[00:00:00] Jim: All right. So, I just sat down with Marcel Lejeune. Marcel is the founder of Catholic Missionary Disciples. Just wrote a great book called How to Be a Contagious Catholic. Oh my gosh, we had such a fun conversation. Just talk about how do you share your faith? How do you, how do you really live as a missionary disciple?
How do you hear the voice of the Spirit and really learn how to bring that into your life? Such a fun, amazing conversation. You're going to love. Love the conversation today with Marcel Lajeune. Take a listen. 

[00:00:29] Intro: Hey everybody. Welcome to the Equip Cast, a weekly podcast for the Archdiocese of Omaha. I'm your host, Jim Jansen. Now let's dive into some encouragement and inspiration to equip you to live your faith and to be fruitful in your mission. Let's go.

[00:00:49] Jim: Marcel Lajeune, welcome to the Equip Cast. How you doing today? 

[00:00:53] Marcel: Uh, I'm still bald, uh, but I live in Texas, so everything's good. 

[00:00:58] Jim: Okay, you know... 

[00:01:01] Marcel: I threw you off with that. 

[00:01:02] Jim: Yeah, I don't even know what to do with that. There's like, there's a lot of people who would be like, I would be totally fine to be bald. It's the Texas thing that makes me uncomfortable. 

[00:01:11] Marcel: Come on. Come on. Come on. 

[00:01:12] Jim: No, I'm just teasing.

[00:01:13] Marcel: I know. It's funny because, you know, if you want to know if somebody's from Texas, just wait, they'll tell you. 

[00:01:17] Jim: Oh, yeah.

[00:01:18] Marcel: It's somebody who does like keto or, you know, somebody who works out at certain gyms or things like that.

[00:01:25] Jim: Yeah. Special diets, certain sports teams and the state of Texas, which now I feel like I should just say my wife is from Texas and I love her, and I love my in laws, but yeah, you can, you can tell. Deep in the heart of Marcel. So, Marcel, tell us a little bit about your, your faith journey, uh, your story here.

[00:01:44] Marcel: Well, I was one of those people who, you know, and it's the beginning of it's going to sound like everybody else is a raised Catholic, you know, but stop going to church kind of thing. I parted my way through. 

[00:01:54] Jim: Can I just like, that's just so like, why does, why does everybody's story have to start like that?

[00:01:58] Marcel: Well, because we, we didn't evangelize. So, let's get to that real quick, right? 

[00:02:02] Jim: I know it's mine too, but sorry to interrupt, but I'm just like.

[00:02:04] Marcel: No, it's true. It's like the church hadn't done her job. Uh, it could be summed up in her story. 

[00:02:09] Jim: I know. It's like, it's everybody's story. It's sad. It's, thank you, Pope Francis.
Let's leave the one and go get the 99 that have wandered away. Okay. Anyway, keep going.

[00:02:17] Marcel: So I partied my way through most of high school and into college, and then, you know, of course, had to deal with my own stuff, and hated looking at myself in the mirror, uh, at least spiritually, and I'm I ended up going to a retreat because these guys promised me they're going to be cute girls there.
And there were, and I had a real deep, you know, encounter with Jesus Christ, knowing for the first time that I was truly loved by this God who existed and cared for me. And I asked his forgiveness in the sacrament of confession, and it just blew me away. I mean, just, I was totally blown away. And after confession, you know, I felt free for the first time.
And I remember sitting, kneeling down in that chapel. Before the blessed sacrament and telling Jesus, I don't even know exactly what this means, but I want to give my life to you. I want to be yours. And it was just a profound change. Of course, I didn't like root out all those bad habits that I had established over the, you know, 19 years of my life or whatever.
But from there, I found community and started trying to pray. And, and I remember even that first night I got back to campus after that retreat. I remember going up to a grassy knoll and having a conversation about God in a deep level for the first time about an experience of God with somebody else. And I'll be honest, Jim, I've never stopped having those conversations with people since then.
It meant something. It was more than sports or weather or, you know, the surface level crud that we talk about all the time, and we waste. And I get chitchat and I can small talk with the best of them, but let's just be honest. Doesn't it matter? You know, so I started having these kinds of conversations and, and I loved having it and I noticed I was pretty good at it and talking about Jesus.
And that kind of led me into, you know, A profession. Now, of course, I skipped over, hey, I got married, I got five kids, you know, uh, most of them are adults at this point, but, you know, I've, I've been working full time in Catholic ministry for more than 20 something years. I did a long time in campus ministry, and now I run an apostolate that works with Catholic leaders.

[00:04:23] Jim: Well, and you were part of building one of the largest campus ministries in the United States.

[00:04:31] Marcel: Let's be accurate now. It's the biggest in the world. Okay. 

[00:04:35] Jim: That's good. Oh, I love Texas. 

[00:04:39] Marcel: But it is, it's... 

[00:04:40] Jim: No, it is. 

[00:04:40] Marcel: It is a, by any metric, it's the biggest one. I mean, at a public university. 

[00:04:46] Jim: Texas A& M, I love it. You guys built a huge church in what the late nineties, two thousands. And then you had to like build another one because it just kept growing. 

[00:04:55] Marcel: So, we have the church church, which is 850 people. That's old. That's been around for a while. Um, many decades. It predates me. But when I got there, we started building a center in between the time I was a student and the time I came back as a staff member.
It was the first center, student center that was built because the one that we had was literally like the roof was falling in. So, we built a decent size one. Then we've added on to that. We've bought other land, we've added things. And then we just built this last summer, we consecrated our new church, which seats 1500 people.
And so, I'm still a parishioner there, still go to church. Anyway, so St. Mary's, by any metric, is huge and we did a, you know, the Holy Spirit's still working over there. It's, it's a lot of fun. 

[00:05:36] Jim: Oh yeah. Huge numbers of vocations, too. 

[00:05:39] Marcel: Yeah, lots of vocations, lots of devotional stuff, lots of people that go to Mass.
Lots of confessions. It's just, you know, again, it's like these metrics, you know, just the people who come out of there and run apostates, get in, you know, lay people to get in ministry, the number of marriages and Catholic, this and Catholic, that it's ridiculous. But part of it is, you know, the culture we created.
And so, it was like, you're doing, you know, trying to build culture and renewal around. The principles of preaching the gospel, evangelizing, helping people become disciples and go on mission and, you know, go deeper in the interior life and all that stuff. It's hard, slow work, but you continue to do it and pound away and you look up and decades later something radical has happened.

[00:06:20] Jim: Yeah. And it's. I don't quite know how to say this. I'm, I'm flashing back to a metaphor that some listeners might know. Jim Collins, who wrote the book Good to Great, as he talks about like, you know, like creating momentum and change, he gives this example or illustration metaphor, if you will, of like this big flywheel.
And like, you know, when you're first like pushing the thing, it's like there's, you know, these like kind of giant stones and they got that little pegs coming out and you're, you're trying to push it and, and it's slow hard work. But at a certain point, it's like, The momentum kind of takes over and you almost can't stop the thing.
You're still pushing, but you're also kind of hanging on for dear life. And that, I think a little bit of your experience, that was my experience seeing the campus ministry at the university of Nebraska Lincoln take off where it's like all of a sudden something switched and the culture. And all of those kind of intangibles helped carry us along.
And it's really a beautiful thing, and I think it's hopeful. Hopefully this isn't just, you know, Jim and Marcel reliving the glory days. That can and does happen in non-college student parishes. Oh, yeah. And the fact that it's not always as hard as it feels at the very beginning, hopefully can offer a little hope and encouragement for those who are, you know, not in campus ministries who are listening to this.
Like, yeah, man, it's really hard at the beginning, but it's not always that hard. And eventually the culture begins to help you. 

[00:07:47] Marcel: Yeah. And, you know, I, I tell the story of the history of St. Mary's frequently because people They see it now, and it's massive. Yeah. But when I was a student there, back in the early 90s, we had a small little building, a couple thousand square feet, where the roof's falling in, you know, linoleum floors, just awful, terrible, like, 60s, 70s architecture.
And we had a church, and we had a rectory. We had no parking lot. We had no budget. We had no staff. We had no real We had a couple of priests and a receptionist. And then from there we got a visionary priest who came in and he started making a difference and he started investing in people and he started discipling and evangelizing and he started building leaders and then he'd take those leaders and he put them in like real positions to be able to make change to go do it with other people.
And what ended up happening is, you know, then he started raising money. So, it's, it's all these things, right? It's the systems that you build. It's the people that you pour into. It's the vision that you have. It's the pastoral practicalities of how do you actually do the work effectively that you have to put into place.
It's the training and leadership opportunities that you build and all that. All that stuff and everything else creates culture, and culture within the system in the institution can in fact push forward the changes that we want to see. And this is why when we look for The one thing that's going to do it right the silver bullet mantra And this is where we've fallen into in catholic ministry.
We've created we actually Current culture and institutional models of Catholicism right now looks for the fix in the event, in the program, in the formation that we do in this stuff, or a combination of these things, and it just doesn't work because it's people. And it's people who are growing and, and changing and who are holy and, but who also are open to change and want to be better leaders and, and know that they don't have it all and they gather teams and all this other stuff.
And that's, that's how you do it. It's no, yeah. There's no secret formula. And that the guy who first started this is now bishop. Well, they, they reward 'em by making a bishop, right? And then the guy who took over for him is now Bishop. Mm-Hmm. Tulsa. So, we got Bishop of San Angelo and Bishop of Tulsa, back-to-back bishops who used to be pastors there.
And they, that's how they got rewarded for growing this little, kind of, honestly, like what we would call mass and pizza campus ministry into like the largest, most revered campus ministry in the world. And I got to be a part of that and run the day-to-day operations for many years. But it's not like one of us did all that.
Right. We built upon successes of others, then we took it forward to somewhere else so that one day when we get to heaven, we get to go, Hey, guess what, Lord, I tried to multiply it, you know, 10, 30, 60 fold and return to you, you know, something great. And that's what God wants. God wants us to get there and be fruitful because the fruitfulness screams out to the rest of the world.
Hey, look. There's a growth here, virtue here, holiness here, change lives here, souls that are going to go to heaven. I mean, that's fruit. And so that's what the church is called to do is to go and bear fruit and abundant fruit. So, we got, that's, that's what we got to do as, as Catholics is. We can't settle for the way things are and think we're just doing okay when God calls us to go out there and change the world.

[00:11:11] Jim: Yeah, I, Marcel, I love, I mean, you, you talked about, you know, again, I had a similar experience at the University of Nebraska Lincoln, and the love that you talk about, like, it wasn't just one thing. It wasn't just this, like, silver bullet. And that's like, you know, when I reflected my own experience, I know a little bit of your story, other places, you know, divine renovation, other places, when you ask them, like, what was it?
And they're like, I mean, everything and nothing. And like, it was just a process. It was just kind of a day in and day out. And not that there aren't principles and key moments that they can point to, but this kind of obsession for finding the one thing. No, it's just a, I mean, if there is a one thing, I mean, like, okay, the gospel I might say is like, okay, I do kind of think the gospel is a silver bullet, but other than that, you know, commitment to like, okay, we have got to figure out how to share the gospel in our mission field beyond that everything is just, uh, yeah, there's principles and there's patterns, but it's just, it's showing up every day.

[00:12:12] Marcel: Trying to live it out. Yeah, absolutely. And the thing is that in a sense, there is a silver bullet, and it's building sainthood into people because you're not going to be a great saint without being a great evangelist. You're not going to be a great evangelist without being a great saint. You know, it's, it's an integrated life, right?
Yeah. We integrate all these other Blessings and graces, but we do it filtered through our own personality our own gifts our own talent our own charisms Right as yourself. Yeah, in time and space where I am, right? There's nobody else that can evangelize my family My friends my community in the particular way that god wants me to do it and the same goes for you And I’m not called to go do that work where you are.
In fact, I tell people all the time that I work with, I'm not the expert in Omaha, Nebraska or New York, New York. I'm the expert in college station taxes in the sense of like what our community is currently, what it needs, et cetera. And I'm the one called to go do the ministry there. Not alone, of course.
So, the experts are the ones that are planted locally who are, who are meant to do that. And my job as somebody who works with Catholic leaders is to come alongside them and help bring out of their group of leaders something that they didn't know they even had before that God wants to do something. And as somebody who works kind of outside the institution, I can actually say things to the institutional people that they can't say amongst themselves.
Yes. So, for instance, you work in the archdiocese, right? I mean. I do. So. Imagine going into Archbishop and saying, Archbishop, you told me you were going to do X and you haven't done X yet. And it's the date that you told me you were going to do it by. When are you going to get this to me? Now, Archbishop's going to look at you and say, uh, Jim, you work for me, right?
I can actually do that with the bishops that I work with, with the pastors that I work with, with their teachers. And I do it kindly, but they call me to help hold them accountable. That's what they hire me for, right? And I can come alongside a group of people and say, look, I've been working with you for three months or six months or whatever it is.
Here's what I'm seeing. And this is not good. You have to change X. Whereas if anybody else interiorly said that same thing, what's going to happen? The blowback, the politics, the personal conflict, the other stuff that's natural in human society. But you know, it's sometimes. It's a, it's a barrier to success within the institutions.
So this is all, you know, insider baseball, but really this is the, the point being is that we need everybody to be able to do these jobs and to be the person that they're called to be in the time and space, because nobody can do what you right now are called to do where you are, when you are and who you are.

[00:14:55] Jim: There's so much you just shared there, but I want to, I just want to emphasize if your community has someone who can assist from the outside to be a little bit of that prophetic voice, it helps to have somebody who's really competent, who, you know, who has wisdom and experience, but there's just something very natural and human about the need to have an outside voice who has a unique freedom.
Like, Hey, you're just not my boss. Thanks. You know, and maybe you're paying me as a coach or a consultant, but to have someone who can say, Hey, you know, this thing is not good, and you got to address it or you're never going to get where you're trying to go. That is so huge. 

[00:15:36] Marcel: Absolutely. And what happens is that I can say the same thing you've been saying for five years.
And say it once and they actually listen to me. Yeah, no, it's true. It'll drive you crazy. 

[00:15:44] Jim: Yeah. But it's true. Yeah, but for those listening, I'm thinking about parish leaders, even if it's just in a youth ministry context, a particular ministry, a family even, to have the benefit of occasional outsiders, faithful, trusted, coach, consultant, whatever, who can just say, Okay.
Well, what are you, what are you trying to do here? What about that thing? That, that thing that's kind of in the way the elephant in the room that, you know, nobody can talk about or that only Charlie's been talking about and everybody's so tired of Charlie. And then when Marcel comes in, people are like, Hey, yeah, we should fix that.
And Charlie's like, you know, dying because he's been saying it for years, but it's just sometimes there's internal dynamics that happens. That's, yeah, don't be ashamed to have an outsider help. 

[00:16:27] Marcel: Yeah. So, let's make this super practical for the people who are listening. So, here's a practicality to this. Like in your family, doesn't it help sometimes when you have, let's say the priest comes over for dinner and he says, how are you guys praying?
And. You know, mom had been bringing this up for the last two months and nobody really wanted to talk about it. And now everybody's like, oh, well, father says so. So, we have to list, you know, the priest said it, right. Or your marriage is struggling. Right. And you're not talking to each other real well or listening real well.
And you go to a counselor and after three sessions, everything seems better. You know, because that person objectively can look at it and say, Hey, guys, this is what you need to do. And they're listening to that person speak the same truth that you've been speaking to each other in a little bit more objective manner without the baggage.
And you actually do something. And in the same way, this happens at every kind of social place. We exist in the family, in the neighborhood, in the schools, everywhere, and in our parishes and our dioceses. Of course, we need other people. And let me give you another practical thing. With your kids, children, we know that based on studies, one of the defining factors of whether your kid is going to continue to believe after they leave your house is how many other adults who are disciples are part of their life.

[00:17:44] Jim: Yeah, say that again, because that is, that's exactly what I was thinking as we were talking about this. Repeat it, because I don't, I want to make sure people catch that. 

[00:17:51] Marcel: Yeah, so, If you want a kid, if you're raising kids, children in your home, right? And you're raising them to believe in the faith part of the magic ingredient that you need to build within them is them having a relationships with adults who also believe and can be a voice and can be a witness to them in other ways that mom and dad can't.
So let me give you some examples. The person who volunteers up at the church in the youth ministry who is an adult, not another Uh huh. Teenager, not a, but the adult who is not part of their family and who they say that's a credible witness of the gospel. And they, they're in the youth ministry and I look up to them.
Then it's the teacher at the school. Who's a believer. Who's not shy about sharing that in the public school. And then it's the next-door neighbor who you see them talking about prayer and living the faith. Your kids get to know them and those kind of things. So, for me, let me tell you a couple of things.
My kids got to see the youth minister. My kids got to see the other people in the youth ministry. My kids got to see our friends who, when we have family times all the time, and we pray together, and we do things together and we vacation together, and we go to mass together. And, you know, all my kids were like, Hey, I want, I want so and so to be my confirmation sponsor.
And these were friends of ours because they were credible witnesses. Yeah. This is again, building back into like, okay, we need the community in a sense, is going to help our children to say, look, it's not just mom and dad. 

[00:19:18] Jim: Kim and I did the same thing very intentionally. I mean, and I can name, you know, like the three, four, five people for each child that the Lord providentially provided, but we cultivated it.
Oh yeah. We will trade food for your testimony. Like you're going to come over and I'm going to give you a nice drink and we're going to have dinner. But during dinner, I'm going to ask you, to talk about either the testimony of like, you know, my kind of initial encounter with the Lord or just something the Lord's doing in your life.
And that it was so powerful. Um, it's such an amazing gift. Yeah. To be able to have these other adults. Your family's a little, little bit ahead of ours. You've got Children that are adult married and they're permanent. You're just saying I'm a permanent vocation. Well, I mean, you started with the bald things.
I'm just like, kind of follow it. But like, but I can see it now and you know, I've got some high schoolers and man, we're not done yet, but I can see the effect. that this witness from other faithful adult Catholics has had on them. Yeah, absolutely. And I'm so grateful because I could not have done it alone.
Professional missionary. And it's like, there's no way I could have done it on my own. 

[00:20:23] Marcel: No, absolutely not. You know, and the fact is, none of us is perfect. You know, my kids tell me all the time just how imperfect I am. And my wife will point out probably within 20 minutes of me going into the house after work.
So, we need help. Yeah. We need others. I mean, we can't do this alone. Yes. This time is, you know, that we're in right now is so crazy. We need a, as many people as possible in our families, in our kids’ lives. 

[00:20:47] Jim: Yeah. Marcel, I want to just pivot a little bit here because, you know, we talked about campus ministry, and now we're talking about our family, but you've been in the space of kind of like, you know, personal apostolate, helping people figure out how to live as a missionary disciple, how to share their faith.
You just wrote a book. I thought this was hilarious. I don't know if you did this on purpose, but you wrote a book. Published in 2020 called How to be a Contagious Catholic. Yeah. Contagious was a really popular word in 2020. Was that like good for search engines or what's up with that? 

[00:21:18] Marcel: Now, you know, what's funny is the publisher, Ascension Press, they do a lot of due diligence when they're putting out a book because they don't publish a lot.
And first of all, they ran it through the marketing department, you know, and studies and stuff like that about what's going to sell. Yeah. What are the good words? We had the title, and it was put into the print, and It had already been printed, and then a week before it was supposed to go out, the pandemic hits.
Okay, that's what I was wondering. We had it printed, and the pandemic hit, and they actually delayed it a couple of weeks, but yeah, it was, I don't know, you could call it providential, but. Folks, we were, I mean, I literally start the book in the first part talking about how people with a disease are contagious, and if you go around some people, you know, you're going to catch this disease, and that's just by being around them, and, you know.
Anyway, and I was like, oh my gosh, come on, this is ridiculous, we're in a pandemic. 

[00:22:15] Jim: I don't want to be disrespectful to people who experience the pandemic in a painful way because there's so many who have. But the metaphor, the idea that there is this thing about us that could easily and naturally be passed on to others, in this case we're talking about a blessing, our faith, that's not a bad metaphor.
Before, I want to dive in here, but I just want to ask the obvious question, because I feel like this is an assumption that maybe you and I might share, and I know most of our listeners share, but I find is not, sadly, universal, uh, why does it even matter that Catholics would want to be contagious? 

[00:22:52] Marcel: Yeah, why would you want to be contagious?
Because you want people to go to heaven. Oh, that's good. I mean, you want people to go to heaven. If, if we desire and love what God desires and loves, we're going to want people to go to heaven. God wants us, all that he's created, to rest with him forever in his presence so that he can share this divine love that we were all created for.
Okay, if that's the case, and if we really believe it, how could we not share that with other people? Because if we don't, then literally we hate them. Okay, hatred is wanting something bad to happen to others, right? Yeah. It's the lack of love in a certain sense. Love opposite could be, you know, use as JP2 says another thing.
But hating somebody means we, we desire a bad outcome for them. The worst outcome for anybody is to go to hell. To not be with God forever in heaven. And if we don't share our faith, if we don't live our faith, if we don't evangelize, if we don't preach the gospel, if we don't give our testimony, if we're not praying for others, then we hate them because we don't desire, truly desire with our actions and our decisions to try to get them to go to heaven with us.
Now, we can't force them. We're not trying to, you know, be subversive or anything else, but let's live out of that desire. And if that's the case, we're going to be the best folks we can possibly, and of course, we're going to mess up. Don't get me, okay? I go to confession monthly. I'm a, I'm a big old sinner.
After this interview, I'm going to be pricked on my conscience, okay? You numbskull, how have you not been doing what you just talked about, right? Then I'm going to go pray, and I'm going to sit down with a cup of coffee, and I'm going to pray for a little while, and I'm going to say my rosary, and I'm going to ask Mary, you come walk with me so that I can be that influence in other people's lives, so I can be contagious in other people's lives, so people catch what God has done in my life, so that they can share that, not because I'm better than them, not because I know everything, not because I'm the truth bearer, but because I have God in me.
By His grace, I have God in me, and I'm meant to share that with other people. I'm contagious in a sense, when I live that out. We can be contagious with other things. We can be contagious with toxic, you know, personalities, and bad things, and the culture that wants death and destruction of our souls. Or I can do that with God.
Let's do that with God. 

[00:25:16] Jim: I appreciate so, so much of, of what you just said. I'm, I'm drawn back. I don't know. You've probably seen this video. You know, the, the comedy magic guys, Penn and Teller, there's this video, you know what I'm talking about? We're like, yeah, I use this all the time. Penn, yeah. Penn's the big guy, uh, not a man of faith, but he tells this story about, you know, one of the guys that pulls out of the audience, he's in the act.
And then the guy is, you know. Trying to evangelize him, you know, he gives him a Bible and has a, just a simple, nice conversation. And despite the fact that I, uh, you know, Penn's so not a man of faith. Yeah. He's an atheist. Yeah. He's like, I really respect that. And he says this crazy thing, which I used to love as I was equipping other missionary disciples.
He's like, I think it's all nonsense. But So, you think this spiritual bus is headed towards me called hell. And you're not willing to say something to pull me out of the way, that's weird. How much you gotta hate somebody to not talk to them about your faith? And I was like, whoa! It was just amazing. 

[00:26:14] Marcel: Yeah, it was very convicting for me too.
And in fact, it was, what's crazy is that God used an atheist to convict a lot of Christians that they need to go evangelize. I think he actually made more missionary disciples with that video than he ever knew. Oh, for sure. But he's a credible witness in this. He's consistent with his belief system and saying, Look, I don't care if you're an atheist.
I don't care if you're a Christian. If you believe there's an eternal place of rest that you could be forever and an eternal place of punishment that you could go forever. And how much do you have to hate me not to tell me about that stuff? Yeah. I mean, because if you're a good person, you would say that you'd push me out of the way of the bus, right?
I mean, you're gonna do it. You're gonna try your best to try to help somebody. So yeah, the fact of the matter is, look, let's, let's not think of it in terms of negative stuff. Let's think of it in terms of the people that are right in front of us that we love. We want them to go to hell. Yeah. So, let's do what we can to get them there.
And if that means we get a little uncomfortable, let's do it. So, if I told you, Jim, okay. If you don't eat but once a day for the next month And I can guarantee that you're going to have a million dollars at the end of it You would only eat once a day for the next month because I give you a million bucks at the end of it If I tell you okay, you have to share your story with people that you may not You know, be comfortable doing that.
You got to learn how to preach the gospel. You're going to have to listen and ask big questions and try to figure out where somebody is so that you can help walk with them. You're going to have to go talk to people who are not like you so that you get to know non-Christians. You're going to have to invite people to stuff.
You're going to have to learn how to talk about the grand story of Jesus in the gospel message and invite people to conversion. You're going to have to do those things that get uncomfortable because ultimately at the end of it, you get the greatest gift of all time that is beyond any compare that that's better than any treasure.
That it's called heaven and eternal rest where you have God eternal that we're going to sit in his divine presence forever with and you get to do that with others too. Okay. Well, let's sacrifice a little bit folks. I mean, it's, it's as simple as that. I was so convicted when I was a young man. That's the case that I think heaven and hell are real.
I believe in Jesus Christ. I say it I want to live a life then that's consonant with those things. I want to live a life that's integrated in that way And so I pray on days. I don't want to pray and so when I get on the you know plane and I, after I trained a bunch of religious sisters on how to evangelize, and I don't really want to have a conversation with the lady next to me, but I'm convicted in my spirit that I'd better do it after talking to religious sisters two days about how to evangelize.
So, I do. And then I flop terribly where she doesn't want to have a conversation with me. And then I go back to my prayer life, and I asked Jesus, well, why did you want me to talk to her when she was reading? And literally, this is the case. She was reading a magazine about healing your…your chakra with crystal power.
Okay. And I'm not even kidding. And she put on her headphones and turned away from me and wouldn't talk to me after I tried to strike. I didn't even tell her as a Christian. She just didn't want to talk. So, I asked Jesus, why was I feeling so convicted? He says, because it's not about your Success. It's about your obedience to the mission.
And that's what I was convicted of folks. That's the thing. It's not about you or me. It's about God and it's about others. We're the least important in this dynamic. 

[00:29:29] Jim: I love that you use that word obedience because I think for many faithful Catholics, we've kind of missed that the Lord gave us each individually a commission.
To share our faith, it doesn't mean that that universally everybody's standing on street corners or going to another country as a missionary, but that each in our own way in our own time, how we're made, we are called to share our faith that is sometimes like that's news. To people sometimes, which is, which is sad.
There's like, well, no wonder, you know, there's, there's still, once you know, you're supposed to do it, there's still some obstacles to get over. Not knowing it's your job is probably obstacle number one. Okay. So, I'm just going to assume people listening to like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know, Jim. I know, Marcel.
I know I'm supposed to share my faith, but here's my hangup. I'm not yet at the point yet. Maybe that I feel like I can be the personal accompaniment for these individuals. I'm trying to grow my skills. I'm learning. I'm reading. I'm, you know, I'm stepping out in faith in little ways, you know, trying to get braver, but I need a community to help me, and I just don't feel like I have a local faith community that helps me.
I feel weird about inviting people to my parish because I just don't know how they're going to be received. What do you do in that circumstance? 

[00:30:57] Marcel: Well, one thing that I'm a big proponent of is not inviting people to mass. Invite people to your home. Who would you invite? Okay, let's invite the person who hadn't been to mass, but is Catholic, but hadn't been in six months.
Okay. Well, okay We open up Pandora's box people Because what's the Catholics supposed to do before they receive the Eucharist if they haven't been to mass forever? They're supposed to go to confession Ding ding ding and then I go and they're not gonna be greeted well And they're gonna feel awkward about all this stuff and you might have to have that that conversation about confession beforehand So that's not the first thing we do.
Okay, so second Yeah. Who else might we invite? Well, what about the Protestant who goes to church but doesn't go, is not Catholic? Well, they're going to feel completely out of place. Everybody's watching me. Nobody welcomed me like they do at my church. The preaching's not as good. The music's not as good.
Why would I go here? 

[00:31:42] Jim: Where's my good cup of gourmet coffee that I can drink through the service? 

[00:31:46] Marcel: Yeah. Actually, I, I don't, don't even get me started on that. I think that's great. But anyway, you know, it's the Catholic past. You can do it. So, okay. So, all, it's awkward. We create awkward situations. And then here's the underlying thing that we got to remember.
Mass is for disciples of Jesus who are Catholic and predisposed to receive the Eucharist. It's not meant for everybody else. It's meant for the disciples who are Catholic so they can be fed with the body, blood, soul, and divinity and by the word so that they can go back out and go bring those things to other people incarnately.
So, take them to your house. Take, and guess what? If your parish is in a place where you think people are going to be greeted well, or the hospitality is not going to be very good, the priesthood, you can actually control some of that stuff in your house. Yeah. Go get a glass of bourbon with somebody. Go get a cup of coffee at a coffee shop and have the conversation.
But here's what people want. People want you to care for them. You know, that whole cliche of people don't care what you know until they know that you care. It's true. Because people want to belong. People want to be cared for. People want to be loved. You do. Why wouldn't anybody else? Okay, and the lack of those things in our world right now is the greatest opportunity for Christians to be able to evangelize, and that's to be a friend.
Yeah, to people who don't have friends to be the community for people don't have community and to listen. Okay, ask the big questions and then listen don't just immediately respond with your apologetic argument that you got off of the website That has all the answers and the apologist Look, I I’ve been on those big radio shows and tv things and I can do all the apologetic stuff And I’m going to tell you right now people don't care about Mary’s perpetual virginity The average person, even the Catholic, that is in your life right now that doesn't go to Mass, doesn't care about the authority of the Pope or the Magisterium.
And it certainly doesn't want to hear about the immorality of contraception and abortion, okay? Here's what they want to know. Do you care for me? Do you love me? And show me that you do. Like, not just to correct me and to teach me, show that you love me. How are you going to, how are you going to spend time with me?
How are you going to make me a priority? How are you going to listen to me? So, ask the questions. Okay. How were you raised? What, what did that look like in your family? Did you guys have any kind of faith? Like, tell me about the God that you say you don't believe in. Can you describe him for me? You know, ask the questions, listen, and then it's called, this is what a process I call ALAR.
I teach bishops and priests and everybody else. It's ALAR. Okay. It's kind of cheesy, but let's ask, listen, assess, respond. A L A R. Ask, listen. Assess respond. You ask the big questions. The existential question is not the, Hey, do you believe in the veracity of scripture? Not that you ask, Do you believe in God?
Um, you ask. So, if you had to describe yourself, you know, in five minutes, how would you do that? What are you passionate about? These are the kind of questions that open up doors that you would be It's crazy you ask somebody what they're passionate about and then you show interest You don't have to share the passion, but you show interest in that passion Guess what happens?
People are going to be like, Oh man, he cares. He gets it. He understands. Even if he doesn't accept. And here's another principle. You don't have to accept in order to understand. Your understanding does not necessitate acceptance. So, somebody who lives a completely radically different lifestyle than I do, that might be immoral in a lot of the ways and things that they believe or do, I can still understand where they're coming from.
Try to at least right. So, ask those questions. Listen, like actively. Listen, don't just think about the next question. Listen, show interest. Keep eye contact. Be there. Make them the focus. You know those people who when you have a conversation and they're just like all in on listening to you and you're like, man, I like that person.
Be that person. And I actually this is the hard part for me. Like I'm good with the asking the questions and the assessment and response. I have to work on my listening because I'm an extrovert, right? So, then you go to assess, and assessing is not Is this person going to heaven or hell? No, you're asking, you're assessing.
What, what do they need? God, help me understand this person. God, where could I do next to build into this relationship? And then you respond appropriately. And a lot of times this is real patient relationship building friends. Yeah, right. Hey, you know what? I really enjoy getting a cup of coffee with you and having that conversation Do you mind if we do that next month?
Right be patient, right? So, these are the kind of practicalities of this is the world These are the people, and this is our our first response. Don't take them Don't invite him to mass, invite him to coffee, invite him to your house, invite him to, and, and do these kind of like practical relationship building because that's evangelization.
Okay, now, that's not the end of evangelization, that's the beginning of evangelization, right? Because you want to earn the right. To be trusted. And then once you're trusted, then you can have deeper conversations. Yeah. Okay. And look, I'll, I'll give you an example of screwing this up in my own life, okay?
'cause I'm not the perfect evangelist. 

[00:36:40] Jim: This is gold by the way. Everybody like this is so good. So, I keep going, but you know, tell us about how you screw up. But this is good.

[00:36:48] Marcel: I'm not gonna tell you a success story because I want you to see, to hear how I screwed up. Okay? So, my next-door neighbor, his name's John.
I don't think I'm giving away too much there. John, John goes to mass sometimes. Okay. John's one of those, you know, predominantly Easter, Christmas, Ash Wednesday kind of Catholics, really nice guy, a little bit older than I am, but you know, has a couple of adult children around the same age as my adult children.
So, you know, we, we connect well, we talk over the fence, you know, we text each other sometimes. And after about a year and a half of getting to know John, I invited him to a Bible study. Well, I jumped the gun. Because I wasn't listening to John enough. I wasn't building the trust enough with John. John immediately kind of was like, Whoa, whoa, whoa, that's, that's not my kind of thing.
You know, that's just not for me. You know, I, uh, you know, he got, he got a little miffed that I was asking that. And that's probably because he just didn't know me well enough, and he didn't trust me. So, I stepped back from that, and I've spent the last couple of years rebuilding the trust that I lost by inviting him too soon.
I haven't given up on this more than anything. I invite him over for social stuff when I have the guys in the backyard around the fire pit. Hey, John, come hang out and he's come over. You know, and he's had a good time and he's met some of these other guys who are credible witnesses, and we fix all the world's problems and guess what, you know, they're likable, nice guys.
And so, we're doing, I don't know the timetable when I'm going to make that next invite or give my testimony or preach the gospel or whatever it might be that, you know, it's actually a little bit more explicit evangelistically. It's going to probably happen if we continue on this path, right? So, right.

[00:38:26] Jim: But you're, you're praying for John, listening to John, you're listening to the Holy Spirit and it's going to unfold. It's just, it's just in God's time. 

[00:38:36] Marcel: And one of the things I do that is when I text him, sometimes I ask, Hey, do you need anything that you have an intention that I should pray for? You have any prayer requests, you know, and he'll tell me.
And so, he knows I'm praying for him. He knows I'm praying for those intentions. Right. And so. You know, it's, it's okay when, if the spirit calls and he's in front of me and he's having a bad day and he's telling me, you know, he decides it's time to spill my guts about, you know, this happened at work or whatever, and it's been really awful.
I'm going to pray for you, John. In fact, can I pray for you right now? That's going to be my next thing. Like, and if John says, yes, we're going to pray. And guess what? When I ask people, what do you want prayers for? 99 percent of people tell me sometimes. 99 percent of people. I mean, I'm not, I don't think that it's probably more than that.
I can't remember the last time somebody said, ah, you don't need to. Yeah. I don't, I don't remember. They always have something, even if they don't believe they're like, well, if it makes you feel better, you can pray for my mom. They still want me to do it, but they're like, Oh, a lot of believe. But if it makes you feel pray for my mom, you know.
And then I say something, you know, if I'm feeling called to it and I feel that I might be able to, hey, can I pray for that right now? And I end up praying in bars, I end up praying at restaurants, I end up praying on street corners, I end up praying on the, you know, the telephone. I mean, it's all the time, man.
I mean, it's, and I pray for people and with people and, and it literally changes the dynamic in the relationship automatically to where like, A layer of trust that wasn't there before that prayer just happened because they know I care that much.

[00:40:04] Jim: I want you to speak to that because I think, I've had exactly the same experience, countless other people.
But I think for those who've maybe never tried this, you're like, you do what? Yeah. Okay. Okay. I can, I can say I'm going to pray for him. Great. Got the prayer request. I'm walking away. See you tomorrow. I'll be praying. But praying right there. I think some people might be imagining, I mean, you can try to like, you know, remember where our listeners are at.
Talk to those who are thinking like, oh man, that's just going to be weird. People are going to be creeped out. I just killed all the trust that I built. That's not been my experience, but can you speak to it? Like why, why do you think people respond so well to being prayed for in the moment? 

[00:40:46] Marcel: Well, first of all, it just breaks barriers. I mean, the spirit comes in right there, boom, two or more are gathered in my name. There I am in their midst. You're inviting God into that place. The other thing is, the vast majority of people in some way consider themselves spiritual. 

[00:41:03] Jim: Yeah, yeah. All the data, all the stats say that. 

[00:41:06] Marcel: Yeah. All the data says that, right?
Yeah. So, you don't have to be the master intercessor who has these pretty prayers. This is where we got to get over ourselves and just realize that my prayers matter and my prayers for this person matter. And it doesn't mean that I get to control God. He's not some amulet that I get to pull out of my pocket and then, you know, invoke the magic formula and he does what I want, but rather it's, I place my faith and my hope in him, and I invite him into this place.
So, it can simply be, Hey, John, he's having a bad day. Hey, John, do you mind if I pray for you? Sure. Let's say a prayer real quick. Jesus, I want to pray for John right now. I know he's suffering, and things are hard. I pray that you would be his comfort and his peace. And we pray this in your name. Amen. And that's all it takes.
It doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to be something complicated. And if you screw it up, it's okay. Well, I 

[00:41:55] Jim: don't know how you screw it up. You're like, pray for, I'm sorry, what was your name again? Bill? Exactly. I do that too. It's not like God's confused. 

[00:42:03] Marcel: But you know what? The first time somebody did this for me, I remember it vividly and I was already working in ministry, and it was probably year two end to my first-time working ministry in this deacon.
He came up to me after mass and he was like the largest man you ever, I want you to imagine like the six, eight deacon who weighs 400 pounds. Okay. And it's the, and it's. Three times the volume of your average guy and he's like, yeah. Hello. I am deacon. He's like Marcel How are you today? And it's like echoing in the narthex of church.
You too, too, too, too Says I say well, actually I'm not that great. Would you he said you need some prayers? I say, yeah pray for my sister She's really sick with cancers. My sister was dying with cancer at the time. Mm hmm And he says, let's pray right now, Jesus. He didn't give me an opportunity to ask. I mean, to respond, there was no consent here on my part, but he just did.

[00:42:51] Jim: Did he have you by the collar? He's like, he was like, you're not going to

[00:42:53] Marcel: He grabbed my shoulder. It's big. You know, and he's one of those guys that didn't have a hand. He had a meaty Paul and he just put it on my shoulder, and he prayed, but it brought me to tears because I needed it right there. I didn't need him to pray later.
I needed to pray right then. Yeah. That's what I needed. And I realized I can do this with others. And I started doing it with the students in the campus ministry I was working at, at the time, at Texas Tech. And I started praying with them, and it started changing things. And then they started praying with others, and we started actually praying with people on campus when we'd go evangelize.
And we started to integrate that. And then, lo and behold, we're praying all the time with people, and guess what? Lives are being changed. And barriers are being broken, and hearts are being transformed. I mean, it was just remarkable. 

[00:43:36] Jim: And it's all God. It's not like It's not like it's a technique, I mean, it's a remembering to bring him in, but then he does all the stuff, he does all the heavy lifting.

[00:43:46] Marcel: Man, I've prayed on planes with people multiple times, I've prayed with others, I mean, it's not hard, you just gotta have some guts, honestly. And there are times I'm like, okay, I don't feel like this is the time. Okay. But you got to be careful of making sure that's your, not your feeling. It's, you know, that's of God and like trying to discern the situation, not just because believe me, there are times I don't want to, I mean, it just don't, right.
Right. I just, I got nothing right now, Jesus. But you know, come on, have some guts, try it. And I, you know, I got guys in a small group right now. And one of the guys says, this is my big thing, Marcel. It's been like a month and a half. He said, I'm going to try this. And he hadn't done it yet. And I keep on him.
I'm like, okay, what? You know, and I'm not gonna give you his name, but you know, I'll keep on him and he's gonna do it one day and it's gonna, it's gonna, it's gonna be more for him than it is for that person. He prays for that first one. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:44:38] Jim: You know what I mean? Yeah. And, and the Lord's gonna make it powerfully just to say, see.

[00:44:43] Marcel: Absolutely. See, yeah. Exactly. And it, again, it, and it's gonna be powerful for him because he's gonna walk away going, I finally like. Got onto that mountaintop of, or over the mountaintop, you know, that thing I thought was so difficult. It really wasn't that bad. 

[00:44:56] Jim: Yeah. Okay. I want to address them because in a variety of different ways, you've talked about how the Holy Spirit is the one who's, who's kind of like, he's, I think you used the word prompting and like, you know, like convicting and like, but basically he's showing you, okay.
Marcel, you need to say something now, or, you know, you need to do this or back off or this. You're getting this almost like kind of radio contact, you know, left here, right here, slow down, speed up. Talk a little bit more about how do you learn to hear and respond to the Spirit's guidance? 

[00:45:30] Marcel: Yeah. First of all, there's, there's saints that have this way better than I do.
So, I would start with Saint Ignatius of Loyola. I think that it's masterful and it's proven through the ages and with other great saints that it is like one of the primary ways that people can learn how to discern and to discern the spirits and what's moving inside them. And is that of God or is that of the enemy?
And so, we, we want to be on the side of God, and we don't want to listen to the enemy. The enemy is going to try to draw us away from the will of God. He's By the way, the enemy in St. Ignatius of Loyola is, it can come from our own hearts or disordered desires, it can come from the world, or it can come from the devil, right?
Right. So, it's not just, when he says the enemy, that's all of those things, or one of those things, right? The enemy is the one that opposes the will of God. And so, we want to listen to the spirit of God, not the spirit of the enemy. So, this takes some practice and these as principles of how to do this, but it's, it's listening.
And first of all, you can't do this without a. A really foundational daily intimate prayer life. When I say intimate, that doesn't mean I experience something deep every time I sit down to pray. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying I pray every day. I spend a substantial amount of time doing it, and I'm trying to grow my life, and I'm listening, and I'm quiet, and I'm meditative, and I'm trying to progress in my prayer life, right?
And I'm honest. Yeah, exactly. And I'm not, and it's okay that I sit down and some days it sucks. Or I think it sucks. Yeah. Because here, and first of all, let me put everybody at ease. God's more pleased with the prayer that you do when it's hard and you still do it than the easy one that comes, and you get a lot of consolation.
So, you can actually please God's heart more by doing the difficult prayer you don't want to do and still doing it than the one that comes easy where you get a lot out of it. But on the flip of that, we all like it when everything, you know, cause we all have that spiritual sweet tooth fine. Okay. So, we have the spiritual sweet tooth.
Let's say I'm going to still do my prayer, but I'm going to also. Holy Spirit come help me to understand your will help me to understand what the Father's heart desires Help me to have the mind of Christ Help me to put on all these things that are necessary for me to be able to listen better when the prompting comes Okay Marcel, ask that person for prayer.
If that, if that pops up when I'm sitting in line to get that cup of coffee, Hey, how's your day going? It's going all right. Yeah. Just all right. Yeah. It's been kind of rough. I'm sorry about that. Do you need prayers for anything? Boom. I've responded to that. You know, prompting of the spirit. Cause you know, you know the voice.
Yeah, exactly. And it can come from the, your conscience saying, and what is your conscience? Your conscience says, do good, avoid evil. Right. So do good. Well, that's a good thing I could do now. Again, sometimes the prompting doesn't come, and I just give a 50-cent tip. Maybe I should tip more. I should listen to the Holy Spirit more, you know, so these are things, you know, again, it's, it's just a practice of trying to figure this out.
And of course, I don't get it right all the time. And there, you know, I remember in the last couple of weeks, there was once that I had this prompting and I ignored it and I have to repent. Honestly, I'm like, Jesus, I'm sorry. I said no to the prompting. Um, crud. Okay, let's do it next. 

[00:48:42] Jim: Yeah. You know? Marcel, this is so, all of this is so good.
I know, you know, you've spent now years as part of a parish that is teaching its parishioners how to share their faith, how to discern, how to hear the voice of the Lord. What role do parishes have in equipping and supporting Individual, you know, disciples in learning how to share our faith. 

[00:49:08] Marcel: Yeah. The parish is supposed to be the preeminent institution of the church in the sense of, okay, the church has this principle of subsidiarity, right?
You leave to the lower-level organizations, the things that they can take care of, and the higher-level organizations don't need to be telling them what to do. Well, the first. Organization, the primary one, is the family. The families, the groups of families, make up parishes. Okay, that's the next level in it.
Now, in some places, that means tens of thousands of people. But that's the next, that's the next level, uh, in our institutional church. So, in a sense, We're supposed to be gathering families and some individuals who aren't necessarily part of a, you know, family in their local area. Gathering individuals and families together so that they're equipped to be the gospel for that community.
Yeah. And so, they're able to take that back to their home. To their neighborhood, to be the gospel message for the schools, the work and all this other stuff. So, the parish is meant to equip disciples, to be able to be the hands, the feet, the voice that bring the gospel, that bring Jesus Christ, that bring the Eucharist and the sacraments and the scriptures and all these other gifts of our Catholic church to the world that desperately needs it.
Right. So, so the, the parish is kind of home base. Now it doesn't look like that all the time. Okay, in reality, what ends up happening is the parish has become an institution unto itself. Okay. The parish doesn't exist to perpetuate the parish. The parish exists to bring the gospel to the territory that it exists in, the community that it exists in.
It exists for the world, not for itself. God didn't create the Catholic church for itself. God created the Catholic church for the world. God didn't make you a disciple for yourself. He made you a disciple for everybody else around you. So, we have to remember that. And if we keep that vision for that's the reason the parish exists, Then the parish is going to be home base, which helps build community, build friendships, build into each other, grow spiritual lives, equips intellectually, all these kinds of things that it should and could be so that you can go back out in the world and do these things in a, in a really formative way, right?
The graces of the sacraments and all these other things that you're going to get. That's why they exist is so we can be better missionary disciples. 

[00:51:25] Jim: Yeah. It's keeping the, the call to make the members holy and the call to make the members missionary. Together. Yeah, absolutely. Marcel, you've got kind of a national view.
I mean, you're, you're doing work, uh, around the country right now. What do you see as you look at the church around the United States now? What's Scott doing? 

[00:51:47] Marcel: First of all, I'm gonna tell you what a lot of people see, and then I'm gonna tell you what I see because I, I talk to a lot of folks around the country. So, a lot of people see, a lot of good and a lot of really bad, and I think we should reverse that. There's a, there's some bad and a lot of really good stuff going on. Look, the fact of the matter is the Catholic Church in the United States is suffering in some ways, but that's not what God focuses on or is worried about. God's not worried about anything.
God's God. God's not anxious. God's not, you know, in an uproar about this or that, you know. Catholic church politics being played out on the national stage or, or that bishop that said this or this scandal that happened over here. You know what God, you know what God loves is when you go pray, you know what God loves is when somebody's heart is transformed and they decide, you know what, I'm going to go back to the sacrament of confession when somebody who's never believed in God.
Decides they're going to believe in him and invites him into their heart. That's what's happening, and it's still happening, and it always will happen. There are miracles occurring. There are lives being transformed. There are people becoming saints. And it's happening on a grander, bigger scale right now.
Even while the church in numbers. And percentage wise might be shrinking in the United States in some ways, there are more fruitful, deep disciples who are being formed now than in many generations. And the reason why is because there's this understanding that the church might be getting smaller percentage wise, but all those people who were Catholic in name only two generations ago are no longer going to church.
And the reason why is because they've got nothing they really want to hang on to because the culture says it's worthless. Yeah. So, they're all leaving, but the ones who have stayed are stronger for it. Yeah. I see that too. Yeah. The apostolates that are out there killing it. So many apostles, man, we're growing.
Like I'm about to hire, you know, these kinds of things that are happening and these other apostle leaders that I know. And the other thing is, Our diocesan and parish structures and institutions, the leaders of those, the conversations, Jim, that I'm having right now, I could not have had 10 years ago. 

[00:53:53] Jim: Yeah, I agree.

[00:53:54] Marcel: I mean, just the fact that people talk about how do I evangelize better? Okay, we had to convince people to evangelize 10 years ago. Now we're just telling people how to evangelize. We had to convince people that parish structures and institutions needed reform and renewal and maybe a robust change in how we do things.
We don't convince them anymore. Now we're talking about how do we do it. So, the questions 10, 20 years ago of what do we believe or why, you know, do we do that, or you know, all that. Those have all been answers. We don't have leaders answer asking those questions. Here's what leaders are asking. How do I do it?
How do I do it? How do I do it? How do I do it? And so now they're set up to change things that needed to be changed 50 years ago. But folks, that's great. That's a blessing. That's a grace. 

[00:54:35] Jim: Yeah. It's a really fun time, actually. 

[00:54:38] Marcel: Yeah. And the thing is, yes, we should have done it generations ago. The trajectory is messed up and we've got a lot of work to do and catching up.
Let's not be somebody who is, you know, in despair or worry or anxious because of this, you know, this, this whole thing that we hear on Twitter or social media or this person who's kind of this, this voice of angst that wants to, you know, build an empire on angry Catholics who are worried and upset about stuff.
And yet, hey, by the way, donate to my ministry. Um, you know that kind of stuff bugs me to no end don't listen. Oh, yeah Listen to the voice of god where there is hope where there is love where there is unity where there is peace That's what god said god says they will know you by your love The world will know you because you're all united and he's praying for a unity now unity is not some false unity It's unity through truth and goodness and holiness and righteousness.

[00:55:29] Jim: Thank you for saying that maybe we'll have like a part two conversation later Because I mean, I know so many good Catholics, but who are being misled and their faith is being weakened and sabotaged because they're just watching too much of the news. And to be clear, it's like bad Catholic news and they're getting angsty.

[00:55:52] Marcel: Yeah, it's the, it's certain commentators and I, I'm not afraid to name names. I won't do it here, but I will do it over that bourbon or that cup of coffee, and I will say, you need to stop listening to that person or this show or this thing. Unsubscribe, please. Don't read that. Yeah, exactly. Cancel that email.
Stop doing that stuff. Yeah, and we don't need to name names. No, but they're the provocateurs. They're disciples of distrust. They're the ones who are trying to say, you can't trust the pope, you can't trust the bishops, you can't trust the church, you can't trust this person or that person. Listen to me. I'm the magisterium of one.
Okay. Yeah. With that being said, but I do want to also point out though, and let's make sure I'm not some Pollyanna, you know, who thinks that everything's great in the Catholic church and everything. So, I am not that, believe me, you want to sit me down. Well, I'll give you all the problems of the Catholic church.
Cause I've been in the midst, I've seen the underbelly of the church and I, I can guarantee you. Okay. Let me just put it this way. While in ministry, I've dealt with serial murders, rapists, abusers. Scandal, et cetera. It's everything you could possibly imagine I've dealt with on a first name basis, and it's ugly, and it's gross because sin exists, but in the face of that, we have a God who we can believe in, who can conquer sin and death and evil and distrust and disunity and all those things in a God who we can look at and say, Oh, yeah, look at our God, Where, O death, is your sting?
Oh yeah, where, sin, is your sting? Because we have this God, the one who died on a cross for our sins and rose again so that you and I could go to heaven and live with him forever. And that is good news. And let's rest in that good news and not let the bad news that surrounds us daily enter into our hearts.

[00:57:30] Jim: Yeah. In some ways, you just preached the Paschal mystery, the darkest, deepest, worst Jesus entered into. And then, right, transformed like into life and there is a, there's a degree to which as we recognize the church as the body of Christ, it's the same pattern. There's a suffering and a brokenness and a woundedness, but the Lord is still the Lord.

[00:57:54] Marcel: Yeah. And don't let the spirit of cynicism. Don't let the spirit of anger or distrust rule your decisions or the way that you want to treat other people. Jesus Christ is real, and He wants to live with you right now in this place in your problem and your, and let Him, let Him, invite Him in. Come Holy Spirit, come Jesus, come Father, take this from me, come do what I can't do.

[00:58:19] Jim: Marcel, this has been so good, and it has gone so fast. I just want to, yeah, just give you a moment here, just for like any final thoughts. Uh, again, those, those who are like listening, they're like, holy cow, I need to listen to the Spirit, and man, I want my parish to equip me, and, and I gotta start praying for people.
Just the, all the stuff, what'd be kind of like your final, you know, final maybe admonition and encouragement? 

[00:58:46] Marcel: First of all, you God's not going to fix us in a moment. That's just not how it happens. And your, your inadequacies to the task at hand that you want to accomplish are nothing in the hands of a God who is infinitely powerful.
All he has is messed up, sinful, insufficient people for the task that he wants to accomplish, and he laughs at us. All he asks is us to give him a little bit of room and a small yes, and then get out of his way. Because here's the thing. I am neither the most talented The smartest, um, certainly not the best looking of any of the people that I know, even in my local community.
I'm not the best evangelist. I'm not the best theologian. I'm not the best writer or speaker. I'm not the best person to have a conversation with. I'm not the best listener. I'm not best at any of those things. And yet God can still do big things through me, and you because God is bigger than I am and bigger than you.
And all he asks is that we say yes and try. That's all. And then let him do the heavy lifting. And guess what's going to happen? Lives can be changed through you and me. And, I mean, this is, think about it. God chose twelve knuckleheads. So don't think that you're beyond what they are. And, come on, just go do it.

[01:00:03] Jim: Give it a try. Alright, say yes and try. Alright everybody, you know somebody who needs to hear this episode. I encourage you, check out Marcel's book, um, you can find it on Amazon, you can find it on catholicmissionarydisciples.com. Marcel, where else, if people want to get a hold of you, where do they find you?

[01:00:24] Marcel: Yeah, I mean, you go to our website, catholicmissionarydisciples.com. You can't get the book there though. I, I'm the worst marketer of all time and I don't sell any of my own merch or anything like that. So, yeah, you're going to have to go to Amazon or Ascension Press. Yeah, but that's, it's a very practical book.
It's who I am. I don't deal just in the, you know, 30,000-foot level. I want you to be able to... 

[01:00:43] Jim: Yeah. How to be a contagious Catholic, Marcel. Thank you. Thanks for everything you do. And, uh, everybody. Thanks, for... Thanks for listening. 

[01:00:51] Outro: Thanks for listening to the EquipCast. We hope this episode has inspired you to live your faith and equip you to be fruitful in your mission. Stay connected with us by going to equip.archomaha.org. God bless and see you next time.