WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.211 --> 00:00:03.034 Friends, welcome back to The Way UK. 2 00:00:03.074 --> 00:00:06.818 My name is Solomon and today I am joined by... Zoe! 3 00:00:07.158 --> 00:00:10.982 Zoe, and over there on that chair we have a guest with us. 4 00:00:11.423 --> 00:00:14.166 He is a man of great intellect. 5 00:00:14.346 --> 00:00:17.009 He has a few theology degrees to his name. 6 00:00:17.029 --> 00:00:19.992 He's a smart cookie and we are delighted to have him with us. 7 00:00:20.594 --> 00:00:21.455 It is Gabriel Carberry. 8 00:00:21.475 --> 00:00:21.776 Come on. 9 00:00:22.056 --> 00:00:22.457 There it is. 10 00:00:22.557 --> 00:00:23.899 A little round of applause. 11 00:00:24.099 --> 00:00:25.061 Oh, what an introduction. 12 00:00:25.081 --> 00:00:25.401 Lovely. 13 00:00:25.421 --> 00:00:31.310 But before we get into your story, into talking to you properly, so don't say a word for a second. 14 00:00:31.330 --> 00:00:32.672 Just nod and smile. 15 00:00:32.752 --> 00:00:33.433 I'll keep it quiet. 16 00:00:33.493 --> 00:00:34.595 I was very nice. 17 00:00:35.616 --> 00:00:40.218 If you're listening on Spotify or Apple or YouTube, go ahead and give us a five-star rating. 18 00:00:40.238 --> 00:00:41.179 It really does help us out. 19 00:00:41.239 --> 00:00:46.902 We have a mission here at The Way UK, and that is to spread the gospel to every young person online. 20 00:00:46.962 --> 00:00:49.823 So with that said, let's roll the credits. 21 00:00:49.863 --> 00:00:50.764 Roll the credits. 22 00:00:54.631 --> 00:00:58.516 Gabriel, Gabe, Gabor, thank you so much for being here. 23 00:00:58.536 --> 00:00:59.698 Did you say Gabor? 24 00:00:59.758 --> 00:01:01.380 Gabor, Gabor. 25 00:01:01.400 --> 00:01:02.742 Thank you so much for being here. 26 00:01:03.964 --> 00:01:08.069 Gabriel, before we get into the nitty gritty, do you want to just tell us a little bit about yourself? 27 00:01:08.630 --> 00:01:08.911 Yeah. 28 00:01:08.931 --> 00:01:09.652 That'd be really cool. 29 00:01:09.672 --> 00:01:11.955 Well, according to you, I've got a humongous intellect. 30 00:01:13.736 --> 00:01:16.278 I feel confident going into this episode. 31 00:01:16.298 --> 00:01:17.499 Let me tell you, that's great. 32 00:01:18.519 --> 00:01:19.260 My name is Gabriel. 33 00:01:19.720 --> 00:01:20.321 I'm 28. 34 00:01:21.221 --> 00:01:21.802 I'm a Christian. 35 00:01:21.822 --> 00:01:23.323 I'm a Catholic Christian. 36 00:01:23.583 --> 00:01:28.446 I like to say I'm a theologian with a small T, just because I know proper theologians. 37 00:01:28.486 --> 00:01:29.567 They're leagues above me. 38 00:01:30.067 --> 00:01:32.649 But yeah, I've spent a bit of time studying theology. 39 00:01:33.150 --> 00:01:40.916 I'm working on a book at the moment about what we call the problem of evil and suffering, but sort of from the perspective of people's personal stories and stuff. 40 00:01:40.936 --> 00:01:42.958 So that's a personal project. 41 00:01:43.518 --> 00:01:54.768 In my life as well, I, you know, work nine to five for a coffee roastery in South London, but on the side, I'm creative directing a documentary that the Catholic Church in England is doing about the mass, which is our central act of worship. 42 00:01:55.188 --> 00:01:59.973 So I'm sort of creative directing that and helping theologically sort of consult on that, which is very exciting. 43 00:02:00.194 --> 00:02:03.077 And I'm involved in leading worship and doing ministry. 44 00:02:03.097 --> 00:02:09.084 And to be honest, involved in a lot of what we're doing today, which is like having conversations across difference, across different traditions. 45 00:02:10.125 --> 00:02:11.766 I encountered the love of Jesus for myself. 46 00:02:12.307 --> 00:02:17.130 when I was 14, which is a whole big, beautiful story of God's grace playing out in my life. 47 00:02:17.851 --> 00:02:19.272 I'd grown up in a Catholic family. 48 00:02:19.792 --> 00:02:24.515 I was privileged to have four great uncles who were really amazing, spiritual Irish priests. 49 00:02:24.535 --> 00:02:26.676 So there was a big influence there. 50 00:02:26.716 --> 00:02:29.438 But there'd also been some pain and some loss in my childhood. 51 00:02:29.658 --> 00:02:33.161 So even though I'd say I'd encountered God as a small child, 52 00:02:33.816 --> 00:02:36.579 When I was six, I had an experience of God's love that changed my life. 53 00:02:37.220 --> 00:02:39.462 Those experiences of pain and loss really challenged my faith. 54 00:02:39.502 --> 00:02:43.206 And so I really needed to experience the love of God and really choose it for myself. 55 00:02:43.827 --> 00:02:50.254 When I was a teenager and I became a Christian in that sense, I would have even said I became born again. 56 00:02:50.294 --> 00:02:54.979 I was regenerated by the love of God, by the Holy Spirit in an environment that wasn't Catholic. 57 00:02:55.700 --> 00:03:09.524 Um, so I've sort of always had an aspect of my calling in my life, which is really doing life with people who are outside of my tradition and outside of my church, some of my best friends and people who pour into my life and the people that I do ministry with are not Catholic. 58 00:03:09.984 --> 00:03:14.225 Um, there's tension in that and there's pain sometimes, but there's a real beauty. 59 00:03:14.745 --> 00:03:17.226 Um, and so that's a really big part of my life as well. 60 00:03:17.566 --> 00:03:19.046 So that's a bit about who I am. 61 00:03:19.286 --> 00:03:19.566 Yeah. 62 00:03:19.746 --> 00:03:20.006 Yeah. 63 00:03:20.226 --> 00:03:20.546 Awesome. 64 00:03:21.207 --> 00:03:22.547 Um, on that note. 65 00:03:22.567 --> 00:03:22.767 Um, yeah. 66 00:03:23.428 --> 00:03:27.820 Could you just explain a little bit about what Catholicism is? 67 00:03:29.270 --> 00:03:30.110 I love that question. 68 00:03:30.191 --> 00:03:31.171 Yeah. 69 00:03:31.611 --> 00:03:33.432 Catholicism is really interesting, right? 70 00:03:33.452 --> 00:03:39.756 If you think about ism, you might think of like socialism or liberalism, like you have these different ideologies. 71 00:03:40.296 --> 00:03:48.741 And so it can be tempting to think of Catholicism as like a type of Christianity that, you know, is maybe a bit more right wing than other forms of Christianity. 72 00:03:48.761 --> 00:03:51.002 Maybe it's a bit more morally like strict or something. 73 00:03:51.322 --> 00:03:53.744 That's what a lot of people can have in their heads. 74 00:03:54.144 --> 00:03:56.785 But I think Catholicism is much deeper and broader than that. 75 00:03:56.926 --> 00:03:57.126 So, 76 00:03:57.926 --> 00:03:59.347 I really like John Henry Newman. 77 00:03:59.627 --> 00:04:00.808 He's a saint in this country. 78 00:04:01.008 --> 00:04:08.592 He's recently been named doctor of the church, which is a big honor that we give to very rare, like special saints, you know? 79 00:04:08.872 --> 00:04:12.214 So doctors of the church, like Augustine, Aquinas, if you've heard of people like that. 80 00:04:12.594 --> 00:04:16.516 John Henry Newman, who only died about 150 years ago in this country, 120 years ago, maybe. 81 00:04:16.716 --> 00:04:19.538 English fella, doctor of the church, which is a big deal. 82 00:04:21.019 --> 00:04:23.040 Anyway, he said the essential Catholic thing 83 00:04:23.800 --> 00:04:29.505 was that we celebrate fully what we call in Christianity the mystery of the incarnation. 84 00:04:30.126 --> 00:04:30.746 It's a big word. 85 00:04:30.766 --> 00:04:31.847 I want to kind of break that down. 86 00:04:32.188 --> 00:04:32.408 Yeah. 87 00:04:32.748 --> 00:04:41.576 If you think about Jesus, the incarnate son of God, and the message of that mystery that we believe that Jesus Christ is fully God and fully man. 88 00:04:41.736 --> 00:04:42.897 All Christians believe that, right? 89 00:04:42.917 --> 00:04:44.158 Not just Catholics. 90 00:04:44.358 --> 00:04:44.579 Yeah. 91 00:04:44.599 --> 00:04:48.742 The mystery of the incarnation tells us a really beautiful story about God and us. 92 00:04:49.543 --> 00:04:58.232 Many of the ancient people, many of the ancient pagans, we would say, believed that the flesh, the physical body was like evil or corrupt or depraved. 93 00:04:58.873 --> 00:05:02.716 And they also believe that God or gods were in competition with humanity. 94 00:05:03.397 --> 00:05:05.980 The incarnation is beautiful and it's unique to Christianity. 95 00:05:06.460 --> 00:05:10.865 No other religion believes that God became man, that God took on flesh and was fully human. 96 00:05:11.506 --> 00:05:14.792 The incarnation teaches us that, number one, the physical world is good. 97 00:05:15.374 --> 00:05:18.460 God, in the book of Genesis, God created it and it was very good. 98 00:05:18.881 --> 00:05:20.945 So it can reveal to us a bit about who God is. 99 00:05:22.040 --> 00:05:24.022 but also it reveals God's intimacy with us. 100 00:05:24.622 --> 00:05:28.726 God, in Philippians, it says, God did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped. 101 00:05:29.006 --> 00:05:32.109 He emptied himself and he lowered himself and he took on our nature. 102 00:05:32.950 --> 00:05:36.733 And so that tells us that our humanity is beautiful, that the physical world is beautiful. 103 00:05:37.193 --> 00:05:42.198 And I would say Catholicism is really a big celebration of the mystery of the incarnation. 104 00:05:42.738 --> 00:05:44.379 It's why we have these beautiful churches. 105 00:05:44.859 --> 00:05:48.140 It's why we have these statues of saints and these holy paintings. 106 00:05:48.221 --> 00:05:49.761 It's why we have these prayer beads. 107 00:05:50.522 --> 00:05:53.143 It's a very physical, tactile way to be a Christian. 108 00:05:54.263 --> 00:06:06.309 And that's because we're seeing the mystery of the enfleshment of God, God taking on flesh and dwelling amongst us in our prayers and in our saints and in our liturgy and in our holy buildings. 109 00:06:06.949 --> 00:06:11.110 So Catholicism, you know, like people might know that it's the biggest Christian church on planet Earth. 110 00:06:11.130 --> 00:06:12.971 There's about 1.5, 1.6 billion of us. 111 00:06:13.451 --> 00:06:14.952 It's the biggest Christian church in the UK. 112 00:06:15.132 --> 00:06:16.092 Not that it's a competition. 113 00:06:17.132 --> 00:06:18.873 We're not trying to win. 114 00:06:19.633 --> 00:06:22.834 People might know that we have a Pope and we're really into Mary. 115 00:06:22.854 --> 00:06:24.435 And there's all kinds of things that we can talk about. 116 00:06:24.455 --> 00:06:25.395 Yeah, we'll get into that. 117 00:06:25.475 --> 00:06:31.377 But like, really, I would say that the essence of Catholicism is that we're celebrating the mystery of the incarnation. 118 00:06:31.877 --> 00:06:33.798 That was a very concise explanation. 119 00:06:33.818 --> 00:06:34.698 Thank you very much for sharing. 120 00:06:34.758 --> 00:06:36.759 I've never been accused of being concise before. 121 00:06:37.809 --> 00:06:44.997 We're going to get into some of that in this episode, but I actually would love to talk about something you didn't mention there, and that's that we've spoken off camera. 122 00:06:45.017 --> 00:06:53.126 You mentioned that you're a charismatic Catholic, and I'd be quite interested in what exactly that is and how it differs from Catholicism. 123 00:06:53.867 --> 00:07:13.726 yeah so I suppose back to my story I mentioned needing to encounter the love of God for myself that happened in what you would call a charismatic Christian context and really that was a moment of the faith coming alive for me so the Catholic faith and I think sadly this can be the case for a lot of people who are Catholic can exist as a sort of theory 124 00:07:14.567 --> 00:07:28.739 as a sort of intellectual thing, I had a beautiful experience of the Holy Spirit, who the Bible says will lead us into all truth, really making the truth of the faith come alive for me, convicting me of my sin, and filling me with the Holy Spirit. 125 00:07:28.839 --> 00:07:32.242 And I had a beautiful, the Holy Spirit filled me with the Holy Spirit. 126 00:07:32.262 --> 00:07:32.963 That's funny. 127 00:07:33.143 --> 00:07:36.125 But also like the Holy Spirit filling me with his gifts. 128 00:07:36.605 --> 00:07:46.471 And I found myself in communities of Catholics who were really all about like the gift of prophecy, the gift of healing and really believing that miracles are for today. 129 00:07:47.331 --> 00:07:49.592 Miracles aren't just for the stories of the great saints. 130 00:07:50.153 --> 00:07:51.994 They're not just for a few special holy people. 131 00:07:52.414 --> 00:07:53.715 It's for all baptized Christians. 132 00:07:54.795 --> 00:07:59.778 And so, yeah, for me, like as a charismatic Catholic, charis just means grace. 133 00:08:00.358 --> 00:08:02.199 It just means that I've encountered the Holy Spirit. 134 00:08:02.219 --> 00:08:03.399 And you know what's kind of funny? 135 00:08:03.839 --> 00:08:05.920 I don't really call myself a charismatic Catholic anymore. 136 00:08:06.381 --> 00:08:08.001 I used to identify myself that way. 137 00:08:08.362 --> 00:08:10.643 It's not because I don't believe the same stuff anymore. 138 00:08:10.663 --> 00:08:11.083 I still... 139 00:08:11.603 --> 00:08:17.948 pray in the spirit and I still pray for people's healing and I still hear words of knowledge from God and receive them from people. 140 00:08:17.988 --> 00:08:19.550 And it's, it's vital. 141 00:08:19.590 --> 00:08:24.234 It's important, you know, that the Holy Spirit is revealing that Jesus is alive through signs and wonders. 142 00:08:24.274 --> 00:08:26.456 That's, that's a critical part of my Catholic faith. 143 00:08:26.476 --> 00:08:26.616 Mm-hmm. 144 00:08:27.036 --> 00:08:29.437 And I don't use that title anymore because that's not an add-on. 145 00:08:29.837 --> 00:08:37.600 For me, that's like fundamental to having a real living faith is that you'd see Jesus work in you and, you know, you acquire the Holy Spirit. 146 00:08:37.640 --> 00:08:39.281 That's central to the Christian vocation. 147 00:08:39.381 --> 00:08:45.804 Saint Seraphim of Sarov, one of my favorite saints, says, acquire the Holy Spirit and thousands around you will be saved. 148 00:08:46.344 --> 00:08:50.546 And so for me, there's no point in living a Christian life, a Catholic life without the Holy Spirit. 149 00:08:51.526 --> 00:08:54.108 And so for me, having the Holy Spirit doesn't make me less Catholic. 150 00:08:54.228 --> 00:08:55.688 It makes me more Catholic. 151 00:08:56.589 --> 00:08:58.050 And so, yeah, that's kind of what that means. 152 00:08:58.090 --> 00:09:04.773 And there's a beautiful history, I should say, to the current of grace that in the church we call the charismatic Catholic renewal. 153 00:09:05.213 --> 00:09:07.014 It's a movement of grace in the church. 154 00:09:07.254 --> 00:09:08.995 There have been several movements of grace in the church. 155 00:09:09.035 --> 00:09:09.275 People 156 00:09:09.855 --> 00:09:12.977 probably know about the monastic movement when the first monks were founded. 157 00:09:13.277 --> 00:09:18.420 They'll know about the Franciscans and the Dominicans, maybe beautiful missionary movements that came out in the Middle Ages. 158 00:09:19.541 --> 00:09:23.183 The charismatic Catholic renewal is just a current. 159 00:09:23.204 --> 00:09:25.865 It's like a river of God's grace that's flowing through the church. 160 00:09:26.285 --> 00:09:33.050 But the beauty of it, and this is a whole podcast, I won't get too into this, is that it really started with a group of Protestants who 161 00:09:33.470 --> 00:09:40.012 people from a different Christian tradition, praying over a group of Catholics in Michigan, in America, in the late 1970s. 162 00:09:40.532 --> 00:09:46.433 And this activated an incredible current of grace that millions and millions of Catholics worldwide have been caught up in. 163 00:09:46.493 --> 00:09:53.195 So to be a charismatic Catholic is also to have a genuine love for brothers and sisters outside of the Catholic Church as well. 164 00:09:53.635 --> 00:09:55.875 We're not kind of like hiding in our sect or in our club. 165 00:09:56.375 --> 00:10:00.656 We have a gratitude to our spirit-filled brothers and sisters who aren't Catholic Christians. 166 00:10:00.676 --> 00:10:03.297 So that's an important thing to say about it as well. 167 00:10:03.717 --> 00:10:03.898 Yeah. 168 00:10:03.918 --> 00:10:04.098 Awesome. 169 00:10:04.558 --> 00:10:04.818 Wow. 170 00:10:05.199 --> 00:10:05.759 That's great. 171 00:10:06.400 --> 00:10:10.664 I mean, I guess we'll get right into the, um, the big questions. 172 00:10:11.345 --> 00:10:17.631 Um, my first question for you, Gabriel is what you've said saints a few times. 173 00:10:17.892 --> 00:10:18.212 Yeah. 174 00:10:18.252 --> 00:10:23.157 How would you define a saint and like, what is saints in Catholicism? 175 00:10:23.497 --> 00:10:26.902 So saint would really come from a Latin word that just means holy one. 176 00:10:27.603 --> 00:10:29.126 Sanctus is the Latin word. 177 00:10:29.706 --> 00:10:38.139 And a saint formally in the Catholic tradition is someone that the church has formally recognized as being in heaven with God. 178 00:10:39.175 --> 00:10:42.638 they're up there, they're with them, they're having a great time, and we can verify that. 179 00:10:43.378 --> 00:10:45.880 And there's a way of verifying that, which is very, very interesting. 180 00:10:47.001 --> 00:10:53.026 But a saint is also like, in a sense, all of us with a lowercase s, if you like, are all called to be saints of God. 181 00:10:53.786 --> 00:10:57.609 To be a saint is just to be part of God's family, God's plan of salvation. 182 00:10:58.830 --> 00:11:02.573 And the vocation of every Christian is to be a saint. 183 00:11:03.113 --> 00:11:05.235 That's the point of the Christian life, we believe, is to become a saint. 184 00:11:05.515 --> 00:11:12.620 not necessarily that one day the Pope's going to stand on a balcony and say, Gabriel, like we're going to like St. Gabriel, we've got statues of him and everything. 185 00:11:12.640 --> 00:11:14.261 Like probably that's not going to happen. 186 00:11:14.281 --> 00:11:24.468 You know, that'd be funny if that did, but like, actually all of us are called to be saints in the sense that all of us are called to share in God's plan of salvation and be with him in heaven, be with him in the new kingdom. 187 00:11:24.648 --> 00:11:24.948 Yeah. 188 00:11:25.188 --> 00:11:25.949 Okay. 189 00:11:25.989 --> 00:11:26.750 You guys are saints. 190 00:11:27.750 --> 00:11:28.591 I see it. 191 00:11:28.631 --> 00:11:29.511 I see it on you. 192 00:11:29.591 --> 00:11:31.373 You're part of God's family. 193 00:11:31.393 --> 00:11:31.833 It's amazing. 194 00:11:31.873 --> 00:11:34.195 Do you, uh, we, we spoke a little bit, uh, 195 00:11:35.074 --> 00:11:37.696 off camera again about St. Francis of Assisi. 196 00:11:37.776 --> 00:11:38.237 Yeah. 197 00:11:38.517 --> 00:11:39.978 You got stuff to share about St. Francis? 198 00:11:40.179 --> 00:11:40.719 Oh, I love that guy. 199 00:11:40.739 --> 00:11:41.640 You got some cool things to say. 200 00:11:41.980 --> 00:11:43.521 He's my patron saint, so- Oh yeah. 201 00:11:43.782 --> 00:11:45.083 Clarify what that is as well. 202 00:11:45.403 --> 00:11:46.804 This is, this is a medal. 203 00:11:47.565 --> 00:11:53.991 This, so we're in the 800th anniversary of Francis of Assisi's passing, his transitus. 204 00:11:54.451 --> 00:11:57.073 He, he died, well, there's a lot I could say about how he died. 205 00:11:57.974 --> 00:11:58.655 Really, really cool. 206 00:11:59.415 --> 00:12:21.546 story about his passing um but yeah i was in a cc a few months ago i've got a really deep personal lots of catholics have like a favorite saint they have a devotion to a particular saint and often when we experience we have this thing called the sacrament of confirmation which is where a bishop will seal you with oil we call it chrism oil and he'll say you know receive the holy spirit 207 00:12:22.266 --> 00:12:26.049 And when we get confirmed, that's like our full maturation into Christianity, if you like. 208 00:12:26.109 --> 00:12:27.270 That's our full initiation. 209 00:12:27.430 --> 00:12:28.471 You know, we've done baptism. 210 00:12:28.932 --> 00:12:29.652 We've had communion. 211 00:12:29.672 --> 00:12:31.193 Then when we're teenagers, we get confirmed. 212 00:12:31.674 --> 00:12:33.615 We're allowed to pick a confirmation saint. 213 00:12:34.518 --> 00:12:42.283 So there's a culture in Catholicism of really like picking a saint, but also like there's a sense in which the saint picks you. 214 00:12:42.443 --> 00:12:45.525 We believe that we're one church, we're one Catholic church. 215 00:12:46.065 --> 00:12:51.389 And that doesn't just mean that I'm one with the Catholics out in China or the Catholics out in Brazil or whatever. 216 00:12:51.809 --> 00:12:56.132 It also means I'm one with the whole historical continuum of the church, if you like. 217 00:12:56.732 --> 00:13:00.595 I'm part of the same family as Francis, as Dominic, as Augustine. 218 00:13:00.615 --> 00:13:02.537 Like there's a deep personal connection. 219 00:13:02.577 --> 00:13:06.800 And Hebrew says like, behold, you're surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. 220 00:13:07.340 --> 00:13:10.182 So it's not that the saints are dead and we're remembering them. 221 00:13:10.543 --> 00:13:15.647 There's actually in Christ like a spiritual reality where we believe they're praying for us. 222 00:13:15.667 --> 00:13:19.049 They're interceding for us and they're cheering us on and encouraging us. 223 00:13:19.589 --> 00:13:23.913 And through my life, through a lot of different ways, I really discerned that I had a special thing for Francis. 224 00:13:24.513 --> 00:13:27.155 Um, postcards of Francis would show up all the time. 225 00:13:27.655 --> 00:13:32.358 If I ever watched a movie about some Francis, I'd find myself bursting into tears and I wouldn't fully know why. 226 00:13:32.918 --> 00:13:46.366 And so I was really inspired by the example of Francis of Assisi who, you know, was grew up a really rich man, grew up a night, um, and left everything behind to live with lepers and live among the poor and experience a life of deep poverty. 227 00:13:46.386 --> 00:13:46.446 Um. 228 00:13:47.066 --> 00:13:53.314 And the reason I love him the most is because he really modeled that thing I was saying a minute ago about the incarnation. 229 00:13:53.934 --> 00:13:57.779 He was captivated by the mystery of the incarnation, of God's humility. 230 00:13:58.140 --> 00:14:00.663 That there's a prayer of his that he would pray at mass with his brothers. 231 00:14:00.703 --> 00:14:03.766 He would say, brothers, look at the humility of God. 232 00:14:04.347 --> 00:14:08.290 Like that same thing that Paul was seeing in the Philippians, God emptied himself, he humbled himself. 233 00:14:08.770 --> 00:14:17.616 He saw that happening in the Eucharist and he was able to experience God's love and experience Christ in the poorest of the poor in Italy. 234 00:14:18.217 --> 00:14:22.560 There's something about that that really moved on my heart and changed the way that I experienced my Christian faith. 235 00:14:23.320 --> 00:14:24.782 For a little over a year when I was 19... 236 00:14:25.622 --> 00:14:29.584 I went to live in a slum in the Philippines on my own as a missionary. 237 00:14:29.744 --> 00:14:32.485 And I had some priest friends out there who were kind of looking after me. 238 00:14:32.505 --> 00:14:39.788 But I really wanted to experience that, that way that Francis imitated Christ, which was to be with the very poor. 239 00:14:40.768 --> 00:14:46.511 Um, that, that was, that was a life changing experience for me, but yeah, I have that sense of a personal connection to Francis. 240 00:14:47.091 --> 00:14:54.235 Um, and that we're like, we're brothers almost like we're family, which is a very weird thing to sort of unpack, but that's kind of what it's like for us with the saints. 241 00:14:54.635 --> 00:14:57.496 We're not just remembering them and telling great stories about them. 242 00:14:57.976 --> 00:15:00.277 We, we really believe that in Jesus we're, we're connected. 243 00:15:01.298 --> 00:15:01.538 Wow. 244 00:15:02.035 --> 00:15:02.916 Yeah. 245 00:15:03.336 --> 00:15:03.796 Thank you. 246 00:15:03.836 --> 00:15:08.619 So, I mean, I see a lot of my Catholic friends, they talk about praying to the saints. 247 00:15:09.200 --> 00:15:18.246 I know for a lot of sort of people in the Protestant church or other denominations might not ever have seen that before. 248 00:15:18.406 --> 00:15:19.707 Could you explain what that is as well? 249 00:15:20.027 --> 00:15:20.587 Yeah, totally. 250 00:15:21.108 --> 00:15:23.589 So it's quite simple, really, Solomon. 251 00:15:23.610 --> 00:15:31.555 Like if I was going through something in my life, like I'm going into a job interview or I'm having like a problem in a relationship or whatever, I might go to you and be like, bro, like... 252 00:15:31.935 --> 00:15:33.916 I could really do with you praying for me. 253 00:15:33.996 --> 00:15:35.256 Like, please remember to pray for me. 254 00:15:35.696 --> 00:15:39.798 I've got this struggle or I've got this thing that I'm really wanting breakthrough in, in, in an area of my life. 255 00:15:40.358 --> 00:15:42.919 I might be like Zoe man, like I'm finding, can't pay the bills this month. 256 00:15:42.979 --> 00:15:44.100 I really need God to provide for me. 257 00:15:44.120 --> 00:15:45.100 Like, can you be praying for me? 258 00:15:46.220 --> 00:15:47.481 So we understand all Christians. 259 00:15:48.406 --> 00:15:53.708 that there's value in going to other people to ask for their prayer and their spiritual support. 260 00:15:54.569 --> 00:15:56.930 Of course, I'm going to go to God myself and pray for my stuff. 261 00:15:57.010 --> 00:16:01.192 But I noticed that there's a grace on my life when I'm asking my friends to pray for me. 262 00:16:02.012 --> 00:16:11.597 The reason that we ask the saints to pray for us, and the reason that if you go into a Catholic church, you'll see these side chapels and statues and places where you can have that kind of engagement with the same, 263 00:16:12.337 --> 00:16:23.340 is really because like, if I can trust you guys to be praying for me, how much more am I going to trust someone who's like in heaven and has probably been perfected by God and isn't going to forget to pray for me? 264 00:16:23.460 --> 00:16:26.501 Because I'm honest, I forget to pray for my friends all the time. 265 00:16:26.841 --> 00:16:27.701 I'm so bad at this. 266 00:16:27.761 --> 00:16:30.202 I always go, oh yeah, bro, like, oh, I'm covering you in prayer, bro. 267 00:16:30.222 --> 00:16:31.282 I'll be praying for you every day. 268 00:16:31.342 --> 00:16:32.342 Nah, didn't pray once. 269 00:16:32.663 --> 00:16:33.503 It's terrible, you know? 270 00:16:33.823 --> 00:16:41.285 So like, there's a beauty and there's a special grace in asking the saints, who again, like the Bible says, cloud of witnesses, like urging us on, encouraging us. 271 00:16:41.845 --> 00:16:45.851 Like, please, like when, Hey, you're up there in the throne room with Jesus face to face. 272 00:16:46.472 --> 00:16:50.438 Can you bring to him my issue with not being able to pay my bills this week? 273 00:16:50.838 --> 00:16:56.006 And there are all of these cultures, you know, we have saints who have particular, particular graces to pray for certain things. 274 00:16:57.006 --> 00:16:59.248 Quite famously, I imagine quite a lot of people actually know this. 275 00:17:00.049 --> 00:17:02.372 If anyone's got an Irish granny, it's St. Anthony. 276 00:17:03.093 --> 00:17:07.397 Anytime someone forgets their car keys or forgets their wallet, St. Anthony's straight on it. 277 00:17:07.457 --> 00:17:08.839 He's the patron saint of lost things. 278 00:17:09.419 --> 00:17:13.424 And so anytime something goes missing, it's like, ah, I'm praying to St. Anthony for you. 279 00:17:13.764 --> 00:17:14.345 That's quite funny. 280 00:17:14.485 --> 00:17:18.790 So there's like a lot of different particular things that you can go to different people for as well, which is fun. 281 00:17:19.310 --> 00:17:20.471 Yeah, that's really cool. 282 00:17:20.551 --> 00:17:28.060 And look, this is I imagine it's not new to you that you're explaining these things as a man that is around a lot of other denominations. 283 00:17:28.540 --> 00:17:36.709 And, you know, as a guy that's around a lot of other denominations, how do you navigate the nuances that all the questions or the the differences? 284 00:17:36.789 --> 00:17:39.492 How do you sort of embrace them and that sort of thing? 285 00:17:40.027 --> 00:17:40.568 Yeah. 286 00:17:41.328 --> 00:17:43.470 I mean, I'd be interested in like your experience of that. 287 00:17:43.650 --> 00:17:47.414 And like, you know, like is, is that something that feels good for you? 288 00:17:47.494 --> 00:17:48.055 Fun for you? 289 00:17:48.355 --> 00:17:49.396 Or is that something that you find? 290 00:17:49.456 --> 00:17:50.357 Acknowledging the differences. 291 00:17:50.897 --> 00:17:51.338 Yeah. 292 00:17:51.518 --> 00:17:54.260 Or like having, having friendships like across the, I love it. 293 00:17:54.381 --> 00:17:54.601 Yeah. 294 00:17:54.661 --> 00:17:54.961 I love it. 295 00:17:54.981 --> 00:17:55.582 I think it's awesome. 296 00:17:55.602 --> 00:17:56.603 I think it's, it, it, 297 00:17:57.283 --> 00:18:00.324 It shows the different facets of God and how he's expressed to his humanity. 298 00:18:00.565 --> 00:18:01.425 I love it. 299 00:18:01.445 --> 00:18:02.005 I think it's great. 300 00:18:02.065 --> 00:18:03.486 But I mean, I went to mass. 301 00:18:03.526 --> 00:18:04.786 It was lovely, very beautiful. 302 00:18:05.166 --> 00:18:07.868 And I spoke to the priest afterwards. 303 00:18:08.508 --> 00:18:11.449 And as we finished our conversation, he blessed me. 304 00:18:11.549 --> 00:18:12.209 He gave me one of these. 305 00:18:13.070 --> 00:18:13.910 Never seen that before. 306 00:18:13.950 --> 00:18:15.651 So I went and gave him one of these back. 307 00:18:15.671 --> 00:18:17.472 Thank you, man. 308 00:18:17.512 --> 00:18:18.512 Thank you very much. 309 00:18:19.693 --> 00:18:20.973 I bless you, bro. 310 00:18:21.033 --> 00:18:21.573 I'm not a priest. 311 00:18:21.613 --> 00:18:22.194 I can't do that. 312 00:18:23.414 --> 00:18:25.335 I pronounce blessing over both your lives. 313 00:18:25.575 --> 00:18:27.837 But yeah, so how has your experience been? 314 00:18:27.917 --> 00:18:30.040 I think for me, it's like, it's a real mix. 315 00:18:30.060 --> 00:18:33.063 You know, like I was saying earlier, like some of my best friends aren't Catholic Christians. 316 00:18:33.103 --> 00:18:33.884 It's really funny. 317 00:18:33.944 --> 00:18:35.445 Like I don't see it as a coincidence. 318 00:18:35.465 --> 00:18:36.987 It's part of how God's like set up my life. 319 00:18:37.067 --> 00:18:44.775 You know, like part of his plan for my life is I have so many conversations with people like across different divisions and like love reconciliation, like love seeing people come together. 320 00:18:45.175 --> 00:18:46.537 And I've been so like, again, like, 321 00:18:47.037 --> 00:19:03.168 you know, my Catholic faith has given me a lot, but like, man, learning how to pray over the sick and learning about like deliverance and learning about like inner healing, like all of these different things that have blessed my life, or like I'm a worship leader, you know, like so much of how I got poured into as a worship leader was with my brothers and sisters who aren't Catholic. 322 00:19:03.848 --> 00:19:11.057 because of the wounds of the past, like the fact that the church is divided, like there's a lot of heartbreaking history there. 323 00:19:11.557 --> 00:19:20.328 You know, like I think of this all the time, man, you know, like Jesus praise in, in John 17, in the high priestly prayer, uh, in the gospel, like let them be one. 324 00:19:20.808 --> 00:19:47.862 like he's praying for his disciples he's praying for all of us like that's his heart uh is that is that the church would be one and so it's kind of a mixed bag because it's like i love the diversity of the church and i love how much i've been blessed by my brothers and sisters who aren't catholic christians like who are christians from different traditions it's it's been such a gift to me but because of the division that's existed historically it means like i'm kind of limited sometimes in how fully united we can feel together and 325 00:19:48.423 --> 00:19:51.352 And that, I believe that breaks God's heart, you know? 326 00:19:51.753 --> 00:19:53.258 But like living in that tension... 327 00:19:55.043 --> 00:19:56.644 Yeah, I think there's something beautiful about that as well. 328 00:19:57.004 --> 00:19:57.304 Yeah. 329 00:19:57.524 --> 00:19:58.544 Yeah. 330 00:19:58.564 --> 00:19:58.785 Anyway. 331 00:19:59.025 --> 00:19:59.945 Thank you so much for sharing. 332 00:19:59.965 --> 00:20:00.605 Yeah. 333 00:20:02.026 --> 00:20:11.670 A question that we put down that we think a lot of our viewership would be interested in is sort of what is, could you explain the Pope's role and what the Pope does and is? 334 00:20:12.130 --> 00:20:12.610 Yeah. 335 00:20:12.970 --> 00:20:13.230 Yeah. 336 00:20:13.250 --> 00:20:13.931 The Pope's cool. 337 00:20:14.331 --> 00:20:15.371 I love Pope Leo XIV. 338 00:20:15.411 --> 00:20:16.552 He's my guy. 339 00:20:16.572 --> 00:20:18.853 Daddy, Papa Leo. 340 00:20:18.973 --> 00:20:19.373 Yeah. 341 00:20:20.193 --> 00:20:20.773 Leone. 342 00:20:22.074 --> 00:20:22.534 We love him. 343 00:20:22.974 --> 00:20:24.534 So me and Greg, who you were just interviewing. 344 00:20:25.115 --> 00:20:25.675 Hi again, Greg. 345 00:20:26.115 --> 00:20:26.915 Yeah, Greg. 346 00:20:27.255 --> 00:20:33.697 We actually got to be out in Rome last year covering the election of Pope Leo, which is special because you only, most people will probably know this. 347 00:20:33.717 --> 00:20:36.098 You only get the election of a new pope normally when the pope dies. 348 00:20:36.338 --> 00:20:40.760 So it's kind of like a once in a generation event, really, getting to see the pope get elected. 349 00:20:40.920 --> 00:20:41.280 Wow. 350 00:20:41.740 --> 00:20:43.400 It was a really beautiful thing for me. 351 00:20:43.580 --> 00:20:44.941 There've been like four popes in my lifetime. 352 00:20:44.961 --> 00:20:47.381 We've had John Paul II, we've had Benedict, we've had Francis. 353 00:20:47.921 --> 00:20:51.182 Now we've got this beautiful, loving, adorable man, Pope Leo XIV. 354 00:20:51.402 --> 00:20:53.742 Yeah, so wise. 355 00:20:55.223 --> 00:21:03.164 Where we get the papacy from, the reason that, like, despite the fact there's 1.6 billion of us and we're all in different countries, and we do have local leaders, right? 356 00:21:03.204 --> 00:21:07.865 We have bishops and archbishops who look after local dioceses, which are local churches. 357 00:21:08.625 --> 00:21:11.146 So right now we're filming in the Diocese of Westminster. 358 00:21:11.546 --> 00:21:14.126 So my guy, Archbishop Richard Moth is the boss here. 359 00:21:15.047 --> 00:21:27.590 But the reason we have like a boss of bosses, if you like, in the Pope, like the reason we got one guy at the top is because Jesus, after his resurrection, he has this relationship with his disciples where he's passing on his authority to them. 360 00:21:27.870 --> 00:21:29.030 And we can see that in the gospels. 361 00:21:29.130 --> 00:21:34.211 He's saying to them, you know, like, you know, whatever you bind or loose in heaven and earth will be bound or loosed. 362 00:21:34.631 --> 00:21:36.372 Like he's giving them the authority to forgive sins. 363 00:21:37.112 --> 00:21:42.435 And he's giving them the authority to teach the truth because he understood that, you know, he did what he said he was going to do. 364 00:21:42.675 --> 00:21:43.716 He died for our sins. 365 00:21:43.896 --> 00:21:46.978 He redeemed us and he rose from the dead and he ascended to the father. 366 00:21:46.998 --> 00:21:53.842 But he delegated his mission of leading the people into the truth of what he came to reveal to his apostles. 367 00:21:54.883 --> 00:22:08.347 And we believe that all of those apostles, well, we know historically that all of those apostles, there's been a long unbroken chain that began in the time of sacred scripture, but that keeps going today of bishops creating new bishops by the laying on of hands. 368 00:22:08.867 --> 00:22:13.129 So what we call that in the Catholic tradition is apostolic succession, sort of like a family line. 369 00:22:13.549 --> 00:22:17.870 You know, you can go to any bishop and see who ordained him, who ordained him, who ordained him, who ordained him. 370 00:22:18.230 --> 00:22:23.532 And it'll be a direct line back to Jesus, like the historical real flesh and blood Jesus Christ. 371 00:22:24.352 --> 00:22:28.677 And so there's a special authority that's given to bishops to lead God's people and to teach what's true. 372 00:22:29.218 --> 00:22:34.383 The Pope, we believe that the papacy, the office of the Pope started with Peter. 373 00:22:34.884 --> 00:22:39.389 Peter said, Jesus said to Peter, you are Peter, which in Greek means rock. 374 00:22:39.890 --> 00:22:42.312 And upon this rock, I will build my church. 375 00:22:42.332 --> 00:22:42.853 Yeah. 376 00:22:42.993 --> 00:22:48.637 Um, now the rock means a few things that the rock is sort of like Peter's revelation, Peter's understanding of Jesus. 377 00:22:49.017 --> 00:22:52.879 Like Jesus was building his church on that revelation, but also he was giving Peter the name rock. 378 00:22:52.999 --> 00:22:54.760 Cause he was like, there's something about you. 379 00:22:54.780 --> 00:22:57.022 Like I'm going to build my church on you. 380 00:22:57.582 --> 00:23:01.165 Like, and you have this particular authority to, to lead the disciples. 381 00:23:01.305 --> 00:23:03.446 And so you see him playing a leadership role with the disciples. 382 00:23:03.866 --> 00:23:04.787 I love watching the chosen. 383 00:23:04.807 --> 00:23:08.769 You kind of see that like, he's quite aggressive, you know, in the chosen because he's like a born leader. 384 00:23:08.789 --> 00:23:09.230 You know what I mean? 385 00:23:09.270 --> 00:23:09.370 Yeah. 386 00:23:10.162 --> 00:23:32.213 um and yeah throughout history the pope has had this authority to to bring the church together in times of crisis to to speak the truth when everyone's divided and to and to be a symbol of unity um catholics we can argue with each other and fall out quite a lot it's kind of nice having a guy in rome and we can look at him and be like yeah we're all one like there's a there's a sign there of our oneness because we've got our leader we've got our guy 387 00:23:32.653 --> 00:23:34.474 So the Pope's the leader of the church on earth. 388 00:23:34.494 --> 00:23:35.874 He's the vicar of Christ on earth. 389 00:23:35.914 --> 00:23:39.656 He's got the special authority to lead and teach and guide and serve the people of God. 390 00:23:40.216 --> 00:23:46.819 And he's there because he's representing Jesus Christ, because Jesus Christ is the true leader of the church from eternity. 391 00:23:47.059 --> 00:23:47.259 Yeah. 392 00:23:47.760 --> 00:23:48.640 Awesome. 393 00:23:49.200 --> 00:23:50.701 Do you have any follow up questions there? 394 00:23:51.142 --> 00:23:52.863 No, no more questions about the Pope. 395 00:23:53.483 --> 00:23:56.844 But I was just thinking about Mother Mary. 396 00:23:57.044 --> 00:24:04.006 I know that she is very, obviously, highly honoured in the Catholic faith, as she is as well in Protestantism. 397 00:24:04.026 --> 00:24:05.167 But I think it's just different. 398 00:24:05.587 --> 00:24:12.089 So please may you just kind of highlight those differences or just what you guys believe about Mother Mary, how you see her. 399 00:24:12.329 --> 00:24:15.870 It's funny, it's often the first thing that comes to people's minds when we think about Catholics. 400 00:24:15.950 --> 00:24:16.230 Yeah. 401 00:24:16.250 --> 00:24:21.251 Is that we're kind of known partially for our devotion to the Eucharist, but also for our devotion to Mary. 402 00:24:22.152 --> 00:24:25.293 Because as you pointed out, we've got statues of her everywhere. 403 00:24:25.313 --> 00:24:27.053 We're constantly wearing her on our jewellery. 404 00:24:27.093 --> 00:24:28.193 We flippin' love her. 405 00:24:28.213 --> 00:24:28.833 Love Mary. 406 00:24:28.873 --> 00:24:30.134 We love Mama Mary. 407 00:24:30.254 --> 00:24:31.914 And particularly in certain cultures. 408 00:24:32.194 --> 00:24:33.435 I used to live in the Philippines. 409 00:24:33.475 --> 00:24:34.375 They love Mama Mary. 410 00:24:35.078 --> 00:24:37.661 Um, and I love her, you know, like my name's Gabriel. 411 00:24:37.701 --> 00:24:43.607 And so I've got a special connection with her because Gabriel, he said to her, like, you will conceive in your womb, a son called Jesus, like epic. 412 00:24:43.727 --> 00:24:46.771 So I, I've got a particular love for, for the mother of our Lord. 413 00:24:47.411 --> 00:24:50.655 Um, you know, there's, there's a few different things to explore there. 414 00:24:51.275 --> 00:24:55.580 The reason that we love her really is like, think back to, again, what I was saying earlier about the incarnation. 415 00:24:56.020 --> 00:24:58.661 The incarnation is like the biggest event that's ever happened in human history. 416 00:24:58.761 --> 00:24:59.961 God taking on flesh. 417 00:25:00.461 --> 00:25:01.881 And he could have done that however he wanted, right? 418 00:25:01.901 --> 00:25:02.302 He's God. 419 00:25:02.322 --> 00:25:04.402 He could have clicked his fingers and be like, I just have a body now. 420 00:25:04.562 --> 00:25:05.462 I didn't come from anywhere. 421 00:25:05.482 --> 00:25:06.363 I just made one. 422 00:25:06.863 --> 00:25:07.603 And like, here I am. 423 00:25:07.643 --> 00:25:09.423 And I don't have a human lineage because I'm God. 424 00:25:09.463 --> 00:25:10.344 You know, he could have done that. 425 00:25:10.364 --> 00:25:14.084 But he chose to come from a lineage from the line of David. 426 00:25:14.605 --> 00:25:16.525 He chose to like have a family history. 427 00:25:16.885 --> 00:25:19.786 He chose to have a human genome, like just like us. 428 00:25:20.466 --> 00:25:23.067 And he chose to like have human genetic material. 429 00:25:23.127 --> 00:25:24.127 And he chose to... 430 00:25:24.767 --> 00:25:31.112 be born of a woman and you've got to step back and think, right, well he wouldn't have just picked any old gal, would he? 431 00:25:31.172 --> 00:25:33.754 Like he would have picked someone really special. 432 00:25:34.254 --> 00:25:47.524 And so I think that the initial approach is like, there must be something so incredible about the mother of God, like this, this woman, Mary, um, to, to have been given this honor, not just to have the miracle of a virgin birth. 433 00:25:47.584 --> 00:25:49.786 Cause we believe obviously Jesus was born of a virgin, but, 434 00:25:50.126 --> 00:25:53.069 But to be the mother of God, Jesus is fully God. 435 00:25:53.089 --> 00:25:53.909 Like this is huge. 436 00:25:54.510 --> 00:25:59.174 And so like that's where the attitude of respect and honor and devotion comes from. 437 00:26:00.295 --> 00:26:02.637 You know, Gabriel said, you're full of grace. 438 00:26:02.677 --> 00:26:04.178 You've been filled with grace. 439 00:26:04.859 --> 00:26:09.683 Every generation will call me blessed, she says, because she's recognizing the honor that she's been given. 440 00:26:09.843 --> 00:26:12.365 Every generation will say that I was blessed. 441 00:26:13.926 --> 00:26:20.710 And she, you know, we call her the mother of Christians because to be a Christian is to have the presence of God living on the inside of you. 442 00:26:21.511 --> 00:26:26.414 Who is the first person in human history to have the presence of God physically dwelling on the inside of her? 443 00:26:26.954 --> 00:26:27.555 It was Mary. 444 00:26:28.075 --> 00:26:34.196 And so we really look at Mary as the icon and the symbol of the Christian life, of the good Christian life. 445 00:26:34.796 --> 00:26:44.238 The way that she said yes to welcoming the presence of God in her, that was the start in many ways of this new covenant life that the Bible says that we have. 446 00:26:44.658 --> 00:26:51.840 At what point does the high esteem and honor you hold the saints and Mary, at what point does this become... 447 00:26:53.640 --> 00:27:15.448 sort of like idols yeah lots of people can think that because they see us like maybe kissing statues of mary or images of mary and it's like hang on that looks a bit like worship yeah um and i actually think that's a really important point to make like the word that we use is we venerate mary and we have a prayerful relationship with her because we believe we can have a prayerful relationship with all the saints where 448 00:27:16.068 --> 00:27:23.335 they're praying for us and all the rest of it, but it should never cross into that place of worshiping or mistaking them to be God. 449 00:27:23.816 --> 00:27:25.798 So I love the teaching of the Catholic church. 450 00:27:25.958 --> 00:27:27.740 The teaching of the Catholic church is very clear. 451 00:27:28.120 --> 00:27:38.390 She's the mother of God and she's got all these amazing titles and all these amazing ways that we honor her, but it should never become worship that we reserve for God alone. 452 00:27:38.971 --> 00:27:39.431 And so I think, 453 00:27:40.212 --> 00:27:43.675 I think, you know, there's a lot of Catholic practice that can look a bit funky. 454 00:27:44.136 --> 00:27:45.317 We don't always get everything right. 455 00:27:45.757 --> 00:27:49.201 Like the Catholic church is a family and you've got some dysfunctional people in it sometimes. 456 00:27:49.221 --> 00:27:55.046 Sometimes people mess up and sometimes it's like, actually, like we've been called to this great banquet. 457 00:27:55.166 --> 00:27:56.728 Like Jesus is the main course. 458 00:27:57.228 --> 00:27:58.910 We should be Christocentric. 459 00:27:58.950 --> 00:28:00.531 We should be focused on Jesus. 460 00:28:01.052 --> 00:28:04.475 And I really believe that Mary wants to reveal Jesus to you. 461 00:28:04.755 --> 00:28:05.936 that's what she delights in doing. 462 00:28:05.956 --> 00:28:09.298 She, she wants to show to you the blessed fruit of her womb, Jesus. 463 00:28:09.338 --> 00:28:10.259 That's what the prayer says. 464 00:28:10.819 --> 00:28:18.504 But, but yeah, a hundred percent, like there could be moments where that could cross into, to accidentally, you know, like we're taking the veneration too far. 465 00:28:18.544 --> 00:28:20.845 I'm going to actually pull that back a little bit, a hundred percent. 466 00:28:21.326 --> 00:28:24.648 If, you know, and we can, we human beings, we make idols of a lot of things. 467 00:28:24.728 --> 00:28:25.949 We can make idols of our friendships. 468 00:28:25.969 --> 00:28:30.051 We can make idols of like loads of stuff, you know, cause we're mistaking it for God. 469 00:28:30.071 --> 00:28:31.292 Like it can't satisfy us. 470 00:28:31.352 --> 00:28:32.513 Only God can satisfy us. 471 00:28:32.553 --> 00:28:32.633 But 472 00:28:32.993 --> 00:28:37.156 The beauty of Mary is the more I deepen my devotion to her and my connection with her. 473 00:28:37.877 --> 00:28:42.701 I just feel like the more Jesus I get, you know, the more fascinated I am with the person of Christ. 474 00:28:42.781 --> 00:28:43.061 And yeah. 475 00:28:43.962 --> 00:28:46.043 And that he's king and that he's Lord over my life, you know. 476 00:28:46.223 --> 00:28:46.463 Yeah. 477 00:28:46.904 --> 00:28:47.204 Yeah. 478 00:28:47.804 --> 00:28:48.345 Thank you. 479 00:28:48.525 --> 00:28:49.586 That's a good answer. 480 00:28:50.093 --> 00:28:52.894 You know, we are actually running out of time. 481 00:28:52.934 --> 00:28:55.494 Gabriel, it's been such a pleasure having you. 482 00:28:55.654 --> 00:29:01.556 If there's any sort of words of encouragement you want to share with the audience, that'd be awesome. 483 00:29:01.776 --> 00:29:06.857 I think, yeah, my word of encouragement is like, guys, it's been such an honour to come on and share about my story and my faith. 484 00:29:07.317 --> 00:29:08.177 And I love you guys. 485 00:29:08.617 --> 00:29:10.537 Like I see the grace of God on your life. 486 00:29:10.818 --> 00:29:14.858 I had a friend, a monk, who talked about the ecumenism of discipleship. 487 00:29:15.399 --> 00:29:17.459 Ecumenism is this big word for church unity. 488 00:29:18.019 --> 00:29:25.381 And what he meant by that is like, you can go around and you can go, oh, that person's an evangelical, that person's a Protestant and give people labels. 489 00:29:25.461 --> 00:29:34.884 But actually, when you're encountering other people as a disciple of Jesus Christ, like getting to see the grace of that on your lives and the way that you love people and the work that you're doing here, it's like... 490 00:29:35.364 --> 00:30:03.259 yeah i'm in that with you you know what i mean and i think my encouragement would be like there's a grace like god wants us to come together as a big christian family and start healing some of those old wounds you know and i want to encourage people like let's get together let's find ways that we can pray together you know let's find ways that we can build community across difference because at the end of the day we're all in christ we're all part of christ's family and i think we've got a beautiful opportunity in this generation and in this moment in history to to go after that so yeah 491 00:30:03.619 --> 00:30:05.600 I love you guys and I see you as my brother and sister. 492 00:30:05.620 --> 00:30:06.440 Love you too. 493 00:30:06.460 --> 00:30:06.680 Yeah. 494 00:30:06.920 --> 00:30:07.401 Yeah, man. 495 00:30:07.541 --> 00:30:08.981 I couldn't agree with you more. 496 00:30:09.061 --> 00:30:10.022 That was amazing. 497 00:30:10.082 --> 00:30:10.642 I couldn't agree. 498 00:30:10.822 --> 00:30:11.482 I couldn't. 499 00:30:11.522 --> 00:30:12.463 I don't agree. 500 00:30:12.543 --> 00:30:13.283 I agree completely. 501 00:30:13.383 --> 00:30:15.224 Thank you so much for sharing. 502 00:30:15.244 --> 00:30:16.064 Yeah, thank you. 503 00:30:16.544 --> 00:30:19.746 Guys, well, there is another episode. 504 00:30:19.766 --> 00:30:22.887 Remember, leave a five star if you would like. 505 00:30:23.147 --> 00:30:24.107 It's there, you know. 506 00:30:24.187 --> 00:30:25.328 What should they comment, Solomon? 507 00:30:25.468 --> 00:30:26.488 Oh, you should comment. 508 00:30:27.009 --> 00:30:27.449 You know what? 509 00:30:27.849 --> 00:30:30.050 Gabriel, what should they comment? 510 00:30:31.599 --> 00:30:32.300 Go on, anything. 511 00:30:32.440 --> 00:30:33.701 That they may be one. 512 00:30:34.042 --> 00:30:34.923 That they may be one. 513 00:30:34.943 --> 00:30:35.383 They may be one. 514 00:30:35.544 --> 00:30:35.964 It's good. 515 00:30:36.144 --> 00:30:36.525 There it is. 516 00:30:36.605 --> 00:30:36.985 There it is. 517 00:30:37.286 --> 00:30:38.647 Friends, thank you so much. 518 00:30:38.787 --> 00:30:39.788 Thanks for joining us. 519 00:30:39.889 --> 00:30:40.389 See you next time. 520 00:30:40.469 --> 00:30:40.850 See ya. 521 00:30:41.290 --> 00:30:41.791 Bye.