The Warrior Priest Podcast

It gets sacred in the places where you have been torn open, where you’ve bled and felt abandoned. This is the quiet power of Christmas: not that it erases the ache, but that it enters into it with a tenderness fierce enough to hold what’s broken. You are held, not despite the pain, but because of it. The grace that comes is not the smooth salve, but the living wound itself, kissed by the presence...

What's up with the talk about re-enchantment lately? Why are people interested in “re-enchanting the world”? What’s at stake in the question and what is expected by those who pursue it? What good are old stories and are we prepared to risk our lives to find meaning and purpose?

Perhaps God does not want us to be modern because modernity too often blinds us to the eternal. In our rush to build, invent, and achieve, we forget to behold, to wonder, to worship. We lose the ability to see the sacred in the ordinary: the bread on the table, the sun rising over a field, the child laughing in a garden. These are not obstacles to progress; they are reminders of a deeper reality,...

What was once called “woke” has splintered into an anarchic patchwork of terms that don’t make sense unless you’ve swallowed the Kool-Aid and been dumped into a pit of postmodern nonsense. “Critical social justice,” “identity politics,” “gender studies,” “fourth-wave feminism”—the list grows like a mutant vine, changing shape faster than a bad acid trip. Every new label that’s thrown into the mix...

History is dead.  Or, so I was told. For a long time, I believed it. Not because I wanted to, but I could see the world around me. It was plain as day that I did not live in the world of my heroes. Myth and legend had ended, history had marched to its lackluster end, and we were all fated to live out our days in a lethargic, decaying, neo-liberal hellscape. Consume product. Work for corporation. V...

Today on the show, ruminations on Irish poets, winters-bane, and mythic tales that lead to heavenly truth.

When, because of their fear, they do away secretly with such men, who is left for them to use save the unjust, the incontinent, and the slavish? The unjust are trusted because they are afraid, just as the tyrants are, that someday the cities, becoming free, will become their masters. The incontinent are trusted because they are at liberty for the present, and the slavish because not even they deem...

Now, there's one thing you might have noticed I don't complain about: politicians. Everybody complains about politicians. Everybody says they suck. Well, where do people think these politicians come from? They don't fall out of the sky. They don't pass through a membrane from another reality. They come from American parents and American families, American homes, American schools, American churches...

"Humanity had thought itself sufficient, and even now we think we can escape our destiny by our own efforts. Escape!--that is our only thought. To escape from the insanity, the hell of modern life is all we wish. But we cannot escape!!! We must go through this hell, and accept it, knowing it is the love of God that causes our suffering. What terrible anguish!--to suffer so, not knowing why, i...

So what will we do? Will we remain on the shore, dipping our toes in the water now and then, or will we plunge in, fully, recklessly, trusting that this river will carry us where we need to go? That is what true love is—it is a surrender, a letting go of our need to control, to manage, to predict. It is a wild rumpus, a leap into the unknown, a cry that travels through forests and over fields, and...

You may remember the Green Knight arriving at Camelot after fifteen days straight of feasting. King Arthur has asked for a story so that the tribe could remember itself but none of the assembled have the gumption to respond. A deeper story was required. Perfectly on time, the Green Knight bursts through the door. In the act of being beheaded but then continuing to live, the Green Knight brings a t...

I go on a walkabout through life and death, saying what needs to be said, taking our human condition seriously, and being thoughtful about the big picture.

The basic question in this vortex is whether man can be liberated from fear. This is far more important than arming or supplying him with medicines—for power and health are prerogatives of the unafraid. In contrast, the fear besets even those armed to the teeth— indeed, them above all. The same may be said for those on whom abundance has been rained. The threat cannot be exorcized by weapons or fo...

"To the extent that propaganda is based on current news, it cannot permit time for thought or reflection. A man caught up in the news must remain on the surface of the event; he is carried along in the current, and can at no time take a respite to judge and appreciate; he can never stop to reflect. There is never any awareness -- of himself, of his condition, of his society -- for the man who...

Propaganda is made, first of all, because of a will to action, for the purpose of effectively arming policy and giving irresistible power to its decisions.* Whoever handles this instrument can be concerned solely with effectiveness This is the supreme law. which must never be forgotten when the phenomenon of propaganda is analyzed. Ineffective propaganda is no propaganda. This instrument belongs t...

No pressure, no diamond. You don’t become a good captain by never meeting a storm. And so, at the end of your life – many years from now God willing – there is but one tree, vines threaded gloriously and ramshackley together – holy in its way – offering you a place to sit down and rest awhile, its branches sagging under the weight of timeless fruit produced to settle your restless stomach. 

No matter how much we love the city, or our home, or the land, they will never love us back. They do not give birth to hope. They destroy us in the pursuit of it. And so, to survive you must learn to recognize those who don’t hope, who aren’t really alive, and be wary of their doomed decisions. They are to be avoided at all costs because their fear is tragedy's closest cousin, and tragedy is c...

The complaint of the depressive individual, “Nothing is possible,” can only occur in a society that thinks, “Nothing is impossible.” No-longer-being-able-to-be-able leads to destructive self-reproach and auto-aggression. The achievement-subject finds itself fighting with itself. The depressive has been wounded by internalized war. Depression is the sickness of a society that suffers from excessive...

Like  is the digital  Amen . When we click  Like , we are bowing down to the order to domination. The smartphone is not just an effective surveillance apparatus; it is also a mobile confessional. - Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics

“That kindness is invincible, provided it's sincere- not ironic or an act. What can even the most vicious person do if you keep treating him with kindness and gently set him straight”  ― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

We are mud people with a holy breath sweeping through us. That is a comfort, Jesus says. Not tree people so much, or zebra people, or pomegranate people, but mud people. There is a primality in it. It is an image we can get behind. It is not nice. It is not a florid Renaissance sketch, but something we can imagine seeing daubed on a cave wall before someone blows the wick out. 

“What is addiction, really? It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress. It is a language that tells us about a plight that must be understood.”  Alice Miller, Breaking Down the Wall of Silence