The Warrior Priest Podcast

Technology is our new god. What would a refusal to worship look like? Paul Kingsnorth offers a vision of resistance, which I discuss in this week's episode.

If God gave us what we asked for all at once, it would wipe us out. Too much reality. We have to chew on one piece of manna at a time. God’s announcements to the heart are so prestigious that too much and we are floored. And there are lots more that feel nutty and restrictive in their eccentricity. Then a year later or more and that, in turn, blossoms into bare, unadorned wisdom. So be wary of beg...

“I myself have resolved to follow the path of righteousness henceforth. More than anything, devote yourself to learning and act in accordance with the teachings of the past.” - Katsu Kokichi, Musui's Story

“I realized that this was true for both China and Japan: every one of those who had been brought to ruin or lost their lands had been punished by Heaven for neglecting the proprieties between sovereign and subject, the bond of affection between parent, child, and brother, and for wallowing in greed and extravagance. All the more wondrous, then, that I have survived thus far without mishap. Indeed,...

It was not long then until there was the spirit coming, by God’s power, the holy breath, going under the hard stone to the corpse! Light was at that moment opened up, for the good of the sons of men. The many bolts of Hell were unlocked. The road from this world up to heaven was built. Brilliantly radiating, in such a way that the guards, tough soldiers, were not at all aware of when he got up fro...

Many and powerful are the agents who would bar the door to the key to the universe, many who would throw a veil over him. Moses, you recall, was hard to see. David, perhaps more so. None of this has been easy. And yet there lies between us and Jesus two-thousand years of war, famine, disease, and death. Jesus is God. He is the turning point of history, which is why there is no more misinterpreted...

Those who do not want to live under God’s government will not be forced to. That would erase the principle of love upon which the cosmos is founded — no one will be sent away from the presence of God who wants to stay. So God’s people have prayed for millennia that there will be no such people. But we know it happens, and that there are too many to name.  Why would anyone want to turn away from Go...

David was a stone in the path upon which the Paradise King trod.  This King is the earth shaker. He is the cloud rider. He is the guardian of widows and orphans, and a servant-king who withholds nothing from his people. His face is young, yet old beyond the reckoning of this or any age, for he hails from eternity past. It is a beautiful face, full of humility and adoration and power. And he is cro...

After his death, the people waited for a prophet like Moses to appear because Moses had told them to watch. “Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers.” Moses had said, “To him, you will listen.”  And so, the invitation is in front of you too, to hear him. “Come,” Jesus says, “and follow me. Come and learn how to live. Come with me, and I will heal...

The gods came down. Slinking, slithering, prowling, whispering, they sought out earthly kings. And so, Pharaoh Merneptah heard a voice in the dark and the voice said his name. He woke, and there was Ptah with a plan. The old kings of Uruk also were tutored. Ayala had the fish creature, Adapa, for an advisor. Alaglar had Uanduga from the sea. In his time, Hammurabi met Shammash, and from that god r...

... we must start in the most difficult place: in the beginning. We have to start where the story is not broken or befouled, when wild waves cooled sun-soaked shores and the choruses of birds carried over ebony cliffs, who knows how far.  It was a wild world, all welter and waste. Unrestrained rivers carved crooked lines across sprawling green plains. The earth birthed bejeweled fruit, and untende...

Almost everyone can agree that one of the big differences between us and our ancestors of five hundred years ago is that they lived in an “enchanted” world, and we do not; at the very least, we live in a  much less  “enchanted” world. We might think of this as our having “lost” a number of beliefs and the practices which they made possible. But more, the enchanted world was one in which these forc...

This is the profound morality of fairy-tales; which, so far from being lawless, go to the root of all law. Instead of finding (like common books of ethics) a rationalistic basis for each Commandment, they find the great mystical basis for all Commandments. We are in this fairyland on sufferance; it is not for us to quarrel with the conditions under which we enjoy this wild vision of the world. The...

The Way of combat strategy can be likened to the craft of carpentry. Comparing samurai with carpenters is related to the subject of “houses.” We speak of noble houses, warrior houses and the “Four Houses.”  We also talk of the collapse or continuation of a house. In the arts we refer to a school or tradition as a house. It is because the label “house” is employed as such that I draw parallels with...

“Never fail to have this attitude of mind, go forward without hurry, learn the essence of things through frequent experiences, taking advantage of every occasion. Fight against all kinds of people and be aware of their mind. Follow a road that is a thousand leagues long one step at a time. Be without haste and be convinced that all these practices are the duty of a bushi. Be victorious today over...

I got lost in the tall grass of my thoughts after promising at the front end of the podcast that I wasn't going to do it! So, I discuss confidence versus overconfidence, finding your passion, and being a life-long student. 

The Child that was ere worlds begun (… We need but walk a little way, We need but see a latch undone …) The Child that played with moon and sun Is playing with a little hay. - G.K. Chesterton, Aleteia 

“Any passion can become an addiction; but then how to distinguish between the two? The central question is: who’s in charge, the individual or their behavior? It’s possible to rule a passion, but an obsessive passion that a person is unable to rule is an addiction…If in doubt, ask yourself one simple question: given the harm you’re doing to yourself and others, are you willing to stop? If not, you...

“the spirit of wickedness in high places is now so powerful and many-headed in its incarnations that there seems nothing more to do than personally refuse to worship any of the hydras' heads.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, quote from The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays

Myths, Lewis told Tolkien, were "lies and therefore worthless, even though breathed through silver." "No," Tolkien replied. "They are not lies." Far from being lies, they were the best way sometimes the only way of conveying truths that would otherwise remain inexpressible. We have come from God, Tolkien argued, and inevitably the myths woven by us, though they contai...

“After all, I believe that legends and myths are largely made of 'truth', and indeed present aspects of it that can only be received in this mode; and long ago certain truths and modes of this kind were discovered and must always reappear.”  ― J.R.R. Tolkien,  The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien

In this episode, I read three early Anglo-Saxon texts: The Lorica of Loding, Precepts, and Vainglory. Each poem offers encouragement and hope to those who are in need of protection, wisdom, and guidance in spiritual and earthly matters. They also offer us another way to see the world, which to modern eyes, may seem strange and even fantastical. Links: Lorica of Loding: https://acollectionofprayers...

Hope is not a wish. It is not optimism or naivety. It is an assertion. It is  telling  the world, “No, this is not the way things will be; things will be better.” For both Marcel and Tolkien, it is only with hope that we banish despair.  You do not haggle with or beg the darkness. Like a blazing torch, you must shine hope brightly and fiercely. - Jonny Thomson, The Secret to a Good Fairy Tale Link...

“Obviously there is no need of fighting to overcome this single tyrant, for he is automatically defeated if the country refuses consent to its own enslavement: it is not necessary to deprive him of anything, but simply to give him nothing; there is no need that the country make an effort to do anything for itself provided it does nothing against itself. It is therefore the inhabitants themselves w...

“…physical attacks lead to a corresponding increase of trust in political leaders and submission to them. This effect is likely the same whether the attack be a surprise, known to political leaders yet allowed to happen, or directly orchestrated by these same leaders who stand to benefit from the increased trust and submission…False flag operations are used because people generally do not have acc...