Tag Archives: Catholic Church

Ep33 The Relationship between Grit and Success

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 21:27 — 19.6MB)

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Father Len explores how grit helps us get through difficult times and succeed in life.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len explains why he is grateful for the COVID 19 pandemic.
  • Father Len explains how the pandemic helps reveal the existence of God and why God allows suffering in the world.
  • Father Len introduces the spiritual virtue of grit and illustrates how and why it helps us mature as human beings and succeed in life.
  • Father Len explains the dangers of living life as a “perfect fragile.”
  • Father Len explodes the myth of “talent” as the primary predictor of success in life.
  • Grit in the religious world is fortitude. It’s one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
  • Grit is learned and earned through sacrifice, pain, and a little bit of suffering.
  • “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth
  • Life is sacrifice.
  • Father Len offers concrete ways to increase grit and determination.
  • Father Len shares the moving story of Adm. James Stockdale and how grit helped him and his fellow prisoners survive years in a Vietnam War concentration camp.
  • “The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero” by Timothy Egan
  • “Ungifted: Intelligence Redefined” by Scott Barry Kaufman

Ep31 What Death and Funerals Teach Us about Life

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:37 — 20.7MB)

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Father Len and Irish explore the life-changing benefits of death and funerals.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len shares his moving and powerful tradition for commemorating the victims and heroes of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and what it reveals about life and death.
  • Father Len explains how funerals make us better human beings.
  • Father Len spells out the difference between a funeral and a “celebration of life.”
  • Father Len tells the story of how comedian Garry Shandling’s parent’s decision not to allow him to attend his older brother’s funeral screwed him up.
  • Father Len shares the story of what comedian Stephen Colbert learned from his mother at his father’s funeral.
  • Funerals are incredibly healthy because they provide closure, a sense of meaning, and a perspective on what’s really important and enduring in life.
  • “Something about death makes us wise—we suddenly become high-minded, forgiving and focused on the best in people. How can we do better at seeing living people through the “eulogy lens”? – Tim Urban Twitter: @waitbutwhy
  • Funerals reveal human connection and the value and importance of community.
  • Father Len tells the story of a funeral for a young father’s dad that revealed what kind of dad he wanted to be for his three boys.
  • Funerals are an essential tool for passing on important values from one generation to the next.
  • Funeral rituals have been around for 10,000 years as a means to say goodbye, mourn what has been lost and to forgive.

Ep30 Guilt and Shame Are Not the Same

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:39 — 26.2MB)

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Father Len explains why guilt is a good and shame is evil.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len reacts to the pain and suffering inflicted on Tarana Burke, founder of the “Me Too Movement,” by the shame she felt after being raped and sexually molested as a child.
  • Shame is evil because it mars the image of our being made in the image of God and crushes our self-worth.
  • Shame is dangerous and correlates to increased incidence of addiction, eating disorders depression, and suicide.
  • Guilt is about amending our behavior and increasing our self-worth.
  • Guilt is a tool for self-improvement; becoming more loving, more kind, more patient.
  • Shame is a tool of oppression, racism, and sexism.
  • Guilt is based on love and shame is based on evil.
  • Father Len shares a fun story about catching kids stealing dark chocolate from him to illustrate why guilt is good and guilt and shame are not the same.
  • Religion should be a force for inflicting guilt and healing shame.
  • Both guilt and shame make us feel bad, but for different reasons. Guilt makes us feel bad because we realize we could have done something better. Shame makes us feel bad because some horrific event causes us to define ourselves as trash.
  • Brené Brown’s podcast: “Unlocking Us”
  • Brené Brown’s TED Talk: “The Power of Vulnerability”
  • Shame loves to hide in the dark and doesn’t like being named. Privately and sadly, the lives of many people are controlled by shame.
  • Healing shame is not easy, but working through the process brings wisdom, compassion, and joy.
  • The Catholic Church is like a good mother who teaches her children guilt to help them grow and become better and more loving human beings.

Ep29 Winning, Gratitude, Happiness, and Jesus

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:17 — 15.8MB)

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Father Len explores the relationship between gratitude, happiness, and finding the presence of God in everyday life.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • The custom of athletes and entertainers thanking Jesus after winning games and awards inspired this episode.
  • Father Len uses the ancient Jewish feast that celebrates the birthdays of trees to reveal the importance and value of gratitude.
  • Gratitude helps prevent narcissism and entitlement.
  • Gratitude helps us grow and mature as true human beings.
  • Gratitude makes us happy.
  • Gratitude improves our health.
  • Gratitude makes us more compassionate.
  • “It’s impossible to feel grateful and depressed in the same moment.” – Naomi Williams
  • Father Len introduces “The Daily Examen” gratitude exercise created by St. Ignatius.

Ep28 Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:47 — 23.6MB)

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Father Len and Irish grapple with the mystery of God’s intention for sickness and suffering in our lives.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Irish shares his gut wrenching experiences with his youngest son’s heart attack and multiple kidney failures.
  • Father Len tells the story of his father finding joy late in life after contracting ALS.
  • Health, wealth, and personal achievements aren’t necessarily what makes life beautiful.
  • Father Len shares neurosurgeon Eben Alexander’s revelations from a rare illness and near death experience that turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him.
  • “Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon’s Journey into the Afterlife” by Eben Alexander
  • Father Len shares the stories of suffering and sickness that caused St. Ignatius of Loyola and St. Julian of Norwich to become great Saints.
  • “Revelations of Divine Love” by St. Julian of Norwich
  • We discover God in our difficulties.
  • “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer man is wasting away, our inner man is being renewed every day.” St. Paul, 2 Corinthians 4:16
  • Where did we get the idea that if we’re good, God is obligated to bring us health?
  • “There’s this fear that if we don’t have health and wealth and popularity, somehow our life is cursed. Maybe, like my dad, life becomes blessed because of sickness.” – Father Len
  • Sickness teaches us how precious and frail life really is.
  • When someone dies, even though we know life is temporary, it’s always a shock.
  • The fact that we’re shocked by death means there’s something in us that says life should be full and death is wrong. There’s something in us that says sickness is wrong because we are meant for a full life. Maybe we’re not going to have that life here. Heaven is where we’ll have the absolute fullness of life.
  • Joy can exist alongside sickness and suffering. Happiness can’t. Happiness is external. It depends on things like how we look, what kind of car we drive, and how much money we have. Joy is internal.
  • “In life, we have to trust in someone or something. We can’t go through life without trusting. Everybody has to trust in something, even in the midst of loss and suffering. I trust that the God of life will bring greater life.” – Father Len

Ep27 How to Forgive

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 42:45 — 39.1MB)

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Father Len shares the forgiveness method he uses along with his experiences learning to forgive.

Highlights, Ideas and Wisdom

  • Father Len confesses that he is “not great at forgiving,” but he’s working on it.
  • Forgiveness is a skill that can be learned just like all the other virtues.
  • Forgiving is like an exercise, the more you do it, the better you get.
  • If you learn to forgive small things, you build up the forgiveness muscle so that later you can forgive other things.
  • The LETGO forgiveness method Father Len uses has five steps:
    • L – Look deeply at what went wrong.
    • E – Apply Empathy
    • T – Tell a better story
    • G – Give forgiveness
    • O – One more day to remember choosing to forgive.
  • You may not be able to forgive immediately after an insult or injury because you need time to mourn.
  • Anger prevents forgiveness.
  • Prolonged anger can turn into bitterness.
  • Anger is a reaction to a feeling. You can train yourself to replace anger with forgiveness.
  • Forgetting the insult or injury is not the same as forgiveness.
  • If you don’t give yourself time to really feel the pain of the injury or insult, it can become easy to hide behind anger.
  • Quick compulsive forgiveness may actually be fake forgiveness and a form of denial of the insult or injury as well as a sign that you’re more comfortable being a doormat.
  • Empathy is thinking about what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes and awareness of their pain.
  • Stories change our opinions, not evidence.
  • Stories with a message of hope cause the greatest change.
  • Telling the same story to yourself over and over carves a deep rut in your memory. That can be good or bad.
  • We must learn how to forgive ourselves for stupid things we’ve done.
  • Praying that you’ll have a sincere desire for forgiveness, even if you don’t have the ability, God will answer that prayer.
  • Releasing an expectation that is causing you to suffer is a significant element in the forgiveness process.

Ep26 Judging and Being Judged

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:09 — 11.1MB)

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Father Len and Irish explore the frequently damaging temptation and tendency for humans to judge each other.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len responds to a listener’s perception that religious people are often judgmental and see themselves as better than others.
  • Father Len explains the difference between damaging judgment of behavior and attitudes and needed, useful and inspiring criticism.
  • The ability to honestly and critically assess our own behaviors and attitudes is healthy and important to personal growth and maturity.
  • Judging often has a damaging moral quality of shaming and denigrating.
  • For some people, judging others is a big smokescreen to hide the garbage in their own lives.
  • Presented with necessary criticism and helpful suggestions about their attitudes, decisions and behavior, insecure people tend to get angry, defensive, feel judged and dismiss it all.
  • Father Len offers some sage advice to fathers of daughters about the relationship between mothers and daughters.
  • Recognizing the difference between judgmental and critical thinking requires a lot of personal reflection and humility.

Ep25 Tour of Hell

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:27 — 23.3MB)

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Father Len takes us on a tour of hell exploring its origin and history providing glimpses of heaven along the way.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Hell can be hot and cold.
  • Hell is complete separation from God.
  • Heaven is complete union with God.
  • God is the source of life, love, community, justice, and compassion.
  • Hell is being separated from life, love, and community.
  • God offers life and love to all people as a free gift, but that doesn’t mean all people accept the gift.
  • Hell is often associated with fire, but in the Bible it is also depicted as a cold and lonely place.
  • The image of fire is also connected to heaven in the Bible.
  • Could it be that the fire of heaven and hell is the same, the fire of God’s love?
  • Life is a matter of preparing to live in the fire of God’s love or forever rejecting it.
  • If you live your life with hatred and selfishness, maybe pure love is something that you can’t stand.
  • People can create their own hell right here on earth. It’s not just an imaginary place where we might end up.
  • You separate yourself from God when you fail to live a life of love.
  • God wants everybody united in heaven, but that doesn’t mean everybody will be in heaven.
  • “The gates of hell are locked from the inside” – CS Lewis
  • Hell is something we create by our own choices, not something created by God.
  • God permits those who reject community, justice, compassion, and love, which is God, to live in the hell they create.
  • The images of heaven and hell help point our lives in the right direction.
  • Hell is a choice of selfishness and cruelty over love.
  • The gates of heaven are always open for those who love.

Ep24 Hell is a choice

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:08 — 15.7MB)

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Father Len explains why God doesn’t send anybody to hell.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len answers the question why a loving God creates human beings he knows will go to hell.
  • Free will is one of God’s greatest gifts to each of us.
  • Free will defines human beings.
  • We are free to choose heaven or hell.
  • Heaven’s gate is always open for us to walk in.
  • “The Great Divorce” by CS Lewis tells the story of people in hell who have the opportunity to look into heaven and choose not to walk in.
  • Father Len shares the Bible story of the rich man and Lazarus to illustrate how and why some people surprisingly choose hell over the love, unity, and community that is heaven.
  • Heaven is a place where everybody loves everybody else. Even Minnesota Vikings fans love Green Bay Packers fans.
  • God’s not going to force anybody into heaven. He’ll beg, he’ll plead, but if you want hell, you can choose it. God will respect your choice.
  • Father Len explains the big difference between God knowing someone will go to hell and causing someone to go to hell.