Father and Joe

On the feast of All Saints, Joe Rockey noticed something simple hiding in plain sight: every saint, across wildly different lives and eras, got there the same way — not through raw talent, but through a choice, exercised like a muscle, to practice virtue. Father Boniface Hicks takes that observation somewhere deeper: the real starting point isn't effort at all, it's letting yourself be loved by God first — and that's harder than it sounds.Key Ideas:No saint was born with a "super-abundance" of courage or humility any more than a home-run hitter is born swinging a bat — virtue is built the same way any skill is, through repeated, conscientious choice.What every saint actually has in common is that they let God love them, even while feeling inadequate or sinful — that received love, not willpower, is the real origin of grace and the fuel for everything virtue builds afterward.Letting yourself be loved is harder than it sounds: feeling unworthy of love and feeling self-sufficient are opposite-looking barriers that both block it, and both require the same vulnerability and trust to get past.Virtue becomes a genuinely upward spiral — the more you do good, the more it's your nature to do good, the more you enjoy doing it — but accustoming yourself to love can tip into entitlement if gratitude for it as a gift isn't actively sustained.Living in "the logic of the gift" (a concept from John Paul II's Theology of the Body) means both giving yourself away to others and letting others' love, attention, and sacrifice actually land on you — and doing good this way doesn't guarantee outcomes will look the way you planned, but that doesn't make the choice wrong.Links & References: None explicitly referenced with a clear official/source link in this episode.If this helped, please leave a review or share this episode with a friend. Questions or thoughts? Email [email protected]: Hello and welcome to another episode of Father and Joe. I'm Joe Rockey here with Father Boniface Hicks. And Father, as we record this, the last Mass of the weekend was All Saints Day. And as I was listening and thinking during that Mass, something really kind of came upon me. And that was that while all of these saints lived different lives, inherently in different times, they all made a choice, and that choice was to exercise at least one virtue, right? Because you have to be heroic and have a virtue very well established. And no one in life is born with a super-abundance of anything — courage, humility, etc. You have to strive and make choices to exercise those, become better. It's just like any other muscle, like any other profession. No one wakes up and day one goes, well, this could be the greatest hitting, home-run all-star of all time — no, he's going to spend some time in the batting cages, and play baseball a lot. And the same is true with each one of these saints, making choices, and then in some cases we see some very extraordinary outcomes come out of it. But it all started with them making a conscientious effort to exercise a virtue and draw closer to God.And that power that each individual has, I don't think we talk about enough. And given the fact that this show is all about the relationship you have with yourself, the relationship you have with others, and the relationship you have with God, exercising virtues helps with all three of those types of relationships. And that's why I want to show each person why this is worth it. And it's not just something, "Oh, I get the benefit after I'm dead" — no, you get the benefit now, today, and so does everyone around you. So with that being said, Father, I want to leave the floor to you, talking about how choosing to exercise virtue is really worthwhile.Yeah, that's right. And your point that we all have to work at it — so we have to make the decision to work at it. We certainly may have certain natural talents, that have a capacity for growth, some of us more than others in different areas. There was probably never going to be possible for me to hit home runs — but who knows, maybe things could have gone differently for me. But certainly, beyond some natural talent, everybody needs to develop it. And all of us have a certain natural talent for being good, let's say. That's really what the focus of virtue is — different ways of being good, knowing the good, recognizing it, and then choosing it for the sake of others, prudence, justice, and then doing that when it takes some effort, with fortitude, and also when there are other sort of self-seeking things that could draw us away from it, we need temperance, and all of the sub-virtues around all of those things. But the point is, we all have a supernatural capacity to do good, and when we really work at developing the habits of doing good, then that can really grow to a heroic degree. And it can grow that much because God is actually at work in us. Each of us, by baptism, have the Holy Spirit alive in us, and the Holy Spirit is pressing in the direction of doing good in a heroic degree, of giving us the very qualities of Jesus himself, of the God-man, to come alive in each one of us. And so it's not just a matter of pushing ourselves harder to achieve something that is within our own power, but rather we're allowing the Holy Spirit to bring about what he is trying to bring about — namely, that we be divinized, that we be made holy, that we be made more like Christ in our capacity to do good.So, but as you said, it takes work, it takes perseverance, and part of that work is recognizing when we're failing at it, and we turn our hearts back to him through repentance and confession, and we have the opportunity to begin again. We're always in that position, and we continue to set out towards the highest ideal, to strive for a life that we wouldn't want to escape from, but rather that we love to live in. And that's one of the consequences of virtue, as you said, Joe — it's not just a matter of pushing hard so that you get the reward and get into heaven, but the very work now sets us free. And the freedom of the holy ones, the freedom of the virtuous, to do good — which is actually what we're made for — and so we feel most fulfilled when we're able to do good, the joy of it, it feels good to do good. And so then we have a fulfilling life, a life that we love to live, that we love to be in, not just sort of getting through it until we're out of it — it feels good to be able to bless people, to love people in particular ways. And the more virtue we have, the more freely we can do that, the more generously and effectively we can do that, the more we see the results of that, the more we enjoy being able to do good. Anyway, it's a virtuous cycle — it builds on itself, the more you do it, the better it gets, the better it gets, the more you do it. And that cycle, that upward-moving cycle, is the cycle of holiness.So, coming back to what you said about the feast of All Saints — I mean, the thing that they have in common is they let God love them. First of all, that's really the origin of grace, and that grace is the most powerful transforming effect in terms of virtue. They let God love them, even when they felt inadequate, unworthy, when they knew that they were sinners, limited — they let God love them. And then they used that love — they responded to that love by extending what they had to others, starting with whatever little they could do. And then the more that they did a little, the more that a little became a lot, and that a lot is what we see in them and honor in them. But, you know, it took a process to get there.And I think that that's one of the important things — we use that word "grace" all the time, but we never really talk about how it actually works. It's one of these things where people can be like, well, those Catholics talk about all kinds of stuff, but how does it actually apply to your life? How does it actually function? And you gave the answer — you have to allow God's love to enter into you. You have to allow period love to enter into you. And that transformation, from someone who's not in a state of doing that, to allowing that, is radical beyond measure. And I think that that is something that is really worth contemplating and spending time upon, more than just saying it as, okay, that's a given fact, now let's go talk about the next thing — but actually spending time on essentially a prerequisite of the faith.Yeah. Letting ourselves be loved — we could ask the question, it sounds like, well, who wouldn't want that? Well, yeah, that's a good question — how well do you let yourself be loved? And we can imagine a few reasons why that becomes difficult. When we feel unworthy of love, perhaps we know what we've done wrong, and we don't feel like anybody would love us. And that could be borne out by people treating us badly on top of it, and so we start to feel like that's what we deserve. That's a certain vicious cycle — because I don't feel lovable, so I shut myself off to love, and then by shutting myself off to love, I don't feel lovable. And so that spirals downward, and needs something to break into it.Sometimes we don't let ourselves be loved because we feel somehow beyond that — we feel kind of self-sufficient, and we feel like, I don't know, the master of the universe or something like that, and I can do everything without anyone. And so there's a kind of pride or arrogance that can separate us from love, can put up a barrier there — I don't want any help, I don't want to be indebted to anyone, I don't want to lower myself to let somebody else do something for me. And that resistance to indebtedness can be a real detriment...

Building on last episode's real estate cliffhanger, Joe Rockey and Father Boniface Hicks zoom out to the bigger claim underneath it: that the Church has something true to say inside every industry, not just the ones with "church" in the name. The conversation runs through the embryonic-versus-adult stem cell story as living proof of ethical boundaries paying off decades later, then lands on what might be the most practical idea in the episode — the "twinge," the gut-level moral intuition every person has and AI simply doesn't.Key Ideas:Every industry — AI, accounting, nonprofit work, medicine — ultimately reduces to relationships, and relationships are exactly the terrain the Church has the deepest, oldest body of tested wisdom on, independent of whether someone brings faith to the table or just reason.The stem cell story is the clearest proof point: the Church held the ethical line against embryonic stem cell research (which required destroying a human embryo) even while the science looked unstoppable — and adult, then reverse-engineered pluripotent, stem cells ended up outperforming it anyway, without the moral cost."Now is the most important second ever" is a pressure marketing and human nature both apply — but major decisions call for patience with the process, not grabbing the bird in hand because the deadline feels urgent.There are two different "twinges" worth telling apart: a prudential twinge (this isn't going to produce as good an outcome as it could) and a conscience twinge (this is actually wrong) — and sorting out which one you're feeling, ideally with a priest or someone outside your own head, is the actual skill.AI runs purely on reason and the rules it's given — it has no conscience, no "elephant" (borrowing Jonathan Haidt's image of intuition as the elephant and reason as its small rider) telling it something is unconscionable before any rule says so. That gap is also why Father Boniface thinks the Church's teaching on AI and the human person may be as urgent now as its teaching on the human body was for John Paul II's generation.Links & References: None explicitly referenced with a clear official/source link in this episode.If this helped, please leave a review or share this episode with a friend. Questions or thoughts? Email [email protected]: Hello and welcome to another episode of Father and Joe. I am Joe Rockey here with Father Boniface Hicks. And Father, I think we hit upon something that was really important in the last episode. Don't have to re-go through everything that my business was on the micro level, but on the macro level, you talked about how there are divides that people put up that say, this is your category — you're the church guy, I talk to you for confession and baptism, you're the banker, I talk to you on any money, you're this, you're that, I talk to you whenever you do that.And as an overarching thing, what I think that I have found — and this is simultaneously life and business observations — is that when that situation occurs, regardless of what it is, you know, you're the AI company, you figure out how to give me the answers I want to have, I will figure out this, that, or the other, you know, I'm the one who makes sure the economics work — anytime there's that type of industrial compartmentalization, normally the best answers, even within the peak of that expertise, can be influenced and enhanced from someone else's. And that's one of the things that I really believe in — that someone who's really good at accounting can give insight to an AI company and go, if you would just do it this way, you'd have a better result, something could work better. Or for a nonprofit that only works with taking care of blood research, hearing a different perspective, a different way of running something, really can help it enhance. And it goes, in my opinion, as deep as that industry does — which is the calling for, quote-unquote, your industry, Father, because the faith is the deepest wealth of information, experiences, testing, et cetera, that you could ever possibly want. Yes, they might not have developed the Pythagorean theorem — I don't even know if I said that right — for geometry or engineering, but everything that all of our industries do, regardless of what they are, boils down into a relationship, in one way or another — you're selling something, you're providing a service, or you're hiring someone — all of those eventually include relationships, and therefore your industry needs this connection. And I want to point out that starting point, that learning from the church is much more important in the macro, other parts of your business. It's why I did the last episode that we did, it's why I have found so much growth in my business, implementing things that you have taught me. And I want to give the floor to that point.Yeah, one way to say it is that the church, in her teaching, so in her perfection, is an expert in humanity. And of course humanity is involved in all of these things — that's the ultimate takeaway from these things, you can raise money, I suppose, in a vacuum, but not sure what that does for you. So humanity is integral to everything, and the pathways for the thriving of humanity, at the level of the individual as well as the level of the family, which is the building block for society — the church, in her philosophy, which would be accessible to everybody without the additional light of faith, but through reason unaided by faith, the church understands in her philosophy, which is always purified and perfected by the light of faith. And so that deep understanding is there, the principles and history are there — we've drawn so many times from the Church Fathers, or the elements of Greek philosophy that were brought in by the Church Fathers, or the doctors of the church, like Saint Thomas Aquinas, or more recent philosophers and theologians, like John Paul II or Edith Stein. In any event, the church has held as treasures this font of wisdom that comes ultimately from God, that comes through the divinely inspired Scriptures, and ultimately the word made flesh, and is entrusted to the hierarchy of the church, or teaching office, and then comes to us through a variety of means.So that's kind of what we're tapping into — that's going to be the ethical realm, in terms of perhaps what not to do, where the boundaries are, that if you cross these boundaries, they're going to be problematic. And that's also going to be in the personal realm — what leads to the thriving of the human person, and what does that person need. We've talked about emotions and virtues, the habits of success, and the goals that we're striving for, that lead to our thriving. So that's going to be a necessary element of everything else. And so the church has something to say about everything, in that sense — what is the best business practice, what is the perfect governmental model? There's prudential judgment, and there are different times and places for that, and there are other experts who work that out, but the church will say, well, it's not going to be over here. And I love the example of stem cell research, in which there was initially a lot of hope around embryonic stem cells, which require the destruction of a human person, a fetus, to extract those embryonic stem cells — and the dream was, well, they can turn into anything, and so they could reproduce any kind of organ or human tissue. And the church said, no, you can't ever destroy a human being, however young, for any reason, you can't do it. And there was a lot of fighting against that, and the scientific community talked about how limited things are, you know, the church has this role and just goes against it....

Joe Rockey brings a live, unresolved situation to Father Boniface Hicks — a rental property sale that was supposed to close today, a buyer who stopped answering the phone with no explanation, and three live options sitting on the table. Rather than wait to tell the story after it's resolved, Joe thinks it through out loud with Father Boniface in real time, and the two work through what the Church actually has to offer a business decision like this: not the "how" of the deal, but the ethical "why" underneath it.Key Ideas:- Business, science, AI, and governance all get boxed out of the Church's input under a misreading of "separation of church and state" — but the Church's real contribution isn't the business details, it's the realm of ethics those details have to operate inside.- Implicit agreements carry real relational weight even without a signed document — Joe had already lived past the original closing date once as a reasonable extension, which clarified what he actually owed the other side versus what he didn't.- Hard moral boundaries (don't lie, don't violate confidences, don't act unjustly) come first; everything past that is prudential judgment — the most reasonable path given practical reason, relational knowledge, and openness to the Holy Spirit's guidance.- Strong emotion — anger, anxiety, hurt — is exactly the state that clouds prudential judgment and triggers fight-or-flight defenses, which is why talking it through out loud, and praying it through, matters before acting.- Whatever choice gets made, you live with it afterward — so the goal isn't a perfect decision, it's a reasonable one made from a clear head instead of a wounded one.Links & References: None explicitly referenced with a clear official/source link in this episode.If this helped, please leave a review or share this episode with a friend.Questions or thoughts? Email [email protected]:Hello and welcome to another episode of Father and Joe. I am Joe Rockey here with Father Boniface Hicks. And Father, this is going to be one of those episodes where I bring something that's very real in my life, that's going on pretty much as we speak, to get guidance in the middle of — I think the first time we did this was the snowplow story that you actually referenced a couple weeks ago.So what is happening is I have a rental property, which in and of itself has a lot of moving parts. You've got a tenant who is your typical tenant — most of the time things are good, but when things are bad, they're the most annoying thing in the world, because you're a landlord, and that's the way landlords view all tenants: good or bad or ugly, that's reality. Because they don't want to deal with this — it only ends up being more expensive, and they only talk to the tenants for one of two reasons, and they're both bad: either something's broken with the house, or there's something broken with the tenant, meaning they're not paying. So in general, when a landlord has to re-engage with a tenant, not awesome. So when I have one that's very good, I don't want to mess with — I don't like rocking the boat.However, like many other landlords, I get things in the mail that say, "Hey, I'll buy your house for this price," and I finally got one where it's like, oh, that's a number I actually would consider selling it for. Let's go forward with this company and do that. And I do — I go through the whole nine yards, I vet them, I talk to them, blah blah blah, and the long story short, I wanted to make sure that the company that's buying it is actually going to do the closing, that they're not dependent upon finding another buyer on top of them to be able to make this happen. So that's what they claim — they claim they fit all the boxes. And here we are, literally today, as we're recording this, we were supposed to close this. Until this point, they were always immaculate at picking up the phone, responding, et cetera. And it wasn't even them — it was the closing agent they hired who told me yesterday, "Oh, by the way, we're not closing tomorrow" — no explanation why or anything like that.Now, me knowing things — and arguably the closing agent messing up — I now know who they are selling it to, the amount that they're selling it for, et cetera. So I'm sitting here with a couple of different options in my world. I could either: A, just eat the fact that I built this entire day and other businesses around clearing out today, that they did not close on because of some fault that was not mine, and I could just eat that and move on — they'll tell me a new closing day. I could be just give them a deadline — we're closing by X time, either you're doing this or not, I know you're going to make money, so do it. Or, see, now that I know who the buyer is and how much he's buying it for, I could cut them out altogether. I see these three options before me. My mind is weighing all three of them. I have a leaning towards one, but I don't think I'm going to share that, because I think it would make the episode more compelling if I don't share that. But that's where I am at sitting here, and it's where I'm at.Well, as you present that to me, obviously I'm a monk and a priest, I'm a spiritual director, I'm a theologian, I'm a whatever — I come from the faith perspective and the church side of things. In terms of good business deals, that's not something I'm qualified for. But I'm setting it up this way because in general, someone like yourself, a businessman — and we could move that into the realm of science, or governance, public works, a whole variety of things — what does the church have to say about these things? And sometimes the church is just categorically excluded: you don't know business, business people know business, why would we want to talk to the church? You don't know science, business people — scientists know science — this kind of claim. Now, there's problems with that in itself, because in fact there are principles of business, and the church has actually promoted science, and there are — but just to leave it at that: the experts in one realm don't talk to the church because they're supposed to be only the experts in theology and philosophy, which is somehow separate from everything else. And this kind of separation of church and state concept, which is itself a little bit of a distortion from what the founding fathers intended, has given permission for people to just relegate the church to the side until, you know, their baby needs to be baptized or something, and the church can do her own thing around that.But what does the church bring? The church always brings the realm of ethics — so not necessarily the what, but the why and the how. Not all of the business details of the how, but kind of the realm in which the how should take place. It's become really clear — the illustration becomes even clearer in the world of AI, because we have some ideas about how AI should do some things. AI should not sacrifice the heat and electricity to your house in order to better power its data centers. So what is that? Well, that's ethics — those are moral principles that are a realm in which we should operate, and if we operate within the moral realm, then we don't commit acts of injustice, and we do good and not evil, and that preserves a lot of things in terms of the just ordering of society, and the realm in which everybody can maximally thrive. I don't want my advantage to be to your unjust disadvantage — might does not make right. So applying those moral principles is really vital for things to function well on the large scale. They might work for a short time on the small scale — the bully on the playground gets away with it for a while — but it's not a long-term viable process.So anyway, my questions about your setup would be around the ethical realm. Have you promised something? Would this be breaking a promise, damaging integrity? Would it require lying, in the sense of breaking a contract? Does it damage a relationship to change directions at this point? Those kinds of agreements become a matter of justice, whether it's explicit or implicit — there's relational stock in play even though you didn't have a signed document. Was there a reasonable, implicit understanding that would be violated? Anyway, that's the sort of realm I'm thinking in — that ethical realm of what's right, and then you can sort of explore possibilities within that.Yeah, so let's go through all the implicit and explicit. So again, I wanted to do what we originally agreed upon, which was closing today. Actually, we originally agreed upon closing the last day of September — this is already the last day of September — this is already a pushing of it. So technically, the contract we did is already past, and we're just doing the reasonable extension of it, even though that was never put in writing. So, under all rights, I can do whatever I want now, including walk away or whatever — I am a free agent in that regard. So in terms of the implicit: well, you have all the tax bodies who thought they were going to get this transaction, because they get a transaction fee for the sale, and they thought they were getting that today. So that's not going to happen, at least today. In terms of the tenant, they're going to have a new person regardless — that's within my right as being the landlord to change that. To this moment, I haven't told them, because there's no reason to rock the apple cart until it is sold. So, quite frankly, their life will be unaffected one way or the other — the only difference will be the address they mail the check to, not really a big deal.

Joe Rockey brings Father Boniface Hicks a question that's been building in his head from several different directions — Padre Pio's stigmata, the Passion of the Christ, and the brutal brevity of "he was scourged" in Scripture: was Christ's ability to endure that suffering long enough to speak his final words from the cross itself a miracle, prior to and separate from the Resurrection? Father Boniface takes that seriously, and the two end up in Lourdes, documented medical healings, Padre Pio's fifty years with the stigmata, and what a miracle is actually for.Key Ideas:- Christ's endurance through the scourging, the road to Calvary, and the cross was beyond human strength — proof, Father Boniface says, of his divinity, since only God could hold a human body together through suffering that encompasses every suffering of every person across all of history.- The Gospel of John structures its 21 chapters around seven signs; once Jesus enters his Passion, there are no more miracles until the Resurrection — the Passion is itself a kind of hinge miracle that gives way to the ultimate sign.- A miracle "failing" because it ends in death misunderstands what the miracle was for: Christ's unbroken communion with the Father through death is what makes the Resurrection possible, not a reversal of a failed attempt to stay alive.- Verified miracles are real and documented — Padre Pio's fifty years with the stigmata, and Lourdes' roughly 70 Church-investigated healings with decades-long follow-up — but their purpose isn't proving God on demand; it's demonstrating that he is present, that no suffering is a closed door, and that those the world tries to push aside are exactly who Our Lady draws to herself.- "God's plan" isn't a shrug to justify whatever already happened. The real takeaway: God wants to love you first, your defense comes to you in the moment when you don't know what to say, and trusting him holds whether or not he intervenes visibly.Links & References: None explicitly referenced with a clear official/source link in this episode.If this helped, please leave a review or share this episode with a friend.Questions or thoughts? Email [email protected]:Hello and welcome to another episode of Father and Joe. I am Joe Rockey here with Father Boniface Hicks. Father, I want to introduce an idea that you gave me that is a fresh idea in my head — that we have never discussed before — and this idea came from a thought of a lot of different data points, one of which was listening to you on the radio talking about Saint Francis of Assisi. One of the things that you mentioned about that particular saint was that he had the mission to be seen as the brother of Jesus and to get back close to God, and one of the things that he eventually developed was the stigmata, which is getting the wounds of Christ, particularly on your hands. That got me thinking — well, what does that actually look like, and aside from paintings, the only living example I can recall is the movie The Passion of the Christ. And that got me thinking even more, because in the Bible it basically just says he was scourged — which, if you know what that word means, is important, but for the importance of what he went through, summarizing it into one sentence doesn't seem like it does justice at all. I also understand not getting into gory details, but a thought came to me — with, again, this is envisioning people seeing pictures of the stigmata, seeing pictures of the whole of Christ, and seeing the way that it was portrayed there with the scourging of him, and knowing how exhausted he must have been leading up to that point of the trial — is this a question — has there been ever a thought that Jesus living as long as he did through that pain and torture, giving us the final words that he gave from the cross, in and of itself is its own miracle, prior to, obviously, the resurrection? Because as I think about it, he did all that stuff — got scourged, got beaten, bleeding like crazy — and then they put a massive piece of wood on him to carry up a big hill. People get crushed under that under regular circumstances and die, and he kept going and kept going. So this is a question I have — we've never talked about this, because I've never fully formulated this idea, but is it possible that him staying alive to give the final words and the fulfillment of everything he said from the prophecies — that in and of itself is a miracle?Yeah. And not only the physical suffering — we believe that Jesus took all of the suffering of the world onto himself, from the beginning of time to the end. Clearly something no human being can do, so it really is his divinity that makes possible even just the holding together of his humanity long enough to get to the point of crucifixion. But absolutely, what he did was beyond human strength, was superhuman in that suffering. So "miraculous" would be a mild way of describing it, to be quite honest. It was actually unimaginable and unbelievable, unless he is God. It's really one of the demonstrations of his divinity, that he was able to endure all that he did and live as long as he was able to. But again, he did that so that nobody suffers alone — that every suffering of every kind that anyone ever has is shared by Christ, and he takes that onto himself. And then by bringing all of that to the cross, all of that to the Father, he redeems everything. There's no suffering that isn't touched by God and that isn't open to the resurrection. No suffering is a closed door — all of it opens to communion, to new life, to love. So that's precisely what he was doing in his Passion.Yeah, there's a way that ultimately gives way even more fully — the miracle we could say is even beyond that, is the miracle of the resurrection. It is the absolute miracle. And one of the ways of looking at the Gospel of John is that the gospel itself, all 21 chapters, is structured around seven signs — the first sign being the wedding feast at Cana, and then other miraculous signs that he did, whether it was the multiplying of the loaves and fishes, or the healing of the man at the pool of Bethesda, or the different miracles that he worked throughout the Gospel of John. Once he enters into his Passion, there are no more miracles until the resurrection — that is to say, again, the Passion itself is a kind of miracle, as you're pointing out, but it sort of gives way to and is part of that final sign of the resurrection, which is the one that surpasses all of them. And his Passion, death, and resurrection are, for that reason, the very heart of the faith. That's really what it means to be Christian — to believe that Christ endured his Passion, death, and was raised from the dead because he is God. He could not do those things if he were not God.And I thank you for that starting point — at least I have some logic behind it, I'm not crazy. And it also was involving a second thought there, which was: well, how can you call it a miracle if it ends with him dying? If the miracle is to stay alive, and he dies, by definition does that not mean that the miracle failed? And what I think — that objection that was coming to my mind — was actually more of a revelation that I don't think we actually understand what miracles are, because I get a very strong feeling that they happen more often around us than we actually realize and/or acknowledge. And I also have another thought that we've talked about probably four months ago from the Bible, which was — it's what you have to bring to the table, to your faith, is what sets you free — is one of the quotes I remember Jesus saying that we discussed there, but it's not just me doing all the work, I'm God giving you everything, but you have to bring stuff to the table. And those two thoughts — do we really even understand truly what a miracle is, and what is it that we need to do to bring to the table to help this — I think were two thoughts to kind of propel the rest of this episode forward....

Every saint created something different — a religious order, a quiet life of hidden prayer, a single faithful letter to a missionary — but Joe Rockey and Father Boniface Hicks dig into the one thread that ties every single one of them together: the perfection of love, lived outward rather than just felt inward. Recorded on the feast of St. Bruno, this episode moves from St. Francis of Assisi to St. Thérèse of Lisieux to the daily, unglamorous acts of love happening right now in a small Pennsylvania parish — and lands on one concrete invitation you can act on this week.Key Ideas:Our distance from the time of Jesus is no different than St. Francis's distance from it in the 1200s — no one alive today had an advantage over him, and if anything, doctrine's development since then means we have more clarity, not less.Holiness isn't one template. The unifying measure across every saint is the perfection of love; how that love gets lived out looks completely different depending on a person's gifts, state of life, and moment in history.Love is never passive. It has to move outward — through doing, choosing, sacrificing, and creating — not just through receiving affection or feeling understood.Hidden, cloistered lives of prayer (Carthusians, Carmelites) are not "doing nothing" — they're a real and vital form of active love, just invisible to the world, the way a heart works unseen to keep the whole body alive.Prayer doesn't announce its own neglect the way hunger or exhaustion does, so it has to be planned for deliberately — and the episode's concrete challenge is simple: find one daily Mass near your home, work, or commute, and go once a week for a month.Links & References: None explicitly referenced with a clear official/source link in this episode.If this helped, please leave a review or share this episode with a friend. Questions or thoughts? Email [email protected]: Hello and welcome to another episode of Father and Joe. I'm Joe Rockey here with Father Boniface Hicks. As some of the audience may know, as some of you may not know, one of the ways that I was introduced to Father in the first place way back in the day was he was on the local radio station, We Are One Body, and one of the programs that is on that station talks about the lives that saints went through and some of the things that were there. I was listening to a recording I assume you made back in the day about Saint Francis of Assisi, and you were talking about a bunch of things that Saint Francis was going through in his lifetime. He was either in the 1100s or 1200s is from what I remember from what you're talking about. The actual date is not the specific part that matters here. The part that mattered to me and stood out to me was two major revelations that I think we take for granted. The first was his time period away from when Jesus was, from the time we are away from Jesus — effectively is the same. And the reason I say that is because in his time period, there was no one around who lived through the fall of the Roman Empire, let alone Rome at their peak, who was, you know, crucifying Jesus and harassing all the Christians. It was only going off of the Bible and what we learned from it and from the doctrine to that point. Now you can make an argument that doctrine has evolved since Saint Francis of Assisi lived, but the methodology of how we went about discovering and becoming closer to Christ has been the same. I wanted to just reflect upon that point because I think that we have so many times, when we think about the saints — especially the ones that are pre-industrial revolution saints — we go, well, there's nothing really in common to them. But their journey of experiencing Jesus through the Gospels is the same. It was the same words they were reading, the same, not translated obviously into their tongues, but the same message, and they were able to pull away a life that became sanctified. In that regard, I just had this uplifting thought that went through there and I wanted to share it.Beautiful. Yeah, there can be a temptation or a tendency to think that because they lived a while ago, somehow they had an advantage over us, or in some particular time in history they had an advantage over us. And the fact is nobody really has an advantage over us. If anything, like you said, it would be the opposite — doctrine is developed, it's more and more fully elaborated. It was Saint Thérèse who said about Our Lady: she said, "I feel so sorry for the Blessed Virgin Mary, because she didn't have a Blessed Virgin Mary she could turn to." So if anything, we have the advantage living now over the saints that lived in centuries past. So we should never put a limit to the holiness that God can bring about, or wants to bring about with us, rather than make ourselves as available to his grace as possible, and then we have the saints to look to. There are so many different ways of holiness, and that's what we should take from the saints. Everybody isn't meant to do everything. There is a — you know, whether it's at the level of a state of life, obviously everybody's not meant to be a cloistered nun, would be a problem for you and me, and everybody is not meant to be a father or a married man. Obviously, or just married in general, or religious life in general, or a priest or a deacon or whatever — they're at those states of life, but also the way that we serve. When we're recording this, the Gospel is the Gospel of Saints Martha and Mary — even there, those are two different ways of being holy. Saint Martha and Saint Mary and Saint Lazarus, their brother — there's so many different ways of being holy, but the unifying factor is the perfection of love. That's what every saint is, that's what defines a saint. That's the measure — it's the perfection of love, and then the way that that love gets lived out, according to our own unique gifts, according to our own time, is going to look very different from one person to the next. Even someone with the same gifts might live it out differently at a different time in history, when there are different challenges, difficulties, when there are different problems to deal with, when there are different opportunities to take advantage of. The way that we live holiness is going to be really unique. The holier we are, the more unique we become, really. The more that we are perfected by love, the more we are able to live the perfection of love, the more we are going to be entirely ourselves, the way that God made us to be.That's — yeah, I think we look to the saints for inspiration. We should never be discouraged by them and think, like, well, I'll never be as holy as Saint Francis — well, you will never be Saint Francis, that's absolutely correct, only Saint Francis can be Saint Francis. But you can be as holy as him, in the sense that you also can be perfected in love, and then that's going to show up differently in your own situation, in your own unique gifts, and then in your own time and place.So one of the common things that I've seen through the saints — again, this is from the episodes that you've done on the radio that I've listened to, and my own research of it, and I'm — there's no way I can say this sentence without introducing my own bias, I'm just owning that upfront — is that they all created something, and what they created was different. But I think it was John of the Cross who said it best of all — this was, if there is no love, insert love. Well, that's basically creating love into an environment. And yes, some of them did mega feats, like creating religious orders after them, and some of them were as simple as figuring out how to let a missionary know that I'm supporting you through prayer life, no matter where you are in this world. Well, that is still creating something, whether that be something that leaves an imprint over years, like the Franciscans are — they're everywhere — or whether it be that person during his lifetime knew that someone cared about me no matter where I go, and they're actually thinking about the struggles of, praying for me. What I'm trying to get to is it's not passive, it's not just hoping that this happens, but actively bringing something to the world. That's one of the things that had really stood out to me as I was thinking about this message, because I didn't want to make this about singling out just one thing, I wanted to make it about — really, what does that perfection of love mean? Yes, you have the ability to be able to receive, understand, and appreciate people being loving to you, but you also have to create it in an outbound method. And I think that you did a very good job of saying how everyone does it differently, everyone has different skills and all that, but it's still not sitting on your couch or only staying within your own mind — it's actually doing something. And I think that that was the part that was really calling me to figure out how to say that during this episode. Now that I did, with my bias included, I'll give you a chance to respond.

A frustrating interaction can last seconds, but the story we build from it can shape an entire day. Joe Rockey and Father Boniface Hicks dig into where that story comes from, why it feels automatic instead of chosen, and how naming it — with curiosity instead of judgment — is what actually gives you power over it. This one lands on parenting, road rage, therapy, and the AI frustrations from last episode, all through the same lens.Key Ideas:The story running underneath a feeling usually isn't consciously chosen in the moment — it's already shaped by past experience. The choice comes after: noticing the story, naming it, and pressing back against it.Asking "why am I frustrated?" with curiosity and compassion (not more frustration) is what actually surfaces the hidden narrative driving a reaction.Validating a child's fear instead of dismissing it prevents layering a second, worse story on top: "I can't trust my own feelings."The same self-awareness that defuses road rage — noticing you're anxious about timing, not really wronged by the other driver — applies to any moment tempting a reaction before understanding what's underneath it.Rewriting deep, nervous-system-level stories isn't instant. It takes disconfirming experiences over time, often surfaced through therapy, prayer, or trusted people willing to mirror your patterns back to you.Links & References: None explicitly referenced with a clear official/source link in this episode.If this helped, please leave a review or share this episode with a friend. Questions or thoughts? Email [email protected] and welcome to another episode of Father and Joe. I'm Joe Rockey here with Father Boniface Hicks. And Father, you said something at the end of the last episode that I wanted to put in the last episode, but because of time limits, I figured it's probably better to bring up in this one. And who knows, it might be an entire episode in and of itself, which is you mentioned the story that we tell ourselves and how we use that to drive it. And there were a couple of internal thoughts that just jumped off the page as you said that, and one of them being that it's a choice. You know, you can have three different people watch the exact same movie, event, whatever, and have three different takeaways of it.That's wildly proven throughout science in many different aspects, which gets back to the story that we're telling ourselves is a choice. And I think about the example that I do with my five year old, you know, I tell him bedtime stories and he takes away the part that he wants to hear of it nine times out of 10. And is the story sometimes have a purpose or sometimes? Yeah, like whenever it's bed timing, you're fighting me. One of your monster trucks magically gets in trouble for not listening to go to bedtime. And I just happen to pick his favorite one every single time when that's what we're trying to get across. And admittedly, sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But at any rate, it's what I go with there. And that's the story that I'm telling him.I bring this up to say that we all have these choices over how we react and how we build our own narrative and what it is that we want to do with it. And it kind of astounds me how, given that fact, how little people actually look at the story they're telling themselves, especially in moments when they're not getting what they want, is if the story is against them that they made themselves. And that contradiction is something that I kind of want to spend an episode on because I think that it's something that when we find ourselves when things aren't going right, they're not the way that we want them. It can easily spiral. And using this practice could be a way to quote unquote, get your life back on track. So with that being said, I want to give you the floor and go from there.Yeah, I love that you picked up on this point because it's, I think, so valuable to just make that realization. You said it's a choice. And I would I would actually peel that apart a little bit and say a lot of times the stories that are coming up are are not chosen in the sense that it's it's already happening in me. And one of the one of the steps of greater emotional intelligence and self-awareness is actually noticing even to name the story. So, you know, again, we were talking about these various examples that I that I hope are accessible to people. They're certainly things that are common enough, I suppose, or familiar enough in my own life.You know, I'm driving and I hit every traffic light and I'm starting to get frustrated. So I'm noticing the frustration. That's actually the first thing that comes up. But if I start to ask myself the question of like, why am I frustrated? And I do that with curiosity and compassion, not in a frustrated way. Why am I frustrated? Rather, why am I frustrated? I wonder what's coming up here. Then I might be able to peel apart. Like, I feel like I'm never going to get there. I'm never going to arrive. I'm going to hit every traffic light. Nothing goes right for me. My day is going. So I can start to name. That's actually when I noticed the story for the first time that it's that's playing out inside of me.And that story is shaped across a lot of experiences. My own woundedness, the the influence of various spirits in the moment. It's influenced by a lot of different things. But the first thing is actually noticing it and naming it and then counteracting it. And that's where the choice comes in. And we can start to press against those stories and say, well, you know, it's my life is I am going to make it. And it's going to be OK. I'm going to be five minutes later. It would be 20 or 30 minutes late, but I'm going to get there. And if there's somebody I need to call or, you know, you were so kind to schedule our recording a little bit later because I was running late today.And I just realized at some point several things had cascaded that I was just like, yeah, this is not going to be recoverable. I need to just fall on my sword and see if Joe can start a little later. But but noticing the story of, you know, and with you, you've been so kind and flexible with me that already kind of in my nervous system, I'm a little bit less nervous because you are have been so flexible. And so I can say, well, let me see if he's willing to reschedule. And I don't have anxiety around that. But maybe somebody maybe there's a boss who gets really frustrated when you're late, never wants to reschedule.Maybe there's a friend who is going to blow up if I say something, but I can notice my reaction. I'm going to have some fear and anxiety about even bringing it up even before I bring it up because I'm telling myself a story which may be based on truth. There may be real evidence there, but it's going to go badly. That's the story I'm telling myself. And that's why I'm afraid. And I don't want to bring up, you know, asking for a reschedule or telling somebody I'm running late or that I've done something wrong or whatever it is. So I can notice that story that's generating that that anxiety. I may be able to kind of rework that and say, well, I can't do anything about it.I need to tell the person I'm running late or I need to reschedule. But I might also say, you know, I don't know why I'm so anxious because actually this person has always been very kind to me. Maybe I'm actually reacting against other people who haven't been kind to me. But that's not who I'm talking with in this particular case. So sometimes I can tease apart what's what's happening there. Now, again, changing that story is not as simple as, you know, flipping a switch. Those things tend to get written in our nervous systems there. We're responding to things before we're consciously aware of it most of the time. And so it takes a little bit of work to have the disconfirming experiences to show us that our built in story is wrong and can be refactored.And again, all of this work, noticing it, naming it, being able to try to push against it and then developing new evidence that supports a different story. All of that is part of the process of of healing and growth, we would say. That's the kind of thing that we end up doing in therapy. If you're in therapy, you're sharing your experiences and the therapist is helping you to tease apart the story and to understand what was leading to that and what your thought process was and why those feelings were coming up and why you were reacting in that way. And then even in the context of therapy, sometimes we can rework that that story. Therapy is just a particular model for doing that in our friendships, sharing our experience.We can help each other with this by the way that we just kind of mirror to them what they're going through and help a person to to refactor that story that's going on in them. Yeah, I think that there's a couple of big things here that I didn't give enough credit to in Father and Joe, Joe Rockey, Father Boniface Hicks, the story you tell yourself, self-awareness, emotional intelligence, cognitive narratives, road rage, parenting, validating feelings, childhood fear, subconscious patterns, nervous system, emotional regulation, therapy, healing, personal growth, curiosity, self-compassion, humility, virtue, golden rule, keeping your peace, anxiety, frustration, reframing thoughts, mindfulness, self-reflection, relationship with self, relationship with others, relationship with God, prayer, spiritual growth, patience, communication, rescheduling, boundaries, emotional maturity, disconfirming experiences, habit change, self-talk, Catholic spirituality, Catholic podcast

A frustrating interaction can last for seconds, but the anger it creates can follow us for hours. Joe Rockey opens this episode with a very modern example: getting increasingly angry at AI when it gives an obviously wrong answer. The deeper issue, though, has nothing to do with technology. It is what happens when frustration becomes a story—“nothing is going my way,” “everything is going wrong,” or “this always happens to me”—and that story begins shaping the rest of the day.Father Boniface Hicks connects the experience to road rage and other situations where we attribute intentionality or injustice to something that cannot actually intend to harm us. His practical advice is simple: don’t give away your peace. Feelings can arise spontaneously, so we should not shame ourselves for having them. But we can create space between the feeling and the reaction—take a breath, step back, clarify what is actually happening, and choose what happens next.The episode then goes deeper into the mechanics of anger. Before the feeling becomes a reaction, there is often an expectation that was not met and a story we are telling ourselves about what that means. Maybe the AI did not “fail” so much as misunderstand an underspecified request. Maybe being two minutes late is not actually a crisis. Maybe the person in front of us at the grocery store is simply having a human interaction that takes a little longer. Once we identify the expectation and the story underneath the anger, we have something we can actually examine and change.The practical homework is straightforward: find your triggers, identify your story, and check whether that story is true. With greater self-awareness—and with trusted people willing to hold up a mirror—we can catch the “smoke alarm” earlier. That creates room for surrender, perspective, and a return to peace before one frustrating moment spills into our relationships, work, and relationship with God.Key IdeasDon’t give away your peace: frustration may be unavoidable, but escalating it is not.Anger can create a false background narrative—“nothing is going my way”—that causes us to search for evidence supporting the mood.Put space between the feeling and the reaction: breathe, step back, clarify, and reset.Look for the unmet expectation beneath the anger, then examine the story you are telling yourself about it.Self-awareness grows through practice and through trusted people who can help us notice our warning signs before we spiral.Links & ReferencesNone explicitly referenced with a clear official/source link in this episode.CTA: If this helped, please leave a review or share this episode with a friend.Questions or thoughts? Email [email protected] and Joe, Joe Rockey, Father Boniface Hicks, anger, frustration, anger management, emotional regulation, self awareness, triggers, road rage, AI frustration, artificial intelligence, AI, ChatGPT, Claude, peace, don’t give away your peace, surrender, perspective, unmet expectations, expectations, negative stories, background narrative, cognitive habits, self reflection, emotional awareness, stress, resentment, frustration tolerance, patience, breathing, reset, spiritual growth, prayer, God’s sovereignty, trust in God, surrender to God, relationship with God, relationship with others, relationship with self, business life, work stress, communication, conflict, anger triggers, habits, discernment, Catholic spirituality, Catholic podcast

Forgiveness is not only tested in major betrayals. Often, relationships are strained by smaller offenses: the grass clippings blown onto the wrong lawn, the gas tank left empty, the repeated household habit that quietly becomes a source of resentment. In this episode, Joe Rockey and Father Boniface Hicks continue the conversation on forgiveness by focusing on the practical middle ground: what do we do when a boundary has been crossed, but the situation is not catastrophic?Father explains that the first step is recognizing the violation without immediately assuming the other person’s intention. A boundary may be crossed through malice, carelessness, forgetfulness, misunderstanding, or even by someone else entirely. If we rush straight to accusation, anger can distort the situation and damage the relationship further. But avoiding confrontation entirely also fails. Love requires enough courage to say, kindly and clearly, “This bothered me,” and then see whether apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation can begin.Joe highlights the importance of proportion and consistency. If every small offense is treated like a “nine or ten,” people eventually tune out—or stop trusting the emotional scale altogether. But if the “twos and threes” are never addressed, they build into larger wounds. Healthy relationships need a reliable way to name smaller harms, repair them, and move forward before resentment hardens.The episode also connects this pattern to our relationship with God. Venial sins matter because small compromises can accumulate when we stop confessing, repairing, and returning. The same is true in human relationships. Repair is not a sign that love failed; often, it is where love becomes stronger. Children, spouses, neighbors, friends, and communities all need room for failure, forgiveness, and reconciliation—because resilient relationships are built not by never breaking, but by learning how to repair.Key IdeasSmall offenses matter because they can either be repaired early or build into deeper resentment.A crossed boundary does not automatically reveal the other person’s intention; avoid rushing to accusation.Confrontation can be loving when it is proportionate, clear, and rooted in the desire for reconciliation.Treating every issue like a crisis weakens trust; ignoring every issue also weakens trust.Repair can make relationships stronger, especially when apology, forgiveness, and consistency rebuild communion.Scripture MentionedVenial sin and confession are discussed by theme; no specific passage is named.Links & ReferencesNone explicitly referenced with a clear official/source link in this episode.CTA: If this helped, please leave a review or share this episode with a friend.Questions or thoughts? Email [email protected] and Joe, Joe Rockey, Father Boniface Hicks, forgiveness, reconciliation, boundaries, small offenses, repairing relationships, relationship repair, healthy confrontation, proportionate response, consistency, trust, rebuilding trust, apology, asking forgiveness, offering forgiveness, resentment, anger, frustration, household conflict, marriage, married couples, parenting, children, neighbors, community life, grass clippings, snow shoveling, gas tank, toilet seat, communication, conflict resolution, venial sin, confession, sacrament of reconciliation, spiritual growth, humility, emotional self awareness, relationship with God, relationship with others, relationship with self, Catholic podcast, Catholic spirituality, mercy, love, communion, resilience, room for failure, unconditional love

Forgiveness is one of the most important parts of Christian life—and one of the easiest to misunderstand. Joe Rockey and Father Boniface Hicks begin with the big picture: Jesus’ mission is a mission of forgiveness, and the whole Christian life is built around receiving that mercy and learning to extend it to others. But forgiveness does not mean pretending nothing happened, removing every boundary, or forcing reconciliation where trust has not been rebuilt.Father makes a crucial distinction: **forgiveness can be one-sided; reconciliation requires both parties.** God is already turned toward us in mercy. He remains faithful, opens the door, and offers forgiveness—but reconciliation happens when we respond and return to Him. The same pattern matters in human relationships. Forgiveness is a personal decision toward another person; reconciliation is mutual repair, rebuilt trust, and a relationship that can move forward in truth.The conversation then connects forgiveness to boundaries. God gives the universal moral law—the Ten Commandments and the call to love—as the broad foundation. Communities, families, marriages, monasteries, neighborhoods, and friendships also develop particular boundaries that help people live together well. When those boundaries are violated, whether gravely or in smaller daily ways, love requires honesty: acknowledge the harm, ask forgiveness, offer forgiveness, and rebuild trust with consistency.Joe brings the episode into daily life with a practical challenge: examine your boundaries. Are they rooted in holiness, love, and the good of others—or only in personal preference, frustration, or convenience? Healthy boundaries are not opposed to forgiveness. They help create the conditions where forgiveness can become reconciliation, where relationships with self, others, and God can be repaired, strengthened, and made more whole.**Key Ideas*** Jesus’ mission is centered on forgiveness, and the Eucharist and confession keep that mystery at the heart of the Church.* Forgiveness and reconciliation are related but not identical: forgiveness can be one-sided; reconciliation requires both parties.* God’s forgiveness is already offered; reconciliation with Him requires our response, repentance, and return.* Boundaries begin with God’s moral law, then extend into agreed community, family, and personal expectations.* Consistency matters: trust is rebuilt when people understand the boundary, respect it, and repair what has been broken.**Scripture Mentioned*** The Our Father / “forgive us our trespasses…”* Matthew 6 — forgiving others and receiving forgiveness* Parable of the unforgiving servant* “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”* The Last Supper / chalice poured out “for the forgiveness of sins”* The Ten Commandments**Links & References**None explicitly referenced with a clear official/source link in this episode.**CTA:** If this helped, please leave a review or share this episode with a friend.Questions or thoughts? Email [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected]).### TagsFather and Joe, Joe Rockey, Father Boniface Hicks, forgiveness, reconciliation, boundaries, healthy boundaries, Catholic forgiveness, sacrament of reconciliation, confession, penance, mercy, God’s mercy, Jesus’ mission, Eucharist, Last Supper, forgiveness of sins, Our Father, Matthew 6, unforgiving servant, Father forgive them, Ten Commandments, moral law, natural law, holiness, perfection of love, sin, missing the mark, trust, rebuilding trust, repentance, apology, human relationships, marriage, family life, friendship, community life, monastic life, grand silence, consistency, love, common good, relationship with God, relationship with others, relationship with self, spiritual growth, Catholic podcast

God reaches people in different ways: miracles, Scripture, prayer, relationships, suffering, responsibility, and the ordinary events of life. But Joe Rockey and Father Boniface Hicks caution against turning those different encounters into a ranking system—as if one person’s miracle is automatically “better” than another person’s quiet conversion. The goal is not comparison. The goal is relationship with God.Father explains that everything is equally easy for God, so our human scale of “harder” and “more impressive” does not apply cleanly to divine action. Raising Lazarus, healing a blind man, teaching through a parable, speaking through prayer, or working through a friendship can all serve the same purpose: inviting the person into trust, surrender, vulnerability, and love. The external event matters, but the deeper question is what happens inside the person who receives it.The conversation then turns toward personality and holiness. Each person has a different point of resistance—surrender, trust, vulnerability, receiving love, giving love, letting go of control, or facing a weakness that has been quietly avoided for years. Joe reflects on how this applies in business, marriage, family, and friendship: some tasks can be delegated, but personal self-gift cannot. No one else can love your wife for you, surrender your will for you, or receive God’s love in your place.The practical invitation is to stop driving “three miles around” the very place where God may be trying to meet you. Look honestly at the recurring challenge in your life, especially the one your personality most wants to avoid. That may be the place where Jesus is inviting you into the next stage of healing, courage, and deeper relationship.Key IdeasGod reaches different people in different ways; the point is not comparison but relationship.Miracles, words, prayer, events, and relationships can all become invitations into trust and surrender.The same external event can produce very different interior responses depending on the person.Personality often reveals the specific place where holiness will be hardest—and most necessary.Some responsibilities can be delegated, but love, surrender, vulnerability, and receiving love cannot.Scripture MentionedLazarus raised from the deadJesus healing the blindJesus teaching through parablesJesus cleansing the TempleLinks & ReferencesNone explicitly referenced with a clear official/source link in this episode.CTA: If this helped, please leave a review or share this episode with a friend.Questions or thoughts? Email [email protected] and Joe, Joe Rockey, Father Boniface Hicks, God meets you, miracles, relationship with God, relationship with others, relationship with self, surrender, trust, vulnerability, receiving love, giving love, holiness, personality, personality types, spiritual growth, self knowledge, interior life, conversion, ongoing conversion, discernment, prayer, Scripture, Lazarus, healing miracles, parables, cleansing of the Temple, Saint Therese, trust in Jesus, avoiding weakness, control, letting go, delegation, business, marriage, family life, friendship, teamwork, community, human relationships, Catholic spirituality, Catholic podcast, courage, humility, self gift, love, God’s invitation, grace, sanctification