what’s the strangest place you’ve said the rosary in?
Fr. Mark-Mary: Strangest place I’ve said the rosary in…
Fr. Gregory: People always ask this question apropos of confession, like, where’s the weirdest place you’ve heard a confession?
Fr. Mark-Mary: Where’s the weirdest place?
Fr. Gregory: I think like a rocky outcropping in a state park an hour west of Lexington, Kentucky. This, like, bluff overlooking these whatever. I guess it was sandstone. Never mind. But that was just to give you time.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I’m trying to think of like…
Fr. Patrick: Best place, it could be?
Fr. Mark-Mary: Okay. I’m just like, trying to think where’s the weirdest place I’ve been?
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, Kuala Lumpur.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I have not been to Kuala Lumpur.
Fr. Gregory: Well then you’ve never been to a strange place and we can move on.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I spent a year in Zulu, South Africa. I spent a year teaching there before.
Fr. Patrick: That was before you entered?
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah. Yeah, it was a Zulu school, so I’ve prayed a rosary there.
Fr. Gregory: In a Zulu school? I mean, like, even just like, as words pronounced, like, vocally. That’s a that’s melodious. Yeah. So that’s, that’s…
Fr. Mark-Mary: I don’t know. So the people, like, the tribe is like Zulu. They call it like Zululand. Right. Yeah. Their first language is Zulu. And I taught at one of their high schools. Yeah. Attempted to teach.
Fr. Gregory: We’re all out here attempting to teach.
Fr. Patrick: What did you teach?
Fr. Mark-Mary: I taught, so I was 20. I took a year off of college and I went to teach in a high school and I taught eighth and 10th grade math and computers, but like my eighth grade class had 75 kids and 15 math books. And the official language of like, schools there’s English, a third spoke English, a third spoke some English, third spoke no English. I was not a teacher. And I’m supposed to teach them geometry and they don’t know. Six times seven.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yes. Lots of soccer.
Fr. Patrick: Jesus is Lord.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Lots of soccer, some basketball, actually. Then like, it was like computers. But there are computers on the ground not attached to power.
Fr. Gregory: That’s incredible.
Fr. Mark-Mary: So I tried to teach like some basic typing because like for the 12th graders who are about to graduate and go somewhere like a introduction to the keyboard and some of this thing. Yeah, but so that was attempted.
Fr. Gregory: It all comes back to touch typing.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah, it’s a very clear experience of how poverty affects education and…
Fr. Gregory: Okay. Okay. So here’s a question. We’re going to just go controversy by controversy, less is more and more is less. Hard to say. People have all kinds of things to share when it comes to whether you beef up your devotions or trim down your devotions, whether it was or should last 15 minutes or 18 minutes or 25 minutes or however many minutes, whether you should do it, sitting, standing, kneeling, walking, people have all kinds of opinions. What can you kind of give us? Like say you have a young, zealous Catholic who’s coming to you and somebody shared with them that the only way to pray the rosary is by doing X, Y and Z things at the end, which have now added 12 to 17 minutes. And it’s becoming somewhat weighty because it takes longer than the Holy Mass, which they’ve heard is more important. And they’re just trying to get a sense for like the hierarchy of prayer. Yeah, where do you start? How do you lead them? How much of the rosary do we need to say? What do we add to it?
Fr. Mark-Mary: Well I’m pretty sure for it to be a valid rosary, you must say the Creed. You must say an Our Father, three Hail Marys and a Glory Be, before you do anything else. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure it’s not an appropriate way of praying the rosary.
Fr. Gregory: For all of you listening at home…that’s a sweet little burn. Yeah. You’re being taken for a ride because the Dominican Rosary contains none of the aforementioned. Huh.
Fr. Mark-Mary: And I have some. Like, I didn’t do research for this podcast, but I did do some research for the whole rosary thing. Yeah, I’ve heard a number of your talks on the rosary. I guess maybe it was like you were with Matt Fradd.
Fr. Gregory: But my take is just me saying things, so I’m happy to retreat from that. Create some space for…
Fr. Patrick: It could have changed.
Fr. Gregory: Depends on what I eat for breakfast. Nah, just kidding.
Fr. Mark-Mary: So the question is all the additions and that. But it’s hard. I’ll say this like I have my, we have our, our pieties.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah.
Fr. Mark-Mary: And we have our in some of that, of our preferences. And I like to keep things simple. And I find adding a lot of stuff to pull away from the men thing that I’m trying to do and a little bit distracting. So I try and keep my rosary too. I mean, I do. I don’t do the, “God come to my assistance…” Yeah. You know, I mean but I do the, the our father or father, Hail Marys, Glory B we use the Fatima prayer. Yeah. Go through. That’s, that’s how I like.
Fr. Patrick: It’s a big controversy.
Fr. Gregory: Like a good, docile and obedient Christian. No, it’s like even after having shared some of the things on the internet, apropos of the devotional life, like, I’ve gotten some healthy pushback from folks and I think it’s like. In our spiritual life, I think it’s okay to have preferences. I think that maybe that’s just a point to make, like it’s okay to have preferences and there’s a difference between preferences and like ideological demagoguery. Like everyone must do it in this way. So I think that, you know, if we go back to our hierarchy of obligatory, [unk] you know, whatever, we’re making words up. But, you know, you can share with people what you prefer and the reasons for which you prefer. But I think that rosary is the Holy Rosary. It gives you a kind of base of operations. But then there are different little kind of sorties that you can make from the basic prayer itself. So yeah, you have a lot of time to discuss the rosary, so I suspect you have a lot of time to kind of explore how it can shape up or how it should shape up.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I just think that it’s you want to reflect on a couple of like the the particulars, right. Like a big one is like, okay, are you praying this in common or are you are you on your own? And is there sort of a common approach to this communal praying of the rosary? And insofar as if that is happening, it’s good to, I would say, do whatever, like what is the like the agreed upon way of praying it and to do it on your own, sort of add a bunch of stuff or do this thing or this thing different. It’s like from people who do common prayer that would be not encouraged. And I just think, you know, at least for me in my own experience, like I remember doing like some litanies of saints at some point in my life and just kept growing, growing, growing. And at some point you have to like there’s a little bit of maybe, I don’t know, an impoverished approach to God where there’s, there’s this like, okay, if I don’t do all of these sort of things that somehow there’s going to be something lacking. If I don’t say all of these intentions, they’re not going to be taken care of. And so I would just also be a little bit discerning of what’s the spirit that’s moving the things that are continuing to be developed. Um, and is it or is it like what is the and why, why are you coming to pray? Why are you come to pray that rosary and is what else is happening serving that end or distracting from that?
Fr. Gregory: And yeah, it’s awesome. We’re here for it.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah and I completely agree I think to a people can be very apprehensive about approaching the rosary because they become so afraid they’re going to do it wrong. And surely you’ve encountered this as you’ve taught people to pray the rosary. They, they get very worried about getting all the prayers. Exactly correct. And I have this delightful memory of being a novice and attending the school of Rosary at the parish school where I know visits at. And one of you remember this Father Gregory, one of the gals who was leading a decade, prayed in nine Hail Mary’s like decade, the number two, and then her little pal gets up there and prays 11 Hail Mary’s in decade number three. And as she’s returning to her seat, she says to her friend.
“I got you.”
Fr. Mark-Mary: Was the spirit of it playful and fun, or was that like?
Fr. Patrick: Oh, yeah, It was just like, yeah, I covered for you, you know? It’s like, you know, it wasn’t like, angry, but it was like, Yeah, I got your back, got it. Which was hilarious because, you know, these are just eighth grade girls and the thing that they all school rosary and, and but I but regardless I think a lot of people approach the rosary concerned they’re going to do it wrong concerned they’re not going to offer the rosary and they bring with it a kind of spirit of trepidation that that is really only appropriate for a priest who’s learning to say Mass I feel like it’s just kind of it just kind of stands work. I find it’s done. So it could be possible for people. So how do you encourage people to just kind of dive in? Like, what do you say to get someone to begin to train that muscle to just kind of jump in? And as the Holy Father would say, make a mess?
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah, I’m going to have a good both/and response. But I do think that most people, most people who are trying to pray the rosary, if there were to be a leaning and struggle, would be towards sort of an anxiety of doing it wrong. And so there’s like a hyper fixation on I want to get this right, don’t want to mess up. And I would…Well. My my immediate response is that makes me sad, you know, insofar as because I think that there’s still there’s like there’s it doesn’t come from maybe a place of like security and safety in the Lord like if there’s if there’s an approach to God in approach to prayer, it works. Like I’m just so afraid of making a mistake with particularly in this area, it’s like, okay, well, let’s go ahead and like talk to like if I was if someone was bringing that to me in like a spiritual direction, a context or whatever, like, let’s talk about that a little more. What else is kind of going on below the surface? Because I don’t think I don’t think that’s how God wants us to come to Him. You know, I don’t think that’s how a father wants their child to come. If they’re going to come with like, I want to have my speech and all that perfect. Now you can just you can just come and visit me and share what’s going on. And so I do think because I want to be careful, too, because I do like in the Rosary in a Year and some of the initial sort of catechesis and guidance, there is some encouragement like, okay, we’re trying to here’s what kind of what we’re going for when we’re praying the rosary. And and I am want to be sensitive to some people who might hear them be like, oh, no, like, am I doing it wrong? I’m not doing this perfectly or what? Not a very common experience probably is like someone’s getting distracted and like, okay, no deal like that. I did it not because I got distracted for this decade or whatever, and that’s just I don’t think that’s how the Lord wants it to come to prayer. So that’s my primary. That would be my primary concern. I do think, though, is that there is a way of speaking where any attempt at prayer, if you take it, is sort of like because you attempted it like you did it perfectly, there’s no there’s no need to conceive. Like I do think we can look at like how we’ve come to Lord in prayer. And I do think that sometimes there is room for improvement. You know, And so, you know, if you are like in Mass, in prayer, whatever, like always, always, always distracted, there is a part of like, okay, that’s where we’re at. Like, we’ll give that to the Lord. But also let’s take a look at like what else is going on in life that’s adding to the distraction. And let’s see if we can’t sort of do some work so that because wouldn’t it be great if you could actually very like attentively come to the Lord in prayer? Um, I don’t know. Like, do you guys have any thoughts on that or.
Fr. Patrick: Yeah, no. And I think that’s really great advice for, for praying with Rosary too to invite people to, to see, well, what are you doing downstream, right. That makes this thing difficult for you. That’s excellent advice we see that throughout the tradition. The [unk] talk about that in their own way and all the way through right. But it’s a great question to raise in this context, to say, well, you know, is there something you could be doing differently throughout your day such that by the time you go to pick up the rosary, you’re not totally exhausted, you’re not fraught? You know, should you move the time you’re praying, should you reorder, should you reorder, how you’re handling some of the affairs of life? That’s fabulous, because I do think I do think people often feel helpless in the face of distractions. And I think your counsel is really sound to say, well, you’re not entirely helpless against them. There are important things that you can be doing to to battle them.
Fr. Gregory: It reminds me of Saint Thomas just talking about the sacred liturgy describing the manner of our entry, and he’ll say, You’ve got intention and attention. So he says, intention is the principle of merit, provided that you intend to show up, you merit, but obviously the quality of your intention. It’s kind of like you said, are these things, you know, downstream or upstream, there are these things which contribute to it, which can potentially undermine it or fortify it.
So it requires an attentiveness to the whole of your life as to what kind of goes in or what kind of contributes to that. So intention, I intend to pray the Holy Rosary that’s meritorious. You might get distracted, you might be fatigued, etc. But then attention, he says, start with the words and then move to the sense of the words and then move to the God to be found, you know, therein.
So he’s talking about the liturgy and you can think about like the words pronounced in the mass of the catechumens. And, you know, he’s living in the 13th century and then the words pronounced in, you know, the canon itself, but then the set, like the words, communicate realities and those realities all converge in God. So I think that there’s like a similar way in which our approach to parish liturgical things or devotional things can assume a similar shape insofar as it’s just like, okay, I’m doing this thing in tension, but I’d like to do this thing in such a way as to kind of give my concern or care, solicitude, whatever, focus to the things that are actually set forward for me. And maybe it’s just like with the rosary, sometimes people are confused because it seems like there are two things that you’re supposed to pay attention to. So I don’t know if you get into do I think about the words? Do I think about the mysteries? Do I think about the words through the mysteries of the mysteries through the words or both simultaneously?
Or do I to have two heads if one of them cost me to send to have to cut it off, you know, like all of these questions, what do you. I don’t know that yet.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I don’t have as out of my memory, but you guys might go. I think it’s what it is. I’m going to answer it from how I talk about it. But I think Paul the XI maybe talks about like the three I talked about intention. Another thing and another thing, right? Well, okay. Because he kind of talked like the three, the three things that bring to it.But but what I use is what was given to us by like Father Andrew, by Andrew the Apostle is one of our founders and a great lover of the rosary. And he would say, you’re trying to pay attention to at least one of these three things potential you can do all 3 to 1, the one to whom you are like praying. So like God, right? You want to be attentive like that. You’re in the presence of God and somehow raising your heart to God. The other is the attention to the words themselves, the words of the prayers. And the third would be the mysteries. And that’s I think I, I think ideally you’re in some experience of the awareness of God. Probably it’s an either or with like how closely are you paying attention to the words versus how closely are you meditating on the mysteries. But as long as we have like I think the intention and one of those that would be what we’re going for.
Fr. Gregory: Like when people that, when I talk to people about it I don’t know nothing necessarily agree with you, [mumbles] speak more clearly, Gregory. I don’t know that I necessarily give them very hard and fast things. My usual counsel is just like, zoom out. You know, like it sounds like you’re just a little too close. Not to say that that’s like a bad thing. We all get close to things, you know, like I’ve misplaced items in my office before and spent the next 37 minutes brooding around under every imaginable cabinet. It’s like we all lose our minds. But like, ideally, we don’t lose our minds about the devotional life. Like if we feel like we’re losing our minds, maybe that’s an invitation to just, okay, God, mysteries, words, God’s the most important. How am I going to get to them? Yeah, yeah. These things are set before me.
Fr. Patrick: Father Gregory and I both wear chain rosaries…so I don’t want to come at you for that, for having a cord rosary. But I’m just observing another difference in the tradition.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I don’t know how well this is going to land with your audience, but this is my rosary. I don’t know how much you can tell from immediate sight, but there’s about there’s about. There’s about 36 or 37 beads on there because this isn’t the one.
Fr. Patrick: Well, the point that I was going to make was, your Rosary is probably in a lot better shape than ours. Cause mine breaks all the time. I travel with pliers. And I you know, initially, this is very this is very frustrating, but not frustrating enough for me to become a cord man because I’m also deeply committed to the aesthetics of the chain. And I just really love its sounds. I really, really love it. I really do.
Fr. Mark-Mary: How often is it caught in something?
Fr. Patrick: At least once a week. Yeah, probably more.
Fr. Gregory: I’ve gotten to the point like once every two weeks. But I break it like once a month.
Fr. Mark-Mary: So what’s your interior response to that?
Fr. Gregory: Rumplestiltskin! [laughing]
Fr. Patrick: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Words that we don’t say on the podcast. Yeah, but. But I was the, the most recent time I broke it, I thought, Oh, this is nice, because this is actually what happens to me when I pray the rosary. I sort of come apart. And have to. Have to have to find a way to get the pieces of my heart back together in it. And luckily the Lord does it for me when I pray the Rosary. I only have to do it myself when I need to fix my rosary.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Mine, I snagged on something and broke it. And I haven’t replace that God, but I don’t. There’s something I don’t. Do you guys pray with the one that you wear as well, or do you pray with another one?
Fr. Gregory: I do, yeah. I mean, some guys do, some guys don’t.
Fr. Patrick: I got clips that makes it convenient. So it’s easy on, easy off. That’s also spared me from some tragedy lately because the the clip of course kind of like a parachute escape thing.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah. It’s also like when we kneel down, we have like little dealers and require stalls. And if you put your hands under your scapula on the form, like on the top of the choir stall, your rosary is just right there. And so you can tell the beads know… But also like the difference between five and 15 is you don’t even have to remove from your belt to pray five decades because they’re all just hanging off and.
Fr. Mark-Mary: If I am using it, I do keep it attached. I know. I think there’s one of the decades that has ten, and so I just use that one and I just keep going back and forth.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, that’s tremendous.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I don’t know how people feel about that.
Fr. Gregory: It’s better that the rosary get use, you know, for [unk].
Fr. Mark-Mary: I shared that with somebody actually with Matt Fradd when I was out there and he couldn’t quite understand how I didn’t just fix it.
Fr. Gregory: Oh I can.
I understand perfectly.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I definitely have incomplete…
Fr. Gregory: Well, mine were like, made out of something. I don’t have access to that something anymore because my mom purchased it through the religious gift shop that she closed, like, you know, six years ago. So I have…There’s some, like, sneaky beads in here which are of a different material. So for the observant eye you can see that some are plastic and some are wood.
So that’s like a that’ll be like a scavenger hunt item and the like the 2027 Godsplaining rosary hunt. So stay tuned.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Do you guys, I don’t know if it would be a communal thing or a personal thing. Do you like, for example, there’s a lot of people who, you know, like use the rosary as a like a weapon. This is my weapon sort of approach to things or I don’t know, there’s mind is a little bit like as a general to see if ours were pre like relational on our prayer, you know and so the emphasis would be like on relationship. Do you guys have a particular like lens or way of in which you speak about the Rosary?
That’s very interesting for me. Yeah. For me it would be definitely call your mom. Yeah. And I and I, I go immediately to the Marian devotion, which would be, I guess I would say Mom’s son lens. So yeah, I guess if that’s more relational, then I fall in the CFR camp on that one.
Fr. Gregory: So you’ll hear some guys say that, you know, like you wear your rosary on your left hip because that’s the hip on which you wear your sword. But like, that’s not really part of our tradition. It’s not really part of our kind of common understanding. It’s just like a trope. But the thing, I think the most kind of traditional interpretation of where the rosary features in our life is the Dominican blessing of the Rosary, which is to the honor and glory of to the honor and glory of the God bearing Virgin Mary. And by the memory of the passion, death and resurrection of our same Lord Jesus Christ. May this crown of the most Holy Rosary, blessed and sanctified in the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit. So it’s like there’s a kind of theology and built so honor and glory, you know, so like honor for the living and glory for the dead. Our Lady’s got that sweet living and dead thing going on, you know, because she prays for us now and at the hour of our death. So to the honor and glory of the God-bearing Virgin Mary, the Latin word is [Latin], which is like the Latin equivalent of Theotokos. So the idea that like the rosary is God bearing, because it’s our lady’s gaze on the mysteries which are then named explicitly the passion, death and resurrection of our same Lord Jesus Christ, but that it’s a crown. So it’s like the honor and glory is given by the recitation which functions after the manner of a coronation, but with like in communion with her and gazing on the mysteries. So like, interpersonally, it’s a little complicated, but you get the essential notes there. Yeah. Which gets me pumped.
Fr. Patrick: That’s nice theology.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah, I agree. I’m glad I asked.
He’s thinking he’s going to add an episode.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, exactly. Day 366.
Fr. Mark-Mary: But I mean to be honest, this is…now I’m gonna…I’m, I’m pretty pumped about what’s happening with the Rosary in a Year. Insofar as, like, even when I was invited to do it and asked about it, it’s not something like I had space for another thing.
No. We’re certainly familiar with the phenomenon.
Fr. Patrick: I did have I do have I had this desire. That’s an..
Fr. Patrick: Important thing. Yeah.
Fr. Mark-Mary: But I was thinking about going on for ongoing studies. I had a desire for something for myself, my ongoing formation and actually the like. This, this area of my life seemed actually to be like an area where I was being invited to grow and to go deeper, and that this was an opportunity to do that and create space for it and invite a few people along to be a part of the ride. But what it’s developed to be is, is generally just sort of an introductory school in prayer. And I’ve been saying it sometimes like it’s a school and prayer and the rosary is our textbook in our classroom. And I think that’s kind of true because.
Fr. Patrick: And you don’t have to plug it in.
Fr. Mark-Mary: And you don’t have to plug it in. And I think. It’s just like…[light falls over] Oh…
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, lights fall, man. That’s on us.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I’m new here.
Fr. Gregory: No, we’re new here.
Fr. Mark-Mary: That’s why father Patrick’s got his hands…
Fr. Gregory: Just don’t hit the camera.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I’ll keep them within. But we. We need people to pray. And when people want to pray and they. But they also need to be taught how to pray and accompanied in prayer. And I think that’s what this whole Rosary in a Year thing has become. And I think that’s what people are doing. And I love that. So I’m excited about that.
Fr. Gregory: That’s awesome.
Fr. Patrick: You’re on top of Joe Rogan. Well, you were chart-topping Rosary in a Year at least.
Fr. Mark-Mary: At some point. At some point I was. The big headline they’ve been running with is Rosary beads Rogan.
Fr. Gregory: Marketing, man. It’s a thing. I know nothing about it, but I’m here for it. Yeah. All right. Maybe a last question for me. Any, like, surprises? I mean, obviously, there are going to be lots of surprises, but things by which you yourself have been surprised, edified or otherwise astonished in your preparations, in your research, or even just in delivering the content?
Fr. Mark-Mary: I would say, so at this point I am a couple of months into it, but not done yet, you know, and actually it’s only been out to the public very briefly. So I don’t totally know what’s going to be happening with people. My… the number one joy and sort of area of like enrichment for myself is actually there’s a there’s a number of times we’re going through the different mysteries from different approaches and one of them is teaching. And to do that, there’s a decent amount of study and reading, particularly Pope Benedict’s Jesus of Nazareth, and it’s a reading, Pope Benedict and reading all of his just like going over what he’s saying about Jesus. And all of this has been awesome. And so going there and just like learning this stuff, maybe like a new or looking at it a new for me, that’s been my favorite part so far.
Fr. Patrick: Incredible. Well, we certainly want our listeners to tune in to Rosary in a Year to check it out. Any other upcoming projects you’re jazzed about? What do you got going on this spring? Where can people find you or hear you or otherwise be in touch?
Fr. Mark-Mary: When do we think this? We think this will come out.
Fr. Gregory: Let’s say beginning of February.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Okay, great. At some point I’ll have a book come out on the Beatitudes.
Fr. Gregory: Let’s go. Nice.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I think it’s supposed to be in the spring of this year.
Fr. Gregory:
That’s awesome.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Which also I’m excited about. But then after that, part of my commitment to this Jubilee year is I’m not going to say yes to any new projects until the end of 2025.
Fr. Gregory: Oh, wow. Okay. So there’s this thing I had to ask you about. Actually, speaking of the Jubilee year… [laughing]
Fr. Mark-Mary: What’s about to happen? [laughing]
Fr. Gregory: Exactly. You started rocking back and forth. This is live, folks. We’re actually live streaming. So are you going to be Jubilee of Youth? You’re going to be in Rome for either Carlo Acutis or Pier Giorgio Frassatti?
Fr. Mark-Mary: I will not.
Fr. Gregory: Okay. Rats. Nevertheless, we’ll find other ways to celebrate young saints.
Fr. Mark-Mary: You know, because and I think actually I love this is I have a decent amount… of yeah I’m a spirit house direct I’m a for eater all that sort of stuff. I can’t actually go out and do stuff, which is part of the genius of I like doing, like the media thing. Yeah, it’s like I have a dark room with mattresses on the walls for soundproofing where I do the Rosary in a Year.
Fr. Gregory: Yes.
Fr. Mark-Mary: And it reaches people. But yeah, I just can’t really I don’t travel a ton these days.
Fr. Gregory: Father Patrick travels quite a bit. I travel a lot less. And when people ask me like, Hey, how exciting is your life? I’m like, So picture you wake up at 5:20 and it gets more boring. [laughter]
Fr. Patrick: And then you pray compline. [laughter]
Fr. Mark-Mary: Okay, can I ask you guys one more question that I think is funny, but I asked some laypeople and they didn’t think it was, they didn’t get it. We’re here for it is that I had an idea, a thought that crossed my mind during a long layover in Houston. Um, is religious life like home schooling for adults?
Fr. Patrick: Absolutely.
Fr. Gregory: So yes. Yeah. Hopefully nobody associated with the administration of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception listens to this podcast. But I say that I teach in Washington, DC’s premier homeschool co-op. [laughter]
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah. Okay, good. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Fr. Gregory: There’s like a lot of things, you know, like also like homeschoolers tend to be like really secure. They can have a little bit of an us versus them mentality. They’re like very well formed in like 91% of things. And sometimes there’s like a 9% formation gap and people will talk about socialization. I don’t know how fair that is, but regardless of characterization, I think you see very similar things in religious life.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Part of what made me think about it is this idea of like you receive so much, but there are certain life experiences you don’t have when you’re homeschooled. Yeah, I think it’s true of religious life. Oh yeah. There’s a certain part where I kind of checked out of normal adult formation and path. Yeah, and one of our friars had to have hip replacement surgery, so I took him down. Whatever. So we’re paying for parking down there and the like. The guy who picked up, who went to get our car, whose part was part of like ten feet away, came and I felt like he had his hand out, like for me to give him a tip. And I didn’t give him a tip. And part of that was like, I don’t actually have any idea how tipping culture works when or where. And that was just part of the like…
Fr. Patrick: Or cash.
Fr. Mark-Mary: Yeah, normal adults would know that.
Fr. Gregory: Yeah, I think there’s only like two generations who do know that. I think it’s like basically the boomers know that and X knows that. Millennials just look up. What percentage should I tip? Depending upon the service professional and Gen Z just tries to avoid those types of interactions at all costs. Yeah, because it might mean potential embarrassment.
Fr. Mark-Mary: I’m glad the the home school for adults resonated.
Fr. Gregory: Oh yeah. Great. No, absolutely. Yep. Also never mind. I should. I should, I should leave it there. You know, I… it resounds.
Fr. Patrick: If you’d like to leave a tip for Godsplaining, we have a Patreon account. [laughter]
Fr. Gregory: Dig. Cool. Thanks.
Fr. Patrick: Thanks so much for hanging with us.
Fr. Mark-Mary: You got it.
Fr. Patrick: This is great. I’m really grateful to you.
Fr. Mark-Mary: In the most sincere way. I’m so grateful for what you guys are doing and that there’s just like a really solid, safe, confident place. We can send people who have questions to get really good formation. So I’m exceedingly grateful to you guys, to everyone who supports Godsplaining. [laughter]
Fr. Gregory: Thank you. Thank you. Seriously.
Fr. Patrick: Well, turning to you, our listener, thanks to all who support us. If you enjoy the show, please consider making a monthly donation to us on Patreon. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Tik-Tok. Be sure to visit us online at Godsplaining. Check out information on upcoming Godsplaining events and to shop Godsplaining merch. Who doesn’t need more of that in their lives? If you have a comment for Father Mark-Mary, leave it in the chat in this episode and we’ll share it with him and ask him to answer all of your questions. Please pray for us friends and know that we’re always praying for you. God bless.