- Welcome back everyone to the front line with Joe and Joe. Joe Bessilow and Joe Recinello, you're exactly right, Joe. - We work for the man upstairs as you do. - You're setting me up quite well. You just gave me an alley, you... - The greatest revolutionary act to commit right now is to open your mouth and speak the truth. - Whether you're an academic or you're a regular guy, you have to be fearless. - And once more, dear brothers and sisters, let us go into the breach. (upbeat music) (upbeat rock music) - Hello again everyone and welcome back to the front line with Joe and Joe. Joe Bessilow, as always joined by Joe Recinello. And once more, dear brothers and sisters, let us go into the breach on the Veritas Catholic Radio Network, 1350 on your AM dial 103.9 on your FM dial, spreading the truth of the Catholic faith in the New York City metropolitan area. Two things, you know what I'm about to say. Download the app, the Veritas app, share it with your friends. You'll have access to all of our station's content. And if you like what Joe and I do, wherever you see us on social media, YouTube, Rumble, Facebook, Twitter, Rumble and Twitter in particular, if you could see us there and support us there, we're really trying to build up our audience on those two 'cause you know some time down the road, Facebook and YouTube will shut the Joe's down. There is no question about that. So we wanna make sure we build up our presence on other sites. So today, talk about going into the breach. Whenever you're talking about, you know, spiritual warfare, you're going into the breach 'cause it's all around us. I don't think anybody could deny that. You don't have to be Catholic to see that we're in a spiritual battle. And we're pleased and honored to be joined by Father Ken Jouracy because he's written a new book out from 10 books, Spiritual Warfare and Divine Mercy, a weapon of our times. And we think this is a very relevant conversation. Some of you out there, no Father Jouracy, having said that, Father Ken lived the life of the prodigal son, Gee Joe, I think he's in the right company with you and me. For most of his young adult life, he raised an anomaly Catholic family who only lived the externals of the faith. As a young man, he left the Catholic church for many years. During that time, he earned the business degree and achieved business success, but made little room for God. God, however, did not give up on him. And during his journey, our Lord presented him with challenges that forced him to question his personal beliefs and to ask the question, as Pilate did, what is truth? Through a series of years of struggle, studying, questioning, Father found his way from agnosticism to non-denominational Christianity and ultimately back to the Catholic church, Father Ken joined the fathers of mercy in 2006 and was ordained in 2012. Father Ken Jouracy, welcome to the frontline with Joe and Joe. - Joe's, thank you guys so much. Thanks for having me, good to be with you. - All right, and we see you got your cup of Joe. So that means we got three Joe's on the show. - I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go. - I will throw St. Joseph in the mix, I'm sure. I'm gonna hand it over to Joe Restonello. - Father, before we get into it, could you lead us in prayer? In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit? Lord, we bless and praise you. We thank you for the great work you're doing through this ministry. We ask you to bring the good work and all of us to fulfillment, but open our hearts to you and your message today. We ask you to be present to us as we can be striving to be present to you through Christ our Lord. - Amen. Well, I'm gonna be honest with you, Father. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Recently I've read Charles Frawny's book, Slaying Dragons, which led me to Father Rippinger's book, Dominion. It's a little above my pay grade, but at the same time I'm learning a lot from it. And I think this is very important because we are in a spiritual battle and there is warfare going on and that's like I said, I think you have a lot to say and I'm sure our listeners are gonna benefit. With that said though, let's take a step back. I'm interested how you became a priest. I mean, you're Italian. I mean, I know what you mean in terms of being nominally Catholic. I went to Catholic school. You eat pasta on Sunday, you go to church, but it does, you know, whatever, you know what I'm saying? I mean, I was that kid too. But then Joe and I obviously kind of had a reversion. So did you. Tell us your story briefly. - The short version of it, I sacramentalizes a kid, fell away throughout school. We just love the secular existence. We never prayed together. We never did any of the things that we should have done as a family and my mom's words to me was she goes, Kenny, she goes, the church never asked us to do any of those things. They asked us to do social justice work and contribute at second, third and fourth collections, but never to come to daily mass, never to go to confession, never pray the rosaries of family. And she said, if the church would have asked us that, we would have done it. Now, this doesn't mitigate any personal responsibility, but it shines a lot of light on that era of our culture. I fell away embracing worldliness, fell into agnosticism in high school, and then thought money would make me happy. I went off to college and got a business degree, and my senior year of college, I was recruited out of school to go to work for a technology company. I was working in their advanced R&D group on MP3 players and e-books. And from that, my boss was a devout Catholic, and also the majority of the people I worked with were Christians. And I was confused, how could these smart people believe in God? And sometime in that process, my boss invited me to do an internet startup company with him. We work on that nights and weekends for, she's just under a year, a venture capital firm invested $4.5 million in that project. And I thought I had arrived. I mean, my ego was the size of the internet. And my boss brought me right back down the planet Earth. He approached me one day and effectively said, "Can professionally I have no problem with you, but personally I do?" You know, when we're with investors or clients, you see a Christian symbol, you make a Christian reference. But you've told me you don't believe in God, you don't pray, you don't go to church. And can some of the stories you tell are unbecoming a man little on a Christian? And so that was the beginning for me. Was this devout Catholic man who was challenging me to let my yes be yes and my no be no? But from there, he went one step further and invited me to come to church with he and his family. And that began this openness to maybe God's presence in my life. And then God flooded my world with amazing people, amazing resources. And I began to have these conversions from agnostic to spiritual, spiritual to examining world religions, landing on Christianity, from non-denominational Christianity, ultimately to Catholicism. And of course, like all people, I was on a date when I realized I was supposed to be a priest. (both laughing) - Father Gendures, he's joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe. We're discussing his new book. Please buy it from the publisher. We want to support not just our authors, but our publishers. Tan books, spiritual warfare and divine mercy, a weapon for our time. So Father, let's put it like this. There's a reason why the parable of the two sons or what's commonly known as the parable of the prodigal son is as popular as it is. Okay, now many people have heard all of Jesus's parables. This I think is the most popular one. And there's a reason for it. Because we all find ourselves there at some point in one form, another. We go up into the dark place, okay? We think we know what we're doing. We ask Papa to give us all the gifts that he needs to give us. And then we take it for ourselves and selflessly go out and we sponsor it, okay? And then end up feeding pigs. In my case, it was ending up by my mother's couch at 37 years old. I lived as a stock broker for nine years, a worldly life. I thought I was going to make millions of dollars and just, that's it, right? Yeah, well, God had a different plan. But the prodigal son smacks you in the face, especially when you actually read it. Now you have a chapter in the book called modern day prodigal son. Talk about that. - Well, modern day prodigal son, I think we just find ourselves faced with this reality of what makes a person prodigal. I mean, here's the interesting distinction is that the younger son and older son had something in common. They were only focused on the things of the father. So obviously with the younger one, it's very obvious. But the older son associated with the slaves, with the servants, he was already living the way that the younger son said he wanted to come back to live. So here's this one line in there, a retreat master pointed this out to us. He said, the father says to the older son, son, all that I have, he's, no, I take it back. He said, son, you are with me always and all that I have is yours. And so many people get so fixated on that closing sentence, closing part of that, all that I have is yours. No, the real inheritance is the first half of the sentence. You are with me always. See, that's what makes us prodigal sons. If we're focused on the things of God or the doing of God, more than the person of God himself. And so this is a groundbreaking spiritual point of reflection for all of us. But regardless of how advanced we are, if we're focusing on the doing of God, our ministries, all of our work, but if we're passing God like ships in the night, we're gonna end up in that prodigal category with resentment or frustration like the older son or running off like the younger son. - Father, I'm gonna hand it over to Joe, but I just wanted to make a quick comment. I'm glad you said that 'cause one of the things I'm trying to do in my own journey, and we're, you know, open book. I mean, I think we're all on a continual journey to the end of our lives. Anybody has arrived. Paul says, "Run the race until the end." That suggests to me that it's gonna be a struggle. But I'm glad you mentioned that because what I'm trying to focus on more at this point in my life is yes, not sinning. Sin's obviously not a really good idea. You're on the show 'cause you're talking about divine mercy, okay? And we know the mercy of God, but I'm trying to focus on the relationship. Why do I wanna go to heaven? Because I wanna be with God. I do fear hell. Don't get me wrong, but I wanna be with God. I wanna live with God forever. That's why I wanna go to heaven, all right? And I'm trying to focus on it. And I'm glad you mentioned that 'cause I think sometimes we focus on just trying to avoid hell when we should emphasize we want a relationship with God 'cause he wants a relationship with us. And I'm really trying to hammer that into my thick Italian skull. Father Kenji Rasey's joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe. Did you have a comment on that, Father? - No, I just think you're absolutely right. I mean, the thing that was coming to my mind as you were talking was every other world religions inheritance or what you get when you reach eternal beatitude is a thing or knowledge or this kind of melding together for the Islam and 72 virgins. For us, our heaven is the beatific vision. It's being in the presence of God. It's a person. So the greatest reward for us is the person of God. And so that kind of changes the way we should look at not only our movement for salvation, but the way we engage each other. If there's people in our lives we disagree with or we have a problem with or who are, you know, pro-abortion, pro-emorality, they're not the enemy. They're a prize to be won for Jesus Christ. - Amen. - Excellent, Father Kenji Rasey. Joe Ressinolo, where do you want to go? - Well, let's talk about the title of the book. First half. - Yeah. - Spiritual warfare. Joe Pacillo is famous for quoting the catechism. I'll let you do it, Joe. Life is a dire battle, go for it. - No catechism 409, Father Juresy, I'm sure you know it, is, you know, the all of man's history. There you go, all of man's history is a dower combat between man and the forces of evil. I remember when I first heard Father Carapi say it, then I remember reading it about a million times. I was like, yeah, Mark said his view of history. Okay, he was wrong. The feminists of their view of history, they were wrong. The Catholic Church, as always, has it right. All of human history is a spiritual war within which we have to struggle, and we all do, all right, and ask God for his grace. Joe Ressinolo, I'm gonna throw it back to you. - Yeah, break it down. How are we in a spiritual war? Because I'll be honest with you, I think if you said that to the average Catholic in the Pew, they probably think you were like some crazy fundamentalist, crazy person. But in actuality, every person is in a spiritual battle every day 'cause we have to make choices. Every single day we make choices. Good ones or bad ones, and that's a battle. - Yeah, well, anybody who wants to deny that there's a spiritual battle, I just simply ask how is racing your children going for you? I mean, hard, unbelievably hard. Even the best families, even those with the greatest resources available to them are struggle-busting because the influences that come in from the outside, kids come home with attitudes and behavior, things that they didn't leave the house with in the morning. Half of these children are being raised by Instagram, YouTube and Snapchat and these different social media platforms. So when we look at these influences coming on, everyone can recognize that there is a battle going on just to fight for a natural good. Then when you tease that out, you find the struggle against sin, all of these things. But really at the end of the day, for us Christians, we open up the sacred scriptures and we see the first battle in the garden with Adam and Eve. You have Satan, they're tempting them. And just as he tempted them, he's constantly tempting us, he and his diabolic legions. You fast forward to the end of the Bible, Revelation 12 verse 17. It describes the woman who with clothes with the sun bearing birth to the child who will rule the nations with an iron rod, all right? So we know that child is Jesus. And the woman who gives birth to Jesus is Mary. But at the end of Revelation 7, 12, it says, "The devil became angry with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring, on those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus." And so the definition of the offspring of the blessed Virgin Mary are those who keep the commandments of God and bear testimony to Jesus. That's us, that's the Baptist, that's the Church of Christ, that's the non-denominational churches, right? Anyone who does those two things are the offerings of Mary. And it says explicitly that the devil went off to make war on her offspring. So we see very clearly the declaration of war was declared in the sacred scripture on anyone who does those two things. - Father Dracey, let me ask you this. You're talking about spiritual warfare. I'm gonna tell you something, again, open book. He declares war on me every day, okay? And one of the ways that I know him in God's hands is he took me out of a night job and got me into a day job with the same company, right? So now my wife wakes me up in the morning because her and our son, they pray the rosary, divine mercy, which is why you're here, we're talking about weapons, we need our weapons, and we do other prayers. And I know that God's at work there. It is a real struggle. But I do want you to talk about how is the divine mercy and the divine mercy, a weapon? Because most of the people here, like we know, Padre Pio said, give me my weapon. He grabbed the rosary, his guys gave him the rosary and all that, okay? I think it's the divine mercy is a lesser known devotion. But I think it's ultimately as powerful as the rosary. Talk about, well, first of all, if you agree with that, but talk about why, why is the divine mercy so powerful? - Yeah, I actually argue, make the argument in the book that the divine mercy chaplain is more powerful than the rosary. And I'll bear with me. I know I say this in front of devotees of the rosary and like women are tearing their garments and you know, tell bills, run more. - I just heard a collective gasp out in the ether. - Yeah, so now let's break this down. I mean, just practically speaking, what happens when you pray the rosary? The rosary is the meditation on the 20 mysteries of the life of Christ. And when you pray the rosary, you are praying the scriptural prayers. You're praying the our father. You are praying the Hail Mary, which the first half is explicitly scripture, right? But you're sitting with the mother of God who is the queen of heaven, who sits at the right hand of the king of heaven, right? So Jesus and Mary are intimately connected in heaven. And we are going before her, asking her to pray for us now and at the hour of our death. And so it's Mother Mary's intercession as a mother who wants to protect her children. One of the things I talk about in the book is that, or I don't make this explicit reference, but you know, if I went to your wife and said, "Joe, what's your wife's name, Joe?" - Sabrina. - Sabrina. So if I go to Sabrina and say, "Sabrina, I'm declaring war on your children." Sabrina is gonna say, "You gotta go through me." Go ahead, bring it. 'Cause you're not touching them unless you go through me. And so there's this reality that Mother Mary steps in the fray when we go to her and ask her to pray for us now. She prays for us now. But the divine mercy chaput, I argue, is exponentially more powerful than the rosary because the rosary is based on mother's intercession. But the chaput of divine mercy is a direct extension of Calvary, a direct extension of the liturgy of the Eucharist. And so when we pray the chaput, we are there at Calvary. Let me break this down even further. When we pray the chaput, we say, "Eternal Father, I offer you what? "The body blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ, "for what reason? "Be atonement for our sins and those of the whole world." And then 10 times we pray for the sake of his sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world. It takes five to seven minutes to say the whole thing. But where do we find the body blood, soul and divinity of Jesus? This is Eucharist, right? The Eucharist is the mass, the mass Calvary. So when you pray the chaput of divine mercy, you are entering into the very saving mysteries that flow from Calvary itself, from Jesus' perfect sacrifice. There is the one thing, theologically, that pleases the Father for the reparation of sins of mankind. And that is Christ's perfect offering. Two things happen on Calvary, our redemption and divine adoption. We become sons and daughters of the Father. And so when you pray the chaput of divine mercy, you are uniting yourself to Christ's perfect offering, offering him God the Father. But if you're at the foot of Calvary, so is the blessed Virgin Mary. So is St. John, so is the other two Mary's. So we're there in Christ's perfect offering. So I argue that the chaput is more powerful, not a replacement to the rosary, but more powerful than the rosary because it draws from the very source and summit of our faith. - Absolutely. Joe, Russ and Ola, where do you wanna go? - Lot to talk about there. I'm a big proponent of both, rosary. I pray both every day. I pray the divine mercy chaput in the morning. I pray the rosary at night. To echo what you're saying and I've meditated on this. We think as humans that if we do something good, it's perfect or very good. And it is good, but nothing is more perfect than the same. - I think we lost Joe for a second, Father, are you there? - Can you hear me? - God, I'm good, you. - Did you hear me, Joe? You got me? - He's better. - You got me, Joe? - Hey, I'm back, I'm back. - Okay, getting back to that, like the perfect offering is Christ on the cross. To the Father, and I've meditated on that. There's nothing that I do that's perfect. It's tainted, 'cause I do it. But God's offering as in Jesus to the Father is perfect. So it's the most pleasing thing we offer to God for what? Mercy for us, 'cause we need mercy. God should have wiped us out. To this day, I marvel at the mercy of God, not just for me, for the world. If it was me, I would squash everybody. I've had it, Father, I'll be honest with you. I've had it. I'll be honest, if I can move to the moon, I would. I've had it with everything. But God has mercy, and we offer the perfect sacrifice, the most pleasing thing, to your point, very important. But also, the person who brought that message, I recommend everybody to read Sister Faustina's diary. I've read it, and she had a fourth grade education. She's gonna become a doctor of the church. I'm gonna make that bold prediction. I am Joe Stradamus, by the way, and I promise. Rome has not come to me for that yet, but I'm offering it to Rome. She will become a doctor of the church, the fourth woman. Comment on that message, because I think it's huge. I think everyone should read that book. - Yeah, I say it's the third most important book in the church, the third most important book in the world. The first most important book is the scriptures. The second is the catechism. And I argue that the third is the divine mercy diary. And the reason for this, for my opinion, is that our Lord tells St. Faustina that she is to be his secretary to prepare the world for his second coming. And in the level of confusion, lack of catechases, failures and scandals in the church, God wants to give us his mercy, but are we willing to listen and hear him? And I have a fear that the confusion is only going to get worse. And despite how good or bad things go, it's still that our need for God's mercy, our need for him over ourselves in self-reliance. And, you know, the line at the bottom of the image says, "Jesus, I trust in you." And that divine mercy message helps elevate and increase faith and trust. - Father Ken Choracis joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe, spiritual warfare and divine mercy, a weapon of our times. It's out from 10 books. Father, I wanna ask you this. I'm Catholic because the church, as Christ did, holds us accountable. We're accountable, okay? And why do I say that? 'Cause I want your comments on this. Too much, I think too many people don't wanna be held accountable. And I'm gonna tell you a quick, very quick story. I opened the Bible at one time. This was just in my journey. I wasn't quite back practicing the faith again. And I opened it up to the lame man. And something that smacked me right in my face was when Jesus asked the lame man, he said, "Would you be made well?" And I thought to myself, "Why would Jesus ask this guy that?" Okay, because obviously, the guy's lame, doesn't he wanna be made well? But Jesus asks him, and I think that obviously a larger point, I'm gonna say that that encapsulates what's going on in the world. Do you want to be made well? I think there are more reasons people don't ask for divine mercy is because they don't think they need to be shown mercy for anything 'cause they don't think they're doing anything wrong. I'd love your comments on that, Father. - No, I think that's the exact situation we're dealing with is that historically you would have people saying, "Well, I don't want anyone to tell me how to live." Now people are just, "I'm gonna do what I want." They're not, there's zero capacity to hear, there's zero capacity to listen, and there's zero fear of God or sense of wrongdoing. You know, sin has a threefold of effect. It darkens the intellect, it weakens the will, and it inflames the passions. And when you look at these radical leftists on these college campuses, having absolute meltdowns because someone wore a t-shirt that hurt their feelings, and they're on the floor in the fetal position crying. I mean, that is a perfect extreme example of the darkness of the intellect, weakening of the will and inflamed passions. And so this is where we see Christ coming from the darkness. And people are shrouded in this darkness. Christ can come in with his peace and mercy, and in an instant, touch a soul that is so paralyzed in that kind of trinity of consequence, and bring them into the light, peace and love of our Savior. - Absolutely. Joe Rassinello, we got a couple minutes before the break. - Father, start this conversation because clearly you mentioned to be out of beatific vision. We don't get into heaven. I mean, everyone has these, you know, I'm from New Jersey. Everyone goes to heaven, by the way, in their mind. - I'm a good guy, I'm gonna happen. That's a New Jersey common thought. It's actually it's a common thought everywhere. But the beatific vision, we have to be perfect. That's why there's purgatory. But how does the novena of the Divine Mercy Chapplett work into this? We always do it. My wife and I, starting on Good Friday, ending on the Divine Mercy Sunday. How is that efficacious? And why should everybody look to do that? - So I'm gonna make a distinction between the novena of Divine Mercy and the feast of Divine Mercy. Because what happens on the feast of Divine Mercy sets you up for greater perfection than the novena. So the novena is that simple nine days set of prayers where each day we bring God a different group of people and we pray for them. So that's part of what we do is we gather in our mind we're bringing God all of these people and then then we pray the Chapplett for that category in the whole world. And then at the end of a novena, you have the opportunity for a plenary indulgence where under the four normal conditions, confession, communion, do the pious act and pray for the Pope, you receive a plenary indulgence for yourself or to give to a soul and purgatory. But on Divine Mercy Sunday, paragraph 699 of the diary describes something unique and special. There is a lot of confusion because people think that on Divine Mercy Sunday fulfilling these two requirements gives you a plenary indulgence. But it's not. It's a special extraordinary unique grace for the individual and the individual alone who does the pious act, meaning going to confession and receiving Holy Communion on Divine Mercy Sunday, whether it be Saturday night or Sunday during the day, you receive the total renewal of your baptismal graces, the annihilation of temper punishment due to sin and all personal sin. It's blotted out completely gone. It's as if you had been baptized for the first time that afternoon. So though the muscle memory and the behaviors may still reside in a certain condition in your person, the ledger that has the sin associated with it, purgatory time, things like that, is wiped away perfectly. If you die immediately after Holy Communion, like Saint John Paul the Great did, you will go straight to heaven. And so that's the power of Divine Mercy Sunday and what leads us to perfection and into the beatific vision. - Well, thanks for the distinction, Father. And how great is that? You know, it's like you were the servant that owes this huge debt to the king, okay? Like Joe said, who deserves to be saved? And he says, "Ah, I'll forgive you that debt because we asked, we begged." That's what we do in Divine Mercy. We plead with him to show mercy on us. And again, it goes back to our point. And the reason why Joe and I do the show is to fight against those who think that humanity is just so good that we just don't do anything wrong and we don't need to be shown mercy. Father, real quick, we're gonna come back after a break. Where could our audience members buy the book aside from Tan Books? - Check out tanbooks.com. It should be on the front page. Amazon.com is another place to get it. It's actually selling through Tan's storefront, but of course, Amazon gets a cut of that profit. So great, great resources. Amazon.com, tan.com, spiritual warfare in Divine Mercy. Please check it out. - All right, and if you have to buy it from Amazon, go ahead but try to support the publishers. Buy it from Tan Books. Father Ken Jarese is joining us here at the Frontline with Joe and Joe. The book, once again, spiritual warfare in Divine Mercy, a weapon of our times. So we'll be right back. We have another great segment for Father Ken. - Catholic Radio Works. And now we have it here in Connecticut and New York. It's been seen around the country that there's no better tool for evangelization. Where there's Catholic Radio, the folks who listen deep in their faith, families are strengthened, perishes and communities flourish. So, let people know you're listening to Veritas, tell your friends to tune in, and let's make an impact here for Jesus and his church. This is Steve Lee for Veritas Catholic Network. - Welcome back everyone to the Frontline with Joe and Joe. Joe Piscilla and Joe Ressinello. We are way, way, way in the breach. We're Father Ken Jouracey and we're discussing his new book, Spiritual Warfare and Divine Mercy, a weapon of our times. Please buy it for, you can buy it from Amazon. We've encouraged you all to buy it from 10 books so we can support our publishers. And try to encourage your Catholic bookstores and your parishes to order the book and have it in the bookstore. And then we can go and buy it from the Catholic bookstore and support them also. Joe Ressinello. - Father, there's no coincidence is when it comes to God. And I want to circle back to what you were talking about on the other side of the break regarding the, you know, getting rid of all temporal punishment as a result of doing those two things which you noted, receiving Holy Communion and going to confession on Divine Mercy Sunday. That book, The Diary of Faustina, I believe is a message to the world. This is me, again, I'm just a nobody and I'm just, you know, sharing my thoughts. But I believe God clearly hopes for everyone to go to heaven. There is a legitimate hope for all souls that they will go to heaven. That's God's love for humanity, his creation. And we're sinners and we've gone astray clearly, the world to, you know, for since the beginning of time and God reaches a hand constantly and that book is a prophetic message in the darkness. But I think it's very important that it's happening now. Why now? Why in the 20th century did this nun who came from nowhere basically gives this message? And then we have a pope that had a year of mercy if you went through the portal of a designated church there were graces that were given. This is an important message for people to really resonate with if you ask me because I'll be honest with you. It's pretty dark out there. We can't even get basic things right like boys and girls. I mean, like this is like some crazy stuff going on and God's like, listen, I'm offering you an out and the out is my mercy because the time is running short. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, this is just three guys talking but I actually think that it's prophetic that message for the now. - Yeah, it goes back to what our Lord told Faustina and that this is a message for the end times. Now, the end times could have, it could have Jesus to come back this afternoon. We could hear a trumpet in the middle of this video conference right now and the second coming could happen. Or it could be prolonged and delayed 10 years, 20, a hundred, a thousand years, right? But the turbulence that will take place in the end times is listed very clearly in scripture and also in the catechism of the Catholic church. The catechism of the Catholic church, paragraph 675 through 77 says in the end times the church will go through a great apostasy where we will turn away from the gospel of Jesus Christ and turn towards mankind for an apparent solution to our problems. And it says that at the end of 676, the church rejects the most perverse form of this which is political messianism, meaning that we turn towards the government for the apparent solution to our problems. Now, when I look at the whole COVID crisis, everyone was turning to the government for everything. You couldn't do anything without the government raising its golden scepter to you, granting or denying your request. Civil liberties are gone, our freedoms are gone, free speech is gone, you know, everything is being censored around every corner. So when we look at this reality, we can read the signs of the time that things we are entering into that great turbulence and it will only become more turbulent the further we get in this. And so if you wanna lifeline, if you wanna be able to persevere and maintain peace amongst all of these problems and we are going to have problems, God's mercy is the only way to maintain peace. Worldly things fade away, they never satisfy. It's only God's love and mercy that can satisfy and purify us. Let me make one more point on that. - At least, if you think about a business going at a store going out of business, right? When a store says I'm going out of business, they put a sign up, it says 20% off everything, the first couple of weeks. Then it goes to 30%, then 60% off. But right before the store closes, there's a sign on the side of the door, it says no reasonable offer will be refused. And I feel that where we're at in salvation history, we're so confused. Listen, people come to me and say, "Can I go to this type of wedding or that type of event?" And I said, "Listen, does it fit with our Catholic faith?" They say, "No." I said, "Well, then you can't go." They go down the road and ask another priest, the priest says, "No, you should go to evangelize." You know, there is this whole mess messed up stinking thinking in our heads that we can be worldly and still be Christian. God says you can't love both, right? You cannot serve two masters. So with all of the confusion going on, we have to recognize that our Lord is giving us that one last opportunity to turn towards Him before it's too late. - Yeah, Father, can't you raise the trigger to throw it in my mind? So if you look at history, okay? So you could say that obviously we talked about it earlier about Catechism 409, where you look at all of history as a spiritual battle and it comes in different forms. But I think sometime around the turn of the 19th century, I think it was Pope Pius the 10th, said, "Modernism is the synthesis of all heresies." Now fast forward to today all these modernists and modern thinking and progressivism and blah, blah, blah, which is all a lot of garbage, okay? Let's come on, let's be real about it. It's because it's all come together, as the Pope said, in the synthesis of all heresies, it seems like the onslaught is a bit more difficult now than it's been in prior times, because like Joe said earlier, 100, 200 years ago, you would never say a boy could be a girl and a girl could be a boy and two men could get married and all that stuff. But now that's all on our shoulders now. I remember saying to my wife a couple of years ago, I said, "Look, I don't know if we're living in the end times. "I know this though, if Jesus showed up tomorrow, "I ain't gonna be shocked. "I'm not gonna pretend that I'm not shocked. "And we have to be prepared for that." And yeah, sometimes it takes a little doing, Father, they like to say, "Look, the church is in your enemy. "The church is here to help you, all right, "to get to heaven, all right, "and has a lot of weapons to do so. "Don't make the world your friend, "use the weapons of the church." So we're talking about the fine mercy with Father Ken's, the mercy, what are some of the other weapons that the church offers, Father? - Well, mainly the sacraments. I mean, I think if we look at the power of the sacraments, a priest friend and I were talking recently, and we were talking about giving advice in the confessional, and we both are of the mindset that kind of 85, 90% of the time, I almost never give advice. I just want to grant absolution to that individual and trust in the power of absolution. See, most people don't realize that when you go to confession, it is Christ in the person of the priest. And when I say I absolve you from your sins and make that sign of the cross, it's as if my fingers are a scalpel cutting through time and space back to that single moment where Christ is on the cross as that blood and water is being shed, the grace of our redemption is flowing. And it's as if you're the only person who lives and the graces of Calvary flow upon you. And so I know sometimes people need advice. They need some coaching a little bit, point out a couple of things that they might not be aware of to help them, you know, overcome us in or deal with the situation. There's room for that. But at the end of the day, they're coming to receive God's grace and mercy and the little comments that I can make, most people don't remember any of it. So I trust in the power of the sacrament, receiving the Eucharist, staying close to Christ, a life of virtue. You know, this is something that Catholics, when you start talking about virtue, there is no faster way to get someone to unsubscribe from your channel because it doesn't engage them. They don't feel that there's an immediate value in the conversation of seeking virtue. But at the end of the day, this is what we're called to strive towards. And for us to take that seriously to investigate the virtues will give us a break. I mean, I mean, just an express elevator to a life of holiness. - Joe Russell, now, let me stay there for a second if you don't mind, okay. You mentioned virtue, Father Ken Jurese, joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe. So virtue, correct me if I'm wrong, is Latin, virtus, meaning man, am I right? Am I or am I wrong? Okay. - You're close, yeah. - So we got that one right. Joe and I were encouraged by a good Franciscan priest, Franciscan friar, the renewal to do this show starting back in 2018 to encourage other men. I heard, the reason why this thought popped in my head, 'cause of what you just said, people hear about leading a virtuous life, okay. Boom, click off. I don't wanna hear about that. Well, then you're not listening to one of the problems which is, right now we have a lot, we do, not because, again, I wanna make sure I phrased this properly, we're lacking that quality that makes strong men want to get out there into the breach and fight. And we weren't encouraged to do this so that we could get out there and encourage men. Yes, Joe's not perfect, I'm not perfect, nor is Father Kenza-Racie. None of us are perfect, but we're trying, darn it. We're trying, we're in the breach, we're fighting. Talk about the need for men to strengthen other men for good Catholic men to start picking up their brothers and getting them into this fight, getting them into this spiritual battle. - You know, we all know when you go to the churches, they're filled with women who are pious and say their prayers and they're wonderful. And the doubly is terrified of some of them, but what the devil is the most terrified of is a man to square his shoulders, step up and take his spiritual responsibility seriously. That makes hell tremble. And the problem is, is that most men have this mentality that no, a prayer, that's a woman thing, that's my wife's job. You know, let the wife teach the kids, you know, let them let her, she's better at prayer, let her lead it. Man, you know, all the men listening, ladies, you turn your ears off, your ear muffs for the women for a second, 'cause I'm talking to men right now. Guys, you've got to square your shoulder and start leading your family. And you may not be comfortable praying, good, good, be uncomfortable. That's, you think I was comfortable as a priest? Man, I had no idea what I was doing, but you've got to figure it out. You know, if you just lead your family, go to your wife tonight, take her hand and say, Lord, I thank you for my wife. I thank you for the gift that she is to me. I thank you for the mother that she is to my, my children. And then pray one, our father, one Hail Mary and one glory be with her. Men, I guarantee if you just do that, thank God for your wife. Ask for the graces she needs to be a wife and mother. And then say, in our father, Hail Mary, glory be, it will take the, the all levels of intimacy in your marriage to a level you have never possibly imagined. The emotional intimacy, the spiritual intimacy, you are gonna feel, she's gonna feel loved and nourished more than ever before. And so it's for us to be the spiritual heads of the household to lead. And that's key. - You're fine, I'm gonna hand it over to Joe, but one thing you said, and I wanna emphasize this to men, don't wait for all the likes to be green before you get behind the wheel of the car, 'cause it's not gonna happen. It's not realistic. And one thing that you said, Father, that stuck with me, pray to our father, to Hail Mary, to glory be. Don't worry about the rosary right now. God will give you the grace to expand your prayer life. But if you're not praying, at least start with that. Just start now, don't worry. God's in control, if you show him that much, he'll bring you along that much more. And that's my personal testimony, 'cause I used to pray those three prayers, prayers with the 23rd Psalm when it was at a very low point in my life, and God did not abandon me, and leave me there. Joe Restonello. - Father, we're talking about spiritual warfare. We talked about the efficacy of the chaplain, and I wanna piggyback off what you were just saying. I think a lot of guys, and women also, in our society, Western society, successful people, people who have things, have money, comfort, they don't think they need God. A lot of people view life that way. Look at what they do with their time. Look at what they do with their kids. What's the priority? I want my kid to go to an Ivy League school. I want my kid to be successful. We see this in our Catholic schools. I went to a Catholic school. I went to a Catholic graduate school. This is, in many cases, why parents send their kids to those schools? It's not to become a saint, it's to become successful. I want my kid to be a football player. I want my kid to be a basketball player. What do you gear? How are we gearing our kids? Now, let me circle it back to spiritual warfare. Ultimately, the devil is smarter than you. I don't care if you went to MIT. I don't care if you speak 10 ancient languages. I don't care how much money you have in the bank. He knows your weaknesses. He's smarter than you. And ultimately, when we don't have the armor of God, which is received through the grace of God through a sacramental life, prayer life, fasting, all those things that we are asked to do, which we need to do to have a successful and fruitful life, the devil is going to cut you down. He is going to get into your house. He is going to destroy your marriage. Even if you stay married, he is going to take your joy. He is going to attack your children. He is going to work day and night to destroy you, and he's smarter than you. People don't think that. If you say that, they think you're crazy. No. And I'm saying-- - Well, you are kind of crazy. - Oh, I am crazy. But what I would say is this. If you think what I'm saying is wrong, look out your window in your fancy town. How is everyone doing? They're not doing well. Talk about that because you come from a successful circle. You've seen it. I see it. And frankly, you don't even have to come from a successful circle to see it. That's what people think. I don't need God. Really? How's it working? - I work with an orphanage in Haiti, a group called Haiti180, Haiti180. And a phenomenal orphanage out there, they don't adopt children out. They just raise Haitian citizens to help to change the culture from within. And I never realized, I knew it, but until you see what true poverty is, you don't understand how good we have it. And you're right. Americans specifically rarely feel a need for God unless there's a crisis in their life. We forget that every breath we take is in effect a gift from God. And so we never think about in our day, will I eat today? No, rather we think, what will I eat today? And so there is this reality with the comfort of the world that we find ourselves becoming more and more and more imprisoned. This is why suicide rates are through the roof. This is why psychological disorders are skyrocketing. You know, this is why the global dominoism is taking place. There was this line in this movie, I believe the movie was fireproof. I think that was the movie. And there's a scene in there with this guy, he's rich and he's sitting there with his mother who is, she's got all his timer and dementia and she doesn't even recognize him. And he's ridiculing her saying, you know, you had faith in God your whole life and look the way your God has rewarded you. You're drilling on yourself and you don't even recognizing who your children are. And she begins to prophesy and she says, the devil will make your prison cell very, very comfortable. He will leave the door wide open. He allows you to walk in and out of this beautiful, luxurious prison cell. But then one day he slams the door and locks it. And all the material things in that cell will one day decay over time. And you will be left as a rotten corpse amongst the dead. And that's the reality that we face is that these things of the world are transitory, they're passing. My spiritual director always says, you do not build your house on a bridge. Father Ken's race, let me ask you this. Too many people, you mentioned political messianism before, right? Talk about the need, again, we're talking about spiritual warfare. People think that the problem all come from the political left. I will say many of them do. Okay, yes, left is gone completely insane or has just embraced incredible levels of evil. But talk about the mistake that people make. Where again, you mentioned materialism that just because we know Marxism, communism is antithetical to the Catholic faith. But we also have to be careful with other materialist views of history. Like when we looked when we put our trust in, let's say, and we almost make an idol out of capitalism. We're a capitalist country, we believe in free markets. But that's a danger also. One makes an idol out of the state, the other makes an idol out of markets. And at the end of the day, you're still making an idol out of something that you should not be worshiping. I mean, tell me if you agree with that, because I think that, oh, I'm into freedom. I'm not a communist and I believe in free markets. And I'm going straight to heaven 'cause I, you know, I vote the right way and blah, blah, blah. Talk about that really terrible mistake that people make. - Well, people don't realize how big of a slave we are. I mean, Americans are effectively free-range chickens. We don't need freedom. I mean, 99% of us are dependent on a grocery store system. We're dependent on the logistics and supply chain system that exists, that gets food to our markets. You know, in New York City, if trucks don't, if the bridges were shut down around New York City, there's effectively three days worth of food before all of New York City runs out. You know, you look at how we're a slave to the internet. We're a slave to technology. Most people couldn't find their way out of their driveway without Google Maps or Apple Maps. You know, so we are enslaved deeper and deeper and deeper. We have no idea how entrenched we are in this web. You know, you always remember as a kid, they showed the little, you know, the moth fly into the spider's web. And the spider doesn't immediately go and get it. It lets that thing flail around, flail around until it wears itself out and gets more and more entrenched and stuck in that web. And then it finally goes in for the kill. So this is where we're at if we lack the self-awareness and lack a wider vision, a peripheral vision, of the evils that were entrenched and how deep we are in this. There's no way out of it. And there's no way we can't all start growing our own food in the backyard, we're not, I mean, even though I encourage it. They say chickens are a gateway drug to that kind of stuff, but they digress. But when you look at this reality of where we're at and the enslavement that we already find ourselves in, the freedom is very, very minimal. And people may not be making global idols out of things, worshiping their cell phone, but take it away from them. Can they function without it? And again, if you have a dependency and undue dependency on something, it's a real issue to be examined. - Well, it's a common theme, Father Ken's racing on our show, that those who would sell you, quote unquote, freedom are your slave masters. And the ones that they tell you is your slave master, which is Jesus, he's the one who frees you. I mean, I know it's paradoxical, but that's the truth. You want somebody, like you said, the devil will give you everything. You just think he's a great guy, all right? Until he locks that door, then it's too late. And that's how people end up broken like that person you mentioned earlier who's in the fetal position 'cause they can't, they can't even hear a thought without their brains exploding. That's the world we live in. I'm glad you said that, Joe Ressinolo. - Father, talk about the image of the vine mercy being placed on the outside of a door. During COVID, my wife and I, we put that image on our door and outside on the back door as well. Actually, your buddy Chris Aylar told us to do it. And I did, I listened to him. So, and frankly, what's it called? Talk about that, the efficacy of that because there is efficacy in doing that. - Yeah, well, first of all, Chris Aylar is a great, Father Aylar is a great man. He, we were classmates together. So I think the world of him, that is an amazing piece of advice to give. You know, our Lord said in the diary that I am giving mankind a place to go which is the font of mercy. Now, before I read the diary, if you were to ask me where is the font of mercy, I would either say the Eucharist or the sacrament of confession. But our Lord says the font of mercy, which I will give mankind to continually to come to, to receive graces is this image with the signature Jesus I trust in you. So when we look at this, we see the divine mercy image as an icon, so to speak, as a window into the reality it represents. And so when you sit before a divine mercy image, the graces that flow from the Eucharist, the graces that flow from Calvary flow through that image over you, your place, your environment. And so placing a divine mercy image on the front of your home is a way to just allow to flood your property, your place, all of your things to basically say, evil, Satan, disorder, sickness, illness, you are not welcome here in the blood of Jesus Christ. And by the power of his mercy, be gone. - Yeah, I mean, that's, I will say, that's one of the things we got to be aware of, Father, in the last couple of minutes. Talk about the need to be, I mean, Peter says be sober, be diligent, be the enemy, the devil roars around the world like a lion looking to devour you. Talk about the need, okay, we only have a couple of minutes left. And talk about the need to make sure, you mentioned putting Joe mentioned, and you mentioned putting the divine mercy image on the house, but maybe some practical things we could tell Catholic man out there or any other man listening out there. So don't take for granted because you think you're protecting your house, whether it be the television cell phone, talk about a few of the ways that we could practically speaking, keep that stuff out. - Well, you know, how do you get possessed? You open the window of your soul to the devil and invite him in, right? That's how a person gets possessed. So how do you attract obsession, oppression, infestation, diabolic activity into your home? Will you open those windows, whether it be through the internet, through your television, through what you're watching? And so again, we need regular housekeeping, spiritual housekeeping. So that means blessing your home with holy water. That means praying the divine mercy tablet for the sanctification of the home to drive out any evil spirits that might have come in. One way to do this is dedicate one decade of your tablet or men as a head of the household. You can do this when no one is looking. You can just pray one single decade, one eternal father, 10 times for the sake of a sorrowful passion. You pray that in your home for the purification and sanctification of the spiritual element of it, you're gonna change the vibe of your house forever. - Hey, one of these you could do to spend some time at home is you could shut off the TV, put down the cell phone, go out by Father Kendra AC's book, Spiritual Warfare and the Divine Mercy, a weapon of our times. Please buy that from 10 books. Father, we got about a minute left. I would love for you to give our audience maybe some words of final encouragement and maybe some final thoughts you'd like to leave with us. - Yeah, I wanna encourage everyone just to get the book. I think, you know, it's written on a very attainable level. I'm not Scott Han, I'm not Father Chad Rippinger. I mean, these people are super dark, smart, they're brilliant people. I'm dyslexic. I got ADHD, one of my best friends says that guy can barely spell book what he wrote too. So it's written for the everyday guy or girl, right? A 14 year old can enjoy this all the way up to an 80 year old. So it's very obtainable, but it's going to increase your faith, capacity and power in prayer. And this is what I want. This is why it's written is to help us fight this battle, not only for ourselves, but for our loved ones, for the world, we just need warriors out there. And this is going to help get you in the fight, get you stronger. - Well, Father Kenchiresi, one thing I will say is this, in all the prayers, and I've been praying as Joe, the Divine Mercy for quite some time, thank God for my wife, introduced me to it along with the, you know, praying the rosary is the one great consequence. And again, we're talking about spiritual warfare. The one great consequence or one of the greatest consequences of praying is your eyes are wide open, very hard to deceive someone who is in, who leads that prayerful, sacramental life. Not saying we can't get beaten up and bruised along the way, but at least our eyes are open. We see what's coming. You know what I'm saying, Father? - Amen to that. - Amen to that and amen to you coming on the show. We love having you here. Father Jaresis, this was your first time on the show. I think needless to say, you're welcome back here any time. - Joe, Joe, thank you guys so much. Appreciate you guys. - Absolutely. And yeah, so we'll definitely keep the line of communication open. We'll find something to get in trouble over and we'll get, we'll mix it up again for Veritas Catholic Network and social media. So thanks once again to Father Ken Jarese. Thank you all out there for joining us here at the Frontline with Joe and Joe on the Veritas Catholic Radio Network, 1350 on your AM dial, 103.99, your FM dial, spreading the truth of the Catholic faith of the New York City metropolitan area. Download the app, share it with your friends. You'll have access to all of our station's content. Follow Joe and I on social media. Help us out on Rumble, Twitter primarily, but we are on YouTube and Facebook. Father, are you on social media at all? - FathersofMercy.com, everything. So fathersofmercy.com, YouTube Fathers of Mercy, Instagram Father of Mercy. - Awesome, thanks for that, Father. And thank you all out there again. And remember, until the next time that our conversation is your conversation and that conversation is going on everywhere. Talk to you soon. (upbeat music) (whooshing)
