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I myself second guessed myself many times after that. I thought, should I have stopped? And said, well, actually, hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz, and this is Ascension Presents. So recently I was having a conversation with a man. I was on the called podcast, initiated by the Catholic Initiative, but sponsored by Ascension. And so I get to sit down with people who are being the hands and feet, the face and heart of Jesus wherever they find themselves. In a lot of these conversations, the people are Christian, but they're not always necessarily Catholic. And so I'm bringing this up because we got some feedback. And the feedback is this, that in the course of the conversation with this one particular individual who does amazing work, he does amazing work around the world in just helping people. I wanted to know his story. And so I asked him, tell me your story. In the course of it, he talked about, you know, not being Catholic, and he almost claimed to say, like, we have different kind of varieties of Christianity, and it's really great that we have so many different varieties of Christianity. And I didn't really engage it in the sense of, like, starting to debate the fact that we're divided, Right? The fact that. Well, no, I don't think that that's good. I think that when Jesus prayed at the Last Supper, father, may they all be one, as you and I are one. Jesus actually wants unity. He doesn't want this division that we experience right now. The comment was, father, you needed to say something right then. He was saying something that we don't believe. We believe that we should have unity. And that division is actually not just variety. It's not just. These are not just your different flavors of ice cream, like your different kind of denominations of Christianity, as if just kind of like, oh, it's great variety, spice of life, that kind of situation. I should have said something and challenged him on this. And I would say, okay, great. I don't disagree. I don't disagree that there are times when someone makes a comment and it's like, no, it's our job in that moment to. To be able to say, well, pause on that for a second. What do we mean? Push back a little bit. In this case, I didn't. In this case, I kind of just acknowledged what he had said and moved on. Even at the moment, I thought, wait, should I say something right now? And then I thought, okay, well, the point of this conversation that we were having on the called podcast was to hear about his corporal works of mercy, right? The way in which he has discovered that God is calling him to be the Hands and feet, the heart and face of Jesus in the world. And so because that was the point of the conversation, I thought, well, I'll let it slide and we'll move on. Some people would say, father, you did the wrong thing. You had the opportunity to do a spiritual work of mercy, which is to instruct the ignorant, but you didn't. Maybe I could have said something as simple as, ah, well, we might disagree on that, but let's move on. I could have even, at least, at least said that as opposed to kind of, just kind of, okay. The reason why I'm highlighting this is because we've all been in situations like that, right? We've all been in conversations with somebody and they say something and you think, should I, Should I step up? Should I speak up right now? Should I. Should I offer that word of correction? Should I instruct someone who doesn't know and you don't do it? And other times here on the, on this, this podcast on Sensual Presents, I have said, you know, a lot of times we don't do it because we're lacking in something. We're lacking in courage. This was the time to speak, but I didn't have the courage to speak. We're lacking in knowledge. I didn't know what to say. Or we're lacking in love. Like that, since I don't care enough to speak. In this case, I think it was the middle one. Like, I don't know, I didn't know. Is this when I speak or is this when I don't speak? Is this when I just allow this person to tell their story without me interrupting them? Or should I have said something as simple as, well, we disagree on that. I might see it differently, but let's move on. When it comes to relationships, when it comes to sharing the gospel, when it comes to just living in this world, we won't have all the answers. There are many times when I'm not sure, should I have said something or done something? I've been processing this for a long time now, a bit of time since that conversation happened. And I had all my excuses why I didn't know, you know, or the conversation was headed in a certain direction. I wouldn't interrupt it. And here's what I had to do. What I had to do is I had to go into prayer. I had to bring it to the chapel. I had to be in front of Jesus and say, okay, Lord, I think I know that if you were calling me to say something, I would have said something. I think that in that moment I wanted to let this man tell his story without interrupting him. What do you think, Lord? What is your perspective, Lord? And a funny thing happened in the course of that prayer. A lot of my arguments, here's my reasons, here's why I did this, here's why I did that, here's why I didn't do something. The arguments didn't seem to matter too much anymore. So my defensiveness, no, no, no, I didn't do the wrong thing, you know, that kind of thing. My defensiveness got to. I got to put it to the side and instead just say, yeah, Lord, I might have done the wrong thing. It's possible that I should have said something, but I want to learn moving forward. I want to be able to say something. If you want me to say something. Coming before the Lord in prayer is the key. There's so much about ourselves that we will never know unless we place ourselves before Jesus in the Eucharist and say, God, please show me, did I do the wrong thing? Did I not do the right thing? And then just let that defensiveness be diffused and just receive his guidance, receive his will, receive his wisdom. Archbishop Flynn was The Archbishop of St. Paul, Minneapolis. The diocese down there arsises. And my last year in seminary, maybe I've shared this with some of you before. My last year in seminary, he took all the guys in my class over to his house and we had a holy hour and we're going to have a dinner. And before a holy hour ended, he paused. We paused in the, in his chapel and he said, gentlemen, making a holy hour is absolutely necessary. He said, when you become a priest, you have to, have to. Have to make a daily holy hour, because in the life of a priest there are going to be so much busyness. There's so many times where, where you said something you shouldn't have said, or you. Or you did something you shouldn't have done, or you didn't say something or didn't do something you should have said or should have done. And he said, you're so busy that so often it's just going to roll right past you. But if you pause and take a holy hour in front of Jesus in the Eucharist, Jesus will remind you that thing you should have done, you should have done that. The thing you shouldn't have said, you shouldn't have said that. And Jesus will give you that guidance. And so, so many ways, that's what happened here. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know. What should I have done? Was it the right thing? Was it a neutral thing? Was it the wrong thing? Lord, if I bring it before you, it's just. It's your thing. And from now on, I get to surrender it to you and move on anyways. Chromos here. Ascension presents. My name is Father Mike. God bless.