The John-Henry Westen Show - December 12, 2025


Fr. Altman: The PLOT to REPLACE the Catholic Church


Episode Stats


Length

30 minutes

Words per minute

180.90697

Word count

5,565

Sentence count

342

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode of The John Hunter Weston Show, Father James Altman joins us to talk about his experience as a priest in the early days of the holed church and how he was able to speak the truth to his parishioners.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 they keep pulling these things out and sooner or later the faith topples. This is what they're
00:00:05.240 doing and they're doing it knowingly and they're doing it intentionally
00:00:08.360 because they're trying to establish one world religion.
00:00:13.720 Hello my friends, welcome to the John Hunter Weston Show. I have for you a very special guest,
00:00:18.740 a great friend of mine and I know someone whom you all love so very much. He's the one who
00:00:23.640 we all discovered during the horrific days of COVID when we were locked out of our churches
00:00:28.900 and we tuned in to try and find a priest who would dare to speak the truth to us, who would give us
00:00:34.380 while we couldn't receive Jesus in person, give us his truth. Very few of those and this one we all
00:00:41.780 know and love. He's Father James Altman. Father, so good to be with you. God bless you.
00:00:46.140 Hi Henry, that's a very nice introduction. Thank you. You said nice things about me.
00:00:50.580 We were in that together. I remember that well. Father, let's begin as you always do at the sign
00:00:54.640 of the cross. If you wouldn't lead us please.
00:00:56.260 Amen. Heavenly Father, guide our voices, guide our minds, guide our hearts toward you as we speak
00:01:04.620 to those, your other children. Let us together grow stronger in our faith, put on the armor of God
00:01:10.120 so that we can be protected against the insidious snares of the devil. And we ask of this grace and
00:01:14.460 this blessing. Amen. Amen. So Father, we've got a few things here to talk about, but I want to talk
00:01:23.480 first about your books because you've got two books. I mean, this is funny because I was given
00:01:28.680 a preview copy. Thank you for that, by the way. That was beautiful. I remember reading it thinking,
00:01:32.620 oh, what a breath of fresh air because it was just the old faith, the faith of our fathers
00:01:41.180 presented in a way without flowery language, without kind of mumbo jumbo that you can't understand.
00:01:48.160 It was very plain, full of stories. I love it. It's one that I definitely recommend to teens,
00:01:55.720 especially parents looking to give your kids something solid. There's that. Now, the thing is,
00:02:02.280 you just released another book, that book, by the way, called Truth at Last. It was funny. I was
00:02:07.880 talking with one of your publishers, Beverly, and I said, hey, she asked for a blurb on the book. So I'm
00:02:12.900 sorry if that drives sales away from you, but I did. I said, I said, you were a modern day John the
00:02:19.840 Baptist. And it's because you speak the truth and you say the uncomfortable saying that got his head
00:02:28.000 lopped off. And Father, I don't know. I know how that story ends. I don't like that reference.
00:02:34.640 No, but it is, it is true. Although when looking it up, it's funny because everybody knows Buddha
00:02:40.980 vipers, a term which you actually used yourself. And it is used in the scriptures by John the Baptist,
00:02:46.580 but it's also used by our Lord himself. Repeatedly, Matthew chapter 23, like seven times. I know.
00:02:56.300 So this is the funny thing because I always call you like a modern day John the Baptist,
00:03:00.860 which I think is still true. Um, but actually, you know, your role, your priestly role in Persona
00:03:08.080 Christi, which happens on the altar, I know, but boy, you sound a lot like him because it's actually
00:03:12.340 Jesus who has way more insulting terms like hypocrites, brood of vipers. Um, you, you
00:03:19.480 whited sepulchers, which is kind of like, oh gosh, they paint the outside white and nice and the
00:03:25.580 insides full of decay and gross. I really thought of in my heart when I was doing the blurb,
00:03:30.700 I thought, yeah, that's, that's what this is. What was your inspiration there? Because, um,
00:03:36.200 it is, I know I'm going to talk to you about all of what's going on in the church today too, but
00:03:39.640 this was for you, uh, a work you, you've been holed up, unable to do public things. Your,
00:03:45.940 your parish family stolen from you or you stolen from your parish family, whichever way you want to
00:03:51.260 put it. Actually both suffered. Uh, what the bishop did, it wasn't just to me,
00:03:55.760 but it was to every parish fit, not even just my parish family, because, you know, we, we talk in
00:04:01.180 the canceled priests about where I'm not actually the one that's been canceled because I'm still
00:04:04.840 speaking. The, the priests who are in the pulpit who are afraid to speak, they are actually the ones
00:04:12.240 who have been canceled. They use me as a tool to bludgeon every other priest into silence. And when
00:04:19.260 you realize how it, how grave insidious, the widespread, uh, ramification of taking a priest
00:04:30.520 of, uh, we've decided to start calling it being exiled, not canceled because I'm in exile. Like
00:04:36.520 St. Athanasius was five or seven times, depending on who's coming. The ones that they've canceled are
00:04:41.220 the ones who are still in the pulpits. I can't remember why I started saying that, but it seemed to
00:04:45.020 make sense. Interesting. So what inspired the book? Why, why the book? Why now? Sure. One of the great
00:04:51.380 graces, uh, when I was first ordained, uh, I was supposed to be up in Stevens Point at another parish
00:04:57.920 at chaplain at another high school where it wasn't having, it did not have a Catholic identity. Uh,
00:05:03.960 by God's grace and blessing, somehow I ended up in Wisconsin Rapids at Asuncion high school,
00:05:09.300 which was head and shoulders above the other six school systems in terms of Catholic identity.
00:05:13.660 So I didn't have to fight with staff, with administrators about Catholic identity. I just,
00:05:20.780 I spoke like I do now and it was accepted that no grit, no grief from them at all. And so, uh,
00:05:28.140 when you speak the truth like that, we had, I don't know, maybe average class of 40 ish per year.
00:05:33.440 And every year, some of the kids weren't baptized. Some were Protestant every year when you taught,
00:05:38.400 uh, really in like little parables, kids could become kids now because I'm old. Kids could
00:05:44.420 understand it. And, uh, and every year there were converts. They would come into the church at Peter
00:05:49.640 and Paul every single year. And in fact, the seventh year, after I was chaplain for six years,
00:05:54.200 the seventh year, I had a residual one. One of my students come into the Catholic church.
00:05:58.080 The impetus for this came and I was constantly encouraged by staff, by teachers. Father,
00:06:02.500 you should make a book about these lessons that you keep teaching. I call them life lessons.
00:06:06.080 So finally I had, uh, time, uh, on my hands. And so I was able to put some of them together.
00:06:12.720 That, that book that you're talking about, it actually, so I think it's about 60 pages,
00:06:17.680 something like that. It actually was about six times that. And, and the publisher got ahold of it and
00:06:23.960 said, father, nobody's ever going to read this. It's too much. You need to have it chopped down
00:06:29.500 into easier to digest lessons of, you know, five or six pages per lesson. And don't even always call
00:06:37.280 them lessons because people don't like that, like have to get lessened. So, um, from that then came
00:06:43.020 with the help of a great publisher and editor, Bev, uh, came that, that book volume one. And the reason
00:06:48.640 this body was because she took out at least two thirds of the full book and then chopped down 0.98
00:06:55.300 what was in the remaining third. So it was easily digestible. So maybe I'm, you know, get too wordy
00:07:00.660 or I'm so used to listening to long lectures in college. That's what I give. Anybody who's had
00:07:07.360 to suffer through my homilies knows that's true. That was the impetus for it is, is to, to take then
00:07:13.160 what I, uh, practiced for six years, trying to convey the truth of the Catholic church to all
00:07:20.140 the students, Catholic and even not baptized. And, and the, the fruit of that practice, uh,
00:07:27.840 comes across then in this little book. And it's exactly why I think this book is great for parents
00:07:34.200 to get for their kids who are, especially if they're entering high school or whatever, it's just
00:07:38.700 the faith taught clearly in the way you wish you were taught it. Um, so I would very much encourage
00:07:46.320 it. Let's get onto one of the issues, uh, that's going on in the world today. Uh, it's particularly
00:07:51.880 poignant right now in the United States. Um, in, I'm going to come at this from a very different angle
00:07:59.720 with regard to immigration and what's going on in trying to fix the problem. There are real issues
00:08:08.500 problems with, uh, people being deported who shouldn't be, who were there for years and years
00:08:14.780 and years. Yes, illegally, but because some Democrats tried to have cheaper labor or whatever,
00:08:21.680 they're there and they've been there for years. They're doing their best. They might've been in
00:08:25.500 process trying to get the thing done, but having problems, a lot of them got caught up in this.
00:08:32.260 How do we get to the heart of this and deal with it properly?
00:08:34.980 Well, first of all, as to the Pope and the bishops, they're heretics because the Catholic 0.98
00:08:40.680 teaching is crystal clear about how, and you can read it yourself. I'm not making, don't take my
00:08:45.720 word for it. It's been the teaching all along. Uh, it's in the catechism that each country has a
00:08:52.220 right to establish laws with regard to who gets to come in. Rome itself, the Vatican itself has its
00:08:59.600 own set of rules and a 30 foot high, high wall. So when the bishops who are paid handsomely over
00:09:06.700 $3 billion that got cut off when they were no longer able to aid and abet illegal invasion,
00:09:13.640 that's, this is what it's all about. And now watch, because I just gave a homily on this very topic.
00:09:18.260 For the last 39 years from Ronald Reagan in 1981, straightforward to now, Reagan deported,
00:09:26.280 I think it was something like 8 million. Clinton deported something like 12 million.
00:09:31.260 Obama deported, let's see, no, there's someone in Bush deported 10 million. Obama deported 6 million.
00:09:38.000 And during the first administration of Trump, 45, he only deported 2 million. And then in the first
00:09:44.160 two years of Biden, he deported 2,700,000. So in two years, Biden already deported over 700,000 more
00:09:53.260 than Trump, 45 deported in four years. And there was not one peep out of any bishop the entire time.
00:10:04.040 Where were the bishops when Reagan was deporting, you know, what was it? 8 million. Where were the
00:10:09.240 bishops when Clinton deported 12 million? Where were the bishops when Obama deported 6 million?
00:10:14.300 Where were the bishops then? Not one peep. They didn't have a word to say about any of it. There's,
00:10:21.020 there's something when you add it all up as, I don't know, it's 20, 30 million that were deported
00:10:25.020 under all the other presidents. And Trump has deported less than any of them, far less, far less. In
00:10:31.800 one case, like 10 million less than the other guys, right? Where were the bishops? They didn't say
00:10:39.020 anything, but now they are because they got cut off from the gravy train of over $3 billion to aid and
00:10:47.200 bet. Not just illegals coming in, the illegal invasion, but a half a million of unaccompanied
00:10:52.800 minors. These bishops have blood on their hands. Unaccompanied minors. If people understood how evil
00:11:01.280 the bishops were, I don't know why they don't get this, but it's because the media is anti-Trump.
00:11:08.400 And there's, I mean, we could go into the whole global story about the globalists, Zionists,
00:11:12.320 that are trying to run the world, establish one world government that come right out and admit it
00:11:16.520 like David Rockefeller. Here's the thing over the past hundred years, you wouldn't know this because
00:11:20.680 you're kind of Canadian. Over the last hundred years, there's been basically Republicans and
00:11:26.840 Democrats. And over that hundred years, there have been 35 years, including Clinton, Obama, and Biden,
00:11:33.420 where the Democrats controlled the White House, the Senate, and the Congress. 35 of those years.
00:11:42.280 And during that time when they had absolute power, they did nothing, nothing, nothing to change the
00:11:49.800 immigration laws. They did nothing. The laws were just fine because the laws allow for it's well over a 0.99
00:11:55.860 million per year to come in legally, right? They did nothing. And then all of a sudden, now that it's Trump,
00:12:03.420 then they have Trump derangement syndrome. Now and only now are they complaining. The hypocrisy
00:12:10.380 is absolutely off the charts. Hello, my friends. I want to thank you so much for your prayers,
00:12:16.780 for your support for Life State News. We couldn't do this without you. We're right here in Rome,
00:12:20.840 in the Eternal City. We're not going to cede Rome. We're not going to give up on the church.
00:12:28.120 We're going to continue to fight despite everything they throw at us. And we need to do that
00:12:33.260 with your help. I would beg for your support so that we can continue this work. It's coming up
00:12:39.060 end of year. And I know many do end of year donations. Please consider LifeSite News and
00:12:44.220 your giving. God bless you, my friends. And thank you. We've got another issue that is also pressing
00:12:51.220 because, well, there's a bunch of issues. I haven't talked to you in a while. I know it's been a while.
00:12:56.640 It has been. And so much has gone on that especially, yes, in the States, but then in the church as well.
00:13:06.340 But one of the ones that I needed some clarity on, and I think our viewers would very much appreciate
00:13:12.180 clarity on, is this idea of Our Lady. Now, give us your thoughts on these titles of Our Lady that
00:13:22.340 we're apparently now not supposed to use. But I notice many good priests, including Father Charles
00:13:28.160 Murr, who's on Faith and Reason. He always ends off praying for the intercession of Our Lady,
00:13:34.140 co-redemptrix and mediatrix of all graces. Is this too confusing for Protestants? Is this
00:13:39.140 is this something that, you know, it's best left unsaid, even though it may not be false?
00:13:44.820 This is a brand new concoction. When I was in high school, we had a teacher, civics teacher,
00:13:49.920 who said, now remember guys, remember kids, when somebody does something, there's the stated reason
00:13:56.300 which sounds good, but there's a real reason behind it. He's speaking specifically about government
00:14:02.040 and why they're really doing what they're doing. So you remember in Vatican II, when they destroyed the
00:14:08.180 sanctuaries and destroyed the holy sacrifice at the mass, the stated reason which ostensibly was good
00:14:13.260 was to make it more accessible to people. The real reason, according to Bognini and the boys,
00:14:20.860 was to destroy the mass, to remove anything from our sanctuaries and from the sacred liturgy
00:14:27.820 that would be even a shadow of a stumbling block to a Protestant. In other words, make us just another 0.98
00:14:33.180 Protestant denomination. That was the underlying working principle of the people who destroyed 1.00
00:14:38.260 the holy sacrifice of the mass in their committee, their non-dogmatic committee after Vatican II.
00:14:42.980 We don't give a damn if it offends a Protestant because we're Catholic, right? We're not going to
00:14:51.100 apologize for the Holy Eucharist, for the sacrament confession, for the veneration of relics, for our
00:14:56.980 veneration of the Blessed Mother, Queen Mother of the King of the Universe. And you know from that
00:15:02.780 section in 1 Chronicles, it goes from King David and Bathsheba, and he's dying, and Bathsheba comes in
00:15:09.520 to say something to the king, her husband, and she has to bow down to the king. Well, then David dies,
00:15:15.900 her son Solomon becomes king, and when the queen mother comes in, Solomon has to get up off his throne 0.97
00:15:22.220 and bow down to his mother, to the queen mother. There's a commandment, it's called commandment number
00:15:27.160 four, right? And then he has to put a chair next to his chair, and then she says to him, son, I've been out
00:15:35.220 with the people, and I collected up some of their petitions, some of the requests that they want made, so I'm
00:15:40.940 going to give them to you, son, Solomon, King Solomon, and you're going to do it because I told you to, right?
00:15:46.680 That is how we understand, through our Judeo history, through our Catholic history, the status of our
00:15:54.580 blessed mother, and I was just thinking about this the other day, because I know this to be true, you know,
00:15:58.580 when a mother gives birth to a child, you know, nine months, the mother's heart's here, the baby's
00:16:03.560 heart's down here, nine months, Jesus was in the womb of our blessed mother. Science now tells us that the
00:16:11.460 child's stem cells, some of them remain within the mother's body, because in God's plan, the mom has to keep
00:16:20.480 alive, because the mom is supposed to be taking care of that newborn baby, so if there's something
00:16:24.180 health-wise wrong with the mother, those baby's stem cells can help fix it. When you realize that 0.65
00:16:30.540 Jesus's stem cells are in the body of our blessed mother, the only woman, all ages would call me
00:16:38.680 blessed, because the Almighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name, yet you cannot venerate
00:16:44.520 Mary enough, no matter what title it is, and if a Protestant doesn't like it, I don't give a damn.
00:16:50.700 I thought it was weird, Father, because those titles aren't confusing to me, even from a
00:16:58.660 Protestant perspective, because you can biblically ground them. If Paul said, you know, I make up in
00:17:04.420 my own body that which is lacking in the sufferings of Christ, and if that's in terms of a redemptrix,
00:17:10.360 being a co-redeemer with Christ, Paul is saying that himself, and then with regard to mediatrics of 0.91
00:17:15.800 all graces, it's in the Bible we learn all grace and truth come through Jesus Christ, and then we
00:17:21.860 know that Jesus comes through Mary. But the one that is kind of confusing, and I noticed they don't talk
00:17:28.100 about going back and redoing that one, is the assumption of our deity, because that's extra
00:17:33.560 biblical. So if you're going to do something not to confuse the Protestants, why aren't they revisiting
00:17:39.460 that? I guess you can't do that because it's dogma, maybe. Well, they can't, because once that dogma,
00:17:43.860 the infallible dogma is established, even these heretics and apostates in the hierarchy are reticent
00:17:51.800 to try and say, oh, that's been dogma for the last 100, 200 years, because it's really based on 2,000
00:17:57.540 years of Catholic sacred tradition. Even they aren't going to go there, but they're picking on this one
00:18:02.320 title. Because if you can have Mary as the Immaculate Conception, if you can have Mary as assumed into
00:18:07.500 heaven, this is small potatoes. So why are they doing it? Why are they doing it? Aren't there
00:18:13.580 enough things in the world to worry about? Then start attacking the titles of our Blessed Mother. 0.99
00:18:20.800 What they're doing is these are insidious, chipping away. It's rat poison, right? That's pure rat poison,
00:18:28.740 because it only takes a little bit of rat poison. Because if they can chip away at this thing,
00:18:32.480 they can chip away at other things. And slowly but surely, incrementally,
00:18:36.660 once they chipped away at a nothing. Remember those kids games where there's a bunch of logs
00:18:41.800 stacked on each other, and you got to pull one out and hope the whole thing doesn't topple and
00:18:45.440 pull another one out and hope it doesn't topple? They keep pulling these things out. And sooner or
00:18:50.240 later, the faith topples. This is what they're doing. And they're doing it knowingly, and they're
00:18:55.740 doing it intentionally, because they're trying to establish one world, one world religion.
00:19:00.340 I had one sort of follow up for you. And that is, bring back your book into this, because
00:19:07.800 you mentioned rat poison. Now, rat poison is part of your book as well. And I think that's really
00:19:15.040 important, because for all the people who read, who actually read this document cutting up Our Lady,
00:19:23.180 co-redemptrix, and mediatrix of all graces. It doesn't sound bad. It sounds like they're trying
00:19:31.060 to honor Our Lady, but this is just not such a good idea right now. So tell us about rat poison,
00:19:38.780 why that's such a powerful example. It was in your book. Tell us about that.
00:19:43.240 Well, it comes from a true story. Since I was a little kid, we didn't have daycare. That's from hell,
00:19:48.660 not from heaven. Mary didn't shuffle Jesus off to daycare so she could have a career. So my mom 0.85
00:19:54.060 would have to take us to the grocery store. And sooner or later, you have to go down the toxic
00:19:57.920 chemical aisle. And my little boy eyes would spy that box of rat poison with a skull and crossbones.
00:20:03.860 There's actually a black skull and crossbones and a black rat upside down dead. And I thought to
00:20:09.620 myself, because I'm a picky eater, I like what I like. I'll eat it seven days a week, but not stuff I
00:20:14.780 don't like. So I used to say to myself, why would a rat eat that rat poison?
00:20:18.360 Because it has to taste terribly if it's going to kill you dead. And then I'm down 30 years later
00:20:24.580 on. Now I'm an adult. I'm downstate Michigan and I go to keep the Lord's day holy. And the priest
00:20:29.980 gave a homily that started out, does anybody here wonder why a rat eats rat poison? And it's because
00:20:36.460 he said 90% of what's in that box tastes really, really good to a rat. He doesn't know the difference
00:20:42.540 of the 10% poison. It's all mixed in there. So he gobbles it all down and it kills him dead.
00:20:46.660 Well, literally about a year ago, year and a half ago, maybe I got up the courage to touch
00:20:53.120 and pick up that box of rat poison. And look, it turns out it's only 1% that's poison. 1% is arsenic.
00:20:59.080 99% is really good. So now if you don't know your faith, you're vulnerable to the rat poison,
00:21:07.400 which ultimately will kill your faith dead. And it's, and it's the rat poison are little things
00:21:13.340 that seem not significant, sort of inconsequential little things. So like chipping away at Mary's
00:21:20.500 titles. Well, if you can chip away at that title, maybe we can chip away at some other titles too.
00:21:26.300 Father, tell us where we can get your books. And I should mention there's a second book as well.
00:21:31.480 It is called Treasures of the Catholic Church, 2000 Years of Saints and Martyrs in five minutes a day.
00:21:39.140 So the Liturgy of the Hours, the bravery that priests and nuns are supposed to pray every day,
00:21:42.860 five times a day. There's a part called the officer readings. And there's a second part,
00:21:47.620 it includes three Psalms and includes the first reading, usually from sacred scripture.
00:21:51.140 Then it has a second reading, which is my favorite part of the whole officer readings
00:21:54.700 ever. And it's because for 2000 years, we have collections of the writings of saints for each
00:22:02.300 day. And it takes five minutes or less to read it. There's over 200 saints and over 40 martyrs
00:22:09.920 included in this book, their writings for each day, for every season, for every feast day.
00:22:17.020 I think there's a total of about 596 pages, because sometimes there's seasons or dates will overlap with
00:22:24.620 the saints feast day. And you could go to that saint feast day. Some of the four big ones in there
00:22:29.800 are St. Augustine. I think he's in there 60 or 70 times. There's St. Ambrose, St. Leo the Great,
00:22:36.460 I think St. Gregory the Great. I think those are the four biggest ones. And they're the ones that are
00:22:39.640 in there. The most, there's an index in the back. And each saint, when they give their little writing,
00:22:48.000 typically quotes multiple times sacred scripture. So I went through and painstakingly,
00:22:54.620 looked up every single scriptural site, thousands, and found it in sacred scripture,
00:23:02.020 because there's no clues. You just had to hear the words, you have to look it up on like Google
00:23:06.260 search or duck, duck, go or whatever, and find where it is. And then I put it at, I italicized
00:23:11.900 and put the quote from sacred scripture in red. And then I put a superscript of it of the actual
00:23:17.020 citation. So when you read something that a saint wrote, you can go back and look at the sacred
00:23:21.520 scripture that they're saying. And why is this important? Because sooner or later, if you read
00:23:27.580 this, you will suddenly come to realize that the Catholic church, the true Catholic church,
00:23:34.000 the unchanged and changeable truth or deposit faith is 2000 years old. It is unchanged and
00:23:39.060 unchangeable. And you will be putting on the armor of God such that you will then recognize instantly
00:23:45.340 when people like Tucho Fernandez or Jorge Bergoglio go heretical. This is by reading this for five
00:23:54.540 minutes a day, you put on the armor of God. And isn't that what we're supposed to do? And I'll tell
00:23:58.880 you something I found out that I didn't know myself as I went through from day one, first Sunday
00:24:03.060 of Advent, right through the entire liturgical year. This is what I found out. There were a lot of
00:24:08.440 recurring, recurring themes, recurring sacred scripture passages. And one of them was Sirach
00:24:17.700 chapter two, verse one. And I thought, what is that? Because I kept seeing it. And it goes something
00:24:25.400 like this. I'm not going to do the best job quoting him, but it's like, if you son go to follow God,
00:24:32.820 God, prepare yourself for trials. That's Old Testament. And all these New Testament saints and
00:24:41.920 martyrs are quoting the Old Testament. If you go to, if you're going to be a Christian, if you're going 0.64
00:24:47.140 to be a Catholic, if you're going to follow God, watch out, trouble's coming your way. Jesus told us
00:24:52.260 that, right? Jesus himself warned us. But when you're finding that these, all these icons of our Catholic
00:24:59.340 church history, saints and martyrs who died for the faith are saying that same thing, you suddenly
00:25:04.620 realize they learned what Jesus taught. They lived and died for it. And so when you see these modern
00:25:12.220 apostates bringing out the orange bongo drummers, you say to yourself, why do I need to go learn
00:25:18.760 something from the orange bongo drummer? What does he have to teach me about repentance, confession,
00:25:23.640 reconciliation, absolution, reception of the Holy Eucharist in the state of grace? What does the
00:25:28.560 orange bongo drummer, because those are important, those are necessary for eternal life, right? What
00:25:33.940 does that orange bongo drummer got to teach me something? I'll tell you who's got something to 1.00
00:25:37.080 teach me. Irenaeus, Bishop Martyr, right? He's got something to teach me. I can read him in five
00:25:42.700 minutes one day. I don't have to go asking, tracking down an orange bongo player.
00:25:47.840 Father, one more reflection, and then your final blessing, if you would, and the reflection on this.
00:25:52.480 So I watched this beautiful video of a priest, Father Ambrose, I believe his name is, from St.
00:25:57.640 Michael's Abbey in California. Oh, nice! And he said this one line that I just thought was so
00:26:04.200 striking. He said, the biggest problem in the world today, and in the church today, is not the
00:26:10.040 bishops, it's not the politicians, it's me, because I'm not yet a saint. Your closing thoughts with that,
00:26:17.600 your final blessing would be great. You know, St. Philip Neri has a quote that goes like this,
00:26:22.160 cast yourselves in the arms of God and rest assured if he wants anything of you, he'll fit you for the task
00:26:26.420 and give you the strength. It's been on every email I've sent out since 2007. The biggest problem
00:26:31.380 is me, is I'm not a saint. We're not all called to be David. God called one to be David. He anointed
00:26:36.640 him, Samuel anointed him, he went out, what did he do? He killed Goliath. You know, the Israelites were
00:26:42.160 looking at Goliath and thought he's too big to kill, and David looks at him and says, he's too big to miss.
00:26:46.220 So he follows God and does his job as God called him to do. If we're waking up every morning and
00:26:54.180 saying, Lord, what would you have me do today? Here I am, Lord. Wasn't that Samuel with Elijah? I think
00:27:00.520 that's where that came from. Here I am, Lord. I've come to do your will. If you start each day that
00:27:05.420 way and then train to enter into the battle, then you will become the saint God has called you to be.
00:27:13.640 But if you say to yourself, if you ask yourself this question, what am I called to be? And you
00:27:17.980 don't know the answer, it means you haven't been seeking. And Jesus promised if you seek, you will
00:27:23.440 find. So if you don't know the answer, you haven't been seeking, and that's all on you, buddy. Ambrose said
00:27:27.920 is 100% true. Each one of us is called to be a saint. But if you don't even know what that looks
00:27:33.160 like, if you haven't even tried, if you haven't spent one hour a day trying to be a saint, then
00:27:38.520 you're not ready to be put in the game. And that's the parable of the talents, isn't it? God gave you
00:27:44.200 10 talents. You show up at his door, and he says, well, what do you got to show me for all those
00:27:49.800 talents I gave you? And your hands are empty? Because you didn't train, you didn't practice, you didn't
00:27:55.320 play in the game of, you didn't work in God's vineyard? It's not going to go well for you that day.
00:28:01.500 So yeah, the problem is, the problem is, is that the bishops haven't told you, haven't taught you
00:28:08.880 that, but you should know that yourself just by reading sacred scripture. You just read the
00:28:12.400 gospels, and you're going to know, hmm, I've got talents. What am I supposed to do with them? Jesus
00:28:16.760 is going to ask that question. What do you got to show me for all that I've done for you? So you can't
00:28:23.600 blame it all on the bishops. You have to look in the mirror and say, what have I done? What have I done
00:28:28.720 today? What have I done every day? And then maybe, you know, it's not too late, it's never too late
00:28:34.080 to change, to metanoia, to turn back to God, like the prodigal son, who's wasted. Isn't that what the
00:28:40.880 prodigal son did? He wasted everything on wine, women, and song, on worldly temporal things. He
00:28:46.580 finally came back, he turned around, and the father welcomed him. It is not too late, it is never too late,
00:28:51.820 turn back. But when you turn back, that means you have to change. It means you have to start showing up for
00:28:59.360 practice, because you're part of the Catholic team, right? It's not all about you. It's about what are you
00:29:05.140 doing to help the team? And if you don't know the answer to that question, again, you haven't sought and you
00:29:10.560 haven't found. So it's not too late. Start now. Start the first Sunday of Advent. Make a resolution that every day, I'm
00:29:16.760 going to have my morning offering. I'm going to offer myself to God. Here I am, Lord, do with me what
00:29:22.460 you will. And then train and practice, so that he can then put you in the game when the time comes.
00:29:29.280 So Ambrose said the right thing. And now your blessing, Father. All right. Well, let us pray.
00:29:34.700 In nomine, pa'atris, ephilius, spiritus, sancti, amen. The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. And through
00:29:41.240 the intercession of St. Ambrose, bishop and doctor of the church, through the intercession of every
00:29:46.320 martyr who has shown us how to live our lives so that we can be witnesses of our faith and be a
00:29:53.020 brighter light of Christ in this world. Through their intercession, through the intercession, especially
00:29:57.460 of our blessed mother, Mary, co-redemptrix and mediatrix of all graces, may Almighty God bless
00:30:03.820 you, fill you with grace, give you the courage, the wisdom, the strength to work in his vineyard.
00:30:09.500 We ask this blessing in nomine, pa'atris, ephilius, spiritus, sancti, amen. Amen.
00:30:13.820 Thank you, Father Altman. God bless you. And God bless all of you. And we'll see you next time.
00:30:19.960 Aloha, everyone. This is Jason Jones for Lifeside News. We hope you enjoyed this video. For more
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