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[00:38 –> 00:45] Poco. Our poco bombs are. You got so much pedigree. Nothing. You know that we are. We make our way.

[00:45 –> 00:52] Hey, everybody. I’m Father Mark. Mary.

[00:52 –> 00:57] And this is the Poco Poco podcast, and I.

[00:57 –> 01:05] So what do you guys want to talk about?

[01:06 –> 01:13] Oh, really? Like.

[01:14 –> 01:27] Like episode thoughts? Like episode like. Like the things that you prepared for this episode.

[01:27 –> 01:37] Speaking of teeing up the ball and being ready. I went golfing on a golf course for the first time since being a priest.

[01:37 –> 01:53] I only brought it up because it went shockingly well. So I played, I yeah, I played with a priest and I played with two guys who work for the church. One of them worked for his church and and playing a long time. I, I’ve started like at my home is I’ll go to the range every now and then.

[01:53 –> 02:11] But I was kind of nervous about going on a course because it’s like, first of all, I think the big thing when I really took a step back is it’s like it’s such a time commitment and it’s expensive. And then I just leave upset and angry and it’s like, is it really worth whatever, you know, 100 bucks, somebody’s money and five hours to just be upset?

[02:11 –> 02:37] It’s like, anyway. But, we went out, we played a nice course, and I shot an 87 with which, I was ready to shoot a hundred and, you know, I felt very good about that. And that was with, like, six, three putts. So maybe, you know, maybe next year when I’m back home, I’ll play again.

[02:37 –> 02:59] Go for it.

[02:59 –> 03:07] Thank you again for the PR to remind me which which magazine you’re with, which.

[03:07 –> 03:29] New York times. Okay, great. Well, I gotta be honest, I don’t necessarily appreciate the question because I know, Yeah, I know what you’re trying to do. And, Yeah, when I go golfing, I don’t. I didn’t wear a habit. So I didn’t, I, you know, I don’t normally wear habit, like, almost exclusively I wear habit.

[03:29 –> 03:47] And, I know that you wanted to just, you know, get me out. You didn’t actually think you thought I was wearing a habit, right? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No. Because. Yeah, yeah. No, I played a I mean, maybe I could have gotten away from it, but I played from an ad, of course, that had like a dress code.

[03:48 –> 04:12] So for, for the first time since 2009, I wore a polo shirt in public, a color polo shirt. So there is just a lot of weird. There’s like a. Yeah, just for my dad. Yeah, yeah, I do not in the friary. I do not have normal clothes like that. Yeah, yeah.

[04:12 –> 04:22] Again with the New York Times trying to get my business out and air my dirty laundry.

[04:22 –> 04:46] At the driving range, the habit would be fine. Just, like, heavy and kind of bulky, but it wouldn’t affect things too much. But on the course, I didn’t. I didn’t wear my habit.

[04:46 –> 05:12] I don’t think, you know, as I, I’m going I don’t think it would affect it too much. But anyway, I didn’t I didn’t wear it. How does I have Father Pierce’s? Hey, Father Pierce’s son. Time for you. This is this is father Mark Mary from, the Washington Journal. I just had a question about, you know, you have a long history, recent history, established as a, long distance runner, a marathon runner.

[05:12 –> 05:46] I was just wondering how the, the habit affects your stride while you are, getting your your your your miles and.

[05:46 –> 06:10] So you’re it does it does it like, do you change habits then later in the day, does it get extra sweat? Did you have a have you developed like a running habit?

[06:11 –> 07:16] No I don’t no no further questions. I just appreciate appreciate.

[07:16 –> 07:29] Do you ever wish that you were is like faithful to being a public witness. Is that other brother.

[07:29 –> 07:49] One of my favorite. I live with a guy. One of my favorite bits is that if because for the background we wear, And unless we’re sleeping or doing exercise or physical activity, like, meaning like, unless we’re, like, painting a house or, we’re wearing a habit. It’s like it’s it’s our. It’s not just like, like going out thing.

[07:49 –> 08:07] It’s like our normal uniform. So we’re in the chapel together. We’re in the habit, we’re praying we’re in habit. But every now and then, something will happen where it’s like, somebody will be doing some. One of my favorite bits is one of the these brothers in our friary. Whenever he sees a brother out of his habit, he calls them their baptismal name as opposed to our religious name.

[08:07 –> 08:24] And I think that’s really funny. But there are certain occasions which we’re getting that we’re a it’s reasonable for you not to wear your habit for a period of time.

[08:24 –> 08:29] Yeah.

[08:29 –> 08:38] In ministry setting.

[08:38 –> 09:02] And, dude, I was just on that that mission trip, and it was like a sport mission trip. And we were. I was playing soccer every day, like I was doing physical activity in the habit and 90 degree weather. Every day. This thing, it was it was, I mean, anyway, it was it didn’t it didn’t necessarily dry from when I took it off at night to where I put it on the morning.

[09:03 –> 09:26] It was the first time I ever had to wash my habit. And like a mission trip anyway. Worth it. Hashtag worth it. Cool. So now that father and I have done our part, well, you know.

[09:26 –> 09:47] Do it, do it, do it, do it.

[09:47 –> 10:09] Hey, father. Father innocent, this is father Mark Mary from the Franciscan friars of the enroll. Inter nos. I have a question on, I’m struggling with judgment, and I would like to maybe grow in this area of my life. Do you have any resources, any books, any any any thoughts about, kind of growing in this?

[10:09 –> 13:57] Kind of like it’s these loud, loud, quick judgments that I struggle with. And any thoughts?

[14:14 –> 14:26] Judgment in evaluating actions and goods and experiences and things like that are actually part of human life. But there’s a proper and improper judgment. But but I think,

[14:26 –> 14:54] As we kind of, as we get into this episode and just reflecting on my own experience, I think one of the areas of, most profound growth since, like living the religious life for almost 20 years now, has been, my relationship with judgment and judgment of others, particularly maybe rash judgments. And not that, I’m anyway, a saint in this area or perfect in this area.

[14:54 –> 15:21] But I do believe, by God’s grace, hopefully have, like, slowed down a little bit and kind of, and maybe I was, I would say softened a little bit, but but grown in wisdom because again, I’d like share the story before of like being apostolate. And when my possum brothers was eating, you know, like, peanut butter and jelly on like a, you know, the Thursday of Ordinary Time and, like, judging them so harshly for being so like, so soft like that.

[15:21 –> 15:49] He didn’t understand that peanut butter is obviously, like, a festive thing to do anyway. And it’s just like a lot of that kind of stuff. You see guys struggling to see whatever, like I think I think really part of what grows into this is going to be wisdom and the two part wisdom, right? Wisdom of just the complicated ness of life that God is with people, working with people, but also sort of the wisdom that comes from knowing our own sins and failings and need for and just the things take time.

[15:49 –> 17:07] And that. Yeah. Anyway, I don’t want to kind of get to the punchline too quick, but those are just my initial thoughts about.

[17:07 –> 17:23] And we could get we could get curious about why in the middle of August. While most people are super hot, somebody is wearing a full length sweatshirt with a hood on.

[17:23 –> 17:40] Just just curiosity.

[17:40 –> 21:55] Yeah, I still got some curiosities, but maybe not for this moment.

[21:55 –> 22:19] Yeah. Thank you for and I think this is it’s one of, Tres Fabula has a number of reasons, like not to judge your neighbor. You know, what I’m certain is at the time that you’re spending, like, judging them like examining them. Whatever. You’re not looking at yourself. But but but one of them is also like, you just don’t have enough information like your, your you’re you’re not going to be able to evaluate a situation, particularly well.

[22:19 –> 22:47] And of course, we have the caveat that there’s certain situations where like, yeah, there’s a there’s a proper way for a parent to sort of, if you will, have some judgments and thoughts about their their children and to communicate or to sort of instruct them accordingly. Us who have formation space, it’s part of the job. But but overall, like you, there’s an even when you do that, there’s a way in which you do that with sort of, a slightly, like open hands, meaning like, okay, like with that curiosity we kind of talked about particularly towards like brothers information.

[22:48 –> 23:19] But it it’s true. It’s just like we just, we don’t have access to, like, their whole story. We don’t have access to, like, what’s going on today. And most importantly, I think we don’t have access to God’s work of grace in their lives. And, you know, it’s good for us to remember that we are all on journeys and works in progress and that that Jesus knows that, and I’m, I’m more and more convicted that not exclusively, but the predominant kind of movement of the Christian life is acceptance and surrender.

[23:19 –> 32:16] Like, I accept that this person is here and this person is here at this time, and they’re acting this way, and it’s probably not mine to correct and conquer, but just to surrender. And certainly I think there’s probably some times it’s not the case. But I do think with most people, including ourselves and what, what God’s doing in the world, what God’s doing in our own lives, what God’s doing in other people’s lives, a lot of what we’re being called to, I think, is just acceptance and surrender.

[32:16 –> 32:25] Thanks for sharing. What bubbled up. I’m glad that came to the surface.

[32:25 –> 32:29] Yeah. And.

[32:29 –> 33:05] I think we we we navigate life. Right? Most truly in, most probably in most in our identity, when we, just stay very firmly rooted in the fact that we have a heavenly father, right? That God is God and that God is its father, that God is good and, because I think sometimes, some of the anxieties and the struggles, well, maybe I don’t know, because certainly I do think, like the poverty of spirit, which allows us to be patient with others shortcomings towards us or how they affect us.

[33:05 –> 33:31] I think, it does come from this place of being rooted in our identity, in a certain like meekness, right? A certain capacity to trust that, like the Lord’s got us, he loves us. And that that gives us a little bit of the stability and sort of the shelter and the shield for, some of the other person’s ways that might hurt us, which we often will respond to with our own sort of judgments of them.

[33:31 –> 33:52] But also just our capacity to, because I think a lot of people out there well, I think a lot of it comes from a place of hurt or control or self-soothing or whatever, but but a certain degree of people feel like they have some, some deep responsibility for fixing the world and fixing people. And certainly we have some role to play.

[33:52 –> 34:16] But, we just kind of always need to keep that in the right context, right relationship with God and what is his part to play. And, and we just do want this isn’t this isn’t like a definitely x, y, z in this situation, that situation. But if we do, if we are deeply rooted in our Heavenly Father, we’re deeply aware of our own limitations and capacities.

[34:16 –> 34:45] We can accept our limitations. And which might also, like, be in the face of other people’s limitations with, like, a piece and a sort of a trustful surrender, because what our limitations are, are not God’s limitation. So I can’t fix this. I can’t fix my son, my daughter. I can’t fix my my husband, my wife, I can’t fix my church, the world, whatever it is, or I’m going to do my part, but I’m going to peacefully surrender the rest of it to you.

[34:45 –> 36:50] And I’m not going to just fill this gap with rumination and judgment and criticism and anxiety, etc..

[36:50 –> 37:02] I had something else that flipped. Yeah, I think I think this is really important. It’s really great. And I think,

[37:02 –> 37:26] Yeah, I don’t want it to be too hard, but I but I do think if we’re like really, really struggling with, there’s, there’s one of the Saint readings that has this basically. But like, if we’re really, really struggling with judging people, there’s probably an invitation to room for growth, for seeing ourselves more truly as we are before God and our own poverty and our own sinfulness and our own need for him and his mercy and his grace for all things.

[37:26 –> 37:44] And so, I would probably again, if this is a constant thing that you’re confessing, that’s counseling you’re struggling with kind of across the board, like everywhere I go, I’m angry with people and judging people or I think, let’s go back and remember who God is, right. And, and and in that context as well, who we are before God.

[37:44 –> 38:40] And I think that’s where we’ll find the the medicine that we need also for today.

[38:40 –> 39:13] Amen. We’ll pray. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you, Jesus, for your goodness. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your fatherhood. Thank you for your patience with us. And we pray, Lord, that we may be meek and humble of heart and beg you, Lord Jesus, to make our hearts like unto thine. And may we just continue to navigate this world and our various interactions with, your filial confidence in your Heavenly Father and also your merciful, eyes and heart make this prayer in the name of Jesus the Lord.

[39:13 –> 39:16] Amen.

[39:16 –> 39:26] You guys got shout outs.

[39:26 –> 39:44] So beautiful. Shout out to all the, I don’t know how when people want their families. Just name it or not. But shout out to all the crew out there at Santa Clara. Mercy. And I think it’s your Belinda was great hanging out with y’all. Cool.

[39:44 –> 39:49] Poco. Our poco bombs are. You got so much pedigree. Nothing. You know that we